Word: bennette
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...Bennett, while at Harvard labelled student course choice in the Core a mixture of "Luck, serendipity, chance, peer pressure and a kind of institutional negligence." But a student's four years at college are expected to be a time of growth; a rehash of the Western ideals already indoctrinated during high school, which Bennett proposed two years ago, does not seem like a worthy goal, as it would further close minds which should be opened with new information...
...Bennett also maintained that, "Students should learn about Western Culture because that's the culture we live in. To the secretary, competition from foreign systems and beliefs is a direct assault on America, and universities must be responsible for its defense. However, he ignores the real danger--graduates will not successfully represent the United States if they see foreign cultures as dark, undefined bogeymen...
...Stanford issue shows Bennett's close-minded intolerance even more clearly. The school's Faculty Senate overwhelmingly endorsed the progressive proposal to incorporate issues of gender, race, and class in a required course for freshmen by a vote of 39-4, after two years of thoughtful, campuswide debate. Yet Bennett immediately credited the decision to "bullying, threatening and name-calling," by a vocal minority. Numerous Stanford officials, including President Donald Kennedy '52, have dismissed this charge as ridiculous...
...depth of Bennett's biases is exhibited by his claim that the aim of Stanford's "Cultures, Ideas, and Values"--studying works by and concerning women and minorities alongside established Western masterpieces--"Trivializes the entire purpose" of education. The Bible and the thoughts of Plato naturally deserve study, but such texts as the Koran and the writings of Confucius can not be ignored, presenting new perspectives, and representing major literary and spiritual schools of thought. The fact that this country's Secretary of Education believes that societies and groups outside of mainstream Western life do not merit study by American...
Secretary Bennett fails to note that fully one-third of the Stanford student body is composed of minorities who correctly felt slighted by exclusive emphasis on white figures and works for so long. Reading selections which represent a small percentage of the world's population defeats education's mission to be accessible. Adoption of an arbitrary canon of works by the elite serves to reinforce the attitudes which firmly established white male dominance; without the repression seen throughout history, more masterpieces by women and minorities would be recognized as such...