Bettina Aptheker, the architect of the UC Santa Cruz Feminist Studies Department, has dedicated her career as a professor to indoctrinating her students. She regularly inserts racially and politically charged rhetoric into her lectures that is completely tangential to the subject matter of a course on feminist theory.

Yale Law School Dean Robert Post, considered the most prominent scholar on professor conduct, recently described in an interview that “…what is prohibited here [in the classroom] is a form of indoctrination, which is not educating someone, but simply reproducing your point of view in the student…it just teaches the student what you think.” [1]

Aptheker, however, has spent over 30 years reproducing her radical communist ideology rather than educating them strictly on the principles of feminism.

For example, during a lecture in an introductory to feminism course, Aptheker asserted that “People of color have very finely tuned intuition about white people…both men and women…This intuition is very acute around police…very acute…especially white police officers. Why? Because they kill a lot of young men of color.” [2] While this statement exposes Aptheker’s prejudices against “white police officers,” it is inappropriate in a classroom environment where a professor is tasked with educating students on feminist ideals, not indoctrinating them with the professor’s racist opinions. The primary responsibility of a teacher is to teach young people to think, not to tell them what to think. [3] In this instance, Aptheker is performing the latter.

In another introductory to feminism lecture, Aptheker claimed, “So we have a president [President Bush] now that thinks that global warming is some kind of myth…and yet we can see the effects of global warming everywhere…certain countries are just going to be underwater like Holland for example…Bangladesh is going to be completely underwater. And it won’t take much more.” [4]

White police officers kill a lot of “young men of color”? “Bangladesh is going to be completely underwater”? This is a course on feminism? Aptheker is not teaching her students how to think, she is teaching them what to think.

Aptheker’s overt political rhetoric isn’t exclusive to the two lectures referenced. In fact, an entire DVD series released in 2008 chronicles 17 lectures from her “Introduction to Feminisms” course all of which expose her indoctrination program disguised as an academic discipline. The series can be purchased online at introtofem.org and is available on reserve at UCSC’s McHenry Library.

The University of California System is in fiscal disarray. Student protesters are enraged by recent tuition hikes. Maybe the UC Regents should consider trimming their budget by eliminating professors who fail to teach students.

1. “Academic Freedom Interview,” Robert Post, 2012.

http://www.davidhorowitztv.com/2012/11/12/uc-professor-bias/

2. ”Placing Women at the Center of our Thinking,” Bettina Aptheker, 2008.

http://slugstore.ucsc.edu/ePOS?this_category=Front%20Page&store=721&item_number=2800840060121&form=shared3%2fgm%2fdetail%2ehtml&design=721

3. “Freedom in the Classroom,” American Association of University Professors,” 2007.

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/class.htm

4. “Introduction,” Bettina Aptheker, 2008.

http://slugstore.ucsc.edu/ePOS?this_category=Front%20Page&store=721&item_number=2800840060121&form=shared3%2fgm%2fdetail%2ehtml&design=721