23/02/05

Man-Haters At Knox College

David Usher

MensNewsDaily

On January 14th, the President of Harvard University made a correct observation: the under-representation of female scientists at elite universities may stem in part from “innate" differences between men and women. This is both empirically and intuitively obvious to everyone. It explains, to a reasonable degree, how choice and freedom work. In this case, women tend to choose careers in fields that interest women, and men choose careers in subjects they prefer.

Reality is anathema to campus feminists, whose careers depend on expounding agitprop as science. Instead of viewing Summer’s assessment for what it entails, the exercise of “individual choice” in combination with Harvard’s long-standing policy of choosing professors based on their actual ability; feminists immediately turned to their traditional subversive political and Freudian psychological techniques.

Let us compare Summers statement to one by the late Barbara Jordan, who in 1991 made a deeply sexist statement at national gathering of women political leaders in Austin; "I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which a man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it," she said. "He's just incapable of it."

Jordan’s statement was truly sexist because it was a self-confessed statement of subjectivebelief not fungible by any objective yardstick. It contrasts brightly with Summer’s statement, which provides a palpable analysis explaining why women are not as prevalent in sciences.

Men’s groups justifiably went ballistic over Jordan’s statement. The Texas Father’s Alliance organized a substantial campus protest at the University of Texas, where she worked, calling for her ouster.. It just isn’t possible to nail a black women for being grossly sexist, even in Texas. If she can survive her neanderthal statement, President Summers can survive too.

Here is a key observation about Summergate: After launching a fog of screeching baseless allegations, Harvard’s feminists immediately changed the subject towards an unconditional demand for artificial “equal representation of women” in the sciences regardless of ability or choice. This is their objective, and it has nothing to do with Dean Summers or anybody else.

In order to get it, Harvard’s feminists are simply applying the classic feminist blackmail techinique: launching a barrage of allegations to make some unlucky guy give them the moon and the stars, and perhaps some prime real estate on Venus too. Its not about what you said, President Summers, its about your position.

We all know that Harvard has a determined campus feminist machine. In 2001, the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) sent college newspapers an ad debunking "the 10 most common feminist myths". It was published at Yale, UCLA, Northwestern, and Dartmouth; but was censored by feminists at the Harvard Crimson.

There is much more at stake here than meets the naked eye. The end goal of Harvard’s feminists is to maintain the dominance that women have in social sciences (because they choose that), and force a feminist takeover of core sciences (because men chose that).

What do I mean when I say “taking over” core sciences?

Campus women’s studies programs use “women’s interdepartmental studies” coursework to inject feminist dogma into other academic fields. This goes well beyond innocent research brought back to the Women’s Studies classes: Student feminists are sent out to practice their political skills forcing other departments to conform to feminist dicta, and feminist faculty members press their demands at the academic level. The historic metastasization of feminism into the fields of psychology, psychiatry, law, and social services has destroyed these fields to the point where men (and women) of integrity cannot finish a degree or advance their career. I have met many men who abandoned these fields for this very reason.

Feminists know that if they can gain control of core sciences, those fields will also become additional vehicles for brainwashing the next generation and generating the kinds of false science feminists use to cite their beliefs.

Harvard is facing a feminist transformation of core sciences, to literally be misused as feminist nanotechnology, the female anatomy as the dominant mathematical one-manifold, the sexualization of astronomy, physics applied to prove that men a more dangerous than women, and chemistry proving that men are inferior. If you think I am joking, just look at what is left of fields dominated by feminists such as psychology, sociology, social services, public school education, and psychiatry.

Summers has only two choices now: resign and let Harvard become a third-world university, or expose campus feminism for what it is and maintain high academic standards My experience with campus politics suggests that he will win if he takes them on in a direct and unemotional manner.

Why must President Summers stand his ground? Here is what happened to one former top-ranking liberal arts college that succumbed to a feminist takeover.

I am a 1974 alumnus of Knox College, located in Galesburg Illinois. At that time, it was considered to be one of the top ten small liberal arts colleges. Feminism was the talk (and in some cases hot debate) among the student body. But feminism had not yet taken over the college, because the feminists-in-training were still in college.

In the late 1990’s, I gave a couple of seminars at Knox on why equal rights for men is important for social progress. Most students were quite interested (and also immensely uninformed on earth-based gender studies). The take-away from that talk was an unexpected epithet I found scrawled in chalk on the sidewalk after a lecture: “Usher is a bigot”.

In October 2002, I attended homecoming. It a most disturbing experience. Huge rainbow draperies with gay and lesbian slogans were hanging all over “Old Main” and other campus buildings. Brash and even incendiary lesbian, gay, and radical feminist slogans were scrawled on sidewalks all over campus. The student union was plastered with leaflets for various campus feminist activities. Nowhere on campus did I see anything suggesting that any other perspective even existed on campus.

I discovered the College had spent a fair amount of money refurbished a building for use as a “Human Rights Center”; providing a formal footing for a variety of radical feminist activist groups including Common Ground, SASS (a radical feminist group called “Students Against Sexism in Society”), Amnesty International and Women's Health Advocacy.

I wasn’t the only one who realized that something was amiss at Knox. Many other alumns noticed it too, and it was the talk of the reunion.

I had a private meeting with a high-ranking college administrator, who openly admitted that Knox was in serious trouble, and something needed to be done about it. But he said, “I can’t afford to lose my job, so I can’t help you”. A few other professors privately offered similar confirmations.

I wrote a thoughtful but direct letter published in the Galesburg Zephyr on October 17 th, 2002, addressing the obvious imbalance of political perspectives on campus. I pointed out the real social meaning of one of the feminist visions scrawled on the sidewalk: “Heather has two mommies”. (Read: When any two women can marry each other, we have no use for men any more).

The following week a most unscholarly retort was published in the Zephyr, signed by (only) 43% of the Knox faculty. In a nonsensical diatribe, they wrote; “His views are imbued with hateful thoughts particularly towards women and homosexuals” They claimed moral superiority “opposing sexism and heterosexism”, when in fact they are the ones actively fomenting heterosexism on campus. They accused me of “opposing rigorous debate”, when if fact they are the ones objecting to it.

My article contained nothing resembling their claim: it was a clean analysis of what was going on at Knox and how the college is hurting its own students.

Anybody who has followed me during my 19 years of hard work in the men’s movement knows that I work the issues, fairly and squarely; and play hardball politics when necessary to bring about a moral result. Even the most hard-core radical feminist operatives such as Trish Wilson, who scour the net rabidly, haven’t been able to find one thing to dirty my record. I am here to get equal rights for fathers to be in the family and society.

I was informed by a student I was working with that the women’s studies department had sent a few screeching student activists around campus with their letter demanding signatures of the entire faculty. They couldn’t get even half the faculty to sign it. Dr. Lawrence Breitborde, the Dean of the College went on to publish the letter as a “faculty position” without having it ratified, as required by college policy.

I received letters from a few male students at Knox, thanking me for taking Knox to task and revealing some very interesting things. Feminist dogma had been merged into much coursework, particularly psychology, English, sociology, and freshman preceptorials. Reciting those views on command was required for getting a passing grade. Conservative student organizations received no support from the college, and were under heavy attack from both their peers and professors. At least two football players were considering transferring to get away from the constant harassment. At least one student did transfer out.

The Women’s studies program was Knox’s largest department in terms of the number of teaching professors. With 17 professors, it was larger than the English department and nearly twice the size of any other department. This is apparently the “third missionary element” of the Women’s Interdisciplinary Studies model -- drafting professors from other fields to immerse them in deep dark feminism so they can export it into their core coursework too.

I started up a discussion with some alumnae and Knox Professors. Several well-placed classmates agreed with me. In fact, one of them decided not to send his daughter to Knox for several reasons based on these problems. Others decided not to give money to the college. I received no positive responses from Knox professors, but then I did not expect them given the fact they would get fired if word got around.

I did, however, receive a letter from Roger Taylor, the president of the college (who is also an attorney). Roger censored my email, mislabeling it “spam”, and accused me of “harassment”. He had a filter placed on their mail server so campus students could no longer work with me. This is an abject violation of all fundamental principles of academic study and debate on topical issues. It also violates internet RFC 2635, which clearly separates political from commercial speech.

To make sure I wasn’t fooling myself, I researched the Knox library to see if it was censored too. In the summer of 2004, Knox had approximately 54 shelves of books pontificating from the feminist or gay perspective. There is not one book by any well-known contemporary best-selling men’s scholar (such as Sanford Braver or Warren Farrell), and nothing written from contemporary heterosexual perspectives. It is pretty hard to come to any other conclusion than to believe that the Knox Library has been censored according to the feminist yardstick.

There are no books about or for “men”. Feminists do not want young men to have any balanced information on which they might find a healthy male identity. Men are what feminist defined them to be. Of course, this is no different than the Taliban preventing women from having information that might allow them to gain equal rights in Muslim societies.

Things might have worked out quite differently for Knox if Roger Taylor had the guts to enforce academic standards at Knox. Roger could have survived a feminist attack because at least 54% of the faculty was on my side. There is no doubt in my mind that the majority of Alumns, who have the experience and wisdom to see campus feminism for what it is, would largely side with us. The percentage of faculty supporting me would have been even larger if professors felt safe enough to state their positions absent terrorism by the campus feminist machine.

It appears that Knox may have instituted a version of “Vision 2000” , designed by New England Council of University Women to overhaul all campus coursework to agree with radical feminist dicta, methodology, and ideals. Amherst and the University of Massachusetts considered the plan. John Leo dismembered the real purpose of this plan in his piece “No Takeovers, Please”

John Leo is quite facile exposing the sickness of campus feminism, and what it does to colleges. In Campus life, fully exposed, documents a survey taken at the Argus campus newspaper at Wesleyan college. It found that 32 percent of the students feel "uncomfortable speaking their opinion." It seems that Wesleyan, like Knox, stamps out diversity in the name of diversity.

Knox is paying a heavy price for failing to attend to simple academic principles. In 1999, Knox was number 11 in the U.S. News national academic ranking of top liberal arts schools. In 2002, it fell to 15 th place. By 2003, it plummeted to 77 th place (with only a 3.0 out of 5 point academic rating scale). Today, Knox sits in 78th place.

The problems at Knox College may have political roots. Knox’s plummeting academic rates correspond precisely in time with John Podesta, who was Bill Clinton’s former Chief of Staff, joining the board of Trustees in 2001; and Roger L. Taylor becoming its President. Most of us know that the Democrat party agenda is powered by feminists and their trial lawyers, and feminists work diligently to censor any speech they don’t like.

My message to President Summers is this: You have a duty to stand your ground and protect the academic legacy of Harvard and preserve its very future. What you said is not sexist and does not imply that you hold any discriminatory views against women. Campus feminists hope to pull off a coup to ensure that nobody on campus ever again says anything they don’t like.

My experience with Knox College suggests that you probably have the majority of professors on your side, albeit some are sitting quietly until they feel it is safe to express their views. Courage on your part will bring them to stand with you. Other than a few noisy campus feminists, who the women’s studies department sends out on terrorist missions, much of the student body will not be against you.

You have the advantage. Campus feminists can be undone in their own words, if you use their own words against them. Most men and women want equality, not gender terrorism. By sticking to the facts, pointing out the absurdity of their claims, and calmly standing your ground, you can isolate them politically.

I am quite positive you will have the majority of the student body on your side. I was the keynote speaker for a Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony in St. Louis in 2000. I received a long, standing ovation after giving a straight talk about how radical feminism has hurt everyone by destroying their families and lives. I showed them how they can make their lives better by not repeating what their parents did. Harvard has some of the smartest students on the planet, and I expect they are not stupid enough to buy into the nonsense spewed by campus feminists.