Decolonizing French Food. Dancing Till the World Ends. Gender in the Wild. Those aren't punchlines — they're real course titles featured at major universities.
Fox News reports that at Columbia University, "Religion and Nasty Women" takes its name in part from President Donald Trump's "nasty woman" remark about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The course description says the phrase has since become a "badge of honor and a rallying cry for women's empowerment." Students examine goddesses, prostitutes and virgins across several religious traditions in what the description calls a survey of "religious-based misogyny" and women's responses to it.
According to Young America's Foundation (YAF)'s 32nd annual "Comedy & Tragedy Report," these classes reflect a growing shift in higher education that YAF Media Coordinator Rob Tandy says goes far beyond unusual course names.
"It's meant for indoctrination," he tells AFN. "It really goes to show that our higher education system is not teaching our students how to think. What it really is doing is teaching them what to think."
The report highlights these offerings against the backdrop of soaring higher education costs. With average student loan debt exceeding $40,000, Tandy points out that taxpayers and families are footing a steep bill for one-sided coursework "that's not benefitting anybody."
"When you start to examine the cost per credit of these courses that are being taught, it's crazy," he says.
Meanwhile, YAF is pushing back against ideological bias and advocating for conservative representation and intellectual diversity on American campuses.
"This should be a bipartisan issue," says Tandy. "Our higher education institutions should not be teaching students what to think. They should be giving them the tools and the resources to teach them how to think and let them formulate their own opinions and their own consensus on the issues."
