How College Courses Rationalize Political Violence

Where do young people learn that it’s OK to kill over political differences? Look no further than what they’re taught in school.

There, college professors routinely assign books by leaders of radical groups that murdered people to advance their political goals. These blood-drenched terrorists are presented as positive role models, and their violence is romanticized as advancing justice.

Take, for example, how frequently the works of Angela Davis are assigned in college courses. According to Open Syllabus, books by Davis appear over 2,000 times in syllabi collected from U.S. universities.

Davis rose to infamy as a leader of the Black Panther revolutionary movement when she bought the guns used in a 1970 takeover of a California courthouse. That takeover led to the death of a judge and serious injury to a district attorney and a member of the jury.