College: Dazed and abused

By:RICK REISS - Commentary | Thursday, August 21, 2003 8:22 AM PDT ∞

It's back-to-school season, and parents everywhere are getting their kids ready for this annual rite. Many parents are sending their kids off to college this fall. With the skyrocketing costs of college, busy parents really have little time to find out just what tuition buys nowadays.

College students increasingly find themselves caught up in the middle of a cultural battlefield as more professors deviate from traditional teaching standards and wade into the pool of indoctrination.

Nationwide, college faculties have provoked controversy by imposing agenda-driven curricula onto undergraduates. Examples include requiring students to read the Koran and the creation of such courses as "How to be Gay." Close to home, our nearby campuses at Cal State University San Marcos and UC Riverside have their share of indoctrination masquerading as scholarly study.

CSUSM's Professor Aneil Rallin is now advancing the "scholarly" field of "queer studies." In his 1999 Ohio State University dissertation, Rallin states: "As a teacher, my main goal is to radicalize my students." Rallin also writes that he celebrates "queers who believe in public sex" and "queers who want to put the institution of marriage out of business."

One required reading for Professor Rallin is a booklet of essays titled "Radical Teacher." These essays advocate sexual relations between students and professors and the payoffs of utilizing sexually explicit homosexual images in the classroom.

If Professor Rallin's agenda were to bloom into fruition, our nation would experience unprecedented social decay, family breakdowns and the further spread of deadly diseases such as HIV.

In Riverside, another professor espouses an agenda to undermine America's national security. UCR's Professor Armando Navarro has formed the National Alliance for Human Rights to defend illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico.

Recently, the U.S. Border Patrol shut down a San Diego-based smuggling ring that specialized in moving illegal aliens from Middle East countries through Mexico and into the United States. State Department and Homeland Security officials have identified such smuggling rings as imminent threats as terrorists seek to gain illegal entry onto American soil.

Can we trust that Professor Navarro verifies the national origins of the illegal border crossers to screen out Islamic terrorists? Don't bet the farm. In addition, Navarro's disdain for American sovereignty has earned him the accolades of "La Voz de Aztlan," a radical, national socialist movement that seeks the takeover of the southwestern United States.

The hatred spewed by "La Voz de Aztlan" has earned it a hate-group designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. While this does not necessarily mean that Navarro holds racist views, the connection is troubling.

While there should be open discussion of controversial topics, there must be balance in which opposing points of views are presented. If "queer theory" is to be taught at CSUSM, where is the course that teaches the benefits of a stable, heterosexual and monogamous marriage? If "open borders" policies are to be taught to students at UCR, when will students learn the importance of national security in this age of terrorism?

Parents and students forking over tuition to these universities should expect more education and less indoctrination for the buck.

Rick Reiss of Temecula is a regular columnist for the Californian. E-mail: RickReiss6@netscape.net.

8/21/03

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