Jay Schalin writes about bias in North Carolina public colleges.

…is what we are teaching our students in the classroom going to produce a prosperous and free North Carolina?

At UNC-Chapel Hill, the answer is too often a resounding “No.” In fact, sometimes students are encouraged to adopt philosophies that are guaranteed to suppress prosperity and freedom.

During the fall semester, I explored in depth two courses at UNC-CH that would better be termed collectivist indoctrination than education. Both professors adhere to a belief system of radical anti-capitalism and use their positions to guide students to share their ideology.

One such teacher, Jason Moore, is a recently hired lecturer in the geography department who has not yet completed his doctoral dissertation. Moore has been a contributor to the Marxist journal Monthly Review, and the reading list for his course Geographical Issues in the Developing World last May was dominated by Monthly Review contributors and other well-known radicals.

Judith Blau, on the other hand, is a full professor in the sociology department. She has taught at Chapel Hill since 1988, and she chairs her department’s Social and Economic Justice program as well. Last semester, at her urging, her students produced a mock U.S. Constitution heavily laced with statements such as “resources should be distributed according to need” and “working for collective rights will create a more harmonious society.” It was precisely the document she wanted them to produce, for she praised their efforts effusively: “[I]f the determination of the students in these two classes were realized, the United States would be good citizen in the world of nations, and would live up to international human rights standards.”

 Professors like Moore and Blau are not rarities in the UNC system. A cursory sampling of course syllabi available on the Internet suggests that some humanities and social sciences departments might even be dominated by those with collectivist inclinations.

This manner of thinking, whether it is called socialism, collectivism, or communism, is neither innocent nor productive. Teaching such beliefs will not keep our state prosperous, but will instead encourage those who have adopted them to hamper private industry through excessive regulations and taxation. Innovation does not thrive in such an unrewarding environment, no matter how much money you throw at research and higher education.