By Constitution Staff

In March of this year people across the nation were shocked to see a video showing fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma gleefully chanting racial epithets and celebrating lynching. But what remains unseen is that some faculty at the University of Oklahoma, like those at other American universities, have been quietly inculcating racial hatred in the student body.

The History of Science department at the University of Oklahoma conducts a series of seminars in which students are indoctrinated in extreme left-wing politics and taught to hate both white people and America. Under the guise of "professional training," material from the website everydayfeminism.com is being used to train students to despise their own country.

The theme of these materials is that American society is characterized by "patriarchy, white supremacy, and heterosexism." Every white person in the US is said to enjoy the benefits of something called "white privilege." White privilege is both invisible and omnipresent; it confers unearned benefits. White privilege is described as a "magic carpet that allows you to sail over the worries of others without ever having to look down," and white people are characterized as "lords over people of color." Anyone who does not accept this is derided as "ignorant."

According to the instructional materials being used by the OU History of Science department, every woman, homosexual, poor person, and person of color is oppressed and disenfranchised, as are the mentally ill and learning disabled. Students are asked to "consider the ways in which you are oppressed," and told to "work in solidarity with oppressed groups" and "to join feminist and activist communities." They are instructed that if they are heterosexual they should refrain from getting married in any jurisdiction that does not allow gay people to marry.

Students are counseled to see racism everywhere by becoming aware of imaginary insults called "microaggrressions." An example of a racist microaggression is the statement "if you work hard enough, you will succeed." The statement is regarded as implicitly racist because it allegedly promotes the stereotype that people of color are "lazy, stupid, or incompetent." Students are told explicitly that they will not achieve success through hard work. The only thing that accounts for success in an "unjust society" is "privilege." Even the mention of controversial issues can be a crime. If you criticize -- no, even discuss -- whether or not it is appropriate for government to subsidize abortion you have committed "a sexist environmental microaggression."

This curriculum is incendiary and plainly racist. It is designed to instill guilt and shame in white students. But in some students the effect is likely to be the opposite. Thus we end up with a bus full of white students chanting "hang him from a tree."

The effects of inculcating racial hatred and resentment in minority students are also less than desirable. They are taught that the US is not a meritocracy founded on political equality, but a vicious, oppressive, and racist society. There is no American dream, hard work makes no difference whatsoever, and success is impossible for anyone who is female, black, gay, disabled, or transgendered. There is a dangerous corollary implicit in this hateful rhetoric. A person who believes they are oppressed in a hopeless system may logically conclude they have no choice but violence. This supposition is not merely theoretical. Over the past few months in Ferguson, Missouri, we have seen arson, looting, rioting, and the attempted assassination of police officers.

What is happening in Oklahoma is not unique. When Smith College President Kathleen McCartney stated that "all lives matter," she was shamed into making a retraction -- as if white people were less than human. February in the United States is Black History Month. But when a New Jersey delicatessen owner put a sign in his window asserting that people should celebrate a "white history month" he was derided as racist. The store owner took the sign down and apologized. And now we have an open letter signed by college professors across the United States that objects to display of the American Flag because it symbolizes "racism and xenophobia."

Academic departments in American universities devoted to the liberal arts and the humanities have largely degenerated into political indoctrination camps. One might hope that at least the exact sciences would be free from political indoctrination but such is no longer the case. Every academic discipline must now be subjugated to the dictates of racial politics. A physics teacher in a university prep school in Seattle began to teach "social justice" in his physics class because he "cared deeply about making the world a better place." Instead of learning about forces and vectors, students were asked to explain why there were so few black physicists.

Ironically, the University of Oklahoma campus features an iconic statue named The Sower. If you sow hatred and racial division, this is what you will reap. No nation or culture that hates itself can endure. Our educational institutions should be dedicated to celebrating the values of Western Civilization, not poisoning minds. But nothing will change until citizens, parents, and legislators start paying attention to what is happening in the classroom.

Dr. Deming is professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma, and the author of Black & White: Politically Incorrect Essays on Politics, Culture, Science, Religion, Energy and Environment (CreateSpace, 2011).