Trouble Brewing within a Conservative Citadel
Sad to say, but American higher education is littered with once-venerable Christian colleges and universities that have succumbed to the spirit of the age. Recent examples include Azusa Pacific University, Calvin University, and Wheaton College: in different ways each has fallen prey to aspects of critical race theory (CRT), as well as gender and queer theory, CRT’s fellow travelers.
If any school were immune to this trend, one would think it would be Grove City College (GCC), an institution not only grounded in Biblical orthodoxy and the conservative intellectual tradition but also with a history of vigorously defending its mission and identity. And yet, the smoke coming out of GCC compels us to ask if a fire has been kindled within the citadel, and just who exactly is manning the walls.
The Backdrop
In the 1980s, GCC famously stood up to overreach by the federal government, taking its case all the way to the US Supreme Court in Grove City College v. Bell. On principle, GCC has foregone all federal financial support, a move that preserves its institutional independence to a much greater degree than its peers. GCC’s campus viewbook highlights the distinctives of a GCC education: a traditional humanities core curriculum that students engage within a residential liberal arts program, chapel programming that facilitates spiritual formation through the preaching of the gospel, and soaring gothic architecture that points to the enduring legacy of beauty, truth, and goodness. The college is home to the Institute for Faith & Freedom, which among other things hosts the annual Ronald Reagan Lecture, and whose homepage proudly declares, “America is exceptional because its foundation rests on the principles of faith, freedom, and truth.” GCC’s alumni magazine recently highlighted the impressive number of graduates who have dedicated their careers to advancing the “[f]undamental ideas of American freedom: individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law.”
So far, so good: GCC presents itself as an intellectual citadel, unapologetically Christian, conservative and counter-cultural, willing to defend itself against external coercion and able to do so because of its independence. We might expect, then, that GCC would recoil at the pseudo-religious character of wokeism and resist the cultural Marxism at the heart of CRT, instead providing bold thought leadership in the articulation of a distinctly Christian and classical conception of justice. But if this is our expectation, mounting evidence suggests we may be wrong.
The Petition
On November 10, 2021, concerned GCC parents and alumni initiated a “Save GCC from CRT” petition. Six days later, the petition closed after receiving 481 signatures from parents, alumni, former faculty, and current students. The specific allegations of the petition can be roughly distilled to the following:
- That a couple of recent chapel speakers, including, crucially, GCC’s Chaplain Dr. Donald Opitz, had promulgated CRT from the chapel pulpit, in a setting and venue that bears GCC’s imprimatur (GCC students are required to attend a certain number of chapel events every semester). [Note: Following the petition response from GCC’s President Paul McNulty, GCC removed Opitz’s chapel speech dated 10.12.21 entitled “Mercy,” which was referenced in the petition.]
- That GCC’s training for resident assistants (RAs) included a segment by Justin Jose, a member of GCC’s newly-established Diversity Council and the Director of the Office of Multicultural Education and Initiatives, in which Mr. Jose instructed RAs on the concepts of inner racism, white privilege and white guilt.
- That Mr. Jose had been observed wearing an LGBT rainbow mask. [Note: McNulty’s response to the petition states that “the facemask in question is not a rainbow flag.”]
- That an education class (EDUC 290) required students to read Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Anti-Racist.
- That GCC’s Diversity Council sponsored a number of reading groups – advertised across campus – that favorably featured books pushing elements of CRT (e.g., Reading While Black). [Note: McNulty’s response to the petition labels this characterization of the diversity council’s activities as “misinformed.”]
- That the education department requested applicants to provide preferred pronouns. [Note: GCC has since responded that this incident is under ongoing review.]
- That GCC’s Academic Resource Center (ARC) requested applicants to provide preferred pronouns. [Note: GCC has since addressed this issue and attributed the request for preferred pronouns to a third-party service provider’s default settings.]
McNulty’s Response
President McNulty issued a limp response to the CRT petition on Friday, November 19. The response reads as a defensive approach that should give little comfort to the concerned stakeholders who expect to hear bold thought leadership from the president of this putative bastion of intellectual conservatism, rather than the corporate-style PR they are being served.
First, the response led with misleading characterizations of the petition process and pointed criticism of those who organized the petition. The totality of McNulty’s response creates the impression that the petition blindsided McNulty – i.e., that he had not received any communications regarding the matter prior to the petition being circulated:
I was hoping I would receive the petition currently circulating before providing this extensive response. I am responding before receiving the online petition because it has become clear that misinformed assertions included in the petition are unfairly threatening the reputation of Grove City College…
To the contrary, we understand that the organizers of the petition unsuccessfully attempted to resolve these issues directly with McNulty for weeks prior to going public with a petition. So when McNulty asks rhetorically “is there not a biblical standard for addressing concerns within the Christian community that runs counter to petitions and the potential for the widespread bearing of false witness against another,” McNulty knows that the petition organizers made serious efforts to handle the petition in just such a manner and only went public as a last resort. Matters may well be worse. We have received copies of communications between board members and concerned parents that raise the question of whether McNulty has been fully transparent with his board regarding the extent of the petitioners’ effort to raise their concerns with him.
McNulty also opined that the petition facilitated the “communication of misrepresentations, partial reports, hearsay, rumors, and other unreliable information” that formed the basis of “a petition that coalesces into attack.” However, the petitioners, generally alumni and concerned parents, based their petition either on publicly available information or reports from direct eyewitness (i.e., not hearsay).
Second, McNulty’s response obfuscates by attempting to cast all the concerns over CRT as objections to GCC’s attempts at working through social justice issues. As he argues: “there is an important difference between engagement on social justice issues and critical theory, a politically charged approach to the criticism of society that has no intellectual home at Grove City College.” Even for those willing to grant a distinction between CRT and social justice, McNulty does not offer any substantive account of how he, or GCC, defines CRT or social justice, which is surely a necessary basis for coherent institutional action. Furthermore, McNulty persists in referring to what he seems to think of as CRT as “critical theory” throughout his response. While CRT is certainly grounded in critical theory more broadly, the two are not synonymous, and the “R” in CRT, which stands for race, is precisely the object of petitioners’ concerns. This inability or refusal to pay careful attention to terms and their definitions belies a larger failure to unmask CRT or to engage the specific nature of the petitioners’ claims fully.
Third, McNulty accuses the petitioners of perpetuating “cancel culture.” The comparison is inapt. When conservatives lament “cancel culture,” they typically have in mind the cancellation of a person’s bank account, payment processing platform, server space, insurance policies, ability to fly, etc., or perhaps even a person’s livelihood, in cases where the cancelable speech is unrelated to the person’s job performance. It is another thing altogether to say that parents – who entrust their children and pay a private school tuition premium in the hopes that they will experience a distinctively Christian, conservative education and character formation – are engaged in cancel culture when they express concerns about the content of that education. A college president, of all people, should understand that mere disagreement with a decision or action is not equivalent to “cancellation.”
Fourth, McNulty’s response suggests that he either lacks a robust understanding of how both curriculum and co-curriculum (i.e., chapel, student life programming) communicate institutional values or he assumes that the petitioners will not make basic distinctions between education and indoctrination. McNulty implores:
[P]lease consider Grove City College’s academic mission. As an institution of higher learning committed to excellence, we examine a broad range of ideas through the lens of biblical truth. All truth is God’s truth, and we delight in learning and endeavor to be unafraid as we equip students to be salt and light in the world.
What parents expect (and what GCC markets to potential students and parents) is that when students attend GCC they will robustly engage in the marketplace of ideas in the classroom armed with analytical tools from the Christian tradition, and that outside of the classroom, GCC will provide full-orbed and distinctively Christian character formation. In other words, there’s a difference between critically reading CRT as part of intellectual training in the classroom and hearing CRT from the chapel’s pulpit or student life staff.
Fifth and most fatally, McNulty fails to answer substantively a number of specific issues raised by the petitioners.
To take one example, McNulty fails to respond whatsoever to the allegations relating to the presence of CRT in RA training, which ultimately impacts every student who lives on campus. This glaring omission raises the question, how exactly has GCC been training its RAs? Is GCC not willing to make public (and defend) the materials used in such trainings? Who is making the decisions about what is or is not included, and why?
To take another example, McNulty concludes that CRT was not promulgated in chapel because, apparently, the phrase “CRT” was not expressly mentioned by any of the speakers. This is like saying that the Communist Manifesto didn’t promulgate Marxism because it didn’t mention the word “Marxism.”
This reductionist assertion can be refuted by a short walk through Jemar Tisby’s GCC chapel speech on October 20, 2020, in which he preached from the book of Esther about the “Urgency of Now.” Applying the urgency of Mordecai’s plea to Esther to the protests for social justice from the summer of 2020, Tisby argued, inter alia, speaking of the protests: “In case you weren’t sure, this is the civil rights movement of our time. It’s happening right now. How you are responding in moments like this is exactly how you would have responded in the 1950s and 60s.” And again: “We are living in the modern-day civil rights movement. Freedom, justice, democracy, especially for black people and other people of color, are in eminent danger, just as the Jews faced danger.” And again (speaking of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words for white moderates from the Letter from Birmingham Jail): “And even today, King’s words can be applied to so many, can they not? People who in the face of video evidence and testimony and history books still refuse to get involved in the struggle.” In sum, Tisby argues for a straight line parallel between the Jews in the book of Esther (opposing a statute that was discriminatory on its face – i.e., all Jews will be killed) and the struggles of the civil rights movement (opposing statutes that were discriminatory on their face – i.e., all Blacks cannot vote), on the one hand, and the disparate impacts at the center of the 2020 protest movements on the other hand, and then concludes therefore that failing to support the 2020 protest movements is morally equivalent to failing to support the civil rights movement or the Jews in the book of Esther.
This style of argument is, of course, classic CRT. Anyone who has spent any time in the CRT literature knows it is distinguished by pervasive, often undefended elisions of formal discrimination under the law with disparate impact discrimination (i.e., the conclusion that discrimination exists because a disparate outcome can be demonstrated, disregarding any independent variable that could explain such disparate outcome). The often tendentious assumption that racism is proved by the existence of a disparate impact is then typically followed with a call to action with messaging (implied or express) that one who dissents or fails to engage in activist solutions against such disparity is a racist. So, while it is true that Tisby did not expressly mention CRT by name, he argues in a manner that can only be coherent to a person who has already adopted one of CRT’s core and distinctive premises. Hence, when McNulty asserts that CRT is not being taught in chapel because CRT hasn’t been expressly referenced, McNulty’s judgment is questionable. Tisby’s thought is firmly grounded in CRT, a reality surely appreciated by Ibram X. Kendi when he hired Tisby to serve as Assistant Director of Narrative and Advocacy at the Center for Antiracist Research just five short months after Tisby delivered his chapel address at GCC. The timing of this hire also casts doubt on McNulty’s protestation that “Mr. Tisby’s views appear to have shifted on CRT following his presentation.” Perhaps instead GCC’s initial evaluation of his views was not sufficiently discerning.
McNulty skates on thinner ice when he defends GCC’s Advisory Council on Diversity. Here, McNulty asserts, “the Council was formed in the summer of 2020… It is not operational in any sense, and every reference to the Council acting in some manner, such as organizing book clubs, is misinformed.” This description seems inconsistent, to say the least, with how GCC described the Council in a press release following its formation:
Grove City College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 has announced the establishment of the President’s Advisory Council on Diversity to further the College’s efforts in the promotion of a diverse learning community.
The council will help guide recommendations in the development of strategic initiatives for the recruitment and retention of students, the hiring of new employees and broadening perspectives among all members of the community. It includes faculty, staff, students and alumni who bring relevant experiences to the council’s work as the College addresses opportunities for enriching the campus culture and better preparing students for their personal and professional callings. (Emphasis added)
In coverage following the Council’s creation, the Grove City Collegian’s reporting thickens the picture, quoting council members advocating for the creation of venues on campus for minority students to be able to talk about their experiences. In the same article, the Collegian described a campus forum, hosted by GCC’s Office of Multicultural Education & Initiatives, “where students could freely share their experiences about the racial justice protest movement.” Professor and Diversity Council member Cedric Lewis (also a co-teacher of the EDUC 290 class, described in more detail below) spoke at this event, reportedly admonishing students in attendance: “Don’t be afraid to tell your truth.”
Much more could be written about McNulty’s response, but its approach and tenor are notable. To wit, the decision to issue a full-throated defense of questionable institutional actions in response to concerned parents who have made repeated efforts to resolve the matter quietly stands in stark contrast to McNulty’s silence in the face of last summer’s BLM petition, combined with his eventual creation of the Advisory Council on Diversity and its subsequent activities. While the foregoing may not prove that GCC has fallen to CRT, it does betray a lack of respect for GCC’s core constituency and casts doubt on whether GCC’s leadership can continue to provide bold and compelling conservative Christian direction at a moment when other institutions are falling to—and sometimes running toward—the social justice warriors.
More Questions
Additional digging beyond the scope of the CRT petition reveals that CRT may well be far more pervasive at GCC than appears even from the face of the petition and McNulty’s response. The story appears to begin in June of 2020 when, in the midst of nationwide riots, a group of BLM activists and disaffected GCC alums launched a petition campaign against Paul Kengor, Senior Director and Chief Academic Fellow at GCC’s Institute for Faith and Freedom, subsequently directing a number of demands at the President and the Board, including the creation of a diversity office and anti-bias training programs. In contrast to its CRT petition response, GCC issued no formal repsonse to the critiques of Paul Kengor. GCC did, however, accede to one of the activists’ key demands when McNulty created the Council on Diversity.
Shortly thereafter, the thematic content of GCC’s chapel programming shifted drastically and a raft of racially charged talks took place in Harbison Chapel, each of which took the fact of ongoing systemic racism as assured. The shift in tenor was intentional and announced to the entire campus. In an email from Collin Messer (Professor of English, Assistant Dean and Co-Chair of the Ethics and Character Formation Working Group), Justin Jose (Director of Multicultural Education and Initiatives) and Don Opitz (Chaplain and Senior Director of Christian Formation) dated October 9, 2020, the trio heralded a two-week intensive program on “Justice, Race and Reconciliation.” The following excerpt from the email previews the items included in the lineup:
Jemar Tisby’s talk, of which much has already been made, was just one of a slew of presentations that adopted a very particular, activist-inflected view of racial justice issues. For example, in his talk on October 13, 2020, Christopher Merrick concluded by offering the following divergent applications to his Black and White audience members:
White people, look in the mirror, ask yourself if you are in these positions where if you feel if you were being marginalized and oppressed, how would you want to be treated? Pursue some of this justice with your black brothers and sisters, it would go a long way, it truly would … until you are just as outraged and broken by these things, we won’t see things change…
Black people – I see one in the room – don’t forget who Jesus is … continue to give grace.
In the panel on October 15, 2020 featuring three GCC minority students, Collin Messer’s facilitation of the panel prompted students to share instances where they’d experienced examples of bias or cultural misunderstanding (i.e., experiences commonly known as micro-aggressions). Messer then set up a prompt for students to offer critiques of the ideal of a color-blind society as well as Martin Luther King Jr.’s formulation of a just society being one where a person is judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Now, it is true that one swallow does not a summer make. Viewed in isolation, the talks by one or two of the speakers involved in the two-week program on Justice, Race and Reconciliation are nothing rare in Christian higher education. But as part of the overall program, GCC chose not to include any voice that would dissent from the consensus view (among the speakers) that America exhibits, today, systemic racism and that it is every Christian’s duty to actively oppose such systemic racism. There are, of course, numerous thoughtful thinkers (many of whom are themselves African American) who can articulate a conception of justice that far better aligns with the classical tradition and historical Christian understandings – Carol Swain, Thomas Sowell, Neil Shenvi, Vodie Bauchum, and Monique Duson, to name a few. Many of GCC’s own faculty would have been well suited to deliver compelling alternatives to the CRT-driven narrative. In utterly failing to platform any compelling alternative to the dominant narratives arising from the 2020 summer of rage, GCC failed its students and abdicated what should have been its rightful position of thought leadership for the conservative Christian right.
Similarly, the facts around the EDUC 290 course paint a picture of CRT being far more endemic than even the CRT petitioners knew. The petitioners had raised concerns over the inclusion of Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist. However, we have learned that the course also required students to read Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me and David W. Swanson’s Rediscipling the White Church. Far from a course featuring multiple perspectives on racial reconciliation and related issues, EDUC 290 appears to have exclusively pushed CRT activism. More tellingly, the EDUC 290 course could not have sprung up on its own. We understand that its creation would have required the approval of the Chair of the Education Department, the Dean of the Calderwood School of Arts and Letters, and GCC’s chief academic officer (the Provost). EDUC 290: Cultural Diversity and Advocacy is slated to be offered again next semester; posters approved by GCC’s Office of Student Life & Learning have been displayed across campus and feature the Black power symbol of the clenched fist as well as a promise to instruct students in “how to become actively anti-racist.”
At this stage, we have far more questions than answers as to what is going on at GCC. But current facts strongly suggest that, contrary to McNulty’s assessment, CRT has gained both an intellectual and spiritual foothold at one of America’s most staunchly conservative Christian colleges, and it has done so not only in the formal academic program but also in the co-curricular offerings of the college’s student life and chapel programming. Instead of advancing a consistent, conservative and theologically robust alternative to the dominant, but highly flawed, account of race and personhood that is pervasive throughout contemporary academia, it seems that GCC’s leadership is willing to give quarter to the claims of CRT. In this moment of social, religious, and political crisis, GCC appears content to draft upon its legacy as a conservative champion even while opening itself up to ideologies that will ultimately alienate GCC from both its past and its most supportive constituencies.
The situation at GCC is still developing. We will continue to monitor events with interest and are happy to receive any additional context or information that anyone with direct knowledge may have. If you would like to contact us in this regard, we can be reached at [email protected]. In the meantime, we hope GCC’s leadership will expend more energy dousing the rising flames and less decrying the volume of the fire alarm.
*Image Credit: Wunderstock
Excellent summation
Can confirm these faculty listed have always had a soft approach to CRT and were certainly left leaning. Many caved to the “ally” stickers the LGBT club passed out for their doors. Very small and discreet but spoke volumes about the direction the institution was heading. Very sad to see as a Alumni.
Thanks for sharing. As mentioned in the final paragraph of the article, we would be very interested in hearing more about this if you are willing to discuss.
In the US gov they are going around with the lgbt ally thing too. Leftists are very aggressive and committed.
Why is there a club scelebrating sexual immorality on a Christian college campus?
I am an alumni. I have a high school junior looking at schools. McNulty must address these serious allegations seriously or he must go before I send my daughter or another cent to my alma mater.
I am a parent of a current student in the education program. Thank you for your clarity and follow up to the petition, which I signed. I to, was disappointed with the president’s response and hope that your work and the work of others will get things headed back in the right direction.
et tu, Brute?
Excellent article. Please keep reporting.
My sophomore at GCC sees all of this; chapel services are loaded with it. Thanks for doing the exhaustive research and writing an excellent article. I was not aware of the cave to BLM that lead to the creation of the diversity council.
I agree. I also have a sophomore there (and am an alum) and he has observed a number of issues in chapel services and attended the Jamar Tisby talk last year and the recent David French talk. I’m furious with myself that I haven’t paid more attention and been more vocal. I’m grateful for this article bringing it to light.
Now what…phone calls and letters? I’d love to build a strategy with other parents including the petition authors and signees.
Awesome article. Hopefully their board members will read it and take action.
Homeschooling groups on fb are frequently abuzz over which colleges remain un-woke, and it’s always an echo chamber of the stalwarts: Patrick Henry, New Saint Andrews, Hillsdale, and Grove City. How sad to see another one bite the dust!
Homeschoolers may be small in numbers, but by and large we’re AWAKE and we do not approve of CRT and progressivism. If GCC trades Historic Christianity for the folly of wokeism, we’ll do what we do best and find (or perhaps found) something better.
It hasn’t bitten the dust yet but it’s close. Hopefully this article and other efforts will force positive change at GCC. It needs to happen quickly and intentionally. And people will need to lose their jobs.
Agreed! Starting with the chaplain and maybe even president.
No one needs to loose their jobs. The college is standing well. Force? Why force ? They can and are handling things fine. That’s the problem with people pushing their ideas on a university and expecting it to bow to them immediately. This is very one sided.
Very good article and excellent summation. Grove City administrators really do need to (ahem) wake up to the fact that the people who will buy what they allege they are selling (conservative Christian education) are not going to put up with this. I can send my child to a good public university where they will be exposed to the same stuff for a lot less in out of pocket tuition costs. The only reason we chose GCC is because they claimed they were holding the line on leftist cultural fads of which CRT is one example. It will be interesting to see how they respond.
As someone currently at GCC I think this is a tough one as yes there are some politically left leaning faculty/staff but all come from a biblical worldview. I would encourage people to read the book mentioned “Reading While Black” as I feel it’s misrepresented here. That book is an encouragement to Black Church that they should take the whole bible, not the bits that fit CRT, but all of it because it is meant for all people. It’s it fully a pro-canonical biblical truth supporting book.
And especially for those chapels and programs after the summer protests/riots, those chapels were in response to those, but as a way for students to get a different perspective. How can we look at something through a Christian lens that on its face seems non-Christian? How can we still show love and grace to those who hate Christianity? This is very similar to the humanities core classes students take, where they are challenged first to be critical of their own beliefs, so their foundation is strong. Then the path to finding Truth in creation is possible and safe. The pursuit of Truth means tackling hard topics and hearing opposing/differing views because you can come in with such confidence that the ultimate measure of truth is the Word. Indoctrination of any kind is not possible when students are taught to think, and I believe that’s what GCC does best. Because ultimately the Truth of the Word will be found out.
Wise words! Your comment is a breath of fresh air in this conversation. The reality is that any Christian college is going to have faculty with varying political views. It would be stifling and unproductive if everyone thought the same way. The beauty of GCC is that they all come from a Biblical worldview and seek to train students how to think and how to approach difficult topics with humility. Professors at GCC don’t force students to think exactly like them. They teach students how to be strong enough intellectually to gracefully handle difficult conversations with Christians and non-Christians about relevant topics. Grove City will always train students to engage with the world around them, but not to accept everything they hear. I hope people who read this article and the recent petition will go visit GCC and have a civil discussion with a few faculty members to find out what the college is really about.
Didn’t Christ himself go through the temples flipping over tables and destroying property? And who are you to say who hates Christ? The most segregated hour in America is high noon on Sunday. Maybe White Evangelicals should listen to their Black counterparts for once….
As the article said, the problem wasn’t so much that those talks happened, but that the talks were exclusively from one point-of-view (liberal); there were none that discussed the topic from a more conservative stance, even though there are plenty of faculty who could have ably done so. And when an institution makes only one side heard like this, it does seem a bit like a bias is becoming established.
You are right, it is important to hear both sides. I think that is the very reason that the college allowed a few liberal-leaning chapel speakers to speak on this topic. Grove City’s faculty and student body is largely conservative. Based on my experience, the liberal perspectives are far less common to hear (especially in chapel). When students hear a more liberal chapel speaker, they bring the conversation back to their dorms and classes. This is where they get a chance to hear the conservative side (I know from experience). Trust me, Grove City College is not becoming liberal, it is becoming more self-aware and more thoughtful in its approach to complex discussions.
I think the article is very targeted in this area to drive up controversy. GCC is very conservative in background and teaching so to choose the few times where those on the more liberal side are brought in to give perspective and get students thinking show an agenda. 1 class out of 900 does a “woke” school make. He even mentions the institute of faith and freedom… and doesn’t mention this article??
https://www.faithandfreedom.com/critical-race-theory-myths-marxism-and-more/
There’s a club celebrating sexual immorality on GCC’s campus. That’s enough for me know it’s rotten within.
Now I understand so much. My daughter is a freshman at GCC. Her roommate is a mentally ill racist who rants about hating white people. The roommate continuously rants about all the white kids there who are so privileged and just the sight of white people makes her angry. The roommate has DAILY psychotic episodes sometimes running off into the night and no one can find her or sometimes punching wall or cutting herself with her own nails. She also keeps my daughter up until 2 or 3 in the morning and wakes her at 6 (if she goes to class which is rare). After my daughter talked with her RA, the RA sought counseling for the roommate whereupon she was diagnosed with severe anxiety, severe depression, and borderline personality disorder. She is now on three different anti-psychotic drugs. Yet, the RA left my daughter in the same room as the mentally ill racist. My husband called the RA but the RA would not talk to him and gave him the number to an RD. The RD said they would meet with our daughter. My daughter had two friends who wanted to go with her to explain how sick her roommate is. They told my daughter they would talk to the roommate, but my daughter had to tell the mentally ill roommate that she and her friends went to the RD. Well, you can easily guess that the roommate put my daughter through the yelling and the slamming of doors and the reputational ruin that a mentally ill person would. They promised a “mitigation” between the two because that is “Biblical.” This was now months ago. No mitigation has occurred. For a week, my daughter was so fearful that she was not sleeping in her room and when we told her she had to go back to the room, she would leave in the morning and not come home until the roommate was asleep which rarely happens. Most of the time she is doing laundry or rummaging through her sock drawer in the middle of the night with all the lights on or ranting on the phone to her mother about how much she hates white people and how spoiled and privileged they all are. Think about it: You homeschool your daughter from 4 years old, teach her to love the Lord, she makes straight A’s, is a first team all star at the local high school, you do everything you can to teach her that race does not exist, that we are all the same, and she lands in a tiny room with a girl who tells her she should hate herself because of her skin color and because her father worked his butt off to send her there. The roommate has proved herself to be violent, hateful and a racist. She is a DANGER to my daughter and the college has done NOTHING. They REFUSE to let her switch rooms because it’s Biblical to work things out. Work things out with a violent racist??? Grove City College has completely failed my daughter. They should be ashamed to have ruined a sweet, intelligent, hard-working, ERNEST 18 year old girl’s first year in college. She was a zombie when she came home for Thanksgiving. The roommate does not allow her to sleep and when she does, she is afraid the girl will harm her. Imagine if the roommate was saying she hate black people!!! It would be a whole different ball game. It’s criminal. And I can tell you one thing for sure, Grove City College does not DESERVE my daughter. They failed. They are abusive and racist. I wouldn’t let my dog step foot on that property. Well, maybe…just to pee on it, but’s that about it.
Try Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC
Given that the petition alleges that “a couple of recent chapel speakers, including, crucially, GCC’s Chaplain Dr. Donald Opitz, had promulgated CRT from the chapel pulpit, in a setting and venue that bears GCC’s imprimatur” I wonder that the author didn’t cite examples.
It is troubling that, whenever a Christian institution dares to offer a forum related to racial issues, charges of “promulgation of CRT”, “Marxism”, and “wokeness” work their way into the conversation without evidence to support these claims.
All one has to do is level charges in an effort to shut down the conversation.
I would think the author would take care to define terms and clearly demonstrate how Dr. Opitz’s remarks align with and support CRT.
I’m willing to bet that most who signed this petition could begin to explain the basic tenets of CRT if their lives depended on it.
What those who are committed to Christ and his teaching ought to be thoroughly versed in, however, is his call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Of this truth, I can assure you, Dr. Opitz is firmly committed in both faith and action.
It sounds like you didn’t read the whole article…
“All one has to do is level charges in an effort to shut down the conversation.”
Are we struggling with reading comprehension? This article is full of evidence and numerous details supporting its claims. Yet you offer none to support yours, other than to “assure” us.
“I would think the author would take care to define terms and clearly demonstrate how Dr. Opitz’s remarks align with and support CRT.”
Again, try reading. It’s not simply his specific remarks, but his oversight of the chapel program since his tenure began. And isn’t it interesting that the College removed the video of Opitz’ remarks on 10/13/21 which were cited in the petition? Why?
Also, great job insulting the hundreds of people who made thoughtful comments explaining their rationale for signing the petition.
Gentle correction: The video in question was never posted online in the first place. The TED-style Bryan Stevenson talk, which formed the basis of the chapel presentation on 10/13, was copyrighted, so the College was not allowed to tape or rebroadcast it. This is often the case with higher profile guest speakers.
Hi Mike – It is my understanding the video of Dr. Opitz’s October 12 chapel talk entitled “Mercy” was previously posted online and was only removed at some point between the parent’s submission of the CRT petition and President McNulty’s response. Would you be willing to share where you heard the explanation that it was not recorded or broadcasted because of copyright reasons?
Thank you, that is a fair point. The article should be updated to reflect this. Would the in-person remarks made after the video typically be posted?
This is incorrect. The TED talk was recorded and one of my professors was able to watch it. It has been taken down as Josh Abbotoy said.
I’ve never met a Christian who wanted to simply shut down a discussion about race. But, as we are called to do, the discussion must be held to the standard of God’s truth. This means that the racist principles of CRT should be discussed, but only for the purpose of rejecting them as contrary to what God says about race.
My daughter is a sophomore at GCC and she can provide plenty of evidence. Also, see Abbotoy’s article.
If I won’t stray beyond the biblical teaching about race and therefore won’t agree with the current racial narrative, am I to be derided as unjust, unmerciful, and lacking humility?
They did in the petition, which you did not read.
Here they are:
https://crtatgcc.wordpress.com/2021/12/13/gcc-2020-2021-chapel/
You can go to the archives of the chapel livestreams and here the sermons for yourself. You may have to use Google search to find prior years. I’ve done this and the author is accurate.
Very similar situation to that of Covenant College, a similar “conservative” Christian school.
Alumn here. Outstanding article. Need more smart toughness like this!
Someone give this man a direct officer’s commission in the culture war.
Once a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion organization is formed, the results are predictable. That is the question parents need to ask when they are considering a school. If the school has such an organization, run, don’t walk the other way.
Except no such organization has been formed at the College. None.
As an institution, attempting to reach more diverse applicants is NOT a DEI organization. Seeking the counsel of people who can share their views on how best to do so is called being self-aware, not “going woke.”
This entire article feels like a political witch hunt disguised as moral outrage. Perhaps if people understood that a liberal arts education is supposed to expose students to different points of view and allow them to wrestle with the ideas in an environment of learning and not political indoctrination (which this entire discussion has all the markers of) would help. To require acceptance of “approved” points of view misses the entire point of education. And it also suggests that the students are incapable of critical thought and discernment which is a terrible assumption to make, especially by parents of existing students.
If you want to create mind numbed robots who parrot all the “correct” talking points, then this article and its assumptions and conclusions probably fits your preference.
If however, you understand the principles of the College, of which I am an alum with two children who are recent grads, then you would grasp what 150 years of Christian, conservative education and leadership is founded on; you don’t simply reject the explanation of a Godly leader and assume he is creating some “woke” culture that rejects that long history and tradition. Far from it.
As seems to be the way we approach issues of this nature in today’s culture of social media and “fighting” anyone we don’t agree with, the rhetoric is well beyond the facts and now the anti-woke mob is acting *exactly* like the mob they claim to oppose. It’s a sad state of affairs and thinking adults ought to be able to sort the facts from the clickbait.
Fantastic article!! Heartbreaking to hear all of this. I was told GCC would stand firm biblically but its not looking good. The story at GCC is so incredibly similar to others. The tipping point seems to be driven at many schools by 1) a group demanding the school address racial issues, and 2) George Floyd’s murder.
While I expect non-believers to rush to judgment, etc. it appears that virtually no Christian colleges encouraged their students to wait until everything was known and, in the meantime, view what they did know through a Biblical lens. Instead, most Christian colleges handled these issues as if they were a secular institution.
On another note, I wonder if Josh, the author, is aware that this is also going on at Union University where he attended. It would be great if he took a look there and reported on it. I would be glad to share what I know. Would also be helpful to understand what’s happening at Covenant College. I was really hoping and expecting them to stand firm.
Its shocking that out of maybe hundreds of Christian colleges, maybe 10 or less may make it through this without becoming heretical!! We really need a good list of the few christian colleges standing firm so we can direct PADS (Parents, Alumni, Donors, and Students) to schools that will help them grow in their faith instead of joining the new religion of CRT and LGBT. Christians don’t need atheists’ impotent and pathetic tools that are designed to divide, not unite. God has been fixing racism and all other sins for centuries. We just refuse to do things His way!
GCC alum here, coming up on my 10 year anniversary. We were asked to consider certain tenets of CRT, including our own white privilege, when I was a student, so this has long been an issue at GCC. (I should say, though, there are some departments that are better than others. You’re going to get a stronger dose of liberal ideology in the departments you’d expect, like the English and Comm departments.) Many of my classmates went full woke because of the training they got at GCC, while claiming they were rejecting the “fundamentalism” of the college. They were wrong. I saw the professors they befriended and knew what they talked about in class. GCC has long been complicit in spreading liberal ideology.
The biggest issue at GCC, though, was not CRT or any other liberal ideology. Rather, it was the unspoken divorce between academia and faith that secular education has long required, and GCC pretended not to have. But as a student on campus, it was very obvious that professors (again, not in all departments) expected you to leave your faith at the classroom door in favor of intellectual engagement. You weren’t really allowed to filter the world through a biblical lense. The “all truth is God’s truth” statement may be valid, but only if something is actually true, and many professors were willing to swallow secular thought as “truth” and pretend it and Scripture were the same. If you attempted to reject secular ideas as incompatible with Scripture, you weren’t “open” enough. Pretty sure Chesterton had some thoughts on open minds…
The long-time presence of professors who have celebrated liberal ideology should mean no one is surprised that GCC is in its present predicament. I have never been able to recommend my alma mater for these reasons, though I truly don’t know where else I would have gone (the communities at Hillsdale, NSA, etc. didn’t appeal to me and still don’t). Educate your kids classically so that they know what they believe before college so strongly that, no matter if their college is woke, they can spit out the lies better than their classmates.
Wow, that is disturbing. I saw the posters for discussions of ‘whiteness’ in 2019, had no idea it went back 10 years. The college was advertised as conservative on its website.
Parents need a list of colleges NOT going Woke if we’re to continue to send at least some of our kids to college. I can’t see spending $25k per year to receive back a Communist at the end of 4 years.
Ah yes, an article meant to stir up controversy where controversy does not exist. Whatever you have to do to get people to read your stuff I guess. I think I would give the author’s opinion much more weight had he actually attended the school he is ranting about. If he had attended GCC, he would PERSONALLY know the incredible Christian faculty who seek to provide a valuable, well-rounded, and Biblically-centered education. I implore all the readers of this article to actually visit Grove City College, spend a few days there (or a few years) and get to know the people there, rather than letting your favorite internet authors tell you what to think. Internet authors like to rile crowds up while hiding behind big words. I think this article is the conservative equivalent of cancel culture. I thought we conservatives cared about free-thinking? Grove City College certainly does. I can say that because I just graduated from the school! Also, shoutout to Justin Jose who, if you get to know him before making uninformed judgements, is a really sincere Christ-follower who truly cares for the students on Grove’s campus (and he loves the Lord).
My final statement: CRT has NOT ‘invaded’ the campus. Even if one or two of the faculty agree with some parts of it, they won’t force it on students. They will teach students how to think for themselves. GCC professors are most passionate about helping students develop into thoughtful intellectuals who are grounded in their faith. Get off your couch right now and see for yourself. And stop trying to cancel quality Christian colleges based on rumors.
Sounds like there are some nice people nevertheless spreading CRT. Could be worse, I suppose. But it’s a slippery slope. And yes, I am very personally familiar with the college. I think the author has done thorough research as I also have knowledge of much of what he relates.
I’m not a GCC alum but have a reliable informant (aka daughter). Yes, it is indeed a controversy on campus. Yes, there are a lot of great professors, a fact that is irrelevant to the point. Conservative Christians care about thinking, not “free thinking.” We think about all of it, and reject the stuff that doesn’t line up with God’s word. RA training is not a class where ideas are being discussed; it’s where students receive behavioral requirements — yes, that is forcing it on students.
Based on the petition, the RA talk with Justin Jose was just a talk. RAs were not receiving “behavioral requirements” as you said. They were simply sharing a perspective with the group.
Here is what the petition says:
Justin Jose, of the Diversity Council, came and spoke at their training. His wife was with them. They talked about inner racism, White privilege and White guilt.
There is no mention of the RAs being told to think a certain way. They gave a talk on these topics and provided a time for questions at the end. That doesn’t sound forceful to me.
Check out the petition author’s response for more information.
I am a current student at Grove City College, and I support the petition and the analysis of this article. It is not to cause controversy, and it does a fair and accurate assessment of the institution with the provided evidence. Notice how the author conducted his own research and shared his findings at the end of the article. Even if this was written in a rush, it delivers a fair perspective of the current situation.
I am incredibly disappointed.
We as followers of Jesus recognize that all humans have intrinsic value -the imago dae.
Diversity and inclusion is not synonymous with CRT. However inclusion of others is a very tenant of Christianity. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Please educate yourselves and read Derek Bell (the founder of modern CRT in the current social space). Often times we are fed snippets and misrepresentations of what CRT is. These “examples” the author and petition organizers give, are not representative of CRT and are actual representations of Christ like love. Justin Jose is one of the most Godly men I have had the privilege of knowing. He is doing the necessary work of teaching empathy and love of Christ to students at Grove City. The same can be said for Colin Messer, whom is also mentioned in the article. My 4 years were made better for having known them.
Social justice is not at odds with Christianity. Please read Isaiah or take not of the actions in the gospels. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
The misinformation and vitriol by proclaimed Christians is saddening. I pray that love, honesty, and Truth will prevail.
Sincerely,
an alumna pursuing a masters in CRT education.
It’s a myth that CRT is being taught in schools, so your master’s degree might be worthless.
But if he’s receiving an advanced degree in CRT, doesn’t that mean it is, in fact, being taught?
That was my point 😉
Christianity and CRT are at odds with one another. Please read “Christianity or Critical Theory?” by Eric Watkins found at this link: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/christianity-or-critical-theory
Here’s a quote from his article:
“In a certain sense, it is hard to compare the idea of justice from the perspective of critical theory with that of Christianity. It is interesting that in Critical Theory: The Key Concepts, a book of more than 350 pages, there is no entry for justice, especially given the widespread contemporary interest in so-called social justice. Dr. Sproul says this about social justice: “I can’t think of too many concepts that are more misleading in our contemporary culture than this idea of social justice. Social justice in the prophets, social justice in Israel, had to do with the rule of law and of righteousness in the culture.”21Justice, as a category, requires a positive affirmation of moral values and rightful laws. For a society to be just, it must have moral norms and consequences for those who violate them. Critical theorists long for a just world, and yet they cannot ultimately agree on a single system of thought to define justice, because critical theory is dedicated to pointing out biases and undermining systems of thought. From a Christian perspective, however, justice is foremost vertical. It begins with our relationship with God. Only a right relationship with God can enable a right relationship with others who bear the image of God. The world shouts for justice—but only on its own ever-changing terms. What one man deems just, another deems oppressive. But God is a just God (Deut. 32:4). The very category of justice derives from Him. What the Scripture says is right, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Augustine of Hippo, the North African pastor-theologian was prescient when he said, “You have formed us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in You.”22”
Would you also be upset with the author of this article you’re commenting on, who advocated bringing in an atheist thinker to teach the students on justice merely because the person in question is a Libertarian?
By your logic, an atheist libertarian would have just as much trouble articulating a true theory of justice as an atheist Critical Theory proponent….and likely much more trouble than a Biblically-minded Christian who merely saw aspects of Critical Theory as a tool rather than a worldview.
What is interesting is that we can become apoplectic over some views espoused at a Chapel homily, while missing the biggest influencers of untruth. I would like to see Chapel services bring a hermeneutically sound exposition of Scripture. Clearly many of these chapel services are NOT that.
However, every one of these students at this college (and all colleges) generally are being affected with woke ideology through social media and songs and movies and other cultural vehicles. I think these things influence them (along with their home life) much more than some 20-30 minute talk.
I personally attended GCC. I have two children at GCC. I was strengthened in my faith through exposure to different view points. I was not aware nor absorbed any pernicious, insidious unbiblical leanings. Currently, I am a faithful follower of Christ, reformed in my reading of Scripture and covenantal in my theology. That foundation was laid by the Holy Spirit through many of the godly professors I had at GCC.
I am glad that my children are hearing other people’s opinions. We talk about them. Many time those opinions are wrong, and inconsistent with a proportional reading of Scripture.
I think to categorically make the assumption that GCC is “woke,” or becoming “woke” is a bit overly simplistic. Sure, there is always that narrative…it is everywhere. Just look at the PCA or the SBC or any denomination. That is what false teaching is… False teaching crops up anywhere the truth is being represented. Do you dump the church of Corinth because there was false teaching in it? Sometimes Paul engaged these false teachings openly to use them to discuss in the context of relationship.
I listened to some of the chapel services in question. My main concern is not the CRT or the wokeness, it was actually the mishandling of Scripture in a public forum like that. So yes…there are definitely areas to rebut and to improve. But I think that it is valuable for people to see Scripture handled wrongly and then be shown what it looks like to handle it correctly.
I recognize that the aim of the article is to some how caution us and hopefully encourage GCC to remain faithful to a biblical worldview. What we should be looking for is a vocal alarm from the faculty. Take someone like Carl Trueman, for example. He is obviously cognizant of the discussion regarding CRT etc. He is obviously aware of the leaning and temperature of the college administration. If someone like him were alarming, it would give me great caution. Like any institution in these days with prevalent falsehood, we should pray for and encourage GCC and her leaders. Little is done by levying broad judgements towards brothers and sisters with whom we have no intimate relationships.
First, if one is not aware of how Scripture can be mishandled, then they will not know the difference between truth and partial truths and will become brainwashed or indoctrinated. This article is aiming to define the truth of the situation clearly. Furthermore, as a student of Grove City College, I did not come to see how Scripture can be mishandled. I do not appreciate it when believers misuse God’s Holy word for their personal agendas. Please don’t oversimplify the issue by merely saying it is a mishandling of Scripture. There is more to it.
Secondly, Carl Trueman has offered a response to the woke accusation. He claims GCC is not woke, but he does not address any of the clear evidences presented by the petitioners. This indicates either ignorant denial or complicit covering of a mistake he himself is not welling to call a mistake. His accomplishments, associations, and status mean nothing if he will not stand up for the truth.
Lastly, the petition was written by real people who love the institution and their students. The signers of the petition also care for the college. They are not trying to smear GCC’s name. They are trying to keep the institution accountable to its history and reputation.
Gasp! Not a diversity council! We need to ensure the bubble is never popped for these students, and they are never exposed to any debates outside of free will or predestination. Especially the home schooled ones!
Very accurate, well-written and thoroughly researched article. Thank you. I knew much of this from personal experience with the college, but I learned a few additional things that are deeply concerning.
All is not lost however, with GCC. This effort, President McNulty’s protestations notwithstanding, is very important. The administration may castigate the petitioners in a way they dare not respond to Marxist attacks, but they now understand that the PADS are aware. This may yet yield fruit.
It’s difficult to know whether President McNulty should resign; he certainly gives inspiring speeches and seems to be a kind person. And he is an alum himself. Time will tell if he can be persuaded away from a creeping acquiescence that may be influenced by many years in DC. The board itself should be considered as well. Is it really conservative anymore?
I find it sadly amusing that any critique against creeping CRT at one of a tiny number of conservative schools is met with rather strong remonstrance – amid the backdrop of overwhelming dominance of the Left in academia. That there seems an attempt, by folks claiming to champion freedom of ideas, to stamp out the little voice struggling to be heard in the cacophony. Perhaps denying a little guilt at caving to the culture and ignoring truth?
Keep speaking up! These are good folks but they need to be awakened to where their course leads.
My concern, as a parent of two current GCC students, is the chilling effect that always occurs when these grievance-based councils are established.
Students and staff will begin to monitor their comments and behaviors to avoid appearing in a newspaper article or even before a disciplinary proceeding of some type as happens now at all but the most conservative colleges and universities.
That no one was invited to speak in opposition to the racist philosophies is most troubling.
A robust discussion regarding the causes of the plight of black Americans cannot start with a conclusion that conservative Christianity shares the blame, when conservative Christians have had no power in those enclaves for over half a century.
Very wise comment. If GCC ever begins employing monitoring and/or discipline of speech then my students will transfer to Hillsdale. They are well-qualified to attend there.
Anti-racism is not Kingdom. It is wholly the political spirit. Now we are all beholding it’s divisive and deceptive work take its course at GCC.
Jesus taught about the power of yeast as described in three distinct systems. It is a powerful object lesson because we all know how the slightest bit of yeast allowed into the kitchen will quickly spread through the whole lump of dough.
For two of them, he told us to beware:
Watch out! Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod!
~ Jesus in the Gospel of Mark
When Jesus uses exclamation points, I pay close attention.
Quickly said, the yeast of the Pharisees is the religious spirit. This is a hypocritical, fundamentalist form of religion that is devoid of the power and presence of God and is hosted and spread by leaders in the church. This type of yeast attacks and infects the church from the inside out.
The yeast of Herod is the political spirit. This spirit is also devoid of the power and presence of God, but is hosted and spread primarily by governmental systems and corrupt leaders. Some of the tentacles of this spirit are accusation, control, and an intentional stirring of anger that keeps people at odds with one another. This type of yeast attacks and infects the church from the outside in.
Over the past few years, I’ve been carefully watching the infiltration of progressivism permeate through the church and render her supernatural battery far weaker than it has been in decades.
Notwithstanding, the tsunami I see outpacing church culture today is not fundamentalism, but progressivism. And I believe much of what progressivism carries is, by nature, a political spirit.
We must remember that freshmen have made their way to GCC through a public school system permeated with progressive ideology. The college is becoming a test bed to find out if CRT has done its work in the hearts of young Christians. The Church of Jesus Christ is the last battle ground and the enemy has insurgents well placed in in all Her institutions.
Thank you for your well researched article, though it breaks my heart to see another Christian institution infected by the anti-biblical and divisive cancer that is CRT.
As a parent who’s been considering Grove City College for my son, these findings give me serious pause. I pray that the GCC board will awaken to the seriousness of this issue, and take the steps necessary to eliminate this God dishonoring false teaching from their college. If they do not, many Christian parents will send their kids elsewhere, and rightly so.
The troubling and disqualifying from Christian authoritative position of any kind is lying about 1) not knowing it was happening, 2) that people didn’t come to you first and 3) that people were lying about it when clearly they weren’t.
Clearly many people view Christian positions as a merely cushy job and don’t really believe.
I thought Carl Trueman had a good response. https://www.faithandfreedom.com/do-i-teach-at-a-woke-school/
Having graduated from a Christian college and counseled many, I felt this piece in the American Reformer was a bit unfair. I could find 50 Christian colleges that have significantly greater issues that Grove City on social justice, LGBTQU issues, etc. Grove City and Hillsdale are two of the best out there. My son also attends GCC and another attended Hillsdale.
I hold similar concerns about these issues in Christian higher ed but struggle with the confrontational approach taken here. There are ways to address these things. Not sure an “expose” was the best approach. I’m getting tired of the purer than thou approach that basically mirrors the tactics of the left but become a right cancel culture but here we are. I’d much prefer to see a civil discussion with Paul McNulty and had one myself. Good conversation. Very comfortable with his leadership and his response to me.
You stated that because you could find 50 colleges that have greater issues on social justice, LGBTQ, etc, that this article was unfair for calling out GCC. Do you believe that the relative amount of false teaching is an appropriate metric for deciding to call out false teaching?
Also, if CRT is false teaching, and it was publicly promoted at GCC in sermons, classes, and RA trainings and the leadership has refused to publicly denounce and repent of this false teaching, isn’t it the responsible and loving thing to warn the flock by publicly calling out this false teaching?
A lot of schools are worse, therefore GCC is fine? That is strange logic. False teaching was hit pretty hard by the Apostle Paul. He didn’t do civil discussions.
I sympathize, though. I don’t like the way the world is, and confrontation is never my first choice, but if the fight is brought to us, we must be willing to engage. That’s where things stand in Christian higher education. CRT and its close cousins are not one of those quirky off-base ideologies that we can indulge without much consequence. They have proven themselves many times over to be like the biblical leaven — the slightest bit spreads to the whole loaf (pretty soon you have the physics department mandating whiteness training). The fact that 50 Christian schools are lost only reinforces that GCC and Hillsdale are possibly the last stand. Isn’t it therefore worth going all-in?
I fear that the number is far higher than 50. I think its almost all of the Christian colleges. And I don’t see how we can include GCC as one of the good ones after these revelations. And I don’t think Hillsdale is even a Christian college; my understanding is that its simply conservative. Christian higher education is experiencing a mass-extinction-event. What a great time for my family to be looking for a college!!
Trueman’s response was awful, a self-promotional post where he largely ignores the evidence presented by parents and alums. Instead, he tosses them under the bust as spreading hearsay an rumor. I expect far better from a manof his caliber.
The students are experiencing the marketplace of ideas, they are experiencing the winner of the marketplace of ideas.
The problem was ever assuming the marketplace of ideas would select based on truth instead of benefits and punishments.
“This is easy to explain: in post-1945 America, the source of all new ideas is the university. Ideas check out of the university, but they hardly ever check in. Thence, they flow outward to the other arms of the educational system as a whole: the mainstream media and the public schools. Eventually they become our old friend, “public opinion.” This process is slow, happening on a generational scale, and thus the 45-year lag.
Thus whatever coordinates the university system coordinates the state, through the transmission device of “public opinion.” Naturally, since this is 100% effective, the state does not have to wait for the transmission to complete. It can act in advance of a complete response, as in this case the Supreme Court did in 1967, and synchronize directly with the universities.
The triangle of professors, bureaucrats, and public opinion is stable, because the professors teach as well as advise. Of course, there is a time lag. The system experiences some strain. But it will stay together, so long as the polarity does not randomly reverse—i.e., because Cthulhu decides to suddenly swim right rather than left.
But no. Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left. Isn’t that interesting?
In the history of American democracy, if you take the mainstream political position (the Overton Window) at time T₁, and place it on the map at a later time T₂, T₁ is always way to the right, near the fringe or outside it. So, for instance, if you take the average segregationist voter of 1963 and let him vote in the 2008 election, he will be way out on the wacky right wing. Cthulhu has passed him by.
And we are starting to piece the puzzle together. The leftward direction is, itself, the principle of organization. In a two-party democratic system, with Whigs and Tories, Democrats and Republicans, etc., the intelligentsia is always Whig. Their party is simply the party of those who want to get ahead. It is the party of celebrities, the ultra-rich, the great and good, the flexible of conscience. Tories are always misfits, losers, or just plain stupid—sometimes all three.
And the left is the party of the educational organs, at whose head is the press and the universities. This is our 20th-century version of the established church.
First, we need to define left and right. In my opinion, obviously a controversial one, the explanation for this mysterious asymmetric dimension is easy: it is political entropy. Right represents peace, order and security; left represents war, anarchy and crime.”
-Curtis Yarvin
I go to school their now. Chill out it’s not that bad. This article acts like the worlds on fire. Such an over reaction its mind blowing.
As a 1969 grad of GCC, I am actually hopeful that my alma mater may in fact finally be entering the twentieth century. I believe President McNulty and relevant faculty have been unfairly represented in this article. I graduated with a degree in English and Education and taught for 20 years in Los Angeles County. If you hope for your education graduates to be successful in their chosen field, they need to be exposed to all that is happening in the classroom. Dr Hilda Kring would certainly have understood and encouraged that training. You know who else would understand? Christ. And the New Testament disciples. I hope my alma mater continues to stretch and grow in order to serve the students of today. It shouldn’t scare us for students to be exposed to all the ideas that are out there. Never stop learning. Never stop growing. And follow Christ’s example of love and acceptance of all of God’s children.
No one is arguing that GCC shouldn’t expose their students to different ideas, as you stated in creating a straw man argument.
Teaching about CRT and evaluating it in light of the truth of scripture is what a Christian college should do, but that is radically different than the advocacy of CRT that has been taking place at GCC.
We must remember that freshmen have made their way to GCC through a public school system permeated with progressive ideology. The college is becoming a test bed to find out if CRT has done its work in the hearts of young Christians. The Church of Jesus Christ is the last battle ground and the enemy has insurgents well placed in all Her institutions. Teaching students critical thinking and discernment is the job of higher education, but only the most trusted educators should be allowed this delicate task. Our Lord warned us of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
The article mentioned an attempt to find these answers through directly reaching out to the school/president which the president claims did not happen. A lot of the accusations are in need of a reasonable response from the school and I am hoping there is some effort in place to again arrange a meeting with the school.
I am the parent of a prospective student athlete and would be curious how best to follow this. I am sure the school and coaches will likely tell us what we want to hear but it would be nice to be able to keep up on things as they develop. If anyone has a suggestion, please let me know.
We have had 3 kids go to Cedarville and they have all enjoyed their time there and now after graduation are strong in their faith. CU seems pretty comfortable stating clearly where they stand on issues like this but many of these issues find their way in quietly and the reference to being wary of the “yeast” is appropriate. I would be curious to hear what some of you think of CU in comparison to GCC.
Keep up the battle.