This study will provide a summary of Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, with a major focus on Chapter 8, "Illiberal Education." The book is the author's argument against the tendency of American universities to bend their policies and practices to fit the "politically correct" pressures of minority groups. D'Souza argues that such pressure groups and university officials who bend to that pressure are destroying the very foundation on which the liberal principles of higher learning depend. He is pessimistic about any meaningful change in the near-future which would alter this "illiberal" trend.
Chapter 1, "The Victim's Revolution on Campus," the author declares that he is sympathetic to the struggle of minority students for equality and justice, being a first-generation immigrant from India himself. However, he argues that the policies such students are forcing the universities to adopt will not advance the cause of justice or equality.
D'Souza lists examples of such protests and the changes brought about to appease minority students. These changes have been in admissions policy, paying for college, learning and teaching, campus life, student behavior and language. It is meant to transform the university "in the name of multiculturalism and diversity" (133). It is
a revolution on behalf of minority students. Its mission is to put an end to bigoted attitudes which permit perceived social injustice to continue, to rectify past and present inequities, and to advance the interests of the previously disenfranchised (13).
D'Souza examines six incidents at six universities which typify this revolution. Chapter 2, "More Equal Than Others," explores admissions policy at Cal Berkeley, and the changes brought about in the effort to create "fair" policies for minorities. What actually occurred was unfairness in the admission of certain students who were themselves minorities: "Given Ber...