I would add wild incompetence in psychology to your evaluation of CACREP. And that could be worth a class action lawsuit.
This, "all psychopaths need is love" is utter garbage. That is absolutely untrue.
Any program that tells such lies to students is like a physics program that teaches that entropy runs backwards. It's completely wrong and a psychologist that applies it will be in grave danger. They will also become a willing tool that places others in danger of murder, theft, torture for kicks, etcetera.
Seriously. This syllabus can be grounds for lawsuit not just against CACREP, but every university using them. Return of all fees and tuition to all students should be on the table. Return of all fees charged by CACREP to universities over its entire span of existence. Reaching through to the officers of CACREP and every professor and administrator involved in using them and teaching garbage for recovery of damages
I have long suspected that accreditation needs to be overhauled. I know of more than one example of it being used to remove competitors from the dominant woke marketplace. With new institutions like Ralston College and the University of Austin and the Peterson Academy appearing, this will probably be an ongoing issue until this corruption is addressed.
I am sorry to hear this story but not in the least surprised by the actions of the university and the accreditor or, to be honest, by the unwillingness of FIRE to advocate for you. Despite its name FIRE has become like the ACLU and only puts its resources on the line to defend WOKE ideas and speech from infringement...not faculty and students who are NOT WOKE. As much as the author blames the accreditors for this situation, the problem really is and remains the faculty in the professions. It is faculty who set these standards and expectations which trickle up to the accreditation agencies and for wider enforcement as dogma. The only solution for academia, sadly, is nationwide dismissal of ALL faculty and their replacement by non-ideological individuals who exhibit values and insights like yours to rebuild these institutions and programs from scratch. It might also be a good idea to cancel the professional licenses of all those who graduated from such woke programs and require they get retrained in new unbiased ways. The cost of this should be borne by the universities for the fraud they have committed against the nation by cancelling all university pensions and dissolving their endowments.
To be fair to FIRE, they are in a challenging position for several reasons, two of which are jumping out at me right now. 1) Truly defending free speech often means representing people and groups that are reviled. I have a lot of respect for the work that they do, even when I don’t agree with all their choices. 2) I’m mindful of the fact that FIRE is a non-profit helping people as they are able. These lawsuits are expensive and very few are slam-dunks. I helped sort the evidence for the Zac De Piero case. It was unambiguous and there was plenty of it. Nevertheless the case was dismissed.
In my case, there was less that was written down, and because I didn’t fully understand the scope of the critical social justice ideology or how the law that was being broken, I didn’t put together quickly enough that things like my textbooks and syllabi would have also supported my case. Also, with assignments graded online, all of that evidence was disappeared shortly after the semester ended, and I hadn’t made copies of comments, partly because I was still in shock.
From my POV, the bigger issue that folks should grapple with is that students in my situation, don’t have a recourse in these kinds of situations. I’ve written in other places how a lawsuit filed for educational malpractice won’t fly in our current system, even for a case like mine.
This is a case where we have a systemic failure, and the correct must be by fixing that part of the system.
I completely agree that resources are limited and that small organizations must be strategic with how they use those resources. Many worthy cases will be declined due to simple lack of resources. With that said, this makes the choice of which cases an organization does take very telling. When a case where an academic is standing up for clearly articulated constitutional rights against a powerful academic constituency is not only not assisted but told that the heckler's veto is now protected speech of the heckler, this is problematic. When that same organization then chooses to use its limited resources to defend cases that align with the heckler's agenda but are clearly NOT what most would consider protected speech, the choice of the case defended versus the case ignored reveals a political bias that has nothing to do with defending free speech and the public is free to judge FIRE's actions accordingly. This is unfortunate because FIRE does do many good things, but like the rest of academia...is so heavily distorted by the left wing bias of the faculty that they effectively cannot stand up against free speech violations of the woke mob. I have yet to see FIRE fail to defend any speech or action from the far Left for lack of resources even when more mainstream conservative cases languish.
Sadredin Moosavi, I know that what you say here about FIRE isn't true from personal experience because I'm not progressive, and FIRE provided me with an attorney. People on both sides seem to think that FIRE is on the other side. But check out their Scholars Under Fire database, and you'll see that they defend people across the political spectrum.
While I am glad that you received help from FIRE, my experience was different. FIRE declined to defend against blatant censorship of academic presentations in a conference by a professional society because they argued that the professional society has "free speech" rights which allow them engage in censorship of speech they don't agree with. By that logic any organization can censor any faculty member, employee or student because they disagree with what has been said I'm a forum they control and is NOT the how FIRE defends speech when made by progressives. Mind you this poster was pointing out clear constitutional rights violations by professional societies against their own members in support of long settled constitutional law and was in no way controversial. FIRE was unwilling to take action because it would have offended powerful Left wing academics using professional societies as their mechanism for censorship against their own members. It would be like FIRE failing to defend someone censored for standing up for the same free speech principles that FIRE claims to defend because the censors have the freedom to impose a heckler's veto! Meanwhile, FIRE defends hate speech on behalf of Leftist groups all the time (Pro Palestinian antisemitic activities that violate time/place/manner restrictions and are NOT protected by free speech). So...sorry...but the proof is in the pudding.
Wow - what a both miserable and wonderful tale! UTK are truly miserable. And you are a wonderful bulldog! Great to see that you're making a success for both yourself and your children. All the best!
Thanks, Susannah, for this. I had a similar experience in my chaplaincy training. For one thing, it was considered taboo to say anything that would give clients any hope whatsoever. This was called, "Hope-mongering." Also taboo was saying anything to the effect that "it will be all right," even from a place of deep faith. (In retropect I figured out that if we were to give people hope, or encourage strength, or make them feel better about themselves or explore how clients might do to help themselves, that might get in the way of the woke "revolution.") All we were meant to do was listen and empathize with whatever the clients said and mirror their emotions, so they could feel "heard." That was the total sum of what our engagement was supposed to be. We were however meant to list in our reports every way in which our clients might be marginalized. And it was thought that chaplains of the same skin color or ethnic group as the client were per force more effective than white ones. After an interview for a chaplain program at Bellevue that went well, I was informed at the end that they were only taking candidates "who looked like the patients."
I’m so sorry you went through that experience. That “therapy” you are talking about is called the affirming care model, and it leads to continued mental health problems, turning people into lifelong clients. It boggles the mind that a term like “hope-mongering” even exists, but it also shows how necessary it is that we fight back.
I’m here to tell you there is hope. If our ancestors could survive the Roman Empire, Assyrian conquest, slavery, both world wars and everything else in between, we can too. Our courage and resilience is written in our bones. Never accept despair as an answer.
I would add wild incompetence in psychology to your evaluation of CACREP. And that could be worth a class action lawsuit.
This, "all psychopaths need is love" is utter garbage. That is absolutely untrue.
Any program that tells such lies to students is like a physics program that teaches that entropy runs backwards. It's completely wrong and a psychologist that applies it will be in grave danger. They will also become a willing tool that places others in danger of murder, theft, torture for kicks, etcetera.
Seriously. This syllabus can be grounds for lawsuit not just against CACREP, but every university using them. Return of all fees and tuition to all students should be on the table. Return of all fees charged by CACREP to universities over its entire span of existence. Reaching through to the officers of CACREP and every professor and administrator involved in using them and teaching garbage for recovery of damages
I have long suspected that accreditation needs to be overhauled. I know of more than one example of it being used to remove competitors from the dominant woke marketplace. With new institutions like Ralston College and the University of Austin and the Peterson Academy appearing, this will probably be an ongoing issue until this corruption is addressed.
I am sorry to hear this story but not in the least surprised by the actions of the university and the accreditor or, to be honest, by the unwillingness of FIRE to advocate for you. Despite its name FIRE has become like the ACLU and only puts its resources on the line to defend WOKE ideas and speech from infringement...not faculty and students who are NOT WOKE. As much as the author blames the accreditors for this situation, the problem really is and remains the faculty in the professions. It is faculty who set these standards and expectations which trickle up to the accreditation agencies and for wider enforcement as dogma. The only solution for academia, sadly, is nationwide dismissal of ALL faculty and their replacement by non-ideological individuals who exhibit values and insights like yours to rebuild these institutions and programs from scratch. It might also be a good idea to cancel the professional licenses of all those who graduated from such woke programs and require they get retrained in new unbiased ways. The cost of this should be borne by the universities for the fraud they have committed against the nation by cancelling all university pensions and dissolving their endowments.
To be fair to FIRE, they are in a challenging position for several reasons, two of which are jumping out at me right now. 1) Truly defending free speech often means representing people and groups that are reviled. I have a lot of respect for the work that they do, even when I don’t agree with all their choices. 2) I’m mindful of the fact that FIRE is a non-profit helping people as they are able. These lawsuits are expensive and very few are slam-dunks. I helped sort the evidence for the Zac De Piero case. It was unambiguous and there was plenty of it. Nevertheless the case was dismissed.
In my case, there was less that was written down, and because I didn’t fully understand the scope of the critical social justice ideology or how the law that was being broken, I didn’t put together quickly enough that things like my textbooks and syllabi would have also supported my case. Also, with assignments graded online, all of that evidence was disappeared shortly after the semester ended, and I hadn’t made copies of comments, partly because I was still in shock.
From my POV, the bigger issue that folks should grapple with is that students in my situation, don’t have a recourse in these kinds of situations. I’ve written in other places how a lawsuit filed for educational malpractice won’t fly in our current system, even for a case like mine.
This is a case where we have a systemic failure, and the correct must be by fixing that part of the system.
I completely agree that resources are limited and that small organizations must be strategic with how they use those resources. Many worthy cases will be declined due to simple lack of resources. With that said, this makes the choice of which cases an organization does take very telling. When a case where an academic is standing up for clearly articulated constitutional rights against a powerful academic constituency is not only not assisted but told that the heckler's veto is now protected speech of the heckler, this is problematic. When that same organization then chooses to use its limited resources to defend cases that align with the heckler's agenda but are clearly NOT what most would consider protected speech, the choice of the case defended versus the case ignored reveals a political bias that has nothing to do with defending free speech and the public is free to judge FIRE's actions accordingly. This is unfortunate because FIRE does do many good things, but like the rest of academia...is so heavily distorted by the left wing bias of the faculty that they effectively cannot stand up against free speech violations of the woke mob. I have yet to see FIRE fail to defend any speech or action from the far Left for lack of resources even when more mainstream conservative cases languish.
Sadredin Moosavi, I know that what you say here about FIRE isn't true from personal experience because I'm not progressive, and FIRE provided me with an attorney. People on both sides seem to think that FIRE is on the other side. But check out their Scholars Under Fire database, and you'll see that they defend people across the political spectrum.
While I am glad that you received help from FIRE, my experience was different. FIRE declined to defend against blatant censorship of academic presentations in a conference by a professional society because they argued that the professional society has "free speech" rights which allow them engage in censorship of speech they don't agree with. By that logic any organization can censor any faculty member, employee or student because they disagree with what has been said I'm a forum they control and is NOT the how FIRE defends speech when made by progressives. Mind you this poster was pointing out clear constitutional rights violations by professional societies against their own members in support of long settled constitutional law and was in no way controversial. FIRE was unwilling to take action because it would have offended powerful Left wing academics using professional societies as their mechanism for censorship against their own members. It would be like FIRE failing to defend someone censored for standing up for the same free speech principles that FIRE claims to defend because the censors have the freedom to impose a heckler's veto! Meanwhile, FIRE defends hate speech on behalf of Leftist groups all the time (Pro Palestinian antisemitic activities that violate time/place/manner restrictions and are NOT protected by free speech). So...sorry...but the proof is in the pudding.
Instapundit is at UTK , right? Reach out to him and raise Cain, would have been my response
Higher education in the West suffers from intellectual Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome in the etymological sense of the word.
I had no idea! I’ll reach out and see if I can get through. Thanks 😊
Wow - what a both miserable and wonderful tale! UTK are truly miserable. And you are a wonderful bulldog! Great to see that you're making a success for both yourself and your children. All the best!
Thanks, Susannah, for this. I had a similar experience in my chaplaincy training. For one thing, it was considered taboo to say anything that would give clients any hope whatsoever. This was called, "Hope-mongering." Also taboo was saying anything to the effect that "it will be all right," even from a place of deep faith. (In retropect I figured out that if we were to give people hope, or encourage strength, or make them feel better about themselves or explore how clients might do to help themselves, that might get in the way of the woke "revolution.") All we were meant to do was listen and empathize with whatever the clients said and mirror their emotions, so they could feel "heard." That was the total sum of what our engagement was supposed to be. We were however meant to list in our reports every way in which our clients might be marginalized. And it was thought that chaplains of the same skin color or ethnic group as the client were per force more effective than white ones. After an interview for a chaplain program at Bellevue that went well, I was informed at the end that they were only taking candidates "who looked like the patients."
I’m so sorry you went through that experience. That “therapy” you are talking about is called the affirming care model, and it leads to continued mental health problems, turning people into lifelong clients. It boggles the mind that a term like “hope-mongering” even exists, but it also shows how necessary it is that we fight back.
I’m here to tell you there is hope. If our ancestors could survive the Roman Empire, Assyrian conquest, slavery, both world wars and everything else in between, we can too. Our courage and resilience is written in our bones. Never accept despair as an answer.