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The Question of Quotas
| Article
# : |
19824 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1991 |
3,467 Words |
| Author
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Charles J. Sykes
Charles J. Sykes is the author of The Hollow Men: Politics and
Corruption in Higher Education and ProfScam: Professors and
the Demise of Higher Education. His most recent project was
the National Review College Guide, which he coedited with Brad
Miner. |
ILLIBERAL EDUCATION
Dinesh D'Souza
New York: The Free Press, 1991
300 pp, $19.95
The university plays a unique role in American society. Besides its occasional contributions to education, it is part secular church, part laboratory, and part mirror of contemporary culture. As a result, Dinesh D'Souza points out, it is often a crucial leading indicator. The omens are not encouraging.
The ascendancy of political considerations in the universities has affected who is admitted, what they are taught, and how they are taught. To an extent that is only now becoming apparent, the politicization of the academy has poisoned the atmosphere on the campus, drowning out responsible, moderate voices, while installing the dogma of political correctness as the official ideology of higher education. Unfortunately, the intersection of all of this is the politics of race.
Unintended consequences
Under the banner of "diversity," universities across the country have imposed ethnic studies requirements on their curriculums, set up "sensitivity" seminars for the unenlightened, purged reading lists of books by "dead white guys," imposed limits on free speech, and created an elaborate and divisive affirmative action system. To the bewilderment of many academics, the result of this concerted effort at racial enlightenment has not at all been what they intended. Rather, the fallout has been a troubling rise of racial tensions, growing separatism, and a lingering bitterness that affects black and white students alike.
After a spate of racial incidents across university campuses, the Washington Post editorialized, "The college campus, which a quarter of a century ago became the spawning ground of civil rights activism, now seems to be breeding a new and especially distasteful racism."
Somewhat reflexively, critics in the media often attribute this surge in tension to the Reagan era or to the insensitivity of conservative youth. Unfortunately, that theory tends to run afoul of the actual circumstances of the incidents, most of which have taken place at northern, progressive institutions that pride themselves on their racial enlightenment and that have adopted aggressive policies aimed at encouraging
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