The First-Year Indoctrination

John Tierney joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss the "First-Year Experience," a widely adopted program for college freshmen that indoctrinates students in radicalism, identity politics, and victimology. The First-Year Experience (FYE) began as a response to the campus unrest of the 1960s and 1970s to teach students to "love their university" with a semester-long course for freshmen. However FYE programs at most schools today are largely designed by left-wing college administrators, not professors, to sermonize about subjects like social justice, environmental sustainability, gender pronouns, and microaggressions. While freshmen could undoubtedly benefit from an introductory course to learn basic skills for college, why do they so often get a mix of trivia and social activism instead of something useful academically? Tierney traveled to the FYE annual conference in San Antonio earlier this year to find out.