“Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” Joseph Stalin, 1934.
Wit has it that good students drive out bad teaching. Bright and enthusiastic students, especially at the college level, will generally avoid mediocre teachers, pedestrian courses, and unserious notions. The principle that quality attracts quality and repels incompetence protects American post-secondary education from becoming totally awash in politically correct indoctrination.Ever creative universities and colleges have responded by buoying enrollment in “diversity” courses by requiring them for graduation. Diversity Digest happily reports that 63% of colleges and universities either require diversity courses or are considering the institution of such core requirements.
If diversity really referred to the diversity of ideas, the consideration of broad areas of intellectual thought and human experience, then such requirements would enrich the curriculum. The titles of such “diversity” courses might be: World History, Philosophy from Antiquity to the Present, or Comparative Religion. These courses would be broad in scope, introducing students to the incredible variety of accumulated human knowledge and wisdom. When the National Assessment of Education Progress reports that “Fewer than half the grade-12 students in the assessment were able to reach the Basic level [in US History]” much less the “Proficient” or “Advanced” levels, it is clear that time needs to be devoted to broadening rather than narrowing educational exposure.
Instead such “diversity” courses tend to focus on the usually narrow grievances of one group or another. For example, according to the University of Maryland Schedule of Classes for Fall 2001, courses that meet the diversity requirement, “focus primarily on…the history, status, treatment, or accomplishment of women or minority groups and subcultures…” While a few of these courses may be gems, it seems doubtful that anything but a single narrow perspective is considered. Rather than offering a mountain of jewels to students, the world is portrayed through but one facet of a single gem.
It would be humorous, if it were not so sad, that all courses of study feel the necessity to pay rhetorical homage to the diversity curriculum. In describing a course cluster of Calculus I and Introduction to C Programming, in the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland, the college apparently felt compelled to begin the description with the sentence, ”The science and technology leaders of the future will include large numbers of traditionally underrepresented groups.” The statement may be true, but it hardly constitutes the reason to study Calculus I and C Programming.
It is not that many groups do not have legitimate grievances or do not offer unique, interesting or enlightening contributions. It is not that serious study of different cultures is not important or fruitful. Rather, it is that the focus on one or a few such groups as part of a “diverse” undergraduate curriculum cheats students out the breath of exposure we expect from a liberal (small L) education.
The majority of undergraduates do not go on to graduate school and many of those that do specialize so narrowly that it can be said that for many the majority of a lifetime of intellectual capital is amassed by the end of the undergraduate years. It is truly foolhardy to squander any of this time on any but the broadest and most intellectually serious courses of study.
Permit Federal Funding of Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Sunday, July 29th, 2001Though perhaps difficult to answer, the question framing the abortion and embryonic stem cell research debates is easy to pose: At what point from conception on do we ascribe the status of “person” and hence recognize the rights of embryos and fetuses? Once this question is answered, conclusions about abortion and embryonic stem cell research follow like water off a ledge.For those who conclude that personhood occurs at conception, unless the mother’s life is at risk, the right to life trumps any right a woman has to make decisions about medical treatment. On the other hand, if embryos and fetuses are only human “tissue” and not persons, then there is no moral impediment to the removal and disposal of embryos and fetuses.
In contradiction to many Conservative friends, I have argued that personhood is associated with brain wave activity in the neocortical area of the brain where higher-level mental activities reside. Such activity does not occur until the second trimester. Hence, abortions in the first trimester ought to be permitted by legislative decision. The judicial fiat of Roe v. Wade was not the way to permit first trimester abortions, but that is another story.
In the second trimester and most certainly, the final trimester, termination of pregnancy should occur only in the case when the mother’s life is threatened. Even then, if a fetus can be delivered in a fashion that does not compromise the mother’s life, the baby should be delivered and provided the maximum opportunity to thrive.
Under this framework for ascribing personhood, embryonic stem cell research should not only be permitted, but also federally funded. Stem cells are not, nor are the embryos from which they are derived, persons. If such tissue provides fruitful avenues for important medical research, there is actually a positive ethical obligation to use such cells.
There are some in the pro-life movement, like Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who are both against abortion and yet for embryonic stem cell research. Hatch, has argued that an embryo is not a person until it is implanted in a womb. Surely, that is a tortuous and contrived distinction brought upon by the understandable desire to make ethical room for potentially important medical advances from embryonic stem cell research. If he gave it more thought, Hatch would agree that if it were medically possible to bring an embryo to full term without ever being in womb, he would still ascribe personhood to a late term fetus. The physical position of an embryo or fetus with respect to the womb is irrelevant to personhood. To argue otherwise is to concede inadvertently a distinction crucial to abortion absolutists who would permit abortion at any point in pregnancy. It is illegal to suck the brains out of a late term fetus that is outside the womb, but permissible (and some abortion absolutists argue Constitutionally protected) to do so in a “partial birth” abortion.
Even if one allows for the ethical permissibility of embryonic stem cell research, human stem cells are not a commercial commodity that can be traded and marketed indiscriminately. Just as we do not permit marketing of kidneys, the disposition of stem cells should be regulated. Bill First, Republican Senator from Tennessee and the only doctor in the Senate has proposed a reasoned compromise to the stem cell research question. Though it is perhaps more restrictive than I would propose, President George Bush would still be wise to adopt First’s approach. Essentially, First would
This regime would allow federally-funded embryonic stem research to go forward as we struggle to understand the potentials and hazards of such research.
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