Indoctrination at Marquette: Psychology 112 -- The Psychology of Prejudice

In a sense, this post isn’t news. That rigid politically correct indoctrination happens on university campuses is well known.

But one might believe that at a Catholic university, Catholic doctrine would at least be tolerated. One ought to be able to hold Catholic beliefs without being demeaned and derided. But not in Psychology 112 -- The Psychology of Prejudice, taught by Debra Oswald. And certainly not where homosexuality is concerned.

We got the following critique of the course from a student (in fact, a very good student) who took it.

Equal Voice for All
After taking a Psychology of Prejudice class this past semester, I was extremely disgusted by the obvious attempts of liberals to indoctrinate students to their ideology. The main focus of the class was supposedly to encourage “tolerance and understanding” amongst individuals, regardless of race, gender, ethnic background, and even religious beliefs. What I was taught instead was that the only views that are going to be tolerated are those that agree with mainstream liberal thought. If you hold any opinions that are inconsistent with the liberal beliefs you are considered a bigot and uneducated.

One quote I heard one time from a speaker I once heard says it best, “To only be taught one side of an argument is to be indoctrinated. To be shown both sides of an argument and then you make a decision, then you have been taught.” Psychology of Prejudice does not teach students, it indoctrinates them by presenting straw man arguments of alternative viewpoints and by silencing disputes from the opposition with the accusation that they are “bigots”.

I probably endorse beliefs about tolerance more than the ones who scream the loudest about it because I think that true tolerance means being willing to let another person have equal voice even when you disagree with them. That is not true today in the college today, and certainly not true in Psychology of Prejudice. Today if you adhere to the Bible as a basis of belief you are considered to hold discriminatory beliefs (especially if you take a literal reading of the scriptures). This includes racism, sexism, and heterosexism. Forget being able to hold any views on morality that are based on the Bible because you will be considered narrow-minded and out of touch.

If one listens to what scripture says about romantic relationships, you will most likely be hit from two sides. In my class my professor actually read out of the Bible to “prove” how sexist it is. She decided to read from Ephesians 5:22-23 which says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church…” She completely ripped the passage out of context and did not read any other passages like where it commands husbands to “love their wives as their own body.” Nowhere in the Bible does it teach that a man is supposed to treat her as if she were beneath him, nor does it say anything about men being better than women (it actually teaches that they are equal before God). But yet the class teaches that those who adhere to the literal reading of Bible are sexist.

My question is where is the tolerance for those who decide to believe in the Bible and what it teaches? Why is it that a biblical worldview cannot be taught in school, yet a worldview that never passes up an opportunity to attack faith can be rammed down our throats?

This need to attack those who adhere to faith did not come through more clearly than with the frequent remarks from our teacher about how homosexuality is a perfectly acceptable sexual practice. Anyone who says differently is considered ignorant in eyes of psychology. We were told repeatedly that if we think that homosexuality is wrong that is being prejudiced. This was true regardless of what you did or said about your beliefs.

Now, I think it is wrong to attack someone because of their sexual orientation, and I think it is wrong to treat them inhumanely; but I think that I have the right to believe whether or not it is sin and not be discriminated against because of my beliefs. Who has the right to tell me that I am wrong and that my opinions need to be eradicated? I have no problem simultaneously believing that homosexuality is sin but yet accepting a homosexual person as human being and treating him or her as such. I know this is true because I have had homosexual teachers (both male and female) and I got along very well with both of them and was actually friends with both of them. In fact, they were both fully aware of my beliefs towards homosexuality but they could see that I did not judge them on the basis of that one sin and they still enjoyed interacting with me. We even were able to discuss our beliefs about it because both my teachers and I were being transparent. Now I think that is true tolerance.

Psychology of Prejudice is teaching us that the only way to accept someone is to ignore everything about them and say everything they do is okay. The truth is that this is impossible. Everybody with any moral beliefs at all (and liberals are absurdly moralistic about certain matters) will believe that other people hold bad beliefs and do bad things. Clearly the liberal ideology of “tolerance” only goes as far as those who tolerate what they agree with. How much tolerance does it take to put up with someone that never disagrees with you? If the liberals were truly secure in their beliefs that would have no issue with letting the people of faith get equal access in the classroom, but the reality is that will never happen.

We were shown a video about how a young “Christian” man took part in a 30 day challenge to see if his views of homosexuality would change. He was thrown into the heart of San Francisco and lived with a homosexual man. He was submerged in the homosexual culture and in fact met a few times with a lesbian pastor. Throughout his time there he was repeatedly challenged as to why he thought homosexuality was wrong. His answers were weak and demonstrated little to no understanding of what the Bible teaches about it. In fact, the film made it seem that any Christian that wants to be so “rigid” as to say that the passages about homosexuality should be taken literally is actually a hypocrite because he or she is ignoring other passages. At the end of the film this young man comes to this “epiphany” and realizes that he has been wrong and that homosexuality is not the result of choices that homosexuals made in the past. In the film the guy remarked about how it was so difficult for him to go back to his “intolerant” religious family after he had “learned so much.”

Now, I have no problem with people wanting to believe whatever they want about the cause of homosexuality. But what I want to see is fair and balanced coverage of both sides. There are numerous stories about men and women who were homosexual but yet through a faith experience turned away from that and become heterosexual and testify to the fact that even though they thought they were happy as homosexuals, in hindsight they now realize that they were not. But we are never shown these stories. I also find it interesting that the faith perspective is not allowed to be advocated in the classroom, yet my teacher has complete liberty to attack it and set up straw man arguments against it. All I am asking for is an accurate and fair depiction of the faith perspective if you are going to attack it. Or, better yet, why not learn to tolerate it?

Given that the course clearly dealt with “prejudice” against various politically correct “victim” groups, we asked the student whether it ever dealt with (1) prejudice against devout and conservative Catholics, (2.) prejudice against fundamentalist Christians, (3) black racism toward whites, (4) feminist prejudice against men, (5) prejudice against Southerners, (6) prejudice against working class people (As in “All in the Family” or the movie “Joe”), or (7) prejudice against business executives?

His answer was “no” for all except (3). As for (3) he said “Not really, anytime it came up in a movie for class, black racism was almost always justified as merely a strong sense of black identity in light of ‘years of oppression.’”

Prof. Oswald failed to respond to our voice mail and e-mail requests for an interview.

It’s one thing to allow criticism and discussion of Catholic doctrine and beliefs in a Catholic university. Doing that is necessary in a university.

But shouldn’t students be allowed to embrace Catholic doctrine, and argue for it in the classroom, without being attacked and derided? Shouldn’t questions about whether the Bible is “sexist” and whether homosexuality is a legitimate “lifestyle” be open to discussion?

Not for secular and politically correct faculty who are as rigidly orthodox in their liberal beliefs as the worst clerics of bygone days.