11. Parker, supra note 5.
12. Menchu's speech was announced by an advertisement in The Stanford Daily, November 22, 1991. In addition to the Office for Multicultural Development, the list of sponsors included the Center for Latin American Studies, Casa Zapata (the Chicano/Latino dormitory), the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, El Centro Chicano, Innovative Academic Programs, Comité Unidad Guatemalteca, Stanford's Memorial Church, the Ho Fund, and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
13. Miranda Doyle and Holly Hacker, “Cabinet sends new sex assault rules back for revision,” The Stanford Daily, November 1, 1991.
14. Like the Affirmative Action Plan For Stanford University, Sharon Parker also drafted the School Plans for Faculty and Graduate Student Recruitment 1991-1994, which was released by the Office for Multicultural Development and signed by University President Donald Kennedy and Provost James Rosse. See Sacks, supra note 3.
15. Beginning in 1987, the campus Chicano community demanded that the university no longer serve grapes or grape juice. Senior Julie Martinez explained that the boycott was an effort to protect California's grape pickers from carcinogenic pesticides: “It's a battle of wealthy grape growers and poor farm workers,” said Martinez. “Who's the university going to listen to?” For activists like Martinez, not taking a side was equivalent to taking the side of the “wealthy” growers. President Kennedy encouraged the students, telling them “to let Food Service see that [grape] use is lower.” See Erin Martin, “Short meeting disappoints Chicanos,” The Stanford Daily, November 19, 1987. See also Delia Ibarra, “What grapes mean to me,” The Stanford Daily, April 4, 1991.
16. “For the Record,” The Stanford Review, November 25, 1991.
17. Final Report Of The University Committee On Minority Issues, March 1989.
18. The word is the OMD's. It comes from an article the OMD distributes to promote multiculturalism and overcome the “legacy of deep-grained monocultural thinking in the United States.” See Joan Steinau Lester, “The Multicultural Organizational Change Process: Seven Essential Components,” Black Issues in Higher Education, February 15, 1990.
19. This conception of multiculturalism is common at universities across the country. A good example is the Multicultural Curriculum Development Grant Program at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Peter Wagner, the university's Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, announced the program's inception in a December 18, 1989, memorandum: “Traditional curricula have been largely Eurocentric in emphasis, particularly in general education. Even individual courses in which culture, ethnicity, gender, and race should be irrelevant to content may be affected by judgmental modes of thought and presentation, or by cultural disincentives…. The intent of this program is to nurture and encourage the creation of a curriculum that is fundamentally multicultural, one that does not favor any specific cultural, ethnic, or racial group, and that assures parity in such other areas as religion and sexual preferences.”
20. Stacey Leyton, “Minority panel selection justified,” The Stanford Daily, October 16, 1987.
21. Indeed, in the very same issue of The Stanford Daily, someone made precisely this point: Would the Baha'i, for example, have reason to feel discriminated against because they were not one of the “Third World communities” that counted? See Koleman Strumpf, “Minorities not always diverse,” The Stanford Daily, October 16, 1987.
22. Bill Workman, “Stanford Irish Americans Want Own Course,” The San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 1993.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Skip Schwartz, “Big Game Bonfire canceled to protect salamanders; Annual event would ‘undoubtedly cook’ recently returned animals,” The Stanford Daily, October 8, 1993.
27. Andrea Park, “Non-Western feminism,” The Stanford Daily, December 1, 1992.
28. Ibid.
29. Ed Malone, “Graduation speaker's works contradict ‘conservative’ label,” The Stanford Review, April 4, 1994.
30. Barry Katz, Campus Report, August 8, 1986.
31. Michael Jackson, quoted in The Stanford Century, Stanford Alumni Association, 1991.
32. In March 1995, Dean Jackson left Stanford to become vice president of the University of Southern California. See Martin Yeung, “Speeding the process: New dean of students will be chosen by end of quarter,” The Stanford Daily, May 22, 1995.
33. Theresa Johnston, “Focus Houses Offer Students Culture…and the ’60's,” Stanford University News Service: Stanford Story Source, December 1992.
34. One independent-minded black freshman revealed in The Stanford Daily that the leaders of the BSU indeed branded dissenters as “sell-outs.” He wrote: “The BSU should not label blacks who criticize them as ‘sell-outs.’ If ‘selling out’ can be defined as not helping the black cause, then those who refuse to listen to constructive criticism are the true ‘sell-outs.’” See Michael Jones, “Freshman criticizes Black Student Union's agenda, leadership,” The Stanford Daily, May 29, 1992.
35. Jim Luh, “Few eateries serve grapes,” The Stanford Daily, May 6, 1994.
36. See Martin Anderson, Imposters in the Temple (New York: Simon & Schuster 1992).
37. Aman Verjee, “Does Stanford engage in political discrimination?” The Washington Times, January 9, 1995.
38. Anderson, supra note 36.
39. See, for instance, Grace Lee, “Anti-gay ROTC policy questioned by Kennedy,” The Stanford Daily, May 20, 1992.
40. Michael Friedly, “Changing the Face of Stanford: Kennedy leaves behind legacy of multiculturalism,” The Stanford Daily, May 27, 1992.
41. Heather Heal, “No budget cuts here: Stanford seeks new multicultural educator,” The Stanford Review, January 19, 1993.
42. Ibid.
43. James Lyons, “Final Report on Recent Incidents at Ujamaa House,” Campus Report, January 18, 1989. In the Final Report, aliases were used for the individuals involved, although their names were widely reported by the media at the time. Ben was referred to as “Alex,” Gus as “Fred,” and B. J. as “Q. C.” Otherwise, the Report provides a highly detailed chronology of events. See also Bob Beyers, “Stanford Launches Investigation Of Worst In Series Of Racist Incidents,” Stanford University News Service, October 17, 1988.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid. The Final Report, interestingly, makes nothing more of the residence staffs dissembling. Apparently, coercive tactics were permitted if they furthered multiculturalism. Two (“superordinated”) freshmen's defiling a flier and angering (“subordinated”) minorities was an abuse of power; a university staffer's bullying of a student in his charge was not.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid:
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Eileen Walsh, “Freshmen Who Defaced Beethoven Poster Suspended From Student Residence Community for Two Quarters,” Stanford University News Service, January 10, 1989.
56. Cheryl Taylor, speech at “Rally Against Racism,” October 26, 1988. Her remarks were reprinted in “A Mandate for Change,” October 26, 1988, a press statement printed and distributed by the Black Student Union, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), Stanford American Indian Organization, and Asian American Students Association.
3
Educating Generation X
Of all the intensely politicized campuses in the republic—and there are many—Stanford is about the worst. Moreover, the politics that dominate are not simply the poisonous teachings of Marx, Lenin, the German mentors of Hitler or any of the other propounders of New Dawns this century. All those fanatics come across as teachers of genius and integrity compared with the infantile nitwits being taught on America's flagrantly politicized campuses.1
—Columnist R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
I couldn't have taught this class 10 years ago,” history profess
or Kennell Jackson declared to an overflowing classroom on the first day of the 1992 Spring quarter. “But people don't look at me like I'm crazy anymore—what history does has broadened considerably.”2 And Professor Jackson was not exaggerating. “Black Hair as Culture and History,” his new upper-level History seminar, addressed how black hair “has interacted with the black presence in this country, and how it has played a role in the evolution of black society.”3
Turning from the chalkboard, Professor Jackson asked whether anyone had experienced “A Black Hair Event” recently. One student piped up from the back of the room: “Juliette Lewis's cornrow hair at the Oscars.” “That's a good one,” Professor Jackson agreed, producing a picture of the actress from USA Today. “Any others? No? Well, look for next week.”4
If not for Professor Jackson's earnestness, one might have mistaken the class for a parody of multiculturalism. The syllabus outlined the curriculum for the quarter:
April 1: Introduction to the Idea and the Unfolding of the Course
April 8: The African Conception of Beauty and the Place of the Face, Head, and Hair in the Conception of Beauty
April 15: Early Black Hair in America to the 1920s
April 22: The Birth of Straightened Hair: The Practice and the Cultural Ideas Surrounding This Development
April 29: New Ideas on Black Hair in the 1960s and the Rise of the “Afro” (with Some Cornrows and Some Braiding)
May 13: The Great Debate: The Legacy of the 1960s; Black Hair as Identity
May 20: The 1980s-1990s as Festival of Black Hairstyles: Fade-O-Rama, Braiding, and Dreadlocks
May 27: The Economic and Status Importance of Black Hair
June 3 and 10: Visits from Hairstylists5
In addition to discussing such topics as “the Rise of the ‘Afro’” and “Fade-O-Rama, Braiding and Dreadlocks” with local hairstylists, enrolled students viewed the 1960s musical Hair, read Willie L. Morrow's 400 Years Without a Comb and Dylan Jones's Haircults, and studied the lyrics of Michael Jackson's hit pop single “Man in the Mirror.”6
Towards the end of the quarter, Professor Jackson engaged students in “The Great Debate”—the dilemma over whether blacks should “straighten” their hair or remain “natural.” The “greatness” attributed to this debate (implying that one of the most important things a black student could think about is his hair) was an indication of just how far Professor Jackson and his multicultural followers had strayed from the color-blind “promised land” of Martin Luther King: They lived in a world where blacks were judged neither by the color of their skin nor by the content of their character, but rather by the straightness of their hair.
The absurd race consciousness of “Black Hair” is a testament to the extremes to which multiculturalism has taken the curriculum. The new thinking and new disciplines that loftily promised to “broaden horizons” and “open minds” in reality teach students banalities: that the Afro represents 1960s rebelliousness and that straightening one's hair is a symbol of cultural subordination. Rather than helping students to surmount superficial racial differences, the new curriculum has enshrined them in an attempt to make minority students feel good. In this respect, “Black Hair” finds its niche as a self-help seminar: Disadvantaged students may experience a sense of dignity at Professor Jackson's discovery that African Americans were the preeminent wig makers of colonial America. Hairdressers, too, can take pride in their inclusion on Stanford's reading list. An academic climate once intended to foster individual thought now promotes group therapy.
As a practical matter, the rejection of objective academic standards has left trendiness as the only guiding principle. No one wants to seem less “tolerant” or “open-minded” than anybody else, so even a class as trivial as “Black Hair” must be enthusiastically welcomed. Professor Jackson, for one, certainly makes the subject matter sound important. Perspiration dripping from his forehead, he proclaimed, “Black hair has interacted with society, and today I'm trying to make it into a field. You wouldn't find the same interaction in Africa. You don't find the conflict—over whose hair should be what, in what dimensions.” Moreover, he intoned, “The term itself is homogeneous. It allows people to avoid what black hair is. This is a very real issue, that there is this thing that we are assuming is called ‘black hair.’”
Despite Professor Jackson's pretensions, few people in the “real world” truly believe that his class will improve the next generation of American minds—the group born roughly between 1965 and 1974, formerly called “twentysomethings” or “post-boomers,” and now increasingly known as “Generation X.”7 Nevertheless, Professor Jackson is correct in his observation that “what history does has broadened considerably”—at least at Stanford. After creating new classes like “Black Hair,” Stanford's multiculturalists have changed the university's “distribution requirements” (DRs) to mandate such classes for graduation. Moreover, they have revamped much of the more mainstream curriculum to incorporate elements found in “Black Hair”—the class's therapeutic function, its adulation of trendiness, its emphasis on victims and victimhood, and its radicalizing of differences. In the absence of objective standards to prune these classes from a coherent curriculum, not one but a number of curricula, each supporting some professor's personal agenda, have sprung up like weeds in the garden of higher education and have choked off genuine liberal arts learning. The resulting effect is that the new curricula are ultimately empty. When everything is educationally important—and even hairstyles are worthy of study—nothing is educationally important. It has not taken long for Generation X to reach this unfortunate conclusion.
The Therapeutic Curriculum
It is often remarked that the most difficult aspect about Stanford is getting in. In the last decade this witticism has grown increasingly true. Despite its well-earned reputation as a school with perhaps the most competitive admissions process in the country, classwork at Stanford in many ways no longer demands the intellectual equivalent of sweat. In March 1993, Stanford's Committee on Academic Appraisal and Achievement (C-AAA) undertook “a comprehensive review of Stanford's policies concerning grades and transcripts.”8 The impetus for the study was growing concern over the leniency of Stanford's grading system. Of all letter grades granted to students, about half were A's, 39 percent were Bs, only 10 percent were C's, and about 1 percent were D's.9 Stanford had eliminated the “F” in the early 1970s, so students who flunked a class's minimum requirements simply received no credit for the course (NC), a mark which did not appear on their official transcripts.10 The resulting grade distribution often warped incentives. “Stories abound on campus,” reported the Chicago Tribune, “of students fearing they didn't do well on final exams, tearfully begging professors to ‘fail’ them—thus erasing any record that they took the course—to avoid a dreaded D or C.”11 Stanford changed the system slightly in 1994 (as explained in the final chapter).
In addition to the favorable grade distribution, Stanford also offers a number of grade sweeteners. Students may take classes P/NC (pass/no credit), an option under which they do not receive a letter grade for passing, but get a “+” on their transcripts.12 Many students select this option in classes meeting DRs as it allows them to complete these graduation requirements with the least possible effort. For many years, students also had the option of “dropping” a class up to 24 hours before the final if they felt they were not doing well. Since the average grade at Stanford is an A-,13 many students exercised this option as a precautionary measure against getting a C or even a B in a risky class. Even if a student fails to anticipate a low grade and remains in the class, he may retake the class if he is dissatisfied with his grade. Under this retake option, the new grade simply supplants the old one on the transcript.14
The Committee's study of Stanford's grading policies did not alarm the faculty so much as prompt a defense of grade inflation. The position of the status quo was best described by one faculty member: “The liberal transcript policies offer [stu
dents] a respite from demanding parents, fear of life-long failure, and ulcers…. We need to address the emotional fabric of their lives.”15 In short, the desire to make students feel good trumped the need for academic rigor, not to mention the need to provide parents a return on their $100,000 investment.
The reaction of some professors indicated that they might even be willing to accept 100 percent grade inflation—or its functional equivalent, the abolishment of grades altogether—in order to promote student self-esteem. Writing to the Stanford Daily, education and psychology professor John D. Krumboltz and education professor Nel Noddings criticized the survey: “No mention was made of eliminating D grades, and yet it is clearly the fear of D grades that leads students to request an NC grade instead.”16 Of course, eliminating the D would only make the C that much more undesirable. In that case, the fear of C grades would lead students to request an NC grade instead. Over time, one would have to eliminate the C as well, and then the B. Indeed, Professors Krumboltz and Noddings reached the same conclusion:
No questions were raised about the necessity of grading itself…. No hints about modern evaluative techniques were mentioned. The questionnaire gave us the choice of maintaining the status quo or moving backward.17
If “moving backward” meant reducing grade inflation, “moving forward” would likely entail inflating grades further: “If we want to equip [students] to deal effectively with the unknown future,” the professors concluded, “then we must teach and evaluate them in a way that motivates them for the rest of their lives.”18 Presumably, giving everybody high marks would “motivate” students in such a way. Not surprisingly, however, the inflated grading system has precisely the opposite effect. Students have little incentive to work hard and perform above average when the average grade is a high B or even an A. “Stanford has a really lax policy,” complained Julie Makinen, editor in 1993 of the Stanford Daily, to the Wall Street Journal. “It isn't fair to the people who do really excellent work.”19
The Diversity Myth Page 10
