[Breitbart] Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn told Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow during a Sirius XM Breitbart News Daily interview Wednesday that "elite universities" are the "ultimate sources" of politically correct dogma.Arnn began by explaining his school’s pedagogical approach.
"When you’re 17 years old, when you’re deciding where to go to college, you’re probably too young to make up your mind whether you’re a liberal or conservative. You need to learn some things. Kids sometimes say to me, ’I want to get into your college. I’m a conservative.’ I always say, ’What’s that?’ and then they stumble, you know?"
Arnn added, "The first part of education is learning what fundamental things mean. That’s what the great books are about. That’s what natural science is about. And so you make them strong by letting them do the work to learn, and then they can figure out what they are."
Arnn shared an exchange with Rush Limbaugh regarding the politics of Hillsdale College’s students and alumni.
"But Rush Limbaugh said to me one time, ’How do you make them conservative?'" recalled Arnn. "And I said, ’I don’t,’ and he said, ’You don’t?’ and I said, ’No, you can’t do that. If they’re worth much, you can’t make them into anything.’ But he said, ’Are they conservative?’ and I said, ’Yeah, a great majority,’ and he said, ’Why?’ and I said, ’Well, if you find value in an old book, you’ve undercut the principles of modern liberalism already.'"
Arnn added, "Just remember, the way they make them liberal is they spoil them to death. They tell them, ’Your opinion is the sovereign thing in the universe, and you can be anything you want to be: an aardvark or a gazelle,’ so they don’t learn much."
Political agitation campaigns across college and university campuses reveal post-secondary institutions’ failures in cultivating critical thinking and epistemological rigor in students, said Arnn.