Colleges: Anti-Diversity and Pro-Exclusion
Just within the past week or so, some shocking professorial behavior has come to light. In the wake of Barbara Bush's death, California State University, Fresno professor Randa Jarrar took to Twitter to call the former first lady an "amazing racist." Jarrar added, "PSA: either you are against these pieces of s--- and their genocidal ways or you're part of the problem. that's actually how simple this is. I'm happy the witch is dead. can't wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise the way 1.5 million iraqis have. byyyeeeeeeee."
In New Jersey, Brookdale Community College professor Howard Finkelstein, in a heated exchange, was captured on video telling a conservative student, "F--- your life!" At the City University of New York School of Law, students shouted down guest lecturer Josh Blackman for 10 minutes before he could continue his remarks. When Duke University President Vincent Price was trying to address alumni, students commandeered the stage, shouting demands and telling him to leave.
None of this professorial and student behavior is new at the nation's colleges. It's part of the leftist agenda that dominates our colleges. A new study by Brooklyn College professor Mitchell Langbert -- "Homogeneous: The Political Affiliations of Elite Liberal Arts College Faculty" (http://tinyurl.com/ycfomjy6) -- demonstrates that domination. (By the way, Academic Questions is a publication of the National Association of Scholars, an organization fighting the leftist propaganda in academia.) Langbert examines the political affiliation of Ph.D.-holding faculty members at 51 of the 66 top-ranked liberal arts colleges according to U.S. News & World Report. He finds that 39 percent of the colleges in his sample are Republican-free -- with zero registered Republicans on their faculties. As for Republicans within academic departments, 78 percent of those departments have no Republican members or so few as to make no difference.
Langbert breaks down the faculty Democrat-to-Republican ratio by academic department, and there are not many surprises. Engineering departments have 1.6 Democrats for every Republican. Chemistry and economics departments have about 5.5 Democrats for every Republican. The situation is especially bad in anthropology departments, where the Democrat-to-Republican faculty ratio is 133-to-1, and in communications departments, where the ratio is 108-to-zero. Langbert says, "I could not find a single Republican with an exclusive appointment to fields like gender studies, Africana studies, and peace studies."
Later on in the study, Langbert turns his attention to Democrat-to-Republican faculty ratios at some of our most elite colleges. At Williams College, the Democrat-to-Republican ratio is 132-to-1. At Amherst College, it's 34-to-1. Wellesley's is 136-to-1. At Swarthmore, 120-to-1. Claremont McKenna, 4-to-1. Davidson, 10-to-1. Only two colleges of the top 66 on U.S. News & World Report's 2017 list have a modicum of equality in numbers between Democratic and Republican faculty members. They are the U.S. Military Academy, aka West Point, with a Democrat-to-Republican ratio of 1.3-to-1, and the U.S. Naval Academy, whose ratio is 2.3-to-1.
Many professors spend class time indoctrinating students with their views. For faculty members who are Democrats, those views can be described as leftist, socialist or communist. It is a cowardly act for a professor to take advantage of student immaturity by indoctrinating pupils with his opinions before the students have developed the maturity and skill to examine other opinions. It is also dereliction of duty of college administrators and boards of trustees to permit the continuance of what some professors and students are doing in the name of higher education.
Langbert's findings suggest biases in college research and academic policy, where leftist political homogeneity is embedded in the college culture. The leftist bias at most of the nation's colleges is in stark contrast to the political leanings of our nation. According to a number of Pew Research Center surveys, most Americans identify as conservative. These Americans are seeing their tax dollars and tuition dollars going to people who have contempt for their values and seek to indoctrinate their children with leftist ideas.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
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Do Americans Prefer Deception?
There's more to the deceit and dishonesty about Social Security and
Medicare discussed in my recent columns. Congress tells us that one-half
(6.2 percent) of the Social Security tax is paid by employees and that the
other half is paid by employers, for a total of 12.4 percent. Similarly, we
are told that a Medicare tax of 1.45 percent is levied on employees and that
another 1.45 percent is levied on employers. The truth of the matter is that
the burden of both taxes is borne by employees. In other words, we pay both
the employee and the so-called employer share. You say, "Williams, that's
nonsense! Just look at what it says on my pay stub." OK, let's look at it.
Pretend you are my employer and agree to pay me $50,000 a year, out of
which you're going to send $3,100 to Washington as my share of Social
Security tax (6.2 percent of $50,000), as well as $725 for my share of
Medicare (1.45 percent of $50,000), a total of $3,825 for the year. To this
you must add your half of Social Security and Medicare taxes, which is also
$3,825 for the year. Your cost to hire me is $53,825.
If it costs you $53,825 a year to hire me, how much value must I produce
for it to be profitable for you to keep me? Is it our agreed salary of
$50,000 or $53,825? If you said $53,825, you'd be absolutely right. Then who
pays all of the Social Security and Medicare taxes? If you said that I do,
you're right again. The Social Security and Medicare fiction was created
because Americans would not be so passive if they knew that the tax they are
paying is double what is on their pay stubs -- not to mention federal income
taxes.
The economics specialty that reveals this is known as the incidence of
taxation. The burden of a tax is not necessarily borne by the party upon
whom it is levied. The Joint Committee on Taxation held that "both the
employee's and employer's share of the payroll tax is borne by the
employee." The Congressional Budget Office "assumes -- as do most economists
-- that employers' share of payroll taxes is passed on to employees in the
form of lower wages than would otherwise be paid." Health insurance is not
an employer gift, either. It is paid for by employees in the form of lower
wages.
Another part of Social Security and Medicare deception is that the taxes
are officially called FICA, which stands for Federal Insurance Contributions
Act. First, it's not an insurance program. More importantly, the word
"contribution" implies something voluntary. Its synonyms are alms,
benefaction, beneficence, charity, donation and philanthropy. Which one of
those synonyms comes close to describing how Congress gets Social Security
and Medicare money from us?
There's more deceit and dishonesty. In 1950, I was 14 years old and applied
for a work permit for an after-school job. One of the requirements was to
obtain a Social Security card. In bold letters on my Social Security card,
which I still possess, are the words "For Social Security Purposes -- Not
For Identification." That's because earlier Americans feared that their
Social Security number would become an identity number. According to the
Social Security Administration website, "this legend was removed as part of
the design changes for the 18th version of the card, issued beginning in
1972." That statement assumes we're idiots. We're asked to believe that the
sole purpose of the removal was for design purposes. Apparently, the fact
that our Social Security number had become a major identification tool, to
be used in every aspect of our lives, had nothing to do with the SSA's
getting rid of the legend saying "For Social Security Purposes -- Not For
Identification."
I wonder whether political satirist H.L. Mencken was right when he said,
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American
public."
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.
To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web
page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM
