Education is vital for a society to thrive. But in the current “inclusivity-heavy” culture of the United States, it is suffering like never before. As educational systems are dismantled, truth, logic, and reason become expendable concepts, as well.
Education is the very vector of freedom, the transformative way by which people bring themselves out of a particular place in life and into something better for themselves and their descendants. The status of education — and the equality of its access — often plays a key factor in determining how much upward mobility citizens retain in any environment or culture. If our universities continue to stray from their original purpose and fail to fight for reason and logic, our society might very well be destined to stagnate.
As schooling goes, so goes the culture.
In his speech, “Blessings of Liberty and Education,” abolitionist Frederick Douglass said:
Without education, [a man] lives within the narrow, dark and grimy walls of ignorance. He is a poor prisoner without hope. The little light that he gets comes to him as through dark corridors and grated windows. The sights and sounds which reach him, so significant and full of meaning to the well-trained mind, are to him of dim and shadowy and uncertain importance. He sees, but does not perceive. He hears, but does not understand. The silent and majestic heavens, fretted with stars, so inspiring and uplifting, so sublime and glorious to the souls of other men, bear no message to him. They suggest to him no idea of the wonderful world in which he lives, or of the harmony of this great universe, and hence impart to him no happiness.
Douglass went on to say that “Education, on the other hand, means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free.”
In recent months, the American public has witnessed the slow erosion of education under the guise of equity.
Penn State faculty recently announced plans to remove gendered and binary terms from course and program descriptions at the university in an effort to be more “inclusive.” During its April 27 meeting, the school’s faculty senate approved multiple policies directed at creating a more “inclusive” environment.
In a statement presented to the student government on behalf of the student-led Committee on Curricular Affairs, the removal of gendered and binary terms was lauded, because “as with most all academic institutions world-wide, has (sic) grown out of a typically male-centered world. As such, many terms in our lexicon carry a strong, male-centric, binary character to them.”
The committee continued, saying terms like “freshmen” are “decidedly male-specific, while terms such as ‘upperclassmen’ can be interpreted as both sexist and classist. Terms such as ‘junior’ and ‘senior’ are parallel to western male father-son naming conventions, and much of our written documentation uses he/she pronouns.”
The committee said that with the implementation of its Preferred Name and Gender Identity Policy, “it is time to close the loop and ensure that all people are not only able to choose their name & gender identity within our systems, but that these documents and systems are also structured to be inclusive from the start.”
Its specific recommendations included moving away from the use of “gendered pronouns when referring to students, faculty, staff, and guests in course descriptions and degree program descriptions.” In effect, it said to replace “he” and “she” with pronouns like “they” or “use non-gendered terms such as student, faculty member, staff member.”
The erasure of gender pronouns based on biological sex is only one way in which educational structures are being dismantled by a determination to avoid facts and truth.
The committee also recommended that the school gradually stop using “academic grouping titles that stem from a primarily male-centric academic history in course descriptions and degree program descriptions.” Instead, the university should replace the terms freshman/sophomore/junior/senior with first-year, second-year, third-year, fourth-year, and beyond.
It added that concerns had been raised about using the number system past the fourth year, because this “would perhaps negatively reflect on students who, for various reasons, are taking longer to complete their (typically) four-year programs, and are also referred to as ‘super-seniors.’” To combat this negative connotation, they said that students who are still attending school past their fourth year “could instead be referred to as ‘advanced-standing’ students.”
Education is based on the goal of seeking knowledge and gaining an understanding of the world. Redefining language in generic terms undermines the notion that there are truths and falsehoods, that there are things that can be relied upon even as the world changes. When everything becomes relative, there is a risk that everyday nuances will lose their meaning and the concept of truth will become obsolete.
If someone is in their fifth year of schooling at a university, it doesn’t matter what the faculty senate determines to call them. They shouldn’t be treated unfairly or unkindly because of their ranking, but no rebranding is going to ensure that. A “freshman” and a “first year” are similarly the same status, and renaming certain levels of education doesn’t change that, either. Instead, what it does is slowly degrade the ability to say that anything is for certain.
Education matters, and the insistence of truth within educational institutions perhaps matters even more-so. It is possible that colleges and universities will lose their allure in coming years. Already, many degrees are viewed as increasingly unnecessary for certain jobs and fields where skills can be learned once someone is hired. The slow demolition of reality in these institutions, however, is a different issue.
The lasting harm universities are inflicting on our next generation will inevitably result in the confusion of the very minds they have the power to mold.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.