Three academics conducted an experiment. See video below.
They created a fictions author and a non-existent institution- The Portland Ungendering Research Initiative. They took the most absurd ideas and retrofit them into today’s politically correct dogmas. Here is a sample:
“Sometimes we just thought a nutty or inhumane idea up and ran with it. What if we write a paper saying we should train men like we do dogs—to prevent rape culture? Hence came the “Dog Park” paper. What if we write a paper claiming that when a guy privately masturbates while thinking about a woman (without her consent—in fact, without her ever finding out about it) that he’s committing sexual violence against her? That gave us the “Masturbation” paper. What if we argue that the reason superintelligent AI is potentially dangerous is because it is being programmed to be masculinist and imperialist using Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Lacanian psychoanalysis? That’s our “Feminist AI” paper. What if we argued that “a fat body is a legitimately built body” as a foundation for introducing a category for fat bodybuilding into the sport of professional bodybuilding? You can read how that went in Fat Studies.
We used other methods too, like, “I wonder if that ‘progressive stack’ in the news could be written into a paper that says white males in college shouldn’t be allowed to speak in class (or have their emails answered by the instructor), and, for good measure, be asked to sit in the floor in chains so they can ‘experience reparations.’” That was our “Progressive Stack” paper. The answer seems to be yes, and feminist philosophy titan Hypatia has been surprisingly warm to it. Another tough one for us was, “I wonder if they’d publish a feminist rewrite of a chapter from Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.” The answer to that question also turns out to be “yes,” given that the feminist social work journal Affilia has just accepted it. As we progressed, we started to realize that just about anything can be made to work, so long as it falls within the moral orthodoxy and demonstrates understanding of the existing literature.”
These papers got peer reviewed and published. Even hailed. The dog park paper got special recognition from the journal “Geneder, Place,and Culture”. The data and empirical evidence they used to backup their claims was pure nonsense and made up. No one bothered to even look at the references or raw data they were using. No one even bothered to research their institution to see that it was fake.
The academic world is digging its own grave. I suspect over the next few decades these colleges will loose their audience. Consider this, it was less than 20 years ago the main stream media was the only outlet to get news. Due to the internet and the decentralization of information, they have lost credibility. Alternatives have popped up to replace their monopoly.
Some entrepreneur will become filthy rich doing two things. One, making a better college curriculum. Two, marketing it to parents and students. There are many curriculum’s online that are excellent. Some are 100% free. However, they have failed in marketing. Very few parents or would be college students take the idea of an alternative to mainstream college serious. You can quiz out of college by taking CLEP exams. Most students do not due this. They would rather go to one of these colleges. The parents have this mentality: “It is not that bad”. It is very bad. The marketing campaign should focus on how bad it is.