Word: argumentation
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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While the staff is on the mark in opposing the creation of an ethnic studies department, it endorses a flawed argument. By embracing the view that academic departments should be created for the purpose of righting political wrongs, it adopts the vocabulary and philosophy of ethnic studies proponents. University departments should not become vehicles for political activism, their role ought to be to deliberatively explore spheres of thought without any underlying ideological motivation...
...will spend two or three hours, if we have to, debating a single case," the dean said. "One of the things you might ask is, 'Would I be admitted if I applied today?' I make the argument that we would...
...begin with, it flirts with the notion of moral relativism, or the belief that it is invalid to criticize the mores of any one culture no matter how wrong they may seem. Not only is this a lazy intellectual argument, but it is also threatening to American democracy because our political system is built on very specific notions of what inherent legal rights individuals do and do not possess...
Those who disagree with our argument are likely to point to the existence of the Afro-American Studies Department and the Committee on Women's Studies as strong evidence that it is necessary and important to focus on the experience of specific minorities in American society. There are fundamental differences, however, between the experiences of blacks and women, and, say, Italians, Asians or Latinos. To begin with, blacks are the only members of American society, besides Native Americans, who did not come to this country voluntarily. In fact, most blacks were brought here in a tragic and violent nature...
According to this argument, having women in higher levels affords female undergraduates valuable role models...