Academic Inanity

KC Johnson (over at the peerless Durham-In-Wonderland) continues to blog about the aftermath of the Duke Lacrosse Travesty. Those unlucky enough to be under his microscope today? The "Group of 88," those academics (I use the term in the loosest possible sense of the word, and Johnson's research supports that) who decried the lacrosse case and the whole culture of the university on the tired lines of class/race/gender. Specifically, he highlights the kind of nonsense these people are teaching, often with an aim to brainwash their students. Just to cite a few gems:

Maurice Wallace (African-American Literature): 16 of 40 [It would seem that most Duke students do not respond to the pedagogical approach preferred by Wallace: “I have a responsibility to all of my students—every single one of them—to disabuse them of all of the national, racial, middle-class, gender and sexual myths they’ve been taught to comfort or flatter themselves and, of course, the people who, perhaps unknowingly, miseducated them.”

Kim Curtis (Ecological Crisis and Political Theory): 18 of 30 [The class explores the “ethical, political, economic, aesthetic, social, and technological approaches to contemporary ecological crisis,” though how Kim Curtis, of all people, can teach others about “ethics” is not clear.]

Wahneema Lubiano (Social Facts and Narrative: “Story telling as it establishes, relies on, and transforms socially recognized categories of [naturally] gender, class, race, sexual orientation, and region): 13 of 18

BS doesn't begin to do all of this justice. In laying all of this out, Johnson devastates the fallacious argument that the Group of 88 are popular; 'scuse me? Popular and under half-full? Mind you I've taken some incredible courses that were under-enrolled, but most of the truly great classes I've had at Duke have been over-enrolled! He also rightly points out that the reason for some of these somewhat respectable enrollment numbers may not be "quality of instruction;" when all you have to do is parrot your professor's neomarxist gobdleygook to get an A, many students will be there for the wrong reason (it's also reasonable to assume that these students don't entirely buy into the nonsense their professors peddle).

Check out the full post here.