Dem
47
GOP
53
Some, maybe many, people on the right have indulged in the fantasy that universities are left-wing brainwashing operations, and that professors have the power to turn students into wild-eyed radicals who are left of Marx and Trotsky.
We have something like 70 years' university teaching experience between us, and we can tell you, it's just not so. Oh, it's probably true that the average student leaves college a little more liberal than when they came in. And some of them leave a lot more liberal. But that's almost entirely a product of developing critical thinking, being exposed to new ideas, and living in a much more cosmopolitan environment. Most professors are not interested in indoctrination, and are not trying it. And even if we were, we can't even get students to format their essays properly, much less turn them into mini-Mamdanis.
Still, this fundamentally conspiratorial claim makes great copy, and great material for podcasts, and talk radio, and the various shows on Fox and the other right-wing entertainment channels. The problem is when right-wingers actually start to believe it, and try to put the idea into practice. As a case study, we give you West Virginia University.
West Virginia is, perhaps, the reddest state in the nation. And so, the state legislature is absolutely dominated by Republicans (the state Senate is currently 31R, 2D; the House of Delegates is currently 91R, 9D, which certainly gives an appreciation for the feats of magick Joe Manchin pulled off in his last two or three elections). The legislature decided they would like to get in on the brainwashing, and so they appropriated $3 million for the creation of the Washington Center at WVU. After all, WVU is the Harvard of... well, West Virginia.
We wonder how the faculty at WVU felt about this money. On one hand, faculties like it when money rolls in. On the other hand, they tend to dislike it when the money is clearly meant to purchase legitimacy for problematic ideas. When (Z) was in grad school, the UCLA Department of History was offered multiple millions to establish a chair in Turkish history, and the faculty rejected it outright, because it was clear the real plan was to promote Armenian Genocide denial.
Whatever the WVU faculty felt about the $3 million, they did not get a vote, since it was an independent center being created, as opposed to an appointment within an existing department. And so, the Washington Center was established, and given office and classroom space, and a director, Dr. Patrick Lee, was hired at the bargain salary of just $300,000 per year. Do you know how far $300,000 goes in West Virginia?
The center announced an ambitious slate of 24 courses, including "Woke," "Nation and Migration" and "The New Right." But then the rubber finally met the road. You can appropriate money, allot space, hire a director, etc. by fiat, but eventually students have to enroll voluntarily. And students tend to avoid classes that won't help them graduate, while they positively loathe anything that has the faintest whiff of "propaganda."
And so, those three courses have attracted just one student each. And... it's the same student in all three cases. The planned course offerings have already been slashed to 18, and one imagines they will be cut even more. Since we are not at WVU, we don't quite know what they will do. Most classes can be, and are, approved to fulfill one requirement or another. But at most schools, that's a pretty arduous process, and requires approval from the faculty Senate. Presumably, the WVU Senate isn't even sitting right now, and even if it is, students have presumably already enrolled in classes for Fall. Getting the classes accredited might eventually help some, but that's a solution that probably has a target date of Spring 2027, at the earliest. For now, the West Virginia legislature is probably going to have to satisfy itself with putting Fox on the TVs in the student gym. (Z)