For the most part, universities have more in common with Wal-Mart than with North Korea, in the sense of having making money as their first priority. Higher education has become very corporatized in the past couple of decades, part of the “McDonaldization” process sociologists like George Ritzer started noticing back in the early 90s. Universities are for the most part just another variation of a neoliberal corporation, like Amazon or Microsoft. Their objective is to collect tuition payments from students using student loans, and they encourage students to max out on student loans in the process. They also keep jacking up tuition higher and higher and creating more country club-like amenities in order to justify this. The “hyper PC” stuff that conservatives complain about exists, but it’s mostly found in humanities programs, social sciences, and newer fields like gender/ethnic studies. The examples they like to use of woke extremism among students are more rooted in student clubs and activism than the actual administration itself. You can find a lot of conservatives and libertarians in fields like economics, technology-related fields, philosophy, etc. A fair number of neocons are in political science and international relations. In history, which was one of my graduate programs, the atmosphere is definitely “liberal” (closer to MSNBC than FOX if a distinction needs to be made) but not “far left.” In the social sciences, you find people that match the FOX stereotype but they’re usually in the minority.
By Melissa Koenig For Dailymail.Com
Columbia student, 27, who escaped Stalinist dictatorship warns wokeism is stifling freedom of speech at US universities just like in her homeland.
- Yeonmi Park and her mother fled North Korea to China over the frozen Yalu River in 2007 when she was just 13-years-old
- From there, the two were sold into slavery by human traffickers, but were ultimately rescued by Christian missionaries who helped them flee to Mongolia
- They trekked across the Gobi Desert to find refuge in South Korea, where Park went to school until she transferred to Columbia University in 2016
- She said she was expecting to learn how to think critically but instead was ‘force to think the way they want you to think’
- She also said she was confused by people claiming they were oppressed when they went to the half-million dollar school
