In 2008, the voters of the United States elected their first and, to date, only President of color, Barack Obama. We were told at the time that his elevation to the highest office in the land would herald a new age of race relations in our nation. The country would no longer be defined by its history, which included the eras of slavery and Jim Crow. All Americans were now free and equal to aspire to the heights of success that their time and talents could take them. The promise of our foundational documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, had finally been achieved.
But the hope and change that marked that pivotal election remained unfulfilled over the next eight years. In fact, something very different happened. Race relations in America steadily deteriorated to levels not seen since before the Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century.
President Obama helped stoke the flames of racial animosity by inserting himself into every high-profile criminal case across the country that could be in any way, shape, or form twisted into a racial incident. By the end of his presidency, more Americans than almost ever before were convinced that the United States, instead of transcending its racist past, was even more racist than it had been in the days of slavery and that its white colonialist supremacy had been extended to include not just xenophobia, but also homophobia, transphobia, and any other type of phobia that social scientists could create.
No institution in America embraced these new attitudes like higher education. Colleges and universities had always been a haven for the most radical critics of the American experiment, but what once had been considered an annoying but relatively harmless fringe movement was able to burst forth into full flower as not just mainstream but required. Flush with cash from a government eager to promote ideas like “critical race theory,” “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), and anti-racism, which, in large part, had been created by higher education, educational bureaucracies mandated trainings and presentations to bolster those already familiar with these concepts and to indoctrinate scores of instructors whose own disciplines had never really been concerned with such ideas.
If higher education led the way, then California would lead higher education down this primrose path.
As someone educated in and who worked as an instructor in California’s colleges and universities, I had a front-row seat for the enthusiastic move away from education and toward equity. Equality became a dirty word. It was simply a white supremacist trope to cover for the embedded racism et al., which already existed. Opportunity was not enough. Again, it was simply window dressing to cover up the inherent inequities that kept traditionally minoritized groups from achieving. And hard work?! That was the worst of all. Because implying that some students’ inability to succeed was due to lack of effort rather than some form of prejudice was the ultimate insult.
Since students were now absolved of all responsibility for their own educations, that responsibility now fell to the instructors. They were the ones who needed to be educated, nay indoctrinated so that they and their students could avoid the pitfalls and traps that had been inserted into the systems of higher education from time immemorial. And for those who could or would not be indoctrinated? Well, they had to be eliminated for the good of the institution. Absolute obedience was required, and dissent needed to be ruthlessly suppressed.
Freedom of speech, which had been lauded as a virtue while these radical ideas existed on the fringes of academia, now became the greatest vice. The more an instructor pushed back, the more dangerous they became. It wasn’t just that students might be learning something different than their peers, but it was an actual physical threat to their existence. A non-binary student who was being taught that sexual dimorphism is the standard for mammals in biology might be at risk of suicide. A student from a non-white ethnicity who was being taught that Western civilization might have contributed positively to human development might develop anxiety or low self-esteem, which could affect their health or life choices. Even something as innocuous as referring to a group of students as “guys” could shatter psyches and destroy lives. If free speech allowed such atrocities, it must be stamped out for the greater good. After all, instructors were simply employees who were expected to tow the company line in all things, especially their ideas.
Once the pandemic struck and these bureaucracies got a sense of their own power by shutting down schools and mandating masks and vaccines, the time was right for purging the ranks of infidels from California’s institutions of higher education. In the last few years, instructors and administrators in colleges across California were investigated, suspended, and even terminated for offenses that would have been unimaginable even just a few years before. And if no offense had been committed, one could always be manufactured. Everyone knows that reality is simply a personal construct created by the individual. “Lived experiences” trump any objective reality, and natural law is whatever one wants it to be. “I create my own reality” became the mantra of those who believed that nature’s law and the God who created it could be molded and shaped into whatever form the individual chose.
Well, as is usually the case, that idea worked until it didn’t.
In Southern California, they tried to fire a colleague because of his alleged racism by accusing him of felony misconduct and immorality. Administrators, faculty, students, and even the Board of Trustees were convinced that he had plotted and planned to destroy the college from within by undermining its efforts to achieve DEI.
The only issue was that it never happened—at least, not as the college claimed.
In 2023, he was yanked out of the classroom, his pay stopped coming, and that was supposed to be the end. However, he fought back and forced an administrative hearing, which ultimately showed that the facts did not support most of the evidence presented by the college. As John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Learning that lesson will cost the college and the district a lot of money.
And while my colleague’s case is one of the more egregious, it is not the only one. More cases are happening, especially here in California—all the time. Others have had their contracts not renewed or have been suspended for simply questioning various aspects of the ideology that grips our colleges and universities like icy death. I myself have barely hung onto my job as an instructor after multiple complaints, a letter of reprimand, a 90-day notice, and even a Title IX investigation.
But again, “facts are stubborn things,” and when the evidence was presented and the truth was told, the reality that my college created to get rid of me also fell apart. It seems that perhaps there is a reality that exists outside our perceptions and that maybe that reality is worth sharing with our students.
Image designed by Jared Gould — Protest by Wisarut Official on Adobe Stock, Asset ID#: 758128293 — Photo of President Obama by Ari Levinson on Wikimedia Commons
My university is far, far left. We hear all the time about activities designed to eliminate “systematic racism and oppression” on campus. We need to start including previously marginalized students of color. Equity is the cure-all. What never ceases to amaze me is the very woke people doing all of this whining are the very same people who have been in charge of my university for decades.