Apparently my Gender & Politics course does provide value to NC

 

Here in Raleigh we’ve got our very own conservative “think” tank.  One of their main issues is lamenting the liberal bias and all that is wrong in NC Higher Education.  I recently came across this list of all the courses that are presumably wasting taxpayer money.  The NC State section contains a list of what seems like virtually every course with “gender,” “women,” “Black,” or “African” in the name.  Yet, my PS 306 Gender & Politics is left out.  I wonder if I’m doing something wrong.  A friend of mine teaches a very interesting course that, alas, has “feminism” in the title, so is undoubtedly a clear waste of taxpayer resources.  I really enjoyed her response when I told her:

LOTS of race and gender on that list. There’s a shamelessness in their racist and sexist attitudes that’s surprising. It’s not surprising that Civitas would be racist and sexist; it’s just surprising how explicit they’re being about it. What explains the newfound freedom in expressing such ugliness openly?

The simple truth is, you cannot judge a course by its title.  Yeah, the History of Surfing sounds laughable, but my guess is that taught by a quality professor, you could learn more about American history and culture then you’d ever learn from a mediocre professor in the presumably much more acceptable “2oth century US History.”   I must admit, some of these titles sound questionable even to me: “fire service diversity”? but on others it really does seem like they just want to single out almost anything on race or gender.  What could possibly be wrong with a class on Black Political Participation or Black Political Thought?  This list truly is shameless in the openly hostile attitudes towards the study of anything but white males.