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There is a good editorial piece on RCP today that talks about how Undergraduate history instruction is biased towards race/class/gender study and needs reform. The basic premise is that undergrad history instruction should be politically neutral and focus on teaching the narrative instead of trying to indoctrinate young students. The argument goes that a fuller understanding of history can help people in their understanding the context of current debates and combats historical ignorance. It goes on to say that current teaching enhances rather than combats historical ignorance by giving students a false sense of knowledge. It is pretty good reading, especially the comments and can be found here: Failing History: Colleges Neglect Core U.S. Principles
At Cal wayyyyy back in 1949-54, the bias was everywhere outside the History classes as well. It was said during the Viet Nam War, History professors were the least likely to demonstrate or indoctrinate their students. I ran into it more in Speech, Poli Sci, and other classes, but and this is a caveat — even if the professors might have been relatively balanced, most of their T.A.s were not, and some were absolutely weird. FYI, the Loyalty Oath culled the uberlibrals from the faculty, and at Cal the entire Sociology Department resigned rather an sign it.
At Cal wayyyyy back in 1949-54, the bias was everywhere outside the History classes as well. It was said during the Viet Nam War, History professors were the least likely to demonstrate or indoctrinate their students. I ran into it more in Speech, Poli Sci, and other classes, but and this is a caveat -- even if the professors might have been relatively balanced, most of their T.A.s were not, and some were absolutely weird. FYI, the Loyalty Oath culled the uberlibrals from the faculty, and at Cal the entire Sociology Department resigned rather an sign it.
I am surprised that it was taking place at that time as well. I wonder if that held true across the country, or was a more localized thing. If I had to guess, I would think that such bias crept into curricula more widely in the late-60s or even moreso in the 1970s when the students of the 60s began to be the instructors at those universities.
There is too much to say about the topic of bias towards race/gender/class topics in history classes. I will start out by mentioning that I am not opposed to the offering of *some* of these topics as advanced topics, but they aren't really good for foundational material. For example, a topic such as “Women in the Middle Ages” could be a fascinating topic which does not have to be a politicized one. But it's something that you would really want to study after you had a grasp of the more important material – the history of the Middle Ages in general (politics, economics, culture, etc.). I heard part of an NPR interview (online) with feminist Camille Paglia who talked about how art history is taught in schools, but I think it's also applicable to the field of history as well. Although she's an atheist, she says that the secular humanists have failed by using history as a means of blame (racism, genderism, etc.) without offering anything else in its place. I thought that was interesting coming from a person like her. When modernist professors teach any history or historically-related course with a political agenda that assigns blame, they are chipping away at our very own cultural foundations. This is basically a message that there is no greatness in the past, or in culture, and so the only way to achieve it is by forming a new liberalized uptopian culture in the future. The teaching of history is thus connected to present socio-political action, and education is reduced to a call-to-arms by those who erroneously think they know how the world should operate.
One of my colleagues who taught Art hated the Impressionists because he was so far left he referred to their painting as bourgeoisie. Yes, at Cal it was so political that the communist students were violently divided between Stalinists and Trotskyites. I posted early after I joined this site I was interrupted by by Speech 1A instructor when I attacked socialized medicine as not viable and instead of make me defend my point he said, “Nations do not degenerate into socialism, they advance to socialism.” we had the wackos as I said before. Minutes before a Philosophy section began, I told a joke to my classmates, and they laughed, at which point the T.A. cried out, “Why are you laughing at me?” Mondo Bizzaro in Academia.
When modernist professors teach any history or historically-related course with a political agenda that assigns blame, they are chipping away at our very own cultural foundations.
That right there is the problem in a nutshell. Modern education is by and large not about teaching people facts or how to think but what to think. Education is one long exercise in agit-prop for modern academia and very few people are willing to say it out loud and those that do are attacked as being anti-education. It is not just in college and not just in America. My son's religion teacher (Catholic) has recently told her class both that as soon as he leaves the house and has his own place he is no longer family and that the Catholic Church has a tolerance policy towards homosexuality and as long as two people love each other homosexuality is not a sin. I lost it about both things and spoke to our parish priest who is responsible for supervising Catholic Education in our local school.
