The University of Chicago declares that English is racist
As if we didn’t already know that colleges and universities serve as indoctrination camps for young adults, the University of Chicago has just announced that for the 2020-2021 graduate admission cycle, the English department will only be accepting applicants who are interested in Black Studies. As part of their statement on this ludicrous adjustment to their program, the university explained that ‘English as a discipline has a long history of providing aesthetic rationalizations for colonization, exploitation, extraction and anti-Blackness.’
That’s right. English is racist.
Forget any black student who admires the writings of Ernest Hemingway or has a desire to understand Transcendentalist philosophy. Studying Machiavellian government, Homer’s Greek poetry, or Jane Austen’s tellings of middle-class Sense and Sensibility are off the table. At the University of Chicago, students who pay $64,000 a year to further their education are restricted to studying black writings, black authors, and black philosophy in the name of “undoing persistent, recalcitrant anti-Blackness.”
What is shocking, and even ironic, about this announcement is that, in 2015, the University of Chicago’s Committee on Freedom of Expression publicly committed to free speech as an institution. This principle that they were once so fond of actually influenced 55 other colleges to follow their lead. Where is that energy now?
Presumably, a college-level English course should serve as an opportunity to study a variety of writing styles, authors, and subjects to not only better understand literary influence, but also inspire the student to become a better writer. Limiting a student’s ability to expand and diversify their writings imposes on their right to free speech.
As we observe the radical progression of higher education, it’s very clear that college administrators have imposed these politically-motivated constraints on students in an effort to indoctrinate them to better fit their “professional mold.” The encouraged “newspeak” and “memory-holing” from college professors can only result in a society of Orwellian despair. Individuals are demonized for thinking critically, beliefs must match the propaganda, and the thought police will be knocking on your door if you dare say otherwise. Not to mention that by enforcing the notion that English is racist, the solution posed by the university to erase any and all ethnic studies besides those authored by black scholars, is, in fact, racist.
At what point does enough become enough? At what point will we decide that the continual shifting of the cultural goalposts to suit the wants and whims of the radical left outweighs whatever benefit we’re told a college education provides?
I’ve made my decision. And so have many others. If conservatives continue to bankroll these institutions’ operations based on a goodwill assumption that “they want what’s best for America, they just have a different way of getting there than I do,” then we will continue to allow the cultural erosion of these United States.
I won’t stand for it. That’s why we at Turning Point USA launched DivestU—a program where conservatives or really any rationally-minded American can choose to stop financing radicalism on campus. If in fact you’ve decided that enough is enough, I would encourage you to visit DivestU.com and learn more. It’s the patriotic thing to do.
