Tag Archives: Professor

Caroline Crocker’s new book recounts her experience of being expelled

Caroline Crocker
Caroline Crocker

Story from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

One of those incidents took place at George Mason University (GMU), where Caroline Crocker was ousted from teaching biology because she challenged to neo-Darwinian evolution and favorably mentioned ID in the classroom. Dr. Crocker later appeared in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but now many more details about Caroline Crocker’s story are revealed in her new autobiographical book, Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters.

Free to Think tells the story of a biology professor who cares deeply about students, received glowing student reviews, wouldn’t compromise her integrity when challenged to disregard anti-cheating rules, and produced high quality curricular tools. But Crocker had one fatal flaw: she would not capitulate to the Darwinian consensus in the classroom. When some GMU administrators learned that she’d challenged evolution, they told her that she had to be “disciplined” because she taught “creationism.” While GMU now denies that Crocker’s dismissal had anything to do with evolution, her book explains that this is most definitely not what she was told behind closed doors.

But Free to Think is not some sob story. It contains heartwarming and amusing accounts of Crocker’s interaction with students. What struck me were the lengths to which Crocker would go to accommodate and help students facing difficult life circumstances. It is saddening (though not surprising) that she has received many attacks on her character from evolutionists who know neither Crocker nor her story.

[…]At the very time Crocker was told by her Department Head that she would be disciplined for challenging Darwin, she received a performance review from her Provost that called her teaching “outstanding” as “evidenced by unusually high student rankings”! The Provost even praised her, saying, “This kind of teaching quality is essential for this vital educational program, and we’re very grateful for your successful efforts.”

Such statements hardly describe a teacher who would otherwise be expected to soon lose her job. Yet Crocker did subsequently lose her job, and we know exactly why. As Crocker documents in her book, her administrators didn’t want her challenging Darwin.

There’s more here.

And you can even listen to an interview she did with Casey Luskin about her new book.

I like Caroline Crocker a lot. I don’t talk about her as much as I do about Michele Bachmann or Jennifer Roback Morse, but she’s one of my heroes. I was disgusted with George Mason University for doing this to her. I remember Walter Williams saying at some point (maybe when he was guest hosting for Rush Limbaugh) that GMU is a normal liberal university with conservative departments of law and economics. That explains it.

Do universities really feature a diversity of thought on intelligent design?

Check out this article from Evolution News.

Excerpt:

We were delighted to discover that students at the University of Arizona are getting a well-rounded education. “Evolution, Intelligent Design Face Off at Humanities Panel,” reports the Arizona Daily Wildcat. Hey great, finally a serious academic institution is taking the time to make sure kids hear both sides of the evolution debate! Reading down the article we noticed only a couple of things they might have been done differently and better.

The panel at UA included an evolutionary biologist and two religious studies profs, but no one actually representing the ID side. Only ID critics were allowed to participate. Well, that is disappointing. It’s like staging a “debate” between the Democratic and Republican contenders for a particular public office but inviting only the Democratic candidate, joined on stage by his campaign manager and chief of staff.

Also, no one on the panel even seemed to know what intelligent design means.

[…]Professor Karen Seat confused ID with Young Earth Creationism, explaining to students and colleagues that it was all about a defense of “the traditional, literal meaning of the Bible.”

[…]Professor Lucas Mix, who’s an ordained Episcopal priest, got tired of paying lip service to the idea of a “face off” on intelligent design and spoke instead about “creationism,” which, again, means something very different.

[…]Joanna Masel, the evolutionary biologist, summed up with a non sequitur: “Once you pick out a theology that is incompatible with evolution, it becomes incompatible with all science.”

This is what your children get for paying tens of thousands of dollars a year in tutition and fees. They get an indoctrination, not an education. (Assuming they don’t get expelled or denied their degree for disagreeing with their secular leftist overlords). It’s a perplexing problem – how can you raise world-changing children if this groupthink is what they’ll face on the university campus?

Does anyone else find it sickening that the radical left can be paid to GRADE STUDENTS to force them to agree with views at odds with their own parents, and reality as a whole? Darwinism is – like global warming, Marxism and feminism – the equivalent of flat-earthism. Why pay to learn that? And why be coerced to agree with grade-granting flat-earthers who only know one side of every issue?

Dave Barry discusses political correctness and censorship on campus

Video from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (the FIRE). (H/T ECM)

Here is my previous post explaining political correctness.

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