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Jewish World Review June 13, 2005 / 6 Sivan, 5765 When bilingual means doublespeak By Debra J. Saunders
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Academic freedom and quality suffered a blow last week
when writer Richard Rodriguez announced that he would not speak at
California State University East Bay's commencement. He didn't want to
endure a ceremony boycotted by some students. So reasonable minds didn't get
to hear what Rodriguez has to say because unreasonable mouths won the day.
"He believes in assimilation and rejection of one's own cultural
identity," student and bilingual teacher Leah Perez complained to The San
Francisco Chronicle. That's a ridiculous assertion. Rodriguez does not
reject his identity. The more accurate charge would be that he is not a
fanatic.
Sarah Gonzales, a professor all bow who supports the move
to intimidate Rodriguez, used doublespeak when she told The Chronicle: "We
need to teach our students to be able to listen to diverse opinions, but
they also need to be able to respond. As a commencement speaker, he gets
free air time." Guess what. He also gets free speech.
Except at CSU East Bay.
And so the censorious students and authoritarian faculty decided
to have their own little graduation ceremony, even with Rodriguez bowing
out. That way, they won't have to expose their minds to any view that might
offend them. When they threw their graduation caps into the air, they could
pat themselves on the back for guaranteeing a ceremony that didn't make them
think.
I take what happened to Rodriguez personally, because while he
is getting flak from the left, I experience the same nasty censoriousness
from the far right. If you stray from a certain set of opinions, the posse
of extremism goes a-hunting. You see, no pundit is allowed to think that,
just maybe sometimes, folks from another political persuasion have a point.
In the Internet age, partisans can log on to opinions
tailor-made to conform to their own beliefs or sites that report only news
they like. So they've come to see conservative-only news as something of a
right: The right to not hear contrary opinions and discomforting
information.
They also believe the Internet and talk radio will and
should spare them from information they don't like. The far left and the
far right share this dangerous conviction that they shouldn't even be
exposed to what other Americans think. In this case, the students' rage was
based on their views of Rodriguez's 1982 book, "Hunger of Memory." "The sad
part is people doing this based on a book they haven't read," campus
spokesman Kim Huggett told The Chronicle.
When English-immersion activist Ron Unz put Proposition 227 on
the ballot in 1998, most Democrats opposed the measure, and many educators
did, too. They had their reasons. They feared non-English speakers would not
learn subject matter. They believed English immersion would be especially
harmful to older students.
But a funny thing happened. Proposition 227 worked. Within five
years, the number of limited-English students who could speak English
proficiently tripled. Educators who cared about immigrant children
succeeding reassessed their beliefs. They didn't have to turn their backs on
bilingual education entirely, let me add. To their credit, they simply came
to realize that English immersion often works better with young children.
Such a man must be vilified. He must be marginalized. He must be
silenced.
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Comment JWR contributor Debra J. Saunders's column by clicking here. © 2005, Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||||||