Indoctrination at University of Delaware

[Queasy]

Link

Many universities try to indoctrinate students, but the all-time champion in this category is surely the University of Delaware. With no guile at all the university has laid out a brutally specific program for "treatment" of incorrect attitudes of the 7,000 students in its residence halls. The program is close enough to North Korean brainwashing that students and professors have been making "made in North Korea" jokes about the plan. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has called for the program to be dismantled. Residential assistants charged with imposing the "treatments" have undergone intensive training from the university. The training makes clear that white people are to be considered racists - at least those who have not yet undergone training and confessed their racism. The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

FIRE reports that the university's views "are forced on students through a comprehensive manipulation of the residence hall environment, from mandatory training sessions to 'sustainability' door decorations." Residents are pressured to promise at least a 20 percent reduction in their ecological footprint and to promise to work for a "oppressed" group. Students are required to attend training sessions, floor meetings and one-on-one sessions where RAs ask personal questions such as "When did you discover your sexual identity?". Students are pressured or required to accept an array of the university's approved views. In one training session, students had to announce their opinions on gay marriage. Those who did not approve of gay marriage were isolated and heavily pressured to change their opinion.

The indoctrination program pushes students to accept the university's ideas on politics, race, sex, sociology, moral philosophy and environmentalism. The training is run by Kathleen Kerr, director of residential life, who reportedly considers it a "cutting-edge" program that can be exported to other universities around the country. Residential assistants usually provide services to residents and have light duties, such as settling squabbles among students. Kerr and her program are more ambitious. She has been quoted as saying that the job of RAs is to educate the whole human being with a "curricular approach to residential education." In this curricular approach, students are required to report their thoughts and opinions. One professor says: "You have to confess what you believe to the RA." The RAs write reports to their superiors on student progress in cooperating with the "treatment."

The basic question about the program is how did they think they could ever get away with this? Most campus indoctrination is more subtle, with some wiggle room for fudging and deniability. This program implies a frightening level of righteousness and lack of awareness. But the RAs have begun to back away a step or two. After telling the students the program is mandatory, the RAs sent an email saying the sessions are actually voluntary.

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Report

Wow. This is ridiculous. Very 1984ish. Here I thought the RA's job was to be there to assist students with issues like roommate conflict, making sure the hall doesn't get destroyed and making sure the drunk kids don't kill themselves.


Update:

University of Delaware responds to FIRE's accusations

FIRE responds to U of Delaware's response

U of Delaware terminates program

 

[teclis1023]

A great reminder that craziness happens on both ends of the spectrum. This is the kind of crap that needs to go.

 

[Fern]

I don't know whether to laugh or what.

Who thinks this goofy sh!t up? And do people in college (students) now tolerate this stuff?

Fern

 

[ElFenix]

does that mean they're going to play Delaware State now?

 

[techs]

Wow. In ten years they'll be approaching the indoctrination, of say, Liberty University.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: techs
Wow. In ten years they'll be approaching the indoctrination, of say, Liberty University.

If you go to a Baptist Private University, you would expect to hear the Baptist message. There's no way around it. It is your choice and you made it knowingly when you sent in the application.

If you go to a public state university, the last thing you expect is for RAs to be asking you when you discovered your sexuality and putting you on bad lists if your beliefs don't mesh with the approved 'treatment'.

There is also this ridiculous crap - The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

So, despite being a white guy married to a black woman and having mixed kids, I'm still a racist? Will my kids be considered racists too since they are half white and have a white father?

 

[StageLeft]

So, despite being a white guy married to a black woman and having mixed kids, I'm still a racist? Will my kids be considered racists too since they are half white and have a white father?

Yes, I expect you to use the cat of nine tails on yourself daily as a bare minimum for atoning for your racist ways. Further, there's no way your kids should be subjected to racism and thus must be taken from you. Morover, they're to report at once to a clinic to remove any whiteness from them through genetic engineering, but not by a white scientist unless he has also publically confessed his racism (and self-lashes for good measure).

--

Are thre other sources on this? I wonder how legit it is. It would be fun to go to a place like that as long as you had at least a small group of sane, like-minded individuals with whom you could console with against he onslaught of righteousness from the PC-police around you.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: techs
Wow. In ten years they'll be approaching the indoctrination, of say, Liberty University.

Do you spin everything? Or, could you at least call a spade a spade once?

 

[teclis1023]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: techs
Wow. In ten years they'll be approaching the indoctrination, of say, Liberty University.

If you go to a Baptist Private University, you would expect to hear the Baptist message. There's no way around it. It is your choice and you made it knowingly when you sent in the application.

If you go to a public state university, the last thing you expect is for RAs to be asking you when you discovered your sexuality and putting you on bad lists if your beliefs don't mesh with the approved 'treatment'.

There is also this ridiculous crap - The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

So, despite being a white guy married to a black woman and having mixed kids, I'm still a racist? Will my kids be considered racists too since they are half white and have a white father?

Exactly. Queasy is right about this one.

 

[dmcowen674]

Hey P&Nr's say Education is a priviledge not a right so students must obey.

 

[Genx87]

Good god is this for real? What next they put bar codes on their students and track their movements, phone calls, and communications? Sounds awfully nazi like to me.

I get this vision of the Nazi's in shindlers list setting up their tables for processing when reading that.

 

[sandorski]

This has "blown out of proportion" written all over it. Anyone who has spent a few hours in P&N should see that all kinds of people are capable of taking something most wouldn't think twice about and making it some grand conspiracy. I highly suspect that's the same with the OPs article, just some Hot Head with an Agenda turning unrelated events into some Conspiracy that doesn't exist.

 

[Starbuck1975]

The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

I especially love this little gem.

I am not familiar with FIRE as an organization, so I am not sure if they have an agenda of their own.

There is a thread going on Fark about this topic, and a couple of posters, who claimed to be students at the University of Delaware, claim that this indoctrination program does not exist.

Wouldn't surprise me if such a program does exist...liberal diversity initiatives tend to have an Orwellian slant to them.

 

[Moonbeam]

You people are so silly. You have been through worse than a concentration camp of brainwashing and conformist programming and can't remember any of it. You are all wound up about something that already happened to you 100 times worse long ago.

 

[OrganizedChaos]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

I especially love this little gem.

I am not familiar with FIRE as an organization, so I am not sure if they have an agenda of their own.

There is a thread going on Fark about this topic, and a couple of posters, who claimed to be students at the University of Delaware, claim that this indoctrination program does not exist.

Wouldn't surprise me if such a program does exist...liberal diversity initiatives tend to have an Orwellian slant to them.

http://hotair.com/archives/200...e-university-responds/

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: OrganizedChaos

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

I especially love this little gem.

I am not familiar with FIRE as an organization, so I am not sure if they have an agenda of their own.

There is a thread going on Fark about this topic, and a couple of posters, who claimed to be students at the University of Delaware, claim that this indoctrination program does not exist.

Wouldn't surprise me if such a program does exist...liberal diversity initiatives tend to have an Orwellian slant to them.

http://hotair.com/archives/200...e-university-responds/

Like other folks said, this is pretty clear being blown out of proportion by people with an agenda. The fact that the program isn't mandatory takes about 90% of the problems away.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

I especially love this little gem.

I am not familiar with FIRE as an organization, so I am not sure if they have an agenda of their own.

There is a thread going on Fark about this topic, and a couple of posters, who claimed to be students at the University of Delaware, claim that this indoctrination program does not exist.

Wouldn't surprise me if such a program does exist...liberal diversity initiatives tend to have an Orwellian slant to them.

FIRE has a very specific agenda. They claim to be a civil rights group focusing on higher education, but while they have SOME balance in their issues, almost all of them seem to support conservative causes. Nearly all of their free speech cases, for example, focus on what some people might consider "hate speech".

I'm not saying this proves bias or an agenda, but it's difficult to believe that these are the ONLY cases they can find, that there are no students with liberal views having their rights trampled on. I will also say that in many cases, I believe FIRE has a legitimate point in the individual cases, but their CHOICE of cases to support is clearly to further the agenda that conservative views are being attacked by higher education.

Edit: That's not completely fair, FIRE does have a FEW cases involving people with liberal viewpoints or at least non-conservative ones, so in some sense they do have a little balance. But I still find it difficult to believe that things are as slanted as they appear to be from FIRE's point of view. Mostly because I went to college, and most of the oppressive policies were pretty politically neutral and applied pretty evenly to students. Since students tend to hold more liberal views, I'd expect MORE liberal leaning cases, not less.

 

[Noobtastic]

Universities these days are very very partisan. Here at UCI a Jewish fraternity was fire bombed a couple of years ago, largely because of the anti-Israel agenda the school openly professed.

There are many things conservatives dominate, but higher education isn't one of them.

 

[Orsorum]

I was an RA for four years at a large public university on the West coast, and I will say that I did not see anything of such caliber at the university while I was there. However, I know that the housing staff was predominately liberal; there was a clear focus on gay rights, respecting ethnic identities (often to an extreme), etc. Housing staff or residents who had conservative views usually did not stick around the residence halls for longer than a few years.

I lean towards a libertarian philosophy, with some very strong views on gay rights and the importance of respecting ethnic minorities. However, the attitudes promulgated by my superiors there really started to get to me after a while, because I CAN see and empathize with multiple viewpoints, without dismissing one out of hand or without getting hysterical. Not every person who thinks homosexuality is unnatural or sinful is a crackpot; not every person who opposes unchecked immigration is a hispaniphobe.

I remember getting into a screaming match once with a superior over the Duke Lacrosse scandal; his viewpoint was "well, of course they did it, how you could think they didn't? They're rich white jerks." Mine was... well, let's wait and see, and avoid vilifying anyone until we know the facts. We never did come to an agreement about the issues present when the case arose. I had to stop myself from sending a very snarky email when Nifong dropped the case and got brought up on ethics charges.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: techs
Wow. In ten years they'll be approaching the indoctrination, of say, Liberty University.

You're an idiot/troll... Pick one.

When you go to a private university you know what you're getting. But a public college is supposed to at least present the appearance of neutrality on basic issues. When you go to Liberty you know before you go there that you're going to a religious school. When you to to a state school you're not supposed to have to put up with this crap

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
You people are so silly. You have been through worse than a concentration camp of brainwashing and conformist programming and can't remember any of it. You are all wound up about something that already happened to you 100 times worse long ago.

Oh please explain... or pass the bong.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I would kick them with my Energy Legs.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Like other folks said, this is pretty clear being blown out of proportion by people with an agenda. The fact that the program isn't mandatory takes about 90% of the problems away.

If the program isn't mandatory, it does take some of the bite out of the story. However, I still have a problem that such a program even exists...the agenda of such a program is to indoctrinate students to believe a very hard line and politically correct liberal agenda that has no basis in history or fact.

I don't see how programs such as these, or programming as I see it, is any different than the rhetoric spewed by the religious right...with this particular program protected behind the veil of "education" as opposed to "religion."

Same coin, different side.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: OrganizedChaos

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

I especially love this little gem.

I am not familiar with FIRE as an organization, so I am not sure if they have an agenda of their own.

There is a thread going on Fark about this topic, and a couple of posters, who claimed to be students at the University of Delaware, claim that this indoctrination program does not exist.

Wouldn't surprise me if such a program does exist...liberal diversity initiatives tend to have an Orwellian slant to them.

http://hotair.com/archives/200...e-university-responds/

I kinda dismissed this guy's (the linked blogger) take on UD's response as soon as I saw that he called Ms. Malkin by "Michelle" only like he knows her personally. Then, along with it, I had to dismiss the fact that the quoted person took the time to actually post the link to the blogger's very slanted opinion of the story instead of just putting up the actual link to the university's response (which to the blogger's credit he did post on his site even though he only quoted part of it) as a not so subtle attempt to "indoctrinate" a little bit of his own.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong

Originally posted by: OrganizedChaos

Originally posted by: Starbuck1975

The RAs have been taught that a "racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture, or sexuality."

I especially love this little gem.

I am not familiar with FIRE as an organization, so I am not sure if they have an agenda of their own.

There is a thread going on Fark about this topic, and a couple of posters, who claimed to be students at the University of Delaware, claim that this indoctrination program does not exist.

Wouldn't surprise me if such a program does exist...liberal diversity initiatives tend to have an Orwellian slant to them.

http://hotair.com/archives/200...e-university-responds/

I kinda dismissed this guy's (the linked blogger) take on UD's response as soon as I saw that he called Ms. Malkin by "Michelle" only like he knows her personally. Then, along with it, I had to dismiss the fact that the quoted person took the time to actually post the link to the blogger's very slanted opinion of the story instead of just putting up the actual link to the university's response (which to the blogger's credit he did post on his site even though he only quoted part of it) as a not so subtle attempt to "indoctrinate" a little bit of his own.

Uhh - Malkin founded HotAir and Bryan and Allah seem to now do most of the day to day stuff. Not difficult info to find since you were looking for some ammo to use on the messenger.