Don’t let a sports team cloud your judgement. Your alma mater is not some tribe you belong to and your money doesn’t just go scholarships and library books. In fact, every time you give to your college or university, you may padding the bank accounts of people like this. Not only might you be helping fan the flames of radicalism on campus, you may be helping to turn out the next generation of civic illiterates.
Jill Laster, writes this for the Chronicle of Higher Education blog:
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) asked about 2,500 people 100-plus questions to check their civic knowledge. Past surveys have included college students, who are woefully undereducated when it comes to knowledge about the institutions of our Republic. K-12 is part of the problem (as in my home state), but colleges are compounding the damage. If you don’t know what our institutions are, you won’t have any scruples about destroying them.
It’s no secret that universities are places where social engineers go for tenure and that these academic cloisters are dominated by the left. Indeed, a lot of people have interesting ideas about why this is the case. (Robert Nozick’s is interesting. This one, not so much. More here.) Whatever the reasons, colleges are the places we’re sending the next generation to be inculcated, indoctrinated and steeped in victimology. And they’re not even being taught civics.
I’ve shared my concerns about civic illiteracy in these pages before:
Of course, one could argue that Civics 101 is the responsibility of our ailing public school system. Students should enter college well-armed, and have their understanding augmented by higher education. If they’re arriving as civic ignoramuses and leaving even worse off, then pragmatics must surely confront high school administrators — just as they would if kids arrived never having read Shakespeare nor learned the Pythagorean Theorem. Students who are poorly armed with civic understanding become either apathetic rubes or victims of the latest idealist fancies.
Perhaps it’s time to stop giving so liberally.
In other words, to reverse this trend, people are going to have to go after the money. The first step may then be to take control by suspending donations to your beloved alma mater. (You might even send them a note telling them why you’re doing so.) If you don’t, your donation might be as good as giving money to Greenpeace or the Center for American Progress. The same kind of claptrap is being taught on American campuses, after all. I know, I know, you want to support the team. But that’s what T-shirt sales are for.
Anyway, don’t take my word for it. See for yourself where your money is going:
Note: ISI’s latest civic literacy report will be released on February 10th.
