Take Back Higher Education

Race, Youth, and the Crisis of Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights

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Drs. Henry and Susan Giroux

Henry A. Giroux holds the Global Television Network Chair in Communications in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University in Canada. Susan Searls Giroux is Assistant Professor in the English Department at McMaster University. They’ve both written a number of books on the theory of education.

How is our democracy in crisis?

• Growing hostility towards education

• Decline of the welfare state

• Loss of the public sphere

Mid-1970s backlash against affirmative action and busing

Schools attacked for inefficiency

Education as “the weak link” in the War on Terror

John Walker Lindh

Growing Hostility Towards Education

Decline of the Welfare State

• Welfare Cuts

• Health Care Cuts

• Financial Aid Cuts

• Growth of the Prison-Industrial Complex

• Tax Cuts Favoring the Wealthy

Loss of the Public Sphere

• Cynicism

• Collective needs give way to individual needs

• Dissent as unpatriotic

Who causes these problems?

Corporations The Bush Administration

Corporations

Replace social values with consumer values

Turn education in to job training

Corporations

Globalization Influence governmental policy

Attacks on education Slashing social programs

Bush Administration

Bush Administration

Fear Mongering Quashing Discussion

How can we save democracy?

• Develop a vocabulary of resistance

• Faculty need to become more publicly engaged

• Cultivate critical thinking in the younger generation