Students at George Washington University in Washington D.C., almost universally rejected American exceptionalism in a series of interviews conducted by the Young America’s Foundation.
The students who agreed to be interviewed made it clear that their education has played a significant role in shaping their perspective of the United States. One student claimed that her professor taught her that “America feels the need to define itself in relation to other countries. It wants to be at the top and the best of everything.”
A recent New York Times piece by prominent liberal columnist Nick Kristof, entitled “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance,” laid out exactly how contemporary American academia is commanded by regressive leftists who use the classroom to espouse their hostility towards conservative viewpoints. Kristof suggests that it is the arrogance of the liberals who dominate academia that is to blame for students lack of exposure to a diverse array of ideologies and worldviews:
To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don’t have anything significant to add to the discussion.
Another student suggested that a clip from Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series The Newsroom influenced his perspective on American exceptionalism. In the scene, a news anchor issues a diatribe about the absurdity of American exceptionalism after pressed on the topic by a naively-portrayed college student. Sorkin, who has been a longtime donor to the Democratic party, and the leftists instructors who command American classrooms, ignore that America’s decline in various global rankings has coincided with the consistent expansion of the amount of freedom-restricting regulations added to Federal Register every year.
George Washington University’s mission statement claims that “the University values a dynamic, student-focused community stimulated by cultural and intellectual diversity,” that is “built upon a foundation of integrity, creativity, and openness to the exploration of new ideas.” However, students at George Washington University, as well as students at other institutions around the country, aren’t being afforded the full range of perspectives that their universities were designed to provide them.
At Georgetown University, it took U2 frontman, Bono, to remind students that America is unique and exceptional.
Unfortunately, students must come to college prepared to challenge their instructors to provide them a proper and full education so that they learn to think critically and come to their own conclusions.
Tom Ciccotta writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or on Facebook. You can email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com
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