This link was just sent to me by a member of the George Mason University faculty.
Notice that it’s not just an option: it’s a requirement for those starting at GMU in the fall of 2024.
Jan 18 2024
On Fox News Channel's Gutfeld last night, guest Dennis Miller asked frequent guest Emily Compagno if she didn't just feel hopeless about the way things are going in the United States. One of the things that had led to this was her denunciation of some pro-Palestinian protestors saying "shame on you" to people at a hosp...
Jan 18 2024
According to The Economist, customer service in America is getting worse, and that matches my own experience. For instance, I recently had trouble with my dental insurance, which was accidentally cut off at the beginning of the year. My wife and I had numerous phone conversations with the multiple layers of bureaucracy...
Jan 17 2024
This link was just sent to me by a member of the George Mason University faculty. Notice that it's not just an option: it's a requirement for those starting at GMU in the fall of 2024.
READER COMMENTS
Emily
Jan 17 2024 at 6:08pm
It says on the course proposal worksheet that the course has to define terms related to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, as well as to discuss obstacles to these, but it doesn’t say how you have to do this. I think well-defined property rights and general prosperity are central to all of these and the economics department should teach one of these classes.
David Henderson
Jan 17 2024 at 7:14pm
You make a good point. We’ll see if courses like that get approved.
Jim Glass
Jan 17 2024 at 8:13pm
I’d suggest that interested GMU faculty and students start a “Just Societies Observer” web site — for the whole world to see, but with only GMUers contributing — which documents the entire phenomena and discusses the processes and classes themselves on an ongoing basis.
Include course proposals, actual course curriculums, report what is actually being taught in classes etc. Make suggestions: “Is there a course on Constitutional Law? No? Do the Constitution and Bill of Rights not related to a Just Society?” Report on the debates and rationalizations various parties give. Start a YouTube channel for it all!
Remember what just happened at Harvard, Penn and MIT. How Brandeis said “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
It could be fun and educational too. Students could be introduced to online journalism, sending out press releases, making contacts with other media, producing their own.
IOW: Don’t sit around appalled and bitchin’, do something constructive about it.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 9:37pm
This seems a reasonable suggestion. I’m glad you’re not assuming anything about these course requirements that cannot be known. It’s a good idea to publicly examine such university policies and curricula.
Jose Pablo
Jan 17 2024 at 10:23pm
Well, in any case students are particularly good at quickly forgetting what they taught. So, not big worries.
The forgetting curve began with German psychologist, Hermann Ebbinghause in the late 19th century. According to Ebbinghaus’ findings and several recent studies, up to 90% of information is lost after one week.
https://www.uky.edu/~kdbrad2/EPE773R/StudentPapers/ConsumerBehavior.pdf
I bet that the content of mandatory courses with a “Just Societies flag” will go down this path particularly fast.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 17 2024 at 11:27pm
How is this a problem? No one has to attend the university. How is this different than a Catholic university requiring one or two courses in religion or philosophy?
Davis
Jan 18 2024 at 12:29am
Because Catholic universities created academia and the “woke” religion has been poisonous for it.
Just because you *can* do something doesn’t make it good. Some things are good, other things are bad. We should support good things like Catholic universities and oppose bad things like woke universities.
It’s amazing that even after the Claudine Gay scandal, we’re pretending that DEI has no impact on academic prowess. When Harvard was a religious school, it was leading the country in academia. After becoming woke, they’re defending plagiarism. Funny how that worked out.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 1:15pm
Your answer doesn’t address my question at all.
David D Boaz
Jan 18 2024 at 3:56pm
One way it’s different is that Catholic universities are private entities and (often?) committed to Catholic values. Public entities, including universities, are not supposed to have specific religious, moral, or political values
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 9:18pm
“Public entities, including universities, are not supposed to have specific religious, moral, or political values”
Public entities shouldn’t have specific moral or political values? So, George Masion shouldn’t have courses on legal, business, or AI ethics? Or are ethics different than morals? No classes should instruct on the moral or political values associated with capitalism or republican government versus communist or fascist alternative? Should political philosophy be taught at all? How about moral philosophy?
“Woke” is not only correct, but inevitable, if we’re to have a functional society. Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all woke. They were “aware” of social, religious, ethnic, racial, economic, and moral issues of their respective times. “Woke” is only bad if taken to extremes, such as assuming that all actions taken by white males are acts of privilege. Any healthy philosophy or movement can be taken to unhealthy extremes.
Richard W Fulmer
Jan 19 2024 at 10:36am
Your definition of “woke” must be very different from mine. Originally, it meant being alert to racism and racist practices. After the Left culturally appropriated the term from American blacks, it got lumped in with much of the left-liberal, now “progressive,” agenda including anticolonialism, intersectionality, Critical Theory, and Critical Race Theory.
What is your definition?
Michael Sandifer
Jan 19 2024 at 11:43am
Richard Fulmer,
Re-read my reply, to which you responded.
Richard W Fulmer
Jan 19 2024 at 12:25pm
Your definition of “woke” is a bit hazy. It’s apparently a system of “specific moral or political values,” though you don’t say what those specific values are. Apparently, they include being aware of “social, religious, ethnic, racial, economic, and moral issues.”
I am also aware of “social, religious, ethnic, racial, economic, and moral issues,” but I doubt that you would consider me woke. I don’t, for example, believe that “equity” (i.e., equality of outcome regardless of the skill, knowledge, effort, and persistence that were expended) is either desirable or possible.
If “woke” encompasses “specific moral or political values,” it must be more than just awareness of issues, it must include specific and definable stands on and responses to those issues.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 19 2024 at 3:26pm
Richard Fulmer,
You can’t have capitalism without rather vastly unequal outcomes. I’m a capitalist.
“Woke” to me merely means trying one’s best to ensure equal opportunities for all. It also means trying not to be tone deaf to the legacy of laws and policies in the past that oppressed others, and/or that continue to do so.
David Henderson
Jan 19 2024 at 4:00pm
Michael Sandifer,
You write:
But that’s not what it means to the vast majority of people who implement these things. Look at what happened to the faculty director for DEI at DeAnza College.
Joseph Smith
Jan 18 2024 at 10:39am
I attended a Catholic university in the early 1960s. I was required to take courses in theology and philosophy but not religion. There is a huge difference between theology and religion. One of my theology courses was “Modern Atheism”. Another was Social Justice that focused on the dignity of the human person , the obligations of the state and the dangers of the state and institutions eroding individuals’ freedom and dignity. The purpose of such classes was to teach us how to think and relate–never indoctrination. My fear today is that any such Woke course is more about indoctrination and not thinking.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 1:15pm
Your answer doesn’t address my question at all.
Aaron M.
Jan 18 2024 at 4:37pm
I think there are two replies as to potential issues here.
The first is simply a critique. One can point out, and claim, that a move by any organization is a bad one, even if there is nothing illegal, or coercive about it. Once can certainly argue that requiring two of these courses in order to graduate is a bad idea and should be changed. Just as one can argue that a Catholic University that requires certain religious courses in order to graduate is a bad idea as well.
The second argument is to point out that George Mason University is a public university. As such, there are certain restrictions and limitations that apply to it that do not apply to a private institution. A Catholic University may require certain beliefs and practices that must be met in order to enroll, while such restrictions would not be allowed in a public / government university. One of those restriction is viewpoint mandates. A public university cannot require a student to adhere to a particular set of beliefs and ideas in order to graduate. To the extent that these courses act as political / belief litmus tests, then I think they would be illegal.
This is the same with requiring DEI statements for faculty when applying to university jobs. There is no problem to such a statement if they are not disqualifying people based on their beliefs. In practice, they are used as such diqualifing tests. (https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-statement-use-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-criteria-faculty-hiring-and)
vince
Jan 18 2024 at 7:56pm
It’s a problem because a college degree is already filled with enough nonsense.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 9:35pm
This might be a fair point, if the courses in question are nonsense. But, how do you know they will be?
vince
Jan 18 2024 at 10:25pm
It wouldn’t be worse, at least, if those two courses replace two equally nonsensical courses.
Mark Z
Jan 18 2024 at 9:32pm
Why do you assume a non-Catholic wouldn’t object to that as well? I’m non-religious and non-progressive. I oppose both catholic indoctrination and ‘woke’ indoctrination. I worry less about the former though because it’s already clearly in decline (most prestigious catholic colleges i’m pretty sure already don’t require religion classes) while the latter seems to be a growing religion.
steve
Jan 18 2024 at 10:15am
They should invite the Penn State professor (Sam Richards) to help develop the courses. He does race and culture classes he puts on Youtube. He does interactive teaching and covers topics like how the number of black killed by cops is way overblown, how bigotry against white people is tolerated when it shouldn’t. For his class on gun owners he had a pro-gun (female) student talk who was so good I almost thought she was a plant.
Steve
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 9:33pm
So, GMU should hire a professor to advise them on these matters, because you agree with him?
David Seltzer
Jan 18 2024 at 11:30am
From the University of Chicago Website: The University of Chicago’s diversity and inclusion efforts are led and managed by the Office of the Provost. The University of Chicago recently announced its plans to address Diversity and Inclusion across the university. Chicago Booth welcomes these steps and reaffirms the school’s unwavering commitment to diversity and inclusion, and rejection of racism.
Is this august institution engaging in CYA as well?
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 9:31pm
Nearly 50% of generation Z is non-white, and the trend is moving more in the non-white direction with each new generation. Universities have to face this practical reality. White people will increasingly not set the agenda anymore.
That said, University administrations should not be taking public positions on every political issue. It’s silly, and completely impractical. And every white person should not be assumed to be engaging in oppression 24/7. “Woke” is good, as long as it’s reasonable.
Mark Z
Jan 18 2024 at 9:37pm
The completely unwarranted assumption that objections to this are rooted in white people just trying to ‘set the agenda’ belies the idea that wokeness isn’t inherently unreasonable.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 19 2024 at 11:40am
Read what I actually wrote, and not what you think I wrote.
David Seltzer
Jan 19 2024 at 12:08pm
Michael wrote; “Woke” is good, as long as it’s reasonable.” The I in inclusion means someone else is excluded. U of C may be thought of as a club good. To wit. Excludable and rivalrous. If Chicago is looking for diversity on the basis of other than meritocracy, is the more qualified student being excluded. If that’s the case, how can “Woke” be good or reasonable? Just sayin.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 19 2024 at 3:19pm
You’re conflating two issues here. “Woke” doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with affirmative action. Affirmative action with regard to race in admissions, for example, was struck down by the Supreme Court recently.
This discussion is about new course requirements, not affirmative action.
David Seltzer
Jan 19 2024 at 4:07pm
Michael, I did not reference AA hence no conflating the two. I used the definition of a club good , excludable and non-rivalrous to simply ask as to the criteria for inclusion. Personal note. I was admitted to the U of C MBA program not because I was in the 90th percentile academically. Dean of Students Jeff Metcalf admitted me because he knew I was a returning vet from the Vietnam war. His reasoning, I was reasonably intelligent and the stress of the program was far less than being in country. I finished in the middle of the pack. I suspect he could have admitted a far brighter applicant than me.
Richard W Fulmer
Jan 18 2024 at 12:04pm
From the linked GMU website:
Revising natural science courses (i.e., astronomy, physics, chemistry, Earth science, and biology) to include “Just Societies learning outcomes” is more than a bit worrisome.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 9:26pm
It all depends on the execution. I find it interesting that there are people reacting here to a new program that they have few details about.
Richard W Fulmer
Jan 19 2024 at 10:52am
How would you incorporate “Just Society learning outcomes” into physics in ways that are not propagandistic? How do “justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion” relate to chemistry? What “obstacles to justice and equity” exist in astronomy and what would “strategies for addressing” those obstacles look like?
Michael Sandifer
Jan 19 2024 at 3:13pm
Well, when teaching physics or chemistry, for example, one can try to make sure that previously overlooked contributors to the progress of the science are properly recognized. There have been women, for example, who apparently weren’t given the credit they deserved for important research.
That said, as I interpret the limited information on the website linked to, there’s no reason to necessarily believe that physics or chemistry courses will be chosen to have Just Society flags.
vince
Jan 19 2024 at 12:34pm
More interesting is that you believe they need more detail.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 18 2024 at 9:39pm
Overall, this thread, including the title of the post, seems reflexively reactionary. Most of you have been triggered.
Matthias
Jan 19 2024 at 8:12am
What does reactionary even mean?
As far as I can tell, I have only figured out that it’s used by leftist to complain that someone else disagrees with them. But I haven’t quite divined any deeper meaning.
Michael Sandifer
Jan 19 2024 at 11:38am
Consider your reply there and keep thinking about it.
BC
Jan 19 2024 at 1:09am
I also noticed at the same website that a former Western Civ/World History requirement has been retired:
https://masoncore.gmu.edu/mason-core-course-categories/western-civilizationworld-history/
Comments are closed.