Can you learn anything useful in a non-STEM program at a secular university?

College students puking in toilet
College students puking in toilet

I’m really beginning to wonder. I subscribe to The College Fix and Campus Reform in my news reader. I get lots of news about how secular leftist political correctness has brainwashed the students to be very angry and self-indulgent. But whenever I read these stories, what I find is that they are almost never happening in STEM classrooms (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). It always seems to non-STEM professors (often feminists).

Here’s the first story from The College Fix:

The Muslim Student Association at San Diego State University is demanding that administrators combat Islamophobia by developing a “zero tolerance policy explicitly for Islamophobic speech and actions.”

[…]They demanded that the university adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward “Islamophobic speech,” mandatory bystander training, develop more courses on Islam, and increase funding for The Center for Intercultural Relations. Moreover, they demanded that “the SDSU administration address, alleviate, and eliminate systems of oppression that disproportionately target students of color, womyn, and all marginalized students on campus.”

Beth Chee, a representative for the university, told The College Fix in an email that the university has not issued a formal response to the demands, but members of the administration have reviewed the list and are currently “meeting internally and with the students to discuss their concerns.”

No word on whether these Muslim students want bystander training for Muslims in Muslim countries so they know to intervene in the frequent murdering, torturing and raping that goes on there. That’s what they are learning on college campuses – how to be offended and demanding, not how to battle real evil in countries where it really exists.

Here’s another from The College Fix – this time native Americans:

The latest example of an alleged “microaggression” hails from Syracuse University, where a student suggested her music scholar was guilty of one for not knowing the latest cultural music trends relevant to her heritage.

“One student said a music faculty member was unaware of the latest musical trends in this student’s culture. The student felt this was a micro-aggression against her,” recalls Dr. David Rubin on Syracuse.com. Rubin, a longtime distinguished professor and dean, attended the workshop and reported his observations.

[…]Reached for comment by The College Fix on Sunday, Rubin said he believes the female student in question was Native American.

Yes, this student actually thought that it was the job of others to learn the things that she liked, rather than learning the best music. And if you didn’t learn what she liked, then you were offending her, and she could call you out on it in public. I wonder if she will be able to get a job when she graduates with that attitude? I would not hire her.

Another from The College Fix, this time black students:

Saying that black women are “not hot” got a Colorado College student suspended for six months – appealed down from 21.

[…]His friend Lou Henriques was expelled.

Their jokes took place on a night where the Yik Yak conversation on campus was centered around the theme #BlackLivesMatter.

[…]“Some people screenshotted the most racial things said [from Yik Yak that night], and they blew them up onto banners and hung them up in the student center in front of the dean’s office,” Pryor said.

One of the screenshots was his six-word post. A Student Life disciplinary panel brought Pryor in for questioning, where he learned that someone had reported him as the poster for almost all of the offensive posts.

Senior Associate Dean of Students Rochelle Mason, Dean of Students Mike Edmonds and Assistant Dean of Students Cesar Cervantes decided in less than 24 hours that Pryor should be suspended for 21 months – the exact time it would take him to finish his degree – and prohibited from being on campus.

In addition, Pryor was forbidden from taking courses for credit at other universities because of his crass remark. Because Henriques had a prior disciplinary record, he was expelled for a similar post, Pryor said.

Where do the students learn to get obsessed with things that have nothing to do with finding work in a competitive private sector economy? They learn it from non-STEM professors. Here’s a professor of political science threatening students about global warming, and here’s a professor of racial issues telling all the white people that they’re racists. Can these non-STEM professors get real jobs in a competitive free market with skills like that? Of course not. They have jobs because the government hands stupid students free money, and tells them that a college degree in drinking and hooking up is the same as a college degree in biomedical engineering.

Most of these professors and college administrators that make the news seem to be people who would have nothing of value to offer customers in the private sector. And, unfortunately, they are teaching the students to have the same deluded, spoiled, entitled views that they have. I really think that we need to solve this problem by moving student loans back to the private sector. Instead of letting government officials buy votes with student loan generosity, we should let banks and private companies make the loans. Then there would be some expectation that the loans would be paid back. This would also reduce the cost of college, since the money would not just be a handout to the already extravagant colleges and universities.

We are $20 trillion in debt, thanks to Obama, and $1 trillion of that is outstanding student loans. We cannot afford to continue shoveling money to universities where spoiled brats are teaching the next generation of students to be spoiled brats.

Advice for pro-lifers who want to do sidewalk counseling

I'm Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve this study
I’m Scheming Unborn Baby, and I approve this resource

Not from me, of course. I’m no lawyer. But here is a good resource about your legal rights, from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Description:

Over the past 24 years, a surging pro-life movement has forced the closure of 75 percent of surgical abortion businesses in America. But the work is not done. Over 500 abortion facilities still exist in the United States.

That’s where you come in.

As a sidewalk counselor, you can bring hope and clarity to women and men facing an unplanned or crisis pregnancy by connecting with them and empowering them to choose life. To do this work faithfully and effectively, however, you should familiarize yourself with your rights.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) created this manual to educate you about your legal rights when engaging in sidewalk counseling. We pray this resource will help you be better equipped to serve the women and men entering abortion clinics every day.

ADF has taken on cases where the right to advise women considering abortion was attacked. For example, they had to fight the Democrat governor and attorney general of Massachusetts at the Supreme Court:

On Nov. 13, 2007, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law S.B. 1353, which created the buffer zone. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear McCullen v. Coakley in June of last year.

Coakley is the Democrat attorney general of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the nation.

Here’s a snip from the decision:

“It is no accident that public streets and sidewalks have developed as venues for the exchange of ideas,” the Supreme Court wrote in its opinion. “Even today, they remain one of the few places where a speaker can be confident that he is not simply preaching to the choir…. In light of the First Amendment’s purpose ‘to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail…,’ this aspect of traditional public fora is a virtue, not a vice.”

ADF won the case 9-0.

There is a bit more about the woman who brought the case against the pro-abortion Democrats in this post.

It says:

The young married couple slide quickly out of their car and onto the busy sidewalk, eyes fixed on the dark glass doors of the huge Planned Parenthood abortion center. Half a block long and three stories high, its imposing facade looms over the busy stream of students milling up and down the mile-long stretch of Commonwealth Avenue near Boston University.

Suddenly, a small figure nudges into the couple’s tunneled vision, moving to engage them.

“Good morning,” she says, arms wide and inviting, in the cheerful tones of someone who actually believes that it is. “I’m Eleanor. How can I help you this morning?’

They quickly brush past her and into the building. Minutes later, the husband comes back out to put money in the meter.  The small woman is still there, still beaming. “Can I help you?”

“You can’t help me,” he says, pulling change from his pocket. To her fine-tuned ear, he sounds as though he’s trying to convince himself, more than her.

“Well, okay. But I just want to ask you—do you know when the baby’s heart starts beating?”

He sighs, but he answers. “Three months.”

“No … not three months. Twenty-one days. Do you know when the brain waves begin to form?”

Fishing for another quarter, he flashes her an expression that mingles surprise, annoyance, and curiosity in about equal measure. “Six months,” he guesses.

“Ten weeks,” she tells him. Their eyes meet.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

He turns back toward the building—then, almost in spite of himself, asks her a question … something about the baby’s DNA. In a moment, they’re deep in conversation. Too deep, to the woman’s mind. She is counting precious minutes, even as her genuine smile and tone warm and envelop the stranger. She fixes him with a clear, sober expression.

“You have to go in there and get her.”

He looks at her for a moment. “All right,” he says at last. “I will.” He runs for the door. Ten minutes later, he’s back, tears in his eyes.

“She’s already in the back. I can’t get to her. They won’t let me speak to her.” He’s visibly upset. “I can’t believe I brought her here.”

A thought seizes her: “Do you have a cell phone? Call her. Tell her there’s help out here and to stop this.”

Incredibly, Planned Parenthood staff members have brought the woman into the procedure room with her cell phone. She answers his call. “You have to come out!” he cries, pleading.

“And she did,” Eleanor says, with a smile that could light up the whole Boston skyline. “I have their little boy’s picture. It’s on my refrigerator.”

There are a lot of pictures on Eleanor McCullen’s refrigerator. All of them children who owe their lives, in large measure, to this 78-year-old woman’s willingness to stand on a Boston curbside five hours a day, two days a week—rain, shine, snow, or sleet—for the last 14 years.

She’s got the facts, and she’s not afraid to use them.

So, if this sounds like something you would be interested in, then listen to the interview with Eleanor, download the ADF guide about legal issues for sidewalk counselors, and then get started saving lives.

Ohio union employees paid twice the average salary of Ohio teachers

Ohio union officials make much more than Ohio teachers
Ohio union officials make much more than Ohio teachers

Striking story from the Daily Signal.

Excerpt:

Ohio’s largest labor union is in the business of selling worker “solidarity,” and for union bosses, business is good.

Ohio Education Association president Becky Higgins was paid $209,039 to preside over a union that took member dues and mandatory fees from 121,625 teachers during the fiscal year ending Aug. 31.

Regular OEA dues for full-time teachers are $504—$42 a month—in addition to local OEA chapter dues and $183 in National Education Association dues sent to NEA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

Union staff and officers working for OEA’s Columbus headquarters were paid an average of $109,789 with money taken from teachers’ paychecks; Ohio teachers were paid an average of $55,916 during the 2013-14 school year, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

For some reason, Ohio, under liberal governor John Kasich, has not yet followed other midwestern states and enacted a right to work law. Right to work laws allow teachers to work without being forced to pay dues to labor unions.  Although Ohio doesn’t have a right to work law yet, one is being drafted now. Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and other states all have right to work laws already. Kentucky and West Virginia have laws in the works.

Right to work laws 2015
Right to work laws 2015

Why should Christians and conservatives care about all the money that is taken from the paychecks of teachers for their unions?

Most unions donate almost exclusively to Democrats

This Wall Street Journal article explains that unions donate mostly to Democrats.

Excerpt:

Corporations and their employees… tend to spread their donations fairly evenly between the two major parties, unlike unions, which overwhelmingly assist Democrats. In 2008, Democrats received 55% of the $2 billion contributed by corporate PACs and company employees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Labor unions were responsible for $75 million in political donations, with 92% going to Democrats.

So how much money are we talking about?

Total political contributions in 2014 election cycle
Total political contributions in 2014 election cycle (click for larger image)

To see how much unions control government, take a look at this story from National Review, written by economist Veronique to Rugy.

It says:

  • The top campaign donor of the last 25 years is ActBlue, an online political-action committee dedicated to raising funds for Democrats. ActBlue’s political contributions, which total close to $100 million, are even more impressive when one realizes that it was only launched in 2004. That’s $100 million in ten years.
  • Fourteen labor unions were among the top 25 political campaign contributors.
  • Three public-sector unions were among the 14 labor groups: the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the National Education Association; and the American Federation of Teachers. Their combined contributions amount to $150 million, or 15 percent of the top 25’s approximately $1 billion in donations since 1989.
  • Public- and private-sector unions contributed 55.6 percent — $552 million — of the top 25’s contributions.

Where does the money go? The Daily Caller notes:

“Nearly all of labor’s 2012 donations to candidates and parties – 90 percent – went to Democrats,” the report from CRP concluded. “Public sector unions, which include employees at all levels of government, donated $14.7 million to Democrats in 2014.”

Although unions helped a great deal in the past to protect workers from unfair practices, their primary function now seems to be to confiscate money from their members to give to themselves and to Democrats. When we make the collection of union dues optional, then unions will have to be more responsive to their members, and less responsive to their Democrat allies.