A sophomore at the University of South Carolina was shocked recently to find a school textbook presenting as fact the claims that Ronald Reagan was a sexist and that conservatives think people are incapable of charity and those on welfare are “lazy.”

The book also claims that rich people find that having poor people around is “useful” because it allows them to have a class of people to “look down on.”

The textbook, written by Karen K. Krist-Ashman and used in a course titled “Introduction to Social Work Profession and Social Welfare,” was first reported by Campus Reform on February 16.

In one part, Krist-Ashman’s text teaches students about “Conservative Extremes in the 1980s and Early 1990s” and claims that Reagan “ascribed to women primarily domestic functions” while refusing to appoint women to important positions during his presidency.

It seems Krist-Ashman isn’t aware that Reagan appointed the first female Justice of the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor. Nor is she aware of Jeane Kirkpatick, who served as Reagan’s national security advisor, served in his cabinet, and became the first female ambassador to the UN. This is not to mention the many women he appointed to the various federal courts. In fact, Reagan appointed some 1,400 women to high-level, policy-making positions during his eight years in Washington.

Student Anna Chapman of USC was disgusted to find this biased treatment that Reagan, Republicans, and conservatives were given in her required reading. “I can not even tell you how angry I was when I read that,” she told Campus Reform.

The textbook charges that conservatives have a “pessimistic view of human nature,” and they insist that humans are “self-centered, lazy and incapable of true charity.”

This is an interesting charge given the findings of several polls that have discovered that conservatives give more money to charity than do liberals.

The book also claims rich people like poor folks to do dangerous or menial jobs and that “poor people can do the ‘dirty work’ for rich people that the latter don’t want to do.” The text also states “having a poor social class emphasizes that the wealthy are higher in the social structure… and allows them to look down on classes below them.”

This is the sort of progressive propaganda being foisted on students as fact instead of the biased opinion it really is.