As superfluous Ph.Ds enter the market only to discover the real world neither speaks their language nor shares their values, many seek to re-enter the bubble they know in the only way possible to them—as administrators. There is now one administrator for every 2.5 teaching staff at universities, and that ratio is declining rapidly. Those administrators—alongside professors whose path to promotion and tenure ironically requires ideological conformity with their peers — now impose their core assumptions on a captive student body. Universities have become less centers of learning and more high-priced re-education camps.

Enter identity politics and race-based theories. Freshmen (oops, “first-years”) entering universities today will be indoctrinated in theories that focus on race above all other variables that construct identity. They will be taught that white privilege is a fact rather than theory and will be forbidden from dissent should they see the world different from the administrators mandating indoctrination seminars. Individual identity is subsumed to ethnicity and race. Professors will preach that racism is as great a problem today as it was in the 1950s.

The core of today’s racial theories is that racism is based on power rather than discrimination based on race. Whites are inherently racist, the theory goes, whereas blacks cannot be racist by virtue of being historically disempowered.

If blacks cannot be racist, and if ethnicity is the core of identity, then strange things happen on university campuses, for example, the promotion of segregation instead of efforts to eradicate or shame it. Realistically speaking, with African-Americans holding or having held the presidency, having been national security advisor and secretary of state, having been Supreme Court justices, and having led Fortune 500-companies, it’s specious to suggest racism remains the problem that it once was. But, for the anti-racism industry, if hatred or intolerance based on race declines, then it’s simply necessary to change the definition of racism to be far less about ethnicity and more about politics.

The situation is only going to get worse. Mainstream Americans for years laughed off much of the nonsense emanating from elite university campuses. And some students reject the indoctrination. They may keep their head down for social or more practical reasons while on campus, but their time forced down the ideological rabbit hole forces them to sharpen their arguments in ways that progressive students seldom have to do.

Read the source article at aei.org