June 8, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Martial artist and actor Chuck Norris has endorsed a conservative Catholic college, warning parents, “you might be appalled at the sort of radicalism you discover” at most American universities.
“To counter so much progressive indoctrination in American culture, you can also have your graduates consider attending a private, conservative or Christian college or university,” he said in an article on WND.com, mentioning Christendom College by name, among others.
Norris noted that most institutions of higher education have become “[communities] of indoctrination.”
Universities have “become little more than leftist indoctrination camps where too many professors are simply peddling progressive ideologies packaged under the guise of education, and shutting and keeping out anything that would challenge them,” Norris warned. Most universities are a “one-sided educational environment” with “restrictive speech codes, bias against conservative students and propagandizing for radical causes and lifestyles.”
“Founded in 1977 in response to the devastating blow inflicted on Catholic higher education by the cultural revolution which swept across America in the 1960s, Christendom’s goal is to provide a truly Catholic education in fidelity to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and thereby to prepare students for their role of restoring all things in Christ,” the college’s website says.
Christendom does not accept any federal money, including through student loans. This is “for the sake of academic freedom.”
“This was a prudential decision made by Christendom College to protect its freedom to teach the Catholic Faith without hindrance,” the school says. It still is able to provide its own financial assistance to students.
Norris recommended the following universities as suitable alternatives to “progressive indoctrination”:
- Liberty University
- Biola University
- Hillsdale College
- Christendom College
- Westmont College
- Grove City College
Norris also suggested that “federal government overreach” into education be cut.
“If we want to get back to basics in education, we can start by eliminating educational bureaucrats and giving that money back to parents, or at very least by investing it in the students,” he wrote. “Government needs less of a role in running our children’s education and more of a role in supporting parents’ and students’ educational decisions.”
“Children belong to their parents, not the government,” he continued. “And the parents ought to have the right, and government support, to personalize their graduate’s education as they see fit. And where the Department of Education, teachers’ unions or any other organizations or bureaucrats impede their decisions, they must be stopped.”
“Is it merely coincidental that citizens’ private choice of schooling was outlawed by the Soviet State in 1919, by Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1938, and by Communist China in 1949?” Norris asked. “Is America next?”