Blame Canada

You know that funny foreign kid? The one who lives in Eliot? He talks all weird-like and wears really tight jeans. I know, what a hoot! But let’s not get carried away—he could be dangerous, and not just because he’s probably a threat to national security.

A study released just last week reveals “a paucity of knowledge among students” when it comes to America’s Founding Principles. Commissioned by the Jack Miller Center for the Teaching of America’s Founding Principles—go figure—the bias-free study proves what so many of us have known for so long: This country’s universities are failing in their most fundamental mission—manufacturing Americans.

The study reported that when graduating seniors were quizzed on the U.S. Constitution, the Puritans, and the like, they answered an average of only 54 percent of questions correctly. This proves empirically that most Americans are either dumb enough to forget the basic “civic literacy” that they are taught in grade school, or else so bad at paying attention that they never actually learned it in the first place.

Most troubling, freshmen outperformed seniors at a number of highly expensive schools, like Princeton and Yale. This is evidence for one of two equally alarming conclusions; either America’s most pretentious universities are making their students stupider, or else their students graduate less American than when they began.

As for Harvard, our seniors didn’t disappoint to quite the same degree. But even as they weren’t outdone by first-years, and performed better than any other school studied, their average score of 70 percent was sub-par. Harvard has it bad, even if other schools have it worse.

As Harry R. Lewis ’68, Gordon McKay professor of computer science and former dean of Harvard College, argued in an editorial this summer: “Our children will not inherit our nationhood genetically. They can receive it only through learning.” If Harvard graduates haven’t learned about what it means to be an American, then this university is taking high treason to new heights.

The reason for Harvard’s negligence is woven deep into the composition of its student body. Over the course of the last century, pathogens have polluted our ranks, harboring dangerous loyalties to countries that could hypothetically be our enemies, countries like red China, yellow France, and multi-coloured Canada. They’ve been indulged by pinko leftist faculty, who spout drivel about “global citizenship” and “internationalism.” They are international students, and if this university is to reclaim its proper place atop American society, they must be purged without delay.

International students make it damned near impossible to drink from the fount of the American dream without choking. They provoke jealously with their sexy accents, impeccable fashion, and disproportionate good looks. They poison classroom discussions by making cheeky references to the fact that they aren’t American and steal accolades from gullible teaching fellows on account of their “unique perspective” and, even more nauseating, that they’ve “overcome adversity.” (Sure, Ghana is a developing country. But so is Louisiana.)

Worst of all, University administrators have given these foreign elements free reign for the past half-century. Rather than force them to take remedial courses about this country, catching up to their peers’ years of high school history courses, professors’ refusal to mandate American content in the curriculum gives foreigners a hall pass. Rather than quarantine them in some kind of international dormitory, we deliberately mix them into the rooms of unsuspecting Midwesterners, under the bizarre assumption that living with someone who thinks it’s acceptable for heterosexual men to kiss and embrace in public will do an American good.

Perhaps worst of all, we let international students use their funny accents and sob stories about not being able to go home for Thanksgiving as leverage, stealing the finance jobs that ought to go to good, wholesome Americans. While uppity Argentines grow the United States’ economy from behind their desks at Goldman Sachs, the native sons whose jobs they’ve stolen are forced into dependence on their trust funds years before their time. All the while, the foreign pretenders talk to each other in languages other than English, knowing full well that no self-respecting American could possibly understand them.

Imagine the impact on higher education in this country if Harvard were to send its foreign students packing. It would be terribly easy; simply refusing to renew their student visas will do the trick. The closing of the Harvard International Office would free up money that could be spent on new, patriotic faculty. So would the blanket termination of foreign faculty members.

American academia would soon be purged of its international impurities, as every university caught on and followed Harvard’s lead. Remember, if it weren’t for similarly bold, principled leadership on Harvard’s part, American colleges would still have early admission programs.

The civic illiteracy of Harvard students is an embarrassment to us all. The Jack Miller Center for the Teaching of America’s Founding Principles has spoken, and we would be fools not to listen. Harvard’s first duty is to its country, and its mission is clear; if we’re not educating American citizens, then we’ve lost our raison d’être. (That’s French.) The threat to Harvard’s integrity posted by the influx of internationals must be crushed immediately.



Adam Goldenberg ’08 is a social studies concentrator in Winthrop House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.