'Miseducation for the 21st Century'

It was only four and a half years ago that the former president of Yale, Benno Schmidt, termed the City University of New York "an institution adrift." Since then, following Mr. Schmidt's recommendations, CUNY has showed remarkable progress: The end of remediation at the senior colleges and the establishment of stricter admission and graduation requirements are among CUNY's most notable achievements. CUNY's drive back to respectability culminated last week with Mr. Schmidt, who now chairs the CUNY board of trustees, pronouncing CUNY an "institution transformed."

Amid the applause that justifiably greeted Mr. Schmidt's speech at the Harvard Club, the CUNY Association of Scholars has issued a report about the deterioration of Brooklyn College's core curriculum. The group's report, titled, "Undermining the Brooklyn College Curriculum: Miseducation for the 21st Century," signals an unsettling trend at the school, which CUNY leaders would be wise not to overlook.

The concerns among members of the CUNY Association of Scholars, which is affiliated with the National Association of Scholars, mostly pertain to the school's curriculum, an issue more complicated than test scores or entrance exams but of equal importance. According to the group, the Brooklyn College administration has set out to gut Brooklyn College's venerable core curriculum, replacing it with one that "exalts personal experience over knowledge, skills over content, and ideology over objectivity."

Provost Roberta Matthews is leading the effort. She seems to be using Brooklyn College as a testing lab for a number of half-baked academic fads. The provost, who is best known for her studies on "learning communities," is the one responsible for bringing the dubious 11-course sequence "Arts of Democracy" to Brooklyn College. Rather than teach students the principles of American democracy, the courses simply exist as a vehicle for promoting multiculturalism. The "Arts of Democracy" may soon become part of Brooklyn College's core curriculum, and lead the way to more highly ideological curriculum changes, the report warns.

Ms. Matthews also opposed granting tenure last year to history professor Robert Johnson, whose tenure battle turned into an embarrassment for Brooklyn College. Ms. Matthews appears to see her role as an educator as training students not to be more knowledgeable but to be citizens who agree with her "multicultural" view. She has written that "teaching is a political act." No doubt the Brooklyn College administration disputes the new report, but the CUNY Association of Scholars' document suggests that Mr. Schmidt may have been a bit premature the other day at the Harvard Club when he hoisted the mission accomplished sign.