Two for the final-stages-of-the-post-American-university's-rot file

From the University of Illinois:

A math education professor at the University of Illinois says the ability to solve geometry and algebra problems and teaching such subjects perpetuates so-called white privilege.

Rochelle Gutierrez laid out her views on the subject in an article for a newly published anthology for math educators titled, “Building Support for Scholarly Practices in Mathematics Methods.”

“School mathematics curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean Theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans," she says, according to Campus Reform.

She also says that addressing equity in mathematics education will come when teachers can understand and negotiate the politics outside the classroom.

“On many levels, mathematics itself operates as whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as white,” she writes.

Further, she says mathematics operates with unearned privilege in society, “just like whiteness.”

From Kent State:

An advertisement for a Kent State University event asked if the phrase “You Need Jesus” is a form of “hate speech” or “free speech” — and a Christian student leader wants an apology.

The Twitter announcement for last week’s forum sponsored by the Ohio school’s Center for Student Involvement included an image of figures holding various signs: Three read “No More Gays,” “Women Need To Serve Their Man” and “Build a Wall” — the fourth read “You Need Jesus.”

Let's start with the particular poisonousness of each.

In the case of the U of I professor, we are looking at a frontal assault on objective truth. The answer to a given math equation is immutable, and depends not a whit on whether anyone is "capable" of arriving at it, much less anyone's demographic designation. And speaking of objective truth, the professor is actually correct that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans.

Those Europeans gave a gift to the world, a gift that has catalyzed human advancement that was unimaginable beforehand. Has she considered that she is actually calling for denying that gift to the swath of humanity that falls into some category other than "white"?

A highly credentialed scholar is basically extolling hatred for the accumulation of knowledge.

In the case of this Center for Student Involvement ad, it requires no special level of sharpness to see what's being implied. There's the obvious message conveyed by the grouping of the Jesus sign with the others: that Christian faith is predicated on bigotry. Then there are the intended implications of the other signs. In whose fevered imagination is a "no more gays" message a societal commonplace? The way that sign reads, some societal element with influence worth noting is calling for total eradication of homosexuals. Do you know of any such element? The grammatical sour note struck by the next sign aside, "Women Need To Serve Their Man," utterly divorced from the corresponding message that would be included in at least a Christian conveyance, the message that men need to serve their women as well, is not a mainstream view by any stretch. Then there's "Build a Wall," which, if we cut to the chase, is intended to impress upon the sign-reader the notion that concern for national sovereignty is an attempt to legitimize bigotry.

Then there is the overarching level, on which these stories, when taken together, reinforce the message that is inescapable on today's university campus: that white Christian males are a malevolent force in society.

This is not a call for responding to such a toxic assumption with any kind of "pride" in falling into any or all of those categories. Indeed, pride for having a certain kind of pigmentation or DNA diminishes the whole notion that achievement is the proper antecedent to self-regard. That's why it ought to have no place in the world view of a black person or a woman. And, as we know, pride is the antithesis of what a Christian strives for. Ultimately, as Christians understand, a sense that one is inherently okay comes from God's grace alone.

My sense, and I'm going on intuition here - although recent poll data regarding the worth of a college education backs me up - is that it's too late for a backlash that is going to restore the Western university to the stature it deservedly enjoyed prior to the last 40 years.

And given that the university has been the repository of the knowledge humankind has accumulated over the last six-plus millennia, the prospects for our civilization to be able to even tread water, much less continue advancing, are dire indeed.