Do universities brainwash students?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/05/2023 (1038 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brainwashing: to pressure (someone) into adopting radically different beliefs by using systematic and often forcible means (Oxford dictionary).

In an unguarded moment on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature, Candice Bergen referred to public educators at our public universities, and even schools, as “brainwashing” their students.

When these utterances became public, Bergen protested that the remarks were taken out of context. Perhaps she could explain, then, in what context is it acceptable to argue that universities, and perhaps schools, are guilty of the heinous act of brainwashing?

These are not the careless remarks of an invisible backbench bumpkin, but someone who until recently was interim leader of Canada’s official opposition, and currently serves as co-chair of the Manitoba PC re-election campaign. She is part of Canada’s conservative elite.

Of course, what she asserts is factually untrue. In 31 years as a faculty member, I have never seen nor heard of a student being tied down and forced to accept new, radical beliefs through the use of sleep deprivation, hypnosis, threats, coercion or even Nickelback tapes played on an endless loop.

As the astronomer Carl Sagan once remarked, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That universities engage in brainwashing is an extraordinary claim. Where is the extraordinary evidence? Did Bergen observe this first-hand during her university days? If so, I would like to know which university.

But we know, of course, that Bergen is not arguing universities engage in literal brainwashing. Instead, she is engaging in an all-too-common and outlandish libertarian rhetoric that has unfortunately become the norm among this new brand of conservative.

It is anti-education, anti-science and anti-intellectual. And it is a view that has colonized Republicans in America and now Conservatives in Canada.

At the vanguard of the movement is Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. Who can forget his “I love the poorly educated” quote. Why is that? Because they vote for him. The book-learning intellectuals and pointy-headed academics, not so much.

When libertarians take office, one of their first targets for the chopping block is higher education: Jason Kenney and Danielle Smith in Alberta, Doug Ford in Ontario, Brian Pallister in Manitoba, Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas are all shining examples. They all view universities as bastions of liberalism, and thus are an appropriate political target. They all cut higher education budgets and most have tried to exert political influence on university curricula, through initiatives such as performance-based funding and differential tuitions fees favouring programs of study approved by government; legislation to outlaw the teaching of certain disciplines such as critical race theory or Black history; or banning equity, diversity, inclusion initiatives.

Do our universities engage in brainwashing? Of course not.

They open students to the big, broad, diverse world around them. Universities are about developing agile minds that can adapt to a constantly changing world. They are not about inculcating rigid, doctrinaire and usually totalitarian philosophies that are the customary subject matter of real brainwashing.

Instead, universities develop leadership and communication skills and teach critical thinking, such as how to evaluate extraordinary claims using evidence, not empty rhetoric.

Universities bring culture, history, language, arts, moral philosophy, economics, sociology, politics, rhetoric, science and technology and much more into the classroom. University curricula are purpose-built to expose students to this wide range of subject matter, not just their narrow topic of interest. It is the job of university faculty to create, curate and disseminate this knowledge to their students, not to brainwash them.

The result is that a university education shows us where we came from, how we got here, and where, why and how we might be going.

And universities — especially in Manitoba — are amazingly successful at what they do, as the Statistics Canada data show. Since conservatives and libertarians tend to place the highest importance on economic issues, it is worth pointing out that our university graduates enjoy higher incomes and lower unemployment than any other segment of society. And with those higher incomes, they pay the higher taxes that support our vital public services, and are generally willing to do so, because they are aware that taxes are the price we pay for a civil society.

Perhaps libertarians dislike universities so much because it is hard to defend the core libertarian principle — “I’m all right, Jack” — when you learn about the world around us and come realize that we are all in this, whatever it is, together.

Scott Forbes ends a five-year term as president of the Manitoba Organization of Faculty Associations (MOFA) on June 1. He has been on faculty at the University of Winnipeg for 31 years. The views expressed here are his own.