Jimmy Failla blasts 'woke' schools: Kids should learn to add numbers before subtracting gender
'Fox Across America' host Jimmy Failla sounds off on an Oregon school district for instructing students on 'woke' neo-pronouns. He also discusses Sen. Ted Cruz' controversial Twitter response to Sen. Eric Swalwell.
Prominent doctors, researchers and academics condemned recent initiatives in the science, research and health communities to delete commonly used scientific language and replace it with less offensive, "inclusive language."
Within the past several weeks, the state of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Suzanne Dworack-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California removed the term "field" from their respective programs for the sake of avoiding reminding people of racism and the history of slavery.
Common research department phrases such as "going into the field," "field work," "research field," etc. were outlawed by both departments for the sake of avoiding language that is "anti-Black or anti-Immigrant."
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In this March 12, 2019 file photo people walk at the University Village area of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
As the USC School of Social Work office wrote, these phrases "may have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigration workers that are not benign."
Fox News Digital spoke to several prominent members of the STEM community including theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, physician Dr. Simone Gold, psychologist and author Gad Saad, and others, who denounced this "language policing" as "ridiculous," "vacuous," and "deadly."
Many of these researchers said they see these inclusivity initiatives as "an attack on free thought" and an effort to "control people’s actual expressions." One even claimed that if this type of "woke" pandering continues in the sciences, there may even end up being accredited "professors of wokeology."
The first of these two shocking instances of wokeness corrupting major institutions occurred on January 4 when the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) sent a memo to staffers at two of its offices, the Children’s Services Agency and the Economic Stability Administration, asking them to stop usage of the term "field" in their work.
The memo opened by acknowledging that the community offices at MDHHS "are often referred to as ‘the field,’" though it stated that this reference, along with any other reference to the word "field" in said offices will be discontinued.
The letter stated, "Recently, staff and stakeholders have raised concerns about the use of the term ‘field worker’ and its implication for descendants of enslaved Black and Brown individuals. While widespread use of this term is not intended to be harmful, we cannot ignore the impact its use has on our employees."
In order to maintain "our commitment to sustaining a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce, where employees can thrive," the department declared, "as an agency, we will be discontinuing the use of terms like ‘field work’ and ‘field workers.’ Instead, staff can use terms like ‘community office’, ‘local office’, and ‘community/local office staff.’"
The memo concluded, saying, "This action is a small step towards creating a culture that values the contributions and voice of all employees."
The second instance involved USC’s School of Social Work outlawing the same term from its curriculum because it "may have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers that are not benign."
The School of Social Work office sent out a memo to its staff January 9 stating that the word "field" will be replaced by a more inclusive term in order to support "anti-racist work practice."
It stated, "Specifically, we have decided to remove the term ‘field’ from our curriculum and practice and replace it with ‘practicum.’ This change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language that would be considered anti-Black or anti-immigrant in favor of inclusive language."
As with Michigan’s woke initiative, the Suzanne Dworack-Peck School intended the move to alleviate painful memories of slavery and racism. The memo added, "Language can be powerful, and phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘field work’ maybe have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers that are not benign."
The letter stressed the office’s commitment to "further align our actions, behaviors, and practices with anti-racism and anti-oppression, which requires taking a close and critical look at our profession – our history, our biases, and our complicity in past and current injustices."
Though, the members of the scientific and academic community who spoke to Fox News Digital see these language changes as not so benevolent and more of a "dangerous" ideological control mechanism that defeats the point of science and research altogether.
World-renowned theoretical physicist and author Lawrence Krauss trashed these initiatives a "ridiculous" and contrary to the spirit of science.
He stated, "Science, and academia more generally should be based on free and open inquiry, and concerns about offending language simply get in the way of this. I have often said that one of the purposes of science, and education more generally is to make you uncomfortable. Because if you are always in your comfort zone then you are not stretching your worldview at all."
Krauss, who attacked these two high profile language changes in a recent Substack article, told Fox that these woke updates are common in STEM. He stated, "Unfortunately, right now STEM generally, and physics in particular, is rife with examples of efforts proactively address perceived problems that may not be real problems, to stigmatize certain areas of research, claim biases without evidence, censor discussion and debate, and control language."
He concluded, "Language should evolve organically. Anytime someone wants to artificially censor language, I view that as an attack on free thought."
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In this March 12, 2019 file photo, people pose for photos in front of the iconic Tommy Trojan statue on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
Dr. Eli David, one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence experts, lamented that with such woke updates, many universities are "being turned into wokelands."
He told Fox News Digital, "Universities used to be the place where you conduct rigorous research on every subject, from science and technology to sociology and history. Today, many academics no longer view themselves as researchers, but offense-takers, and even worse: offense-inventors."
David noted that "An entire academic field of ‘finding everything offensive’ has been invented in the past few years, and I won't be surprised if we will soon have professors of wokeology."
He added, "Sadly, this trend is rapidly accelerating, largely due to the "cancel culture", which goes hand in hand with wokeism. Any academic that doesn't agree with these ludicrous made-up definitions is viciously attacked by the woke mob."
Fox News Digital also spoke with American medical physician Dr. Simone Gold. Dr. Gold, who is the founder and president of independent physician organization, America’s Frontline Doctors, slammed the USC mandate as part of a "dangerous" push for "censorship" aimed at acquiring power for those promoting it.
She said, "All censorship is dangerous not only because it controls people’s actual expressions (and inevitably later their actual thoughts) but because it empowers one class of person to determine what is offensive and what is not. For example, the elite academicians at USC feel deleting the word ‘field’ is ‘critical’ despite the fact that virtually no one is offended by it."
Gold pointed to offensive voices on college campuses who are meanwhile, not being censored by school departments for their language. She stated, "the elites at the University of Michigan permit students to chant slogans encouraging Jew-killing such as ‘there is only one solution’ and ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’ - both well-known murderous rallying cries of vicious anti-semites."
In summary, Dr. Gold claimed, "The downstream effect of censorship will be swift, uncompromising, and deadly."
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Ophthalmologist and research scientist Dr. Houman David Hemmati dismissed these progressive mandates as "a distraction to the scientific community." He declared, "Science isn’t political, and it doesn’t care about political correctness. Science is about facts. It benefits no one to inject political correctness in science."
When asked by Fox News Digital whether he had encountered any similar type of wokeness or political correctness in his career, he quipped, "I have thankfully not seen these progressive requirements in my line of work, largely because most people are too focused on doing their work."
Evolutionary behavioral scientist, professor at Concordia University in Montreal, and author of "The Parasitic Mind," Gad Saad simply and succinctly declared to Fox News Digital, "Needless to say, this language policing is vacuous virtue signaling."
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