Some time ago we posted a video Do Schools Discriminate Against Boys?
That video empirically demonstrated that in many institutions, boys have been subjected
to negative discrimination in course assessments, placing them at a disadvantage in competing
for university entrance and scholarships.
That Viewpoint has now garnered several million views and inspired many viewers to relate
their similar experiences in the comment section.
The comments affirming the video's thesis were overwhelming, highlighting the seriousness
of this issue and its impact on a significant part of our male audience.
The anti-male bias in education is not improving but accelerating, and now involves post-secondary
institutions, some of them prestigious.
In fact, it is not just anti-male, but anti-analytical, anti-knowledge, and anti-free thought.
The well-known Canadian professor and commentator Jordan Peterson recently exposed the appalling
rate of growth of the discriminatory practice in Canadian and American universities, one
of the reasons he resigned recently from his professorship at the University of Toronto.
In an interview with the National Post (Jan. 19, 2022) Peterson voiced the reasons why
he felt it essential to quit the job he loved.
The rationale for his departure reflects the deplorable anti-intellectualism of the social
justice activists, to whom venerable institutions have meekly surrendered management.
Peterson cites something he refers to as DIE as one of the key factors which prompted his
resignation.
He states: First, my qualified and supremely trained
heterosexual white male graduate students (and I've had many others, by the way) face
a negligible chance of being offered university research positions, despite stellar scientific
dossiers.
This is partly because of Diversity, Inclusivity, and Equity mandates (my preferred acronym:
DIE).
These have been imposed universally in academia, despite the fact that university hiring committees
had already done everything reasonable for all the years of my career, and then some,
to ensure that no qualified minority candidates were ever overlooked.
Petersen s experience and observations revealed a deliberate application of an affirmative
action plan that put significant barriers in front of highly-qualified white male applicants.
His second reason is the setting of diversity targets representing a large range of identifiable
minorities, when there are not enough qualified minority applicants available, resulting in
a diminishment in the quality and direction of university research.
This has very negative academic, economic, and industrial implications downstream.
This means we are out to produce a generation of researchers utterly unqualified for the
job.
And we've seen what that means already in the horrible grievance studies disciplines.
That, combined with the death of objective testing, has compromised the universities
so badly that it can hardly be overstated.
Peterson goes on to explain that professors must write DIE statements in applications
for research grants, causing many to be dishonest if they wish to have any chance at a successful
grant application.
He explains the justification for these processes lacks scientific reliability, yet they are
largely being promoted by an overtly-leftist professor from Harvard.
We are now at the point where race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference is first, accepted
as the fundamental characteristic defining each person (just as the radical leftists
were hoping), and second, is now treated as the most important qualification for study,
research, and employment.
Imposing any criteria on hiring other than the knowledge and competence to do the job
at hand weakens not just the hiring entity, but the society.
Merit as measured by knowledge, skill and competence should be the only criterion applicable
to most positions, especially in academia.
Any nation that moves in the directions described by Dr. Peterson is doomed.
He is likely quite right to be very fearful of the future of this land.
It is interesting however that about 2700 years ago a visionary made a prediction about
the nations that now occupy parts of western Europe and North America.
The source of this comment is often dismissed and scorned today, but it has a ring of reality
about it when you think of it.
The Israelite prince named Isaiah made a statement: As for My people, children are their oppressors,
and women rule over them.
O my people!
Those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.
Such situations would have been thought impossible a few decades ago.
One might wonder how someone could have foreseen the situation in which we now find ourselves.
If that ancient Biblical text was accurate about this, what else might if have to say
about our future?