THE LONG MARCH THROUGH THE INSTITUTIONS

As I may have recently remarked, I am reading (nearly finished) Prof. Stanley K. Ridgely's excellent new book (2023) titled 'BRUTAL MINDS', in which he examines the academic root-origins of today's radical leftist educational ideology (i.e. Marxian/Marcusian 'Critical Theory' doctrine, from which has evolved PC progressive 'wokeism', racial identity doctrines of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and a highly ironic black racist movement that seeks to make all people of color 'victims' and all people with light skin supremacist, racist oppressors and subjugators. This same poisonous ideological brainwashing filling the highly vulnerable and dangerously susceptible brains of undergrads at higher educational institutions (read: colleges and universities) has been at work since the late 1960s and is now so firmly established in our schools that even primary schools are now brimming with 'woke' teachers, advocates and administrators. These are the erstwhile 'educators' that are coaching and instructing your public-school-age children, of course (hence the huge increase in 'alternative' educational venues such as 'home schooling'), indoctrinating them to be perfect recipients of the hard-core ideology they promote.

Equally ironic is the fact that most ‘average’, unread and materialistically sated ‘consumers’ in America remain almost completely clueless and unaware of all this (another slamming indictment of the insular cocoons that social-media peer-circles constitute on one level, at least) processing of their children. Naturally the feeble-minded, intellectually deficit remain totally in the dark (like the virtual mushrooms they are) because they are more interested in consuming mass quantities (as the ‘Coneheads’ satirically advocated on that 80s TV series) of material superfluity than in thinking critically about the deteriorating quality of their lives.

To say Ridgely’s book is an eye-opener in an otherwise swamp-like, smoke-and-mirrors-filled socio-political environment is a gross understatement, but Ridgeley is a very smart man and he not only clearly explains the whole process but diagrams its workings in an easy-to-absorb, non-academic manner that anyone can understand and comprehend.

One of the chief reasons why we now have such a dynamic radical leftist agenda in our schools (all of them…primary and higher education included) is that a new class of pseudo-academics with dubious credentials has arisen. The peripheral educational supernumeraries that constitute this new class of educational worker are those with so-called graduate degrees in education (e.g. EdD and M. Ed., MSE., MS. Ed., MA. Ed.). Ridgely explains that this ‘underclass’ of individuals with degrees in (general) education are shockingly inferior to legitimate academics (with advanced degrees in serious fields of academic study, such as engineering, math, the sciences, biology, medicine, et al.) and moreover, they tend to be recipients of degrees from often notoriously ‘slippery’ institutions with widely acknowledged low standards.

As a group, these are the minions that now work in the seemingly nebulous world of ‘student affairs’ that ostensibly provides the underpinning support for the mechanical processes of legitimate academia. The purpose of advanced degreed individuals working in ‘student affairs’ was originally that of a strictly basic, supportive function, helping students navigate the more serious world of advanced educational processes. Think ‘organising games to help students relax and depressurise’, ‘kumbaya song fests’, social events, housing and dining concerns, and so forth, but after three decades or more of inside work to legitimise the field of ‘student affairs’ professionals, the core concerns now focus (covertly) on indoctrinating students in the new radical leftist ‘woke’ mentality, living the ‘woke’ paradigm, group-think and embracing what is actually a hard-core Maoist approach to establishing mind-control and ideological conformity. I can imagine many of you are probably at this moment shaking your heads and muttering, “No way!”

Folks, believe me when I say that this is not more inferential allusioning…this is a harsh new, very real and highly dangerous sub-rosa movement within the educational academic milieu that is working to change American society into a hyper-idealistic socialist ideal.

At any rate, you must really read Ridgely’s book to fully grasp what I am referring to in these few short paragraphs, but if nothing else emerges from this product of my ‘bully pulpit’ broadside, know this: the field of education as it pertains to higher degrees is absolutely full of half-baked, academically incompetent, abysmally capable and often barely educated themselves individuals. These are all people with those EdD (etc.) letters listed after their names as in the foregoing paragraphs, and a careful check of their bona fides will invariably reveal how superficial and ‘fly-by-nightish’ their credentials actually are!

Think of it this way, if it helps: Whereas we formerly had one single class of higher academic professionals (e.g. college teachers, professors, administrators, et al), we now have two parallel classes, the former filled with traditional academics just cited and the latter filled with ancillary functionaries(with advanced degrees in ‘education’) who specialise in ‘supporting academia and student affairs’ (up to and including coaching and conditioning all students politically and socially as they continue through college level work). It is this second tier of educational ‘specialists’ that poses such incredible, if largely unseen and vastly unrecognised danger to our colleges and universities today, since these foot soldiers of ‘wokeism’ have risen FAR above any original objective goals and functions of their erstwhile calling to impose themselves and their ideological will upon the actual, functioning academic system that traditionally existed before they came along.

Ridgely rather brilliantly dissects the entire process and goes into illuminating detail of the inner workings of a system that has permitted these academic ‘pretenders’ to now set radical leftist policies, dictate terms of socio-political understanding and progressive ‘official doctrines’ within academia.

Accept the above on faith for the moment, but for anyone interested in taking a sobering (and chilling) dive into exactly what’s actually going-on in the current snake-pit of higher education and what’s actually happening in this movement, you must read Ridgely’s arguments for yourself. If you have any care or concern about how education figures centrally in the preservation and maintenance of our traditional American institutions and founding principles, the best way to do that is to read Ridgely’s book.

To highlight the compelling impetus for familiarising yourself with all that this book contains, let me cite two very distinct examples of exactly what a higher degree in the field of ‘education’ may actually translate to in real terms. The first involves Bill Cosby, whom we all now know for several reasons…first, his acting/television work, second, his pathological ‘womanising’ and third, his erstwhile attainment of a ‘Doctorate in Education’ (for which he informs us he wishes to be known as ‘Dr. Cosby’). The second relates to none other than the wife of the nation’s Bumbler-in-Chief (President Joe Biden), “Dr. Jill Biden.”

Both of these individuals ostensibly possess ‘legitimate’ Doctorates in Education (EdD), but as we shall see, both degrees are actually much less than they would appear to be, given a careful drill-down into the facts & circumstances surrounding the award of both the degrees mentioned here. I shouldn’t have to remind you, if you follow the news, that Mrs. Biden also prefers to be addressed by the title ‘Dr.’

None other than the Washington Post, that now serpentine news organisation that is so firmly mired in leftist bias, investigated ‘Dr. Cosby’s’ doctorate award, back in 2014, in an article by Valeries Strauss.

The following is a reprint of that article, verbatim. Judge for yourself, whether or not a doctoral dissertation on a cartoon character (‘Fat Albert’) by a doctoral student who didn’t attend a single class in his pursuit of the degree actually deserves to have that academic status conferred upon himself.

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Bill Cosby’s doctoral thesis was about using ‘Fat Albert’ as a teaching tool

By Valerie Strauss, November 24, 2014

[Comedian Bill Cosby performed at the Maxwell C. King Center for the Performing Arts, in Melbourne, Fla., Friday, Nov. 21, 2014. Performances by Cosby in Nevada, Illinois, Arizona, South Carolina and Washington state have been since canceled as more women come forward accusing the entertainer of sexually assaulting them years ago.]

Bill Cosby is sometimes referred to as 'Dr. Cosby' because he has a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts of Amherst. He earned the degree in the mid-1970s (1976) — with a thesis titled “An Integration of the Visual Media Via Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972) into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning” — but how he got the degree has been controversial ever since.

According to Michael Eric Dyson, a sociology professor at Georgetown University and an acclaimed author of “Is Bill Cosby Right?” and numerous other books: [Cosby] dropped out of high school after he flunked the tenth grade three times. He enlisted in the Navy, where he got his GED, and then enrolled at Temple University, where he dropped out to pursue a show business career. His unfinished bachelor’s degree from Temple was eventually bestowed on him because of “life experience.” Cosby enrolled as a part-time doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which awarded him the Ed.D. degree in 1977 for a dissertation on Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

But not even that degree was unsullied by controversy: A professor who served on Cosby’s dissertation committee, Reginald Damerell, said that Cosby hardly took a class — and that he got course credit for appearing on Sesame Street and The Electric Company, “and wrote a dissertation that analyzed the impact of his show.”

Damerell’s claims came in his 1985 book called “Education’s Smoking Gun,” which was a strong critique of education schools. A University of Massachusetts associate professor who left after 12 years, Damerell wrote in his book about a program at U. Mass in which people already established in their fields could earn a doctorate by taking some course work, getting credit for their work experience and writing a thesis.

Cosby himself wrote that he was persuaded to join the program — after he got a master’s degree in education in 1972 — by a dean. He bought a 16-room farmhouse not too far from the Amherst campus and spent time in both California and Massachusetts in those years. Cosby had a flexible course schedule that allowed him to keep performing.

A 1985 story in People Magazine about the book quoted Louis Fischer, acting dean of the University of Massachusetts School of Education when Cosby received his doctorate, as saying that Cosby’s thesis was “a very respectable piece of work” It also said:

Fischer adds that U. Mass. at the time was trying “to get away from the historic rigidities of schools of education” and that there were “at least 50 other students at that time who also received Ed.D. degrees through such nontraditional methods.”

Current university officials have not yet responded to questions about the program.

The dissertation, which was 142 pages of text and another hundred footnotes and other material, discussed how educators could use Cosby-created animated television shows — “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” — to teach children in the classroom.

Cosby attended a ceremony in 1977 where he was awarded his degree, according to this People story.

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Valerie Strauss is an education writer who runs the Answer Sheet blog. She came to The Washington Post as an assistant foreign editor for Asia in 1987 and weekend foreign desk editor after working for Reuters as national security editor and a military/foreign affairs reporter on Capitol Hill. She also previously worked at UPI and the L.A. Times.

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The second citation I refer to here concerns ‘Dr. Jill Biden’, the President’s wife, whose EdD deserves perhaps even more scathing critical examination. It is interesting to note, furthermore, that Mrs. Biden’s doctorate was awarded AFTER Joe began his run for president, again raising serious ethical questions about whether or not his political power influenced the award…but read on, since the legitimacy of Biden’s EdD has even more contentious and questionable ‘issues’ than even Dr. Bill’s!

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Why Jill Biden’s Doctoral Dissertation Must Be Questioned

By News and Times Staff, 10 Jan 2021

After the National Review ran a series of articles pointing out that Jill Biden’s dissertation for the University of Delaware Education Doctorate (ED) had fundamental issues, the Democratic machine went into high alert to drown out anyone who dared to say anything about her work. No matter how much the left tries to say otherwise, it cannot be denied that the Education Doctorate has long been questioned and many universities have abandoned it to push a PhD in education (with its own problems).

We strongly believe that the University of Delaware should investigate the process that led to this dissertation being accepted, and here are the reasons why:

1. There Is No Real Record of Her Academic Career

While there are many statements that Jill Biden received an ED from the University of Delaware in January 2007, there are no records of when she began her studies or how long it took. These are pretty common pieces of information and yet there isn’t a university page, personal notice, or even a mention. While this might be just an oversight, the timing does matter a lot because…

2. Her Dissertation Was Approved After Joe Ran for President

Jill Biden’s dissertation was approved after Joe started his run for President in January 2007. There are plenty of records of Jill following Joe on the campaign trail and no mention of her sitting down to defend her dissertation. There is no mention of any of the standard process of a dissertation acceptance taking place – no mention of submission, revisions, etc., which matters because…

3. Her Dissertation Has Many Obvious Errors

A review of Jill Biden’s dissertation shows that there are hundreds of errors, from minor types to major syntax problems. Every single page has a fundamental error that would be easy to spot, and dissertations are often returned to students to clean up before they are approved. Our own founder went through 8 months of revision and review with his panel for relatively minor changes (word choice) before he was allowed to sit for a defense, and this is on the shorter side. According to the University’s own standards, the submission must contain “prose that is clear, concise, and free of grammatical and typographical errors.”

There are some fundamental aspects of a dissertation missing, especially a literature review that would provide a thorough analysis of works already completed on the topic. University of Delaware instead calls this an “executive position paper” to denote these differences. However, there are still many key things that she leaves out. This is important because…

4. Her Dissertation Is Well Below the Acceptable Minimum of Pages

Most schools require a dissertation to be over 200 pages, with some schools requiring it to be over 150. Jill Biden’s actual write-up is only 87 pages with 120 total pages if you include the appendix. If one is going to demand that she be called “doctor,” as she had since at least 2009, one would expect that she would conform to the standards that most academic doctors hold to.

Maybe her dissertation follows the “quality” not “quantity” rule of acceptance, which would be a very fair standard to follow. However…

5. Her Research Was Fundamentally Flawed and Did Not Abide By Basic Standards

As the National Review has thoroughly demonstrated, Jill Biden’s methodology of research amounts to a handful of misguided questionnaires that ignore basic standards around asking questions and refuses to perform follow-ups. Sometimes, the pool of respondents is so tiny that the data is insignificant, and the questions are so vapid that the extrapolation is impossible.

Although she claims to look at retention numbers, there is no comparison of hard data with other schools, no attempt to review different schools and groups to see if there are any commonalities, or any actual attempt to do more than about a few weeks-worth of work. The two interviews of students is paltry to say the least.

People should question Jill Biden’s Education Doctorate and find out how much of a role Joe Biden played. Although the Bidens have claimed that Jill did not use her married name at the campus, it is prominent on all official documents that we have, including her dissertation.

It is clear that Joe Biden’s announcement for running for President, combined with his long tenure as Senator for Delaware, played a great role in her being able to avoid the normal requirements imposed upon so many others. [Italics added]

So why must we call such a person “doctorate” when so many issues are so outstanding? We have no problem with her keeping a piece of paper for an unearned degree. We do have a problem with her insisting that we honor her for substandard work and abuse of her husband’s clout.

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REFERENCES, NOTES

1) BRUTAL MINDS, Stanley K. Ridgely, Humanix Books, May 2023, ISBN 978-1630062262, hardbound, 289 pp.

2) SOCIAL JUSTICE FALLACIES, Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, 2023, ISBN 978-1541603929, Hardbound, 201 pp.

3) THE WAR ON WHITES: HOW HATING WHITE PEOPLE BECAME THE NEW NATIONAL SPORT, Ed Brodow, TousDroit Publishing, 2023, ISBN 979-8395875587, Softbound, 189 pp.

4) THE NEW PURITANS: HOW THE RELIGION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE CAPTURED THE WESTERN WORLD, Andrew Doyle, Constable/Little-Brown, 2022, ISBN 978-0-34913-532-8, Hardbound, 374 pp.

5) Bill Cosby’s doctoral thesis was about using ‘Fat Albert’ as a teaching tool, article, Washington Post, Nov 2014, by Valerie Strauss.

6) Why Jill Biden’s dissertation must be questioned, article, News and Times, (by staff writer), Jan 2021.