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Social Justice at UNC...
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Topic Started: Jan 15 2016, 08:36 AM (194 Views)
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Quasimodo
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Jan 15 2016, 08:36 AM
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http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/25848/
Professor requires students write 8-page ‘commitment to social justice’ JANUARY 15, 2016
A teacher at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro requires students in her class to write an 8-page commitment to social justice — pupils who take her class because it’s a required course to earn a K-12 teaching credential.
An assignment in instructor Revital Zilonka’s “Institution of Education” class tells future North Carolina teachers that “by the end of the semester, you are required to write your own personal/professional commitment to social justice,” the syllabus states.
The class mandates a list of feminist and Marxist readings, and students’ “commitment” is expected to be up to eight pages long and delve into how they plan to advance social justice “given the new understanding you have by now about society and education,” the syllabus adds.
Zilonka nor University of North Carolina-Greensboro officials answered emails from The College Fix asking if students could request an alternative assignment and for clarification on the assignment.
Zilonka’s undergraduate class is one of seven sections of “ELC 381, The Institution of Education” taught at the public university this spring. The course is required for students seeking to earn a K-12 teaching credential, but additional professors teach it besides Zilonka, and scholars can shape it toward their specific interests.
Zilonka’s syllabus also tells students to Like on Facebook a slate of secular-progressive pages, such as the pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign, Feministing, Million Hoodies for Justice, and the Brown Girl Collective.
The syllabus was first reported by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, which provided a copy of the syllabus to The College Fix.
Pope Center author Jay Schalin, in his piece on the course, pointed out:
A public university cannot permit a professor to demand that students “commit” to a specific political perspective. And “social justice,” as it is used in this case, is precisely that, a term that implies a left-wing ideology. Indeed, when Zilonka’s entire syllabus is explored, it becomes clear that, going by the above statement, UNC-G is requiring students to commit themselves to, among other leftist theories, the “critical pedagogy” of the Maoist-inspired Brazilian writer Paolo Freire.
This is hardly a case of a school or professor exercising his or her academic freedom: the course clearly violates most accepted definitions of academic freedom. …
While certainly the politicization is the worst thing about Zilonka’s course, many of the required readings are also irrelevant to the study of education. One of two required books, Just Mercy – a Story of Justice and Redemption, is described on the author’s website as “a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice.” It does not appear to even close to the stated goal of the course: “to participate in challenging discussions of what it means to be an educator.”
Some other required readings and viewings in Zilonka’s section of ELC 381 include:
“Excerpt from pedagogy of the oppressed,” by Paulo Freire.
“Education is politics,” by Ira Shor. (Shor is a devotee of Freire.)
Four selections from bell hooks (hooks is a radical feminist and race theorist; she, too, cites Freire as an important influence.).
Recitatif, by Toni Morrison. (It is a short story that has nothing to do with education but is instead focused on racial privilege.)
Gloria Steinem and bell hooks in a conversation.
“Raising Penelope, My Transgender Son,” by Jodie Patterson.
“White Privilege,” by Peggy McIntosh.
“What Matthew Shephard Would Tell Us,” by Doug Risner.
The degree of politicization is overwhelming. Looking at the syllabus, one wonders whether this is a course on the “institution of education” or the agenda of a gathering of hard left activist organizations.
University of North Carolina-Greensboro officials did not respond to several requests for comment Wednesday and Thursday from The College Fix except for one email from a campus official who suggested the school might respond. But they did not submit any formal response by deadline.
A University of North Carolina-Greensboro webpage lists Zilonka as a graduate student, and her profile on NC Act Empower describes her as an “activist feminist scholar” who is working on her PhD in education at UNC-G.
The one Rate My Professors review Zilonka has states: “Revital is a sweetheart, but has very strong opinions. Don’t take this class if you’re easily offended. Figure out what she wants, write your papers stating that you get her opinion, pass the class, and never look back.”
Schalin goes on to report about the history of the longtime class, ELC 381: The Institution of Education, and about the other left-leaning scholars who teach it, building the case that “it was openly intended to push prospective teachers to adopt left-wing ideas.”
Writing on National Review in response to the Pope Center report, conservative education pundit George Leef points out: “No wonder so many teachers are SJW types.”
“Hard left activist organizations see educational institutions as crucial to their power to transform the country. For them, political activism and education are inseparable,” Leef stated, adding:
“It would be fun to see what would happen if a student submitted that ‘commitment to social justice’ paper, arguing in it that ‘social justice’ is a meaningless phrase but that the way to improve the lives of the poor is to radically downsize government and have it stop interfering with their economic freedom. That student would no doubt fail the course.”
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Quasimodo
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Jan 15 2016, 08:56 AM
Post #2
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Some more social justice at Harvard:
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[url] http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/24098/
Harvard president goes to church to defend discrimination against Asian-American applicants SEPTEMBER 4, 2015
Lest anyone think Harvard University would quietly contest a lawsuit and regulatory complaints alleging discrimination at the heart of its admissions process, its president is publicly promising a “vigorous defense.”
And she’s using religion as her backdrop.
The Harvard Crimson reports:
Before a crowd of about 40 people at Memorial Church’s morning prayers, [Drew] Faust spoke softly but firmly about an issue that could fundamentally change the way the College constructs its classes.
Faust said the lawsuit – which accuses the school of “strictly limiting” its admission of Asian-American applicants – challenges “our commitment to a widely diverse student body”:
“Our vigorous defense of our procedures and of the kind of educational experience they are intended to create will cause us to speak frequently and forcefully about the importance of diversity in the months to come.”
The Crimson notes that Faust historically has not used her “bully pulpit” even for public controversies, but not on this:
“The University is an institution committed to free speech—yours and everyone else’s,” Faust said. “In the course of the year to come, that freedom is likely to produce some utterances that we deplore. And there will be times we must speak out against them.”
Think about that: The president of an Ivy League school is saying that asking a university to evaluate applicants based on their merit is equivalent to “utterances that we deplore.”
The university is asking for a delay in its discrimination lawsuit until the Supreme Court (once more) hears the Fisher affirmative-action case against the University of Texas.
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Quasimodo
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Jan 15 2016, 08:59 AM
Post #3
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http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/25863/[/url]
Conservatives attempt a coup at Harvard by pledging free tuition, fairness for Asian Americans JANUARY 14, 2016 Asian-American groups suing Harvard for allegedly discriminating against their applicants have a new set of allies.
An “outsider” slate running for Harvard’s Board of Overseers is pledging to end tuition for undergraduates as well as treat Asian-American applicants by the same admissions standards as everyone else, The New York Times reports:
The slate of five candidates was put together by Ron Unz, a conservative from California and software entrepreneur who sponsored ballots initiatives opposing bilingual education. Although the campaign, “Free Harvard, Fair Harvard,” includes one left-leaning member — the consumer advocate Ralph Nader — Mr. Unz and the other three candidates have written or testified extensively against affirmative action, opposing race-based admissions.
They want Harvard to release “politically charged data” that could show “whether Harvard bypasses better-qualified Asian-American candidates in favor of whites, blacks and Hispanics, and the children of the wealthy and powerful,” according to the report:
“Our focus is entirely on greater transparency in admissions,” Mr. Unz said, “namely urging Harvard to provide much more detailed information on how they select the very small slice of applicants receiving offers of admission, in order to curb the huge potential abuse possible under the entirely opaque system.”
Two of the slate members are prominent Asian Americans who are critical of race preferences. Journalist and scholar Stuart Taylor – also known as a critic of sexual-assault adjudication procedures at the college level – is another. He’s the co-author of Mismatch, a book that argues affirmative action actually backfires on minorities.
Oh, and Ralph Nader is part of the slate, because as he says, elite admissions have been “bollixed up for decades” because of preferences for legacy students among others.
Unz claims that if Harvard undergraduate tuition stops being a roadblock, the university will have no trouble drawing “highly qualified applicants” from underrepresented minorities.
Federal lawmakers led by Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., are also proposing to make colleges with endowments north of $1 billion “spend about 25 percent of their annual earnings for tuition assistance — or forfeit their tax exemptions,” the Times says.
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