The Daily Signal - #352: The Importance of Civics Education

Episode Date: December 1, 2018

On today’s show, we’re talking about civics. At a time when students across the country lack a basic understanding of government and economics, one university is doing something about it. We’ll feature an interview with Paul Carrese, founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University.We'll also hear from Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald about what’s wrong with college campuses today. Listen to the full interview below.Also on today’s show:• Your letters to the editor. Don’t forget, your letter could be featured on our show; write us at [e-mail] or call 202-608-6205.• A heartwarming good news story out of California following the deadly wildfires.The Daily Signal podcast is available on the Ricochet Audio Network. You also can listen on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts.If you like what you hear, please leave a review or give us feedback. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, December 3rd. I'm Rob Blewey, editor-in-chief. And I'm Jenny Maltabano. Our prayers go out to the Bush family following the death of former president George H.W. Bush. You can follow all of our coverage at DailySignal.com. On today's show, we're talking about civics. We'll feature an interview with Paul Careyce, founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. We'll also share your letters.

share a good news story coming out of the heartbreaking wildfires in California. But first, we'll hear from Manhattan Institute fellow Heather McDonald about what's wrong with college campuses today. From the moment students step foot on a college campus today, they are surrounded by a preposterous ideology that tells them to think of themselves as either the oppressed, which is a highly prestigious position to be in, or the oppressor. They are taught to think that if you're in the oppressed category on a college campus, you're actually told that you're at existential threat from circumambient racism and sexism. This is ludicrous, but it has produced outbreaks of model and victimology that are really quite difficult to take,

things like students at Brown University occupying the president's office saying that they shouldn't be expected to fulfill such normal academic expectations as going to class because they said, were, quote, trying to stay alive at Brown. At Yale University, students mobbed and cursed at a highly respected sociologist for three hours, in the course of which one student shouted out, we're dying, apparently the status of being a highly privileged Yale minority student. This is a ideology that is enforced by a multi-million dollar diversity bureaucracy, which is why Tuitions are so high, students then having absorbed this ideology of thinking that they're actually discriminated against on college campuses, which is ludicrous, take it with them

into the world at large and see racism and sexism where it does not exist. All of us have to push back against the narrative of endemic racism and sexism, because as long as that narrative remains dominant, the push for gender and race quotas at the expense of merit and qualifications and knowledge will continue unabated. Up next, our interview with Paul Careyce. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. Each Tuesday in the Agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are

working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you You can watch online as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. Number one, students aren't getting the kind of foundation in civics and government that I recall getting as a student in K-12 education. And they're coming then into a higher education without the ability to, without the background to even know and understand competing ideas and then without the ability to discuss and debate

them. was Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, whose interview we featured on the Daily Signal podcast a few weeks ago. We're replaying that clip today because it goes to the heart of the work that Paul Careyce is doing at Arizona State University. So, Paul, tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing in Arizona State and why it's so important for students to have an education grounded in civics. This is a new initiative at Arizona State University, but we've also had interest from some other state universities. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and University of Colorado Boulder. And the initiative is to have a program, or in our case, an entirely new department, focused on civic thought, economic thought, and leadership as a foundation in great ideas,

great debates, great works for thinking about leadership and service in some capacity, private sector or public sector. The initiative in Arizona State's case came from the Arizona legislature and the governor to say that there ought to be dedicated space and they provided financial support for a faculty teaching a curriculum about foundations of liberal democracy, foundations of America, foundations of free markets, and then all the debates about those important ideas. And also to put an emphasis on leadership, some conception of public sector, private sector leadership as a part of a university curriculum. So we say that our school of

civic and economic thought and leadership reconnects liberal education and civic education in higher education. Well, it's certainly a unique model and not something that you see in higher education. Tell us a little bit about the backstory about how this came to be and how the legislature came into play in terms of asking and, I guess, mandating the university to do this. Yes. Arizona was one of the states interested in civic education in public schools, high schools, And then at Arizona State University, there were two centers, one on economic liberty, the other on political thought and leadership. And the initiative that came from the state legislature was to support the idea of a new department connecting economic liberty with the theme of political leadership, political thought and leadership. And the university leadership responded positively, so you have to give Arizona State University leadership credit for an initiative that, to be honest, came.

from the Republicans in the state house, the state senate, and the governor's office to have new investment of money and new faculty positions to support this kind of initiative. I do think over time we've persuaded skeptical faculty members and some skeptical members of the Democratic caucus in the state legislature that we're not a partisan entity in ourselves. We're career academics. We're teaching an undergraduate major and a minor in civic and economic thought and leadership. And I think in general, there's a sense that there's a need for refocus on fundamentals of civic thought, fundamentals of civic leadership and civil debate. And that itself can be a bipartisan or nonpartisan point of agreement in universities and beyond universities. Well, it certainly seems like

something that would be beneficial on all college campuses. What is your hope for students who complete these courses after they graduate? tell them that they should have the ambition to be thoughtful citizens and to use the experience of a university education to lead in some capacity. And they need to choose what that is. Is that in the private sector in business, is that in civil society, is that in political affairs, public policy, elected leadership, journalism, all kinds of careers. So we have an internship requirement for the students who choose a major in civic and economic thought and leadership. And that gets them thinking about how they would connect their university studies to some practical experiences.

So we take seriously the idea of the intellectual foundations for leadership, but also pointing students to think about practicing the ideas of civic thought and leadership they're studying with us. And one of the other things that you offer is a master's program, which, as I understand, is focused on teachers. Yes. So what are some of the goals that you have with that program? Yes. Everything we do is new, and the master's degree is just starting this year. The idea there came from a need in the community around Arizona State University in the Phoenix area, a network of charter schools that focuses on classical Western civilization.

And our department seemed like a good place. The university leadership came to us to design a degree that we call classical liberal education and leadership. The idea is to offer them a content-focused education degree instead of a typical master's in education degree. So we are starting this spring semester. We have a visiting professor who's just retired from Notre Dame who's going to be teaching a course to start that program. We will have other master's degrees later. We're in a big research university, and so there's a focus on providing both undergraduate education and master's and eventually a doctoral degree. What is your advice to students who attend other colleges who maybe feel like they're not getting the correct civics education and want to learn more?

I was an undergraduate a long time ago and had to navigate the terrain. I think most students have to navigate now, which is you have to find the teachers. You have to find the faculty and, in a way, put together your own liberal education, put together your own civic education. We do hope to spread the word to other universities and colleges that there could be, a focus on this as a nonpartisan educational reform initiative to make civic thought and leadership as a space in a university. But otherwise, there are summer programs and special weekend seminars that different policy institutes and organizations around the country offer.

But then it's just on your campus to try and find a network of faculty who will help you to put together your own liberal education. your own civic education. One of the other things you're doing is a series of events, bringing people from all across the country to have a conversation there on the Arizona State Campus. What are some of the highlights that you've already done and what's coming up in the future? We did a series last year on free speech and intellectual diversity. To give you two examples, we had two former senators, Tom Dashel, a Democrat, John Kyle,

Republican, come together to show that on the one hand they disagreed with each other on important policy issues, but on the other hand, they respected each other as, as, as, you know, and they political, civic leaders as good citizens. The academic version of that was to have Cornell West and Robbie George together, the honorary chairman of the National Socialists of America, I think, Cornell West and then Robert George, a prominent intellectual conservative, to make the same point that they disagree on important philosophical moral questions, but they respect each other as academics. They've learned from each other. This year, we're extending that theme by having the focus be political polarization and trying to restore the idea of civil disagreement.

So we've had a series of speakers from John Goldberg of the National Review to Mark Lilla Columbia University to talk about liberal views about causes of polarization. We'll have Danielle Allen from Harvard at the end of the year. And the same theme, a range of intellectual and conservative voices in academia in public affairs to elevate, debate, but actually have debate occur in a public setting. Well, you mentioned polarization and something on college campuses we're seeing a lot of now is a lack of free speech, or at least a hindrance. How important is that to the program, to these courses?

We dedicated to that theme last year as a series. We got a great response from the local community. So Arizona State faculty, staff, students, the Phoenix community, Arizona PBS agreed to record all of the events in that series. We brought in some controversial speakers. One of them was Heather McDonald from the Manhattan Institute who has been chased off at least one campus that I know. It turns out no students protested at any of our events with any of the range of speakers that we had. And Arizona PBS was glad to put together a whole package a series from the events. And we've had good turnout again this year in the Polarization Civil Disagreement series.

Well, in your time in academia, what do you attribute the current climate to? Because, I mean, it hasn't always been this bad. I mean, I know from my own experience going to a rather liberal, progressive, shall I say, college campus in Ithaca, New York, that conservatives often found themselves outnumbered. But at the same time, there was a certain level of tolerance to engage in a dialogue and a debate over issues. Today, as you said in Heather McDonald's case, we're seeing people chased off of college campuses. In your own experience, what have you observed, and how are you trying to change that through the program at Arizona State? For public education in general, you know, K-12 and then in universities, I think mostly there would be two causes. One, just neglect. Neglect of curriculum focused on the fundamentals of liberal democracy, of constitutional government, providing the shared ideas and ideals and principles that can be the basis for reasonable debate. So that's been neglected in universities and colleges, and that spills over into public education K-12. So there's a larger educational and civic problem.

Then I do think a new view has arisen among liberal progressive intellectuals, that certain ideas cannot be tolerated. And to even hear or listen to certain points of view would be a betrayal of your own liberal and progressive ideals. So that kind of intolerance has risen as a matter of principle. What we found is I'll call them classical liberal allies, faculty members of the Phoenix community, who would call themselves liberal Democrats or liberal progressives, But they see that there's now a danger to the basic civic fabric. If in a university setting or in a broader public setting, you can't even have disagreement.

You can't have certain views aired. You can't have certain speakers. They can see the danger to that. And they've been supportive of us publicly, privately. You mentioned that some of the professors that are at Arizona State University were perhaps somewhat skeptical when this program was first created. How have you been able to win over some of those skeptics? and what other results been? We did have an unusual origin story

that there were these two centers privately funded with conservative donor support and then an initiative clearly from the Republicans in the state legislature. So we had reasonable skeptics. I would say we had some not-so-reasonable skeptics as well. Just over time, we've displayed who we are, the courses we have, the kinds of students we have.

We have leading students from the college Democrats as well as from the college Republicans, as well as students who are interested in public affairs, but they're not particularly partisan, and that our speaker events to have a range of views displayed. We had one long-time faculty member come up to us from a humanities department that will remain unnamed and said he'd taught there at ASU for 20 years, had heard people in the faculty talk about the importance of exchange of views and real debates in public, and he'd never seen it happen before, but our new department had provided a space for that.

That's great. One final question for you. Arizona has been a leader when it comes to this. Not only what we're talking about here at Arizona State University, but there are other initiatives that the governor and the state legislature have taken. What is it about your state that is really on the cutting edge we're trying to restore this appreciation for civics, education, and some of the fundamentals that perhaps aren't being taught elsewhere? There is a legacy of Barry Goldwater

and the idea of constitutional conservatism, so that conservative ideas about liberty should have a foundation in principles. And I think that has carried over. And one of the initiatives you may be referring to is to require all public school graduates to pass the basic immigration and naturalization service task about civic literacy in order to earn a high school diploma. So we are supporting the next stage of that from the Arizona government, which is to have a civics literacy excellence standard as an option for high school students.

And we're expert advisors to the State Board of Education on that program. So whatever it is in the water in Arizona, there's not a lot of water generally in Arizona, but whatever is in the water, we're happy to work with it. And again, I'm proud of the leadership of Arizona State University to accept this initiative from the state government and also to broadcast the message to other state universities that this is an important reform initiative. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We can't wait to follow and see what happens next.

Thank you very much. Liberals have pretty much cornered the market on 101-style podcasts that break down tough policy issues in the news. Until now, did you know that every week Heritage Explains intermingles personal stories, news clips, and facts from heritage experts to help explain some of today's hardest issues from a conservative perspective.

Look for Heritage Explains on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature some of our favorites, both on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. Ginny, what do we have? Well, first up, Rob, Maude St. James wrote in about birthright citizenship. She says the law never has said that children born to illegal aliens, who are criminals themselves, simply by virtue of their being here, without following legal protocols are citizens. There doesn't need to be an executive order. All we need to do is enforce

the existing law and make it retroactive. Automatic birthright citizenship should only be for children born to American citizens, not to children of those who are just on American soil. And Claudia Coleman of North Carolina writes about last week's interview with Lisa Bradley of R. Riveter. She says, loved seeing this. I love their quality line of product. Their leader of production is a friend who started out making great leather chaps for us horse people. And now this. Great exposure for a good product. Thanks.

Well, our Riveter is up for a military appreciation award, and we enjoyed hearing from them. Always nice to talk to a small business owner. It is, and they're doing some great work. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to letters at daily signal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608. 6205. Want to get up to speed about the Supreme Court? Then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast about everything that's happening at the Supreme Court and what the justices are up to.

For this week's good news story, a real estate developer and entrepreneur from San Diego took matters into his own hands after learning of the devastating toll on the town of paradise during the California wildfires. 90-year-old Bob Wilson gave a $1,000 check to 980 students and 105 staff members. That means he gave out nearly $1 million in total. Here is Bob talking to a CBS affiliate in the Bay Area about his decision to help others in a time of need. You know, if they take away from this, that some guy, 600 miles away, thought enough to come up here and give him a check, you know, that's all the compensation I want out of it. Well, Ginny, it's so nice to hear people doing good things, especially for those people in need.

And our prayers go out to those in Alaska who suffered a major earthquake. And we just hope that, especially in this holiday season, people, you know, have the spirits and the giving and we'll reach out and help those in need. Absolutely. Hopefully we have a lot more good news stories like this to share with all of you.

We're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast is broadcast from the Robert H. Bruce Radio studio at the Heritage Foundation. You can find it on the Rikishay Audio Network along with all of our podcasts. Our shows are also available at dailysignal.com slash podcasts. You can subscribe on iTunes SoundCloud Stitcher or your favorite podcast app. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review or give us feedback. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the DailySignal News.

The Daily Signal podcast will be back tomorrow with Kate and Daniel. Have a great week. You've been listening to The Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.