Bennett Against the World

IN an October 10, 1986 speech in Sanders Theater during Harvard's 350th anniversary celebration, Secretary of Education William Bennett labelled the Core Curriculum a "smorgasbord." He advocated a more structured plan which would steep undergraduates in numerous courses covering "The classical and Jewish-Christian heritage, the roots of American and European History...and the great works of Western art and literature."

Likewise, on April 18, 1988, he attacked a Stanford decision to replace its Western Cultures requirement with a new mandatory course, "Cultures, Ideas, and Values," which is more global in scope. The California university plans to reduce the number of great works covered by the required freshman course from six to 15 in 1989, eliminating such seminal writers as Shakespeare, Descartes, and Dostoevsky. These pieces will be replaced by works by and concerning women, Blacks, and Asians, in a noble effort to expose American students to different, non-white male perspectives and cultures.

In both of these instances, Bennett's ridiculous assertions reflect his narrowminded views of education, which would severely limit a student's ability to succeed in the world. Other areas of the globe, such as Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are becoming increasingly important in international affairs and economics. How does the secretary expect American students to compete in the world if they are unfamiliar with the thought and tradition of these areas? Can a businessman compete with the Japanese if he knows nothing about them beyond stereotypes? Also, how can any political scientist help find a solution in the Middle East without a comprehensive knowledge of the area's religions and history? To help American interests in the future, colleges must train students to understand and respect their foreign counterparts, not to ignore them.

SECRETARY Bennett, however, believes that the way to prepare this country's youth for the future is to focus them on their own past. Bennett's concepts would nourish isolationism in American students, creating a inherent bias towards Western thought and an ignorance of other cultures. Unfortunately, his position as Secretary of Education provides a podium for his reactionary plans regarding higher learning, where Bennett displays the two distinguishing trademarks of his time in office: abject denial of facts and paranoid political conservatism.

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.

The Core affords students the chance to delve into a wide variety of fields without the intense pressure of taking department offerings. Granted, eight required courses might seem burdensome to students, and there have been numerous, deserved complaints about inconsistencies in quality and value. Yet how else could one learn biology from a famous professor like Stephen Jay Gould without battling pre-meds in their own department, or find the motivation to explore in-depth an important movement such as the Chinese Cultural Revolution?

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.

The 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.

THE 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 students displays elitist bigotry at its worst.

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.

Today, many advances in all fields are being made by minorities in this country and others, due to the weakening of old stereotypes and restrictions. Universities, to facilitate learning and prepare students more comprehensively, ought to accept this trend, and incorporate more minority studies into existing curricula. Stanford took a bold step in this direction to prepare for the future, only to be accused of undermining the glory of America and the West.

Bennett's stress on the teaching of traditional morals, paired with his dismissal of minority cultures, would result in a generation of well-read racists with no knowledge of the world outside the West. Bennett would do far better for himself and for the nation's students by supporting new, cross-cultural approaches to education rather than trying to limit the free exchange of ideas.