Petition to ban Social Justice College Courses

I got into many arguments with professors and other students in college. We all just assumed that was part of the class. I'm very far left, but I disagreed with more than one left leaning professor. I was called a racist many times in my critique of Islam, which is odd considering Islam is not a race.

It's funny when labels like racist are thrown out. What I have noticed with label calling and racism is that people who actually are a racist get insanely belligerent when called a racist. I am not a racist at all, so when I was called one, I simply asked "How? Explain how I am a racist." And let them destroy their position by themselves. I've always been a smartass, so I'm pretty good in arguments like that.

I do agree with you on your final point. I heard so much absurdity from leftists in college, but since so many others are left as well, they let it pass. I got into a lot of arguments about the censorship of hate speech. I was told that we need to censor hateful people, like white supremacists, for a ton of reasons, none convincing. I've always contended that in a society of free expression, vicious racists should be given equal time, especially in Universities, because if they spout their nonsense on a college campus, people like me could savage their viewpoint into tatters, easily showing how their racism does not cohere, and is immoral. But alas, they never got their chance to spout that in school, and people like me never got the chance to change their minds. Instead, they dont go to college, distrust colleges, and the educated class as a result, further cementing their views.

Yes, that's what happens in college...all the time. One student in my film class got into a vocal political debate with my film professor just a couple weeks ago. Pretty sure that happens on a weekly basis for social classes. You are simply ignorant if you think that young audacious college students won't take a stand against their professors. Even if they don't end up debating with them, it doesn't mean that they agree with everything they say.

Again, the idea that young adults can't think for themselves and need to babyed like idiots about political issues is extremely arrogant. That type of thinking is horse shit.

But they can't....they don't know anything about how real life works. This combined with the fact that the field of social science is dominated by leftist thinking, makes them extremely susceptible. This wouldn't be a problem if the political leaning of the humanities was balanced but now, when the entire field is as red as a hippie from the USSR, the leftist students have almost complete control since they have the full support of the faculty. They have theoretical backing AND physical backing (lack of reprimand for crazy behaviour etc, etc).

It is not calling for a ban. It is calling for a suspension until peer reviewed academic studies are done to access why campuses are cranking out a pile of cultists that are being brainwashed into believeing blatently untrue things and are suffering ptsd along with a host of other stress related physical and psychological problems as a result.

Lol, if people wanna put themselves into massive debt getting a degree that won't help them acquire useful skills and land a job then let them.

I think this raises the question of what "value" qualifies as. I'm very much aware that you are under the impression that it is almost entirely based around future job prospects, and yet I know many people who believe that the pursuit of higher education should be about more than just getting a job.
I see a potential argument for transparency regarding why a class exists, what your future prospects are in terms of salary with each offered degree, and perhaps even lower priced classes for courses not expected to get large monetary returns on the investment. Getting rid of classes entirely however just because they don't necessarily mean big money is a bad idea in my opinion.

@jointed: maybe you just were unlucky and got hit with a shitty college environment

@mordant221: I'm worried, because I know these people are incredibly entitled. I know that they'll expect society to pay their loans and that means more taxes.

@JangoWuzHere: if they were smart enough to distinguish lies from facts, there wouldn't be sjw.

Want to learn about gays,lesbians, transgender or feminism watch a documentary. If you go to college learn something useful IT, engineering, art anything that will make you an attractive asset to a business. I support the petition if these BS courses are taking away from actual useful courses in puplic schools and colleges. You can get rid of "safe spaces" also I don't support segregation is that what Martin Luther King and others fought for?

I honestly feel like this petition is as useless as the social justice courses. Universities should have the right to offer whatever courses they like.

They should just expel students that demand a safe space and let them find out about the real world the hard way.

Im a social justice warrior. Self righteous, ignorant, and PROUD. Kiss my ass right wing nutjobs.

Communism is here.

so, to fight an SJW, you must become one

Except SJW's aren't putting people into the Gulag, or popping their head in the middle of the street. SJW's would never murder, because they would identify with their victim too greatly, or the guy who has to clean up all the blood.

This sounds like one form of extremism fighting another form. Unless you're required to take social justice classes, then I don't see what the problem is. If you're actively fighting to silence a group who is trying to silence another group, you are in essence becoming the very thing you're fighting against.

Probably only because they don't have power.

There have been a number of cop killings by oblm members though.

Prove it.

This took me two seconds on google.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/suspect-trooper-death-black-lives-matter-backer-article-1.2360320

Hey look, another SJW/feminist bash-fest!

An education limited exclusively to those aspects dealing with one's intended career barely qualifies as an education.

Isn't the purpose of education to advance financially though?

Seems like a good idea to bash anything anti-intellectual...

@still_vicious: There are many purposes to an education, and I'd argue that advancing financially is among the least important of them.

Nope. So when you transfer to college you go to your safe spaces so you don't have to face the world. Easy peasy! Why face reality?

Because life is boring without a challenge? Because how I am supposed to develop and grow as person without going out of my comfort zone?

This thread should really dispel the notion that GameSpot is a "liberal forum." This place is crawling with angry rightwing cranks. Most of the thoughtful people seem to have left.

It's pretty absurd for you to call anything or anybody anti-intellectual when you just said that the purpose of education is to "advance financially." I think you're a bit confused about what "intellectualism" actually is.

This, this, and this. The whole colleges should "just focus on useful career skills" mindset is why we have so many angry thickheaded callous people on this website (and in the country for that matter). An education should not only give one career skills: it should give one intellectual breath and depth and that means taking a wide variety of courses, even so-called SWJ ones (the idea that all women studies and race studies classes are brainwashing sessions is so ridiculous and out of touch with reality).

@GreySeal9: I would agree with you if it weren't for the fact these movements are bordering on religious fanaticism.. There are published papers now talking about how discoveries and facts in physics and chemistry, yes physics and chemistry, are sexist or racist. There is a published paper in London on Carbon fiber being a symbol of the patriarchy.. You seriously think when these special snowflakes hit the job market that their employer is going to gaf about their delicate sensibilities? I mean now we have major schools giving "triggering warnings" for court cases in law school.... Teaching about the history of women's rights and racism for instance is perfectly fine. But these type of courses are literally trying to twist scientific facts much like a extreme religious person does.

And a few years ago I would agree with you. Now we have college level official debaters saying " I can't be racist because I am black.". Or a person literally saying that it is morally ok to suggest a person to kill themselves because they are white in a actual debate... Yep no brainwashing here to speak of..

@sSubZerOo: You can find a group of nutjobs in any demographic segment. Does the existence of Donald Trump and his followers mean that all Republicans support his views? Does the existence of the Cato Institute and The Heritage foundation (both of which have an extensive library of published papers) mean that everyone in the right wing supports the hard right views and proposals they've published papers on?

@mattbbpl: Except we are talking about PUBLISHED PAPERS meaning they were passed by the actual university.. Are you trying to tell me everything is good when the University of London publishes a paper stating that carbon fiber is apart of the patriarchy? As for Trump, there are far more loony Republicans we should be concerned about so this actually doesn't work in your favor when I am concerned with them as well. We have elected people in office like Bachmann who has said God speaks to her. The only thing your illustrating that Republicans are as tucking crazy as these people. They are the left wing tea party.

And I don't care how fringe you may think them to be. They are having impact on the social and.political policies of numerous nations, being most apparent in Europe currently. Wage gap myth being used as a major platform issue is a clear example of this.

No, I wouldn't want to "ban" these courses. Regardless of what I think about what's being taught in them colleges should have academic freedom to create courses, and student the freedom to take them. That said, I do agree with @sSubZerOo that there are things very worrying about what's being pushed in these classes and what the results are from these disciples coming out of them. Thunderf00t has a great series on this, and it's pretty troubling. You have these people pumping out ridiculous paper after ridiculous paper and I do think there's a legitimate social harm.

It wouldn't be a problem if so many of these people also didn't go on to be writers/bloggers/etc. There is a giant effort to push their agenda, crush those who point out the craziness of their mantra with character assassination, and ultimately re-shape societal norms and opinions. To be honest I'm not even against that on it's foundation...but in this instance seeing the absolute lunacy that's coming from it and the hypocrisy coming from these folks I think it is harmful. The extremist are taking hold, and I don't think it's going unnoticed.

My hope is, and I do think this is starting to happen, is that people are really starting to take notice. The extremist SJW's who have taken hold of what in it's purest form should be a great thing, have taken it too far and even folks who fall socially left (like myself) are tired of it. There's too much spite, too much division, too much intellectual dishonesty, and I think people are starting to push back and realize the extreme identity politics and hateful shit coming out of the hard left is harmful to our society and causing rifts between people.

@Renevent42: no better example of the harm is the current situation in Europe with the migrant crisis. Where governments are literally bending backwards in never insinuating a remote problem with the increase of radical Muslims in the country. Where the New Years incident in Germany was basically swept under the carpet to avoid implications in a very specific group of people who were involved.

Where the New London mayor very racistly said that the board for London was too white and something had to be done..

so people are pissed that SJWs are running around trying to ban everything that offends them, so they want to ban them

the hypocrisy..

@comp_atkins: because it is a harmful ideology that impedes academic progress... In no way should this line of thought be legitimized in University when it is anti critical thinking and science... Nothing is being banned here, they still have their freedom of speech, it's just universities can no longer directly support them through the support of such classes... People seem to have no problem with Universities not supporting junk sciences , how is this any different?

@sSubZerOo:

how do you define "academic progress"?

a university is not a kindergarten, students are adults. i do not see it as the state's job to tell them what they can and can not discuss. ideas, even stupid ones, should be debated freely in an academic environment and be allowed to fail on their own weaknesses.

You're going about this all wrong. The point is to let these people get these degrees so that we know not to hire them. XD

@Renevent42: You know, Western Civilization was banned in Stanford, and when Stanford tried to bring the courses back, there was a backlash from the far left .

Link

Also, here is a video regarding the issues of Western Civilization.

.. Your exactly right they are not a kindergarten.. Than why are LAW COURSES like in Yale giving triggering warnings of court cases in which the students are allowed to abstain from looking at? That is exactly the point, the social justice movement is actually stopping those kinds of debates and criticisms.. With the talk of safe spaces and stopping people from speaking in the said environment on things that may offend them.. This has become such a huge issue that President Obama during some of his speeches at University has spoken about in being critical towards said attitude. Your exactly right stupid ideas should be freely discussed on a campus! The problem is this stupid rhetoric is specifically attempting to squelch out any criticism and force a certain narrative in the academic setting, pretty much contradicting your idea of a university as a open forum. It's fascist in nature and incredibly passive aggressive in trying to play the victim in which they are more often than not the aggressor.. Look at MIZZ for such a example..

We are even seeing this crap drip into the election process in which Bernie Sanders was accused of being a sexist for telling Clinton to be quiet when she was interrupting and speaking DURING HIS TURN to speak in the debate.

You are placing way too much weight on being published. All kinds of BS gets published, and it doesn't mean that it's conclusion is endorsed - formally or otherwise - by the university. It usually means that one or more of the faculty did a research project and published their findings, sometimes even in a low-end journal with next to no standards. These are actually quite common, and there are resources available that help individuals identify them and steer clear of them lest their work not be taken seriously regardless of it's merits.

I'm not familiar with this details of this particular study, but nothing you've stated yet gives me any reason to believe that it's conclusion reached mainstream consensus at the university, nevertheless is in danger of reaching it anywhere else.

It sounds like we agree on the principal that this stupidity exists on campuses, just differ on what ( if anything ) ought to be done about it. IMO if a university want to go so far as to start banning the free interchange of ideas on its campus, it will start to produce sub-par graduates, research, etc... and fail on its own accord.

Prospective students should steer clear of such institutions as well if that is something they value.