An Academic Divide: Navigating Truth in a Fractured America

    An Academic Divide: Navigating Truth in a Fractured America

Far too often, I start my day reading electronic versions of NPR News, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. My reading habits clearly reflect an educational slant, a predisposition I trace not to my undergraduate or graduate studies, but to my elementary education. It was there, in elementary school, that we were introduced to The New York Times. This practice came with absorbing its "big words" and learning how to fold the oversized newspaper. Our teachers impressed upon us that educated people read The Times, while less educated individuals consumed The New York Daily News or The New York Post.

However, while we were diligently reading The Times in school, our parents continued to get their information from the Daily News and the Post. In my household, it was uncommon to converse with elders about their sources of information or their social, political, and economic perspectives. Throughout high school and college, my educational influences progressively moved me away from the viewpoints of family and neighbors. Yet, my evolving ideas weren't fully embraced by my professors and mentors either. I began to feel isolated—from home, school, and church. I noticed many of my peers were having similar experiences; our intellectual journeys were individualistic and frequently painful.

The Chasm Widens: Academia, Identity, and the Press

By the time I reached graduate school, this intellectual drift continued. Most of my professors offered negative commentary about the "blue-collar" narrative presented by other New York dailies. As graduate students of color, we understood it was unwise to bring these periodicals into class or discuss their contents. Such viewpoints also permeated our academic discussions. Ideas about race, class, socio-economic status, family, and their portrayal often clashed with the perspectives of many professors and even some classmates. However, we grew to embrace these differences, recognizing them as valuable learning experiences that ultimately improved the quality of academic discourse.

Academics of color, especially those of African ancestry, often find themselves at war with their families, communities, the academy, and the intellectual press. Yet, they remain dependent on that very press to publish their ideas, concepts, and thoughts—to challenge the traditional status quo, defend their home communities, and present alternate points of view. For this reason alone, I take offense at the current administration's characterization of the press and higher education as "fake news," "ultra-liberal," and promoting "solely radical thought."

Debunking Misconceptions About Higher Education

Many editorial columnists in The New York Times are academics. Some are my contemporaries, and others could have been my professors. Their weekly essays clearly reflect their training, but they equally demonstrate that they do not think alike. I mention this to emphasize that even a center-left newspaper like The Times highlights the academy's production of diverse opinions. For example, columnists like David Brooks, John McWhorter, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Paul Krugman offer widely different perspectives and writing styles. If one were fortunate enough to have them as instructors, it would be obvious that universities provide a variety of viewpoints, regardless of political affiliations. This alone should serve as a counter to the current administration's claims that the academy is harming young Americans.

I posit that it is not institutions, but rather Americans themselves, who are harming young Americans. A misguided devotion to "fake codes and ethics" has encouraged the suppression of intellectual curiosity and exploration. We live in a land of contradictions that cannot accept self-criticism and is unwilling to confront visible difference. Americans are slowly destroying the very institutions that fostered our sense of exceptionalism and made us the envy of the world. As America declines, the world will look elsewhere for what it can no longer find within these borders.

The Unfulfilled Promise: America's "Grand Experiment"

Only Americans seem to believe that America is perfect. Injustice is a significant part of the American experience, and nearly every nation has encountered our country's less-than-exemplary actions. It makes no sense to portray a society filled with high standards and fairness when it cannot resolve its own civil war's lingering divisions, imposes blanket pardons on criminals, levies outrageous tariffs, or when masked government agents pick up people and send them to third-party nations.

While there are undeniable grounds for improvement, it is not the educational system that has failed. The failures lie with those who try to reshape society without considering the entire community, those who ignore the rights of fellow citizens, those who refuse to help lesser nations with life-saving resources, those who deny science and impede scientific and medical research, those who refuse to accept climate science and resort to heavy pollution, and those denying difference who promote close-minded societies. The list goes on.

What is happening in America is the destruction of the "grand experiment." America never fully achieved any of its lofty goals. It "can't be great again" because it never truly achieved "greatness." America was good, but never great. It's like the star athlete who has a moment but doesn't fulfill their potential. It's the quest to convince people that by making the Commanders the Redskins again, a name or a location determines a team's success. Please tell that to the Nets, Pelicans, or Hornets!

The experiment fails when political parties or regimes commit crimes against the people to benefit the few. The suggestion that Obama committed treason by trying to stop Trump from being president—a claim that does not fit the definition of treason—highlights the key to this entire exercise: education! To be the best nation, the people must be educated. They must lead, not follow. Our representatives must understand the laws and their responsibilities. And the president must understand their role, mission, and be accountable. Instead, the current president has lived on rumors and conspiracy theories and invited the masses to join him for the ride. Now that controversies are pointing directly at him, all he can do is deflect with more outlandish assertions.

The Attack on Education and Intellectual Freedom

This is the only nation that has a public education system designed for social transformation and capable of producing a highly informed electorate. Yet, elements on both the political and social left and right seek to "dumb it down" and censor it to the point that young people are not exposed to critical issues and are not allowed to think for themselves. At the forefront of the movement to destroy public education and its expansion is the President of the United States. Sadly, this is not a coincidence.

Similarly, the attack on elite universities—which produced most members of the Supreme Court, Congress, the Cabinet, and the President himself—is allegedly due to claims of antisemitism on these campuses. While it's true that the actions of some students may be antisemitic or threaten campus safety, do the proposed remedies genuinely change the climate and make them safer? To the contrary, these attacks often challenge the administration's notions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and are systematically designed to suppress the voices and decrease the numbers of faculty and students of color on these campuses.

Recently, The New York Times published an article titled "For MAGA Ignorance Is Strength." While its author, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, focused his argument on the demise of science, by all accounts, it was a reflection of the entire nation. The suggestion that "ignorance is strength" truly sums up what forces in this nation hope to achieve with a less educated citizenry. 

I mourn the demise of the Department of Education and the Civil Rights legislation which helped make our society more educated and democratic.