Washington & Lee University (W & L), established as Augusta College in 1749, and subsequently renamed Liberty Hall College, Washington College and then W & L in 1870 to honor George Washington who had endowed the struggling college in 1796. The college added the name of favorite son of the South Robert E. Lee following the War and his death, for his service as president of the college of five years. Lee took the position to train “young men to do their duty.” Lee established W & L as a leading college in the state and nation adding journalism, engineering, and business school courses. Lee also added the W & L law school to the college curriculum. Interestingly, Lee’s establishment of the student-run Honor System for student self-governance for Washington College remains the distinguishing character trait of the school today.
Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, is offering a course entitled “How to Overthrow the State,” which includes encouraging students to engage in “producing a Manifesto,” and “writing a persuasive essay on rewriting history and confronting memory.”
Associate professor Matt Gildner, is listed as the instructor of the W & L college course “How to Overthrow the State”.
A course being offered at Washington and Lee for the fall semester focuses on encouraging students to think of ways they can “overthrow a sitting government,” according to the course description on the university’s website.
“This course places each student at the head of a popular revolutionary movement aiming to overthrow a sitting government and forge a better society,” reads the course description.
“How will you attain power? How will you communicate with the masses? How do you plan on improving the lives of the people? How will you deal with the past?” the description adds.
The course, “How to Overthrow the State,” is worth 3 credits toward an accredited college degree.
Along with how to lead a revolution, students will also be studying Marxist revolutionary and assassin Che Guevara, and will be tasked with “producing a Manifesto” and “writing a persuasive essay on rewriting history.”
A book entitled “How to Overthrow the Government” was published in 2000 by Arianna Huffington. The college course on How to “Overthrow the Government” may be more instructive on speeding America’s demise.
“From Franz Fanon to Che Guevara to Mohamed Gandhi and others, we explore examples of revolutionary thought and action from across the Global South,” continues the course description.
“Students engage these texts by participating in a variety of writing exercises, such as producing a Manifesto, drafting a white paper that critically analyzes a particular issue, and writing a persuasive essay on rewriting history and confronting memory,” the description adds.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk reacted to the course, telling Breitbart News, “this is disgraceful. We must stop brushing aside these egregious examples of campus craziness as isolated incidents.”
“The lessons of the past few months prove that these ideas don’t stay on campus, they spill out onto the streets,” he added. “This is a prime example of the intellectual rot that has infected the academy in America. The Trump administration should investigate and determine if this is the type of scholarship federal funds should be used to subsidize.”
In July, the faculty of Washington and Lee voted to remove the name of Robert E. Lee from the university’s name. But the name-removal suggestions didn’t stop with the Confederate general.
Later, Washington and Lee associate professor of law Brandon Hasbrouck argued that his peers have not taken their fight for social justice far enough, proclaiming that the school should remove George Washington’s name as well.
“It is worth exploring why the faculty has decided to make a collective statement on Lee and why the faculty has not included a demand to drop Washington in their petition,” said Hasbrouck. “It is no longer acceptable, profitable or convenient to be associated with Lee but it is for Washington.”
EDITOR’s NOTE: Washington and Lee University chose not respond to various requests to clarify whether or not students will be trained to overthrow state or federal governments in the US. It is also unclear as to whether students will gain knowledge, skill or character from the course, as well as educational merit, to be successful Americans after graduation.
Alana Mastrangelo writes for Breitbart where this article first appeared. You can follow her on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
Please visit our sponsors and donate to support The Standard on this page.
RSS - Posts