Glenn Ricketts and Peter Wood over at the National Association of Scholars think so. They were arguing that over a year ago. Why? In part because
We learn to go through the motions, appease the bureaucratic bullies that need to be appeased, and make up the stories necessary to pass gates like this [college and graduate school applications]. … They teach the would-be student to whom and to what to bow. They enunciate the doctrines towards which the privately dissenting must be hypocritical and that the rest learn to accept as the piety of the age.
And because
It?s a silly idea, and it is profoundly at odds with intellectual freedom, freedom of conscience, and the real purposes of education.
The article has been published twice. First under the name “Diversi-Oaths: Creedal Admissions in the American University” and second under the name “College Application Essays: Going Beyond ‘How Would You Contribute to Diversity?'”
