This isn't something new. It's not "a couple of decades" old, it's thousands of years old. People have always tried to control how people think and what they say - that's the definition of political power. What you may refer to as the "politically correct" is no different from the hundreds of various movements to control what we think and say throughout history - including, in a way, every religion.
Here's the thing, though - there's legitimate social science in "gender studies", and the viewpoint of the people doing the research is the viewpoint from which the subject is taught, because that's where the research comes from.
The only way to change academia is to be an academic.
From the Enlightenment forward. Universities in free countries have be bastions of free thought and the exploration of ideas.
But the key element is "free countries." The left has occupied most of the Universities in this nation, and put a jack boot on the neck of free expression and intellectual curiosity. The left will not tolerate a thinking population, as thinking people question the dogma put forth by the party. Questioning is not allowed in Academia, rote recitation of dogma is the hallmark of leftist controlled Academia. The left is quite literally ushering in a new dark ages.
"The Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California at Berkeley during the Fall 1964 semester was the first of the 1960s campus student movements to make headlines all over the world. Lasting a little over two months, it ended with the arrest of 773 persons for occupying the administration building, the removal of the campus administration, and a vast enlargement of student rights to use the University campus for political activity and debate. In the longer term it contributed to the election of Ronald Reagan as Governor of California in 1966, and the firing of University President Clark Kerr the following January.
From the 1930s onward, largely in response to fears generated by Communism, the University-wide administration imposed numerous rules designed to keep politics off of all the University campuses. By the time Berkeley Chancellor Clark Kerr became University President in 1958, student groups could not operate on campus if they engaged in any kind of off-campus politics, whether electoral, protest or even oratorical. At the Berkeley campus students spoke, leafleted and tabled on the city sidewalk at the campus edge. When the campus border was moved a block away, this activity moved with it. Since the sidewalk at the new boundary was too narrow for much activity, Kerr authorized the creation of a small plaza just inside the new boundary for student political groups to use. The Regents of the University voted to give the 26 x 40 foot strip at Bancroft and Telegraph to the City of Berkeley, but the transfer never took place. For the next few years student groups of all persuasions used this strip as though it was public property when legally it was still part of the University.
In the Fall of 1963 and the Spring of 1964 the Bay Area was rocked with civil rights demonstrations against employers who practiced racial discrimination. Vast numbers of Berkeley students were recruited for these protests from Bancroft and Telegraph, and they were numerous among the 500 arrests made over several months. This led to demands by some state legislators that the University discipline and control its students. In July, students were recruited to demonstrate at the Republican Convention being held just outside of San Francisco, as well as at several employers in Oakland. An
Oakland Tribune reporter found out that this political activity was taking place on the campus proper; when word reached the campus administration, it decided to put a stop to it.
AFTERMATH
Symbolically, the FSM had won, but the struggle was not over; only the Regents could set policy. When they met on December 18, they voted to support the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, but insisted on law and order. The faculty felt the spirit of their resolution had been met, but the FSM did not. When the new campus administration wrote detailed regulations, content of advocacy was ignored in favor of stringent time, place and manner rules. Scuffling over the rules and how they were applied continued for some time.
In the Spring, Art Goldberg and eight others (but only three students) were arrested for displaying and saying the word "fuck" at the Bancroft plaza. The incident was precipitated by a young man just arrived from New York who was arrested for holding up a piece of paper with that word on it while on campus. There were three rather small support rallies, but apart from these few arrests, little action from either students or faculty. However, some Regents were outraged and told President Kerr to expel the students. Instead, he and the new acting Chancellor offered their resignations. These were withdrawn at an acrimonious Regents' meeting three days later, but the press had a field day. The student newspaper editorialized that "there is absolutely no need for a Filthy Speech Movement." That phrase was copied all over the country. The FSM, which had voted to stay out of this conflict, was permanently stuck with the label.
The nine were convicted in municipal court and sentenced without incident. The FSM only objected when the campus administration appointed a disciplinary committee, which the FSM charged was double jeopardy. Lacking support from students or faculty, only verbal protests were made when that committee recommended that Art Goldberg be expelled and three other students (two of whom had also been arrested) be suspended. However, the "fuck" incident convinced the Regents, the Legislature, and the public at large that the Berkeley students were irresponsible and needed more discipline, not more freedom.
The "800" were tried in the Spring before a judge and convicted on two of three counts. Most got probation and fines; FSM leaders were sentenced to 30 to 120 days. After two years the final appeal was denied and the "800" paid their fines and served their time. The FSM dissolved. Its place was taken by new campus groups, especially the Vietnam Day Committee, which organized one of the first campus teach-ins in May of 1965. Protest against the war largely replaced civil rights demonstrations, though some new issues also emerged.
The FSM was the beginning of what came to be called the "six-year war" on the Berkeley campus. While student groups could now meet, set up tables, distribute literature, raise money, and pretty much say what they pleased at rallies and demonstrations on campus, skirmishes continued over time, place and manner rules, as well as what non-students, including drop-outs and alumni, could do on the campus proper.
Three decades later, a multimillion dollar grant from an alumnus paid for a student cafeteria which memorialized the FSM and for putting the FSM archives on line. The steps of the administration building were officially named the "Mario Savio" steps, and an adjacent campus was called the Clark Kerr campus of the University of California."
The Berkeley Free Speech Movement
Your ignorance of history is showing.
