Barrett Kalellis
Friday, Jan. 14, 2005

Story Continues Below

  Behind this effort is a small group of students who call themselves the “Gender and Sexuality Requirement Committee,” who gathered about 1,000 signatures over the past year.

A proposal was then presented to the University’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA), with the idea that the course would be taught primarily by the faculty of the women’s studies department. The next hurdle involves making a formal pitch to the LSA curriculum committee later this semester, the first step to getting approval by the entire LSA faculty.

Proponents of this scheme tip their hand when they indicate that their preferred faculty to teach such a course would be that of women’s studies, possibly the most politicized department at the university.

A haven for “feminist scholarship,” women’s studies course descriptions make no bones about where their objectives and politics lay: “The course does not merely provide analyses of women's oppression, however, but suggests strategies for ending that oppression.” Or “This course will also encourage students to consider ways in which [the] texts both reflect and participate in the construction of sexuality, sexual identity, gender, and desire.”

The proposal declares that such a course “will create new dialogues, challenge hegemonic discourse, break taboos and stigmas, and open up realms of communications among all students.”

Given that 60 percent of Michiganders voted to ban gay marriage in the recent referendum, it would seem that courses that tub-thump for liberal sexual mores would go against popular opinion.

Not to worry, says the student committee co-chair Catherine Malczynski, “We think [these things] are very important today and that people should be educated on, [sic] like they are educated on race and ethnicity.”

But after the gay marriage vote, striking a note of pessimism, she added, “it showed a lot of homophobia and that people might not be willing to do this.”

If Tom Wolfe’s scathing indictment of out-of-control sex on college campuses in his new book, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," is close to the truth, it would seem that the kind of course recommended by the student committee might make the problem worse, since conventional morality doesn’t seem to be part of the approach.

Rather, course advocates seem transparently only to want to shape student attitudes about gender and sex issues, to get them to think like they do. They assume, mistakenly, that because some might not, then they are wrong. Making such a dubious course mandatory is just a more convenient yet heavy-handed way to wield their ideological club.

I suspect that if such a course were offered simply on a voluntary basis, it would wither on the vine from lack of interest. One can only speculate whether the instructors would demand congruity with their views for successful completion of the course.

In a national educational environment where overall student achievement is comparatively low, and where most students (and their parents) must cough up considerable sums of money to get an education and prepare for their future careers, it seems highly questionable that they should be burdened with a course with little actual academic substance, and motivated by those only wishing to proselytize.

It’s high time that colleges and universities get out of the attitude-shaping and indoctrination business, and pretending that they are “promoting diversity,” “widening their knowledge” and other pious, empty and specious claims.

I have a son who will be college-bound in three or four years. As things stand now, when we sit down to prepare a list of the final five or six colleges that he will apply to enter, the University of Michigan will not be on it.

Barrett Kalellis is a Michigan-based columnist and writer whose articles appear regularly in various local and national print and online publications. He may be reached at kalellis@newsmax.com.

Editor's note: