President Donald Trump’s administration has enacted many changes recently, one of which points to the potential dismantling of the Department of Education. Yet this does not come as a shock, seeing as just last month, his administration revived their 1776 Commission, meant to encourage “patriotic education,” a nationalistic pair of words that seem to directly oppose the expansion and discussion of ideas that education is meant to promote. These orders intend to bar a host of topics including, but not limited to, racism, sexism or “otherwise discriminatory” practices. Additionally, foundations to deport international students accused of “antisemitic harassment and violence” were laid along with a working plan to methodically uproot instruction about transgender issues and “white privilege” in schools. This past Tuesday, Case Western Reserve University President Eric Kaler sent out an email, saying, “The uncertainty we’re facing in this area, and numerous others, is unsettling” in response to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights’ “Dear Colleague” letter.
This expansion of “patriotic education” coincides with the continued decline of interest in the humanities—an especially relevant discussion at such a STEM-focused school as CWRU. While small departments at many schools, the humanities are an integral part of the critical thinking and understanding that prevents us, as citizens, from being taken advantage of by unclear governmental practices. Discussing with peers and learning from professionals who have devoted their lives to becoming experts on specific topics is a privilege that is rapidly disappearing.
At CWRU, many English classes are treated either as an easy A or an unnecessary evil by not only students, but also by professionals in more science and quantitative-based departments. Oftentimes, when students who are uninterested in reading or writing find themselves in higher level English courses, they struggle to gain anything due to resistance or a lack of exposure to the material. It is common for people to write off critical discussion as being merely pretentious rather than spending the time trying to understand an abstract, debatable concept—especially at a school so focused on quantifiable discoveries. Because it is difficult to assign a certain grade onto a piece of writing or discussion, humanities courses are often not taken very seriously.
The General Bulletin for the English major itself says, “Because of the flexibility of departmental requirements and the variety of career paths to which the major may lead, all students should confer frequently and closely with advisors.” Furthermore, CWRU requires that “No more than 42 credit hours beyond the 100-level in any one department to be applied to the 120 credit-hour total.” This makes it virtually impossible for a student to only be an English major with a bachelor’s degree in the College of Arts and Sciences. While this is great for students who wish to double major or pursue a collection of minors, the flexibility of the English degree as a whole automatically presents it as less work—and thus less serious—than other majors, which sometimes require more than twice the amount of courses to fulfill the major requirements.
Many of CWRU’s English classes focus on the students’ individual thoughts and close reading interpretations, which is good for gaining a greater, more individualized understanding of an artist’s work. However, courses oftentime fail to situate readings and interpretations within a larger historical context, which bolsters the richness of this degree in the same way that outside resources applied to a lab report would benefit a biology major’s understanding of a topic. In science, it is a necessity that the majority of what students learn builds off of the research that has come before, and in humanities courses, it would help students better understand why certain political events are happening.
Today in the U.S., education is mainly encouraged for the benefit of a comfortable wage rather than the pursuit of knowledge or understanding of the surrounding world. Looking at the tech billionaires manhandling our country, one has to wonder if there will ever be time to sit back and appreciate what we have rather than constantly striving for more. The more we focus on improvement, the less we are able to understand the present and the less attention we pay to the current problems. And so they continue to snowball, disparities growing bigger and escaping the notice of the general public until things have gotten far out of control.
Furthermore, the promotion of artificial intelligence by big tech industries has spurred the degradation of the humanities degree. AI in academics can help generate ideas, fix formatting and grammar issues and succinctly explain concepts when an instructor is unavailable. It is possible to use AI in a responsible way—yet it has a variety of shortcomings when applied to subjects such as English. Many students have become reliant on AI, using it to generate the ideas for, and even the text of, their essays. Because of the accessibility of this technology, it is undeniable that many students who take humanities courses at CWRU only to fulfill a graduation requirement delegate the work to AI and do not gain much from them.
It would be irresponsible to completely ban the use of AI in class, especially with rising job layoffs due to the technology. Without knowing how to use AI, students would be disadvantaged in the job market. But today, many professors are also starting to generate homework assignments, class notes and syllabi with chatbots rather than creating the material on their own. This creates impersonal, lazy assignments and often makes it simple for students to abuse AI on course submissions. This failure will ensure students continue to remain unchallenged and solely focused on ticking off boxes to get their degree.
In a similar technological vein, social media and the internet have made reading to gain knowledge significantly less common. We now rely on short video clips or article overviews as a primary source of information rather than reading entire pieces. While this condensed information is good for getting a general picture, it prevents people from gaining a full understanding of the problems in question. Currently, our government’s Department of Defense has ordered several children’s books containing material about “gender ideology or topics related to equity and discrimination” to be removed from the shelves of their schools, systemically attempting to remove certain realities from the country and promote nationwide ignorance.
We can’t passively sit by and allow history to be wiped out and rewritten. It is of utmost importance that we engage in uncomfortable conversations so that violent, tragic history does not repeat itself.