Is University Indoctrination Really a Qualification Required for Political Office?
Sunday, the Detroit News ran a charming agitprop piece bemoaning the fact that 20% of Michigan’s legislators “lack a formal higher education degree, ….. raising the question of whether a college degree is a prerequisite for leadership and political office”. The snide implication of this stooge for the university left is that 20% of Michigan’s legislators are ignorami, but her devious political subtext is that 20% of Michigan’s legislators have missed the political indoctrination necessary to be good left wing robots.
May I remind you of MSU Professor William Penn’s 2013 creative writing class, as recounted by the great Walter Williams in Townhall two years ago:
MSU Professor William Penn
William Penn, Michigan State University professor of creative writing, greeted his first day of class with an anti-Republican rant. Campus Reform, a project of the Arlington, Va.-based Leadership Institute, has a video featuring the professor telling his students that Republicans want to prevent “black people” from voting. He added that “this country still is full of closet racists” and described Republicans as “a bunch of dead white people — or dying white people”. To a student who had apparently displayed displeasure with those comments, Professor Penn barked, “You can frown if you want.” He gesticulated toward the student and added, “You look like you’re frowning. Are you frowning?” When the professor’s conduct was brought to the attention of campus authorities, MSU spokesman Kent Cassella said, “At MSU it is important the classroom environment is conducive to a free exchange of ideas and is respectful of the opinions of others.”
That mealy-mouthed response is typical of university administrators. Professor Penn was using his classroom to proselytize students. That is academic dishonesty and warrants serious disciplinary or dismissal proceedings. But that’s not likely. Professor Penn’s vision is probably shared by his colleagues, seeing as he was the recipient of MSU’s Distinguished Faculty Award in 2003.
Professor Penn’s epic rant was captured on video by Campus Reform and it cost him a semester, but he is right back indoctrinating teaching those students seeking ‘a higher education degree’. Is his vicious left wing sophistry what our less well indoctrinated educated legislators are missing? He is not alone, our higher education system has devolved into a very expensive exercise in left wing groupthink thanks to the dubious mechanics of obtaining professorial tenure.
74.1% of Michigan residents older than age 25 do not have a bachelor’s degree, but they are represented by a Legislature having only 20% non college graduates. Were this lopsided misrepresentation a racial disparity, the left would be howling. Remember the bad press the Ferguson, MO City Council got last year for a stastically similar racial disparity? But the left is actually trying to guarantee a totally indoctrinated political class, hence this latest political fraud masquerading as government improvement.
G.K. Chesterton
About the best that can be said on behalf of this latest trial balloon from the university left comes from the late, great G.K. Chesterton: “Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.” Personally, I don’t think an university education is necessary to see through the folly of our ‘higher educated’ elites. Be it either Scott Walker or 20% of the Michigan Legislature. Your opinion?
(12)Nuh Uh.
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My take is that education is very important, but not where that education was originally obtained.
I've worked for people who liked to remind me of the Alma mater they had attended, but couldn't lead a parade, much less a department of 30-some odd people.
I've also worked for some companies (like the example above), where people who've had many years of experience were turned down for promotion, because TPTB felt that a sheepskin (read: book knowledge) trumped the actual ability to do something, which this person was literally doing before, albeit not in an official capacity.
OABTW, That above example is no longer in business.
Mark Twain said it best.
Doubt that? Just take a good look at all the dregs who are in government. Most of 'em are from the shyster *profession*. Remember what TJ warned about that? Yep. Today's SCrOTUS on Romney/Obama/RobertsCare and Ghey "marriage".