Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Gov. McCrory Attacks Liberal Arts Education

Gov. McCrory
We're only weeks into the McCrory administration and already we have one of those quotes that's going to haunt him until Judgment Day. On Bill Bennett's radio show, McCrory attacked liberal arts courses, particularly at UNC-Chapel Hill and especially "gender studies."


"If you want to take gender studies that's fine. Go to a private school and take it. But I don't want to subsidize that if that's not going to get someone a job," McCrory said. He said that he had instructed his staff on Monday to draft legislation that would change how much state money universities and community colleges receive -- "not based on how many butts in seats but how many of those butts can get jobs."

Almost immediately -- well, in fact, immediately -- #buttsinseats began trending on Twitter. Don't know how many of the butts in gender studies can get jobs, but we know one huge butt that became governor of North Carolina.

Attacking college professors is one of the easiest jobs a bully can pick for himself. A college professor is like a 19th-century "tenderfoot" blundering into a Wild West saloon for people like McCrory. "Let's make 'im dance a little," says old Pat McCrory, drawing his six-shooter.

Don't know what Pat McCrory majored in, and don't really care. But he appears to have kept the blinders on: "If it don't get me a job, it ain't worth my time." That's the McCrory doctrine. Which is a serious misunderstanding of what higher education can achieve, as well as a butt-headed "huh huh huh" about anyone not similarly short-sighted. It was also a declaration of war on UNC-Chapel Hill, which is certainly what we're looking for in a thoroughly modern governor of North Carolina.

Don't know what Pat McCrory's college major was in, but we know Bill Bennett's ... political philosophy.

Great is the God Irony!

FOOTNOTE
Hattip: LO.

Jason deBruyn, writing in the Triangle Business Journal this morning, demolishes The Guv's argument with simple statistics:
In North Carolina, the overall unemployment rate still hovers above 9 percent, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those with a bachelor’s degree or higher have an unemployment rate below 4 percent. 
Conversely, for those with less than a high school diploma, the unemployment rate is 11.7 percent, three times higher than the rate with a bachelor’s degree.

ADDENDUM
McCrory was a political science and education major.

Almost immediately after McCrory finished his interview with Bennett, his flacks were trying to mend the damage: "This was not meant to be a personal attack on UNC,” spokeswoman Crystal Feldman said. “Gov. McCrory did not mean to tarnish UNC’s reputation.”

Yeah, right.


Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/29/3820186/mccrory-wants-to-revamp-higher.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/01/29/3820186/mccrory-wants-to-revamp-higher.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

4 comments:

amjp said...

What a disgrace he is - to North Carolina and to the UNC system. Perhaps he should have gone to Chapel Hill. He might have really learned something if he had. (This from a graduate of an Ivy League school.)

Anonymous said...

Idiots have a burning need to breed more idiots;it's apparently in their DNA. But DNA is a scientific discovery and Republicans in NC don't accept science either.
So, we must conclude that no liberal arts or science education means more idiots and Republican voters.
You Go Republicans!

Anonymous said...

Besides Raleigh Republicans and McCrory who else wants to destroy education?...these folks: Islamic militants recently burned a library housing thousands of ancient manuscripts which scholars have described as a priceless heritage of Africa and Islam. This was one of the greatest libraries of Islamic manuscripts in the world.

Anonymous said...

Go LT Gov Pat! Let's smoke out those crossdressing transgender Communists on the UNC-CH women's basketball team.......Oops....I mean Liberty University in Virgina! Wait a minute! Virgina is not part of North Carolina according to Gov Pope..