Campus Free Speech

History, hijacked

By Steve Woodward

Any credible American history curriculum, if merely chronological, does not “re-write” our history, does not ignore that slavery was abolished despite resistance by Democrats and, today, is universally denounced as immoral, or, as Donna Brazile observes in a July 2 Wall Street Journal op-ed (“Don’t Ban Critical Race Instruction”) does not cast doubt upon but highlights “how much we’ve progressed” as a nation.

Yet Ms. Brazile, a former Democratic National Committee chair and, currently, an ABC News commentator, tries to advance the allegation that new state laws reining in the hijacking of classroom instruction seek to “limit what students can be taught about American history”. Entirely false. The nationwide push-back on race-based lesson plans is inspired by parents who reject a narrative spun by teachers, pre-wired by higher education to embrace it. The narrative subverts our complex “history”.

It is rooted in critical social justice tenets, and informs that everything comprising American society is inherently racist, and that said racism is sustained, knowingly or unknowingly, by white citizens from childhood to the grave. If there is, in fact, re-writing of our history afoot, this is it. It also is a misrepresentation of our present. (Pre-pandemic, record low unemployment numbers among black and Hispanic citizens were reported monthly).

The American story unfolds in such a way that slavery and racism never were going to survive. A Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, stood firm in opposition to 19th century Democrats, who championed slavery and were willing to go to war to preserve it. One hundred years after Republicans ended slavery, Democrats opposed a landmark Civil Rights Act by staging a 60-day filibuster. Southern Democrats ultimately failed to kill the bill in the Senate. And here we are today, the least racist nation in the world.

But do our kids know that, or will they grow up believing quite the opposite? The North Carolina State Board of Education on July 7 voted 7-3 to approve the “unpacking”of social studies standards it approved last February. The cryptic process of “unpacking” is merely an un-peeling of the onion layers that conceal the intent of these “new standards” for instruction. The WRAL.com education reporter was deliberate in her description of the changes in the most vague terms imaginable:

“The new standards differ from the old standards largely by asking students to learn more diverse perspectives of history and understand history and contemporary society through more lenses,” wrote Emily Walkenhorst.

An examination of 53 pages of guidance on American history found classroom objectives that include: teaching that Capitalism operates at the expense of some who are systemically denied its economic rewards; examining how slavery, xenophobia, disenfranchisement and intolerance have affected individual and group perspectives of themselves as Americans; discussing how oppression impacted the sense of identity held by various groups (i.e., women, immigrants, Native Americans, African Americans, etc.). These seeds will sow racial tension among children in record time.

The Moore County Board of Education on July 12 will convene to vote on a policy proposal to summarily ban the state’s so-called Critical Race Theory standards (there is nothing theoretical about them). It remains to be seen whether, if passed, this will be a symbolic gesture or a defiant rejection of overtly progressive education. The standards will still be out there; teachers are afforded tremendous leeway when planning lessons. Therein lies the problem.

Our great American story includes a glorious chapter detailing how our Founding Fathers, who, though flawed because they were human, formed a nation capable of advancing beyond the social norms of their times. A proper education would ingrain this achievement in every student.

Freedom, on the brink

By Steve Woodward

The question arose without provocation: “Is it true that we are supposed to be the best country?”

It was posed by a middle school teen-ager with whom I spend time as a mentor. He lives in poverty among three younger siblings. He has been homeless. He is often hungry. But he is cheerful and inquisitive, conversant and funny. And despite having little reason to be optimistic, and despite the strong likelihood he never has been told by a teacher or any other adult about American exceptionalism, the young man’s intuition is that he is the citizen of a remarkable country, the best one.

Given this unexpected opportunity, this “teachable moment”, I needed to deliver a quick answer, something that would resonate within his impressionable mind.

We are the most free country, I said first. No other country comes close. We are a country where anything is possible, where dreams come true every day. I might have added to this, I might have embellished further, maybe by citing a rags-to-riches story. But I also wanted to impress upon him that dreams come true because work is rewarded and opportunities to work are plentiful.

It no longer is a reasonable assumption that kids are aware that being an American is a blessing and a privilege. The narratives tell them we are a nation born of racist slave owners, who left an indelible stain; that capitalism is rigged and excludes almost everyone, and, worse, is the principal cause of climate change; that our military tortures the innocent and kills indiscriminately; and that our immigration policies are inhumane because our borders are not open.

We know the educational environment is increasingly hostile toward free speech, debate, Christianity, and toward our nation’s founding principles. Rarely a week goes by during which we fail to learn of another example of manufactured outrage or political correctness gone wild on a campus. North Carolina State recently eliminated Good Friday from its university calendar, despite enormous backlash.

In our backyard, a few teachers at The O’Neal School in Southern Pines walked out during a January speech by black civil rights legend Clarence Henderson, an avowed conservative Republican and supporter of President Trump.

These snowflake teachers apparently never considered how their decision will be interpreted by their students, but the big take away is that disrespecting American icons is OK if you disagree with them ideologically. Is O’Neal suspending these teachers or is it reprimanding the ones who did not walk out?

My mentee is in seventh grade at Southern Middle School. I ask almost every time we get together about his classes and teachers. He mentioned learning about World War I, and about Germany’s Adolf Hitler. What he remembers about Hitler is that he wore a funny mustache because the ends of it were damaged while Hitler wore a gas mask. (Actually, historians write that Hitler cropped his mustache to accommodate wearing a gas mask). There was no mention by the teenager that Hitler ordered the slaughter of millions of Jews, leaving me to wonder if this is excluded from the textbook.

This lone conversation reinforced why I mentor. It’s not my job to take his mind off his dire living conditions, his hunger and his uncertainty, although I hope I do. It is my job to focus his mind on his future, on where paths before him can lead, on why he needs to make smart decisions, and on why there is eternal hope because God loves him and because he dwells in a land that is free and prosperous.

President Reagan reminded us that freedom is but one generation removed from extinction, and that the tenants of what make us free must be rigorously handed down to future generations. He said, “We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream.”

Mentoring is one of the best opportunities an American adult can seize upon to counter the tide of anti-Americanism, anti-religion and anti-capitalism driven by the sinister and mentally unstable radical left, by educators, the media and the entertainment industry.

The teenager who sits to my right as we drive along is remarkably sunny, polite and articulate. But our nation is increasingly plagued by unhappy, disrespectful, mumbling teens. The why is disheartening but, perhaps, not irreversible.

“The reason so many young people are depressed, unhappy, and angry,” writes radio talk host and columnist Dennis Prager, “is the left has told them that God and Judeo-Christian religions are nonsense; their country is largely evil; their past is deplorable; and their future is hopeless.”

Nancy Pelosi rips in half a story of America’s comeback on national television. And why? Because she and her compliant radical army on the left would rather nurture hungry, deprived teens pouring across our Southern border, leaving desperate teens in Moore County to languish under the oppressive boot heel of government subsidies, which guarantee to keep them right where they are.

Land of the Freebie?

By Steve Woodward

For most Americans it is taken for granted that we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now it turns out that a new generation of Socialists disguised as Democrats envision a land where everything is free and bravery is the weapon of choice if you dare oppose them.

These same people who say they want to give us everything are, ironically, not the least bit interested in freedoms embraced by our nation’s founders. They want to strip us of self-reliance and independence in the very moment they hand over the keys to everything they say we need — and only a ruling elite class knows what that is.

The elites calculate that once they secure a vast pool of entitlement addicts, citizens and border runners alike, by doling out free education, free healthcare, and student loan forgiveness (a free diploma), and by making our nation gun-free, religion-free and speech-restricted, their power will expand and endure.

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal recently expressed his belief that Americans of all ages must be stirred by the aspirational underpinnings of a free society (ours) rather than enslaved by a permanent entitlement state.

“When progressives promise government will pay for health care and college,” Jindal wrote, “they are really saying government will run medicine and higher education. Medicare for All explicitly calls for the abolition of private health insurance.”

If today’s students were allowed to think critically and possessed even a shred of familiarity with recent American history, they might already have concluded that entitlement addiction will never allow them to fulfill their potential or, for that matter, succeed beyond their wildest dreams.

Historian and author Shelby Steele asserts that Martin Luther King Jr. pursued freedom, not justice, but his legacy has been ignored by the left and it’s obsession with racial inequality, which meant blacks and other minorities were viewed as “victims who had to be socially engineered into equality.”

Steele is the author of Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country. The book’s title is self-explanatory, and Steele, a black scholar and expert on race relations, speaks with authority when he observes that minorities in the 21st century “suffer from underdevelopment, not racism. And, here, at last, is conservatism’s great opportunity.”

Empowering citizens makes so much sense, and is so embedded in America’s psyche, that you even can find Democrats who agree wth Jindal and Steele. Notably, Democrat policy wonk Ted Van Dyk, writing for the Journal on May 31.

In a piece entitled, “How Democrats Can Avoid Losing”, he laid out a scathing rebuke of the runaway freight train that is the far left Democrat party in 2019. Van Dyk makes the outrageous (and very obvious) observation that dismantling Confederate monuments does nothing toward addressing the “plight of black Americans in inner cities.” With black and Hispanic unemployment at historically low levels, the left, with typical media complicity, obsesses on “identity politics based on victimhood,” he laments.

As for promising a list of “free stuff”, Van Dyk correctly notes that these freebies are “out of line with most Americans’ core values.” Think about the millions of blue-collar laborers, lifelong union members and reliable Democrats who are proud of what they earned, or thrilled to have saved and paid for a child or grandchild to earn a college degree. Would they support free tuition and loan forgiveness? Not a chance. Intolerance of snowflakes seems inherently non-partisan.

“Why not go back to that perpetually workable thing,” writes Steele, “the American dream?”

Thanks, Tiger

By Steve Woodward

Joining millions of television viewers as golf legend Tiger Woods defied insurmountable odds to win his fifth Masters green jacket, 14 years after claiming his fourth, was intensely nostalgic.

I love the game of golf. Yet Tiger’s Masters resurgence had nothing to do with golf. Close your eyes. It’s 2005. Tiger was invincible. America was great, the indispensable nation. Our kids were still kids. Our backs were not stiff and sore. The media was, mostly, committed to journalistic integrity. Saddam Hussein was defeated in Iraq. The U.S. economy had roared back from the dot-com bubble. 9/11 still united us as a nation. George W. Bush had begun his second term as our 43rd President.

Tiger 2019 — Tiger Woods wins fifth Masters.

Less than two decades ago, when Tiger Woods was the undisputed No. 1 golfer in the world, we took so much for granted that today, in 2019, is up for grabs, in jeopardy of demise.

Marriage was defined, as through the ages, as a union between a man and a woman. Gay marriage was not legally recognized.

The U.S.-Mexico border was secure.

A male was a male; a female a female. He, she. Men’s and women’s rooms.

No one faced a penalty for refusing to purchase medical insurance they either did not need or could not afford.

Speakers invited to university campuses rarely were uninvited due to the threat of violence posed by other student groups; and those who fulfilled their engagements rarely required security or feared for their well being.

There were no openly anti-semitic or progressive socialists serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. Elected federal servants were duty bound to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Barack Obama was a junior U.S. Senator from Illinois, working on a book in his spare time. Hillary Clinton was a junior Senator from Arkansas representing New York.

Tattoo shops were not very busy. Men wore suits and ties to work. Comedians were funny, entertaining.

I closed my eyes on Masters Sunday. Those harmonious Augusta National birds were chirping as if outside my window. Crowds roared as Tiger moved into a lead he would not relinquish. If only for a moment, it was 2005.

Socialism justice

By Steve Woodward

We hear the phrase “social justice” tossed around, specifically by a radical left which believes the world at large, but especially the United States of America, is inherently unjust. And they’re going to do something about it.

If not so very symptomatic of our declining culture, revelations that dozens of wealthy (capitalist) citizens, mainly from liberal hotbeds in California and New York, paid enormous sums to ensure open (back) doors into prestigious universities for their children would be hilarious. At last, “socialism justice”!

Wildly successful people, pillars of their communities and professions, paid six- and even seven-figure bribes to make sure their kids would experience the finest anti-capitalism, pro-socialism, anti-free speech indoctrinations money can buy. They cast them out of the free markets trappings of wealth and privilege, and into the petri dishes of left wing radicalism, on campuses escalating hatred toward America as never before. An Army of foot soldiers to back Generalissimo Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The money flowed into willing hands at Georgetown University, and the universities of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Southern California (USC) and Texas, plus Stanford, Wake Forest and Yale. These are schools already bloated by funding from donors who orchestrate capitalist ventures to perfection only to willfully underwrite generations of snowflakes who long to shred the U.S. Constitution, airbrush American history, shut down speech they do not agree with, and shut down companies in pursuit of climate change retribution.

The hands which handed over half-a-million dollars and more to falsely credential these future “leaders” as worthy enrollees soon will be cut off or, at least, separated from their finger nails, but they don’t care (and apparently neither do their criminal parents). Mommy and Daddy might end up on the streets. So be it. Socialism justice delivers tough sentences.

“(In all) 33 parents named in federal indictments (March 12) allegedly funneled at least $25 million through a fraudulent college-counseling service to get their children (into prestigious schools),” reported The Wall Street Journal.

That represents a staggering investment, and for what? Once inside the gates, one might presume the rich kids would be all-in on setting their own paths to success in between Kardashian-themed parties, and embracing the heritage and traditions of these fine universities.

Nothing could be further from the truth. They hate heritage. They want a lot of administrators and faculty members fired. And they want statues torn down and buildings renamed (to sanitize any and all recognition of white people who came before them). Overlooked, is that many of the coddled campus protestors are products of so-called white privilege. But they prefer a status as permanently outraged over privileged.

Look no further than scandalized Wake Forest, where the head volleyball coach was placed on administrative leave after the feds linked him to receipt of a $100,000 bribe. It was paid by the ringleader of the fraudulent counseling operation to help one of his client’s children become identified as a “recruit” sought by the Wake volleyball program. Whether the recruit ever has played volleyball is unclear.

What is exceedingly clear is that bucolic Wake Forest University is quaking as students swarm it grounds, shouting demand upon demand. They have embraced a recent trend of scouring old yearbooks to search for photos that disqualify people for jobs currently held due to activity in which they engaged decades earlier. Two members of the Wake admissions office, ironically, have been ravaged by students who discovered them in yearbook photos posing in front of a Confederate flag.

One such target was Dean of Admissions Martha Allman, who in February was forced to issue a heartfelt apology because she was photographed in front of a Confederate flag as a Wake Forest student in 1982.

A self-proclaimed Anti-Racism Coalition was not satisfied with Allman’s apology, calling on the school’s president to voice “vehement condemnation” of the dean. And that’s not all the coalition is demanding. It will not rest until forcing removal of “all monuments, plaques, busts, portraits, buildings, and other things on campus dedicated to Confederates, white supremacists and eugenicists.” When the dust settles after the mass dismantling, the group seeks renaming of Wingate Hall, Taylor Residence Hall and Poteat Residence Hall.

Washington Wingate, a Baptist minister, was president of Wake Forest College before and after the Civil War. His crime? Wake Forest’s campus was closed during the War but it’s buildings were used to store Confederate States bonds. Sorry, Pastor, you’re outta here.

Wake Forest’s web site notes the campus has a racial and ethnic diversity rate of 29.3% (as of Fall 2017), which represents a 49% increase in diversity since 2010. You might think this would be acknowledged as a positive trend. Think again.

The Anti-Racism Coalition warns the administration that “higher admission rates of black students does not at all compensate for the anti-black racism that is consistently experienced here. We do not need temporary solutions for a deeply rooted institutional problem.”

But their parents will pay $70,000 a year to cover tuition, plus room and board — or pay a volleyball coach even more — to safely deliver them to these hallowed places where discontent is deeply rooted, where every human emotion bubbling up in opposition to widespread social injustice is deeply rooted, where everything is deeply rooted except rampant hypocrisy. Hypocrisy has no roots but remains buried under elite soil, never to be exposed. Until, thanks to the feds, it so readily is.