The American Civic Liberty Program and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently released documentation showing that college students are graduating with less knowledge about American History than their freshmen peers who recently graduated from high school.  The reports tested the students on their knowledge of constitutional republics, U.S. history, basic principles about the U.S. economy, international relations, and U.S. government.

Fifty colleges participated in the study which tested 14,000 students.  In eight of the most prestigious universities (three of them Ivy League) who took part in the study, freshmen had higher test scores than seniors who were about to graduate.  None of the tested institutions of higher learning scored higher than a D+.  You can read more in this CBN News article by Paul Strand.

It is no secret that the majority of university faculty are liberals who have anti-American sentiments.  It is believed that this trend began during the Vietnam War and Civil Rights eras of our country.  I imagine that if the students were tested on World History the results would probably be worse.  When I was in college during the late 80′s and part of the 90′s, I had a few professors of history and social sciences attack the Constitution as a document that was only established to preserve the rights of protestant white male landowners.  Since they felt this was the case, they thought the Constitution was an oppressive tool to keep others down.  Many of the founding fathers may have been racist, but the Constitution was a document that allowed enough latitude for the oppressed to be able to change and update laws to preserve human rights.

Hopefully this downward trend of knowing U.S. History will change.  Not being aware of important historical facts can continue to have a negative impact on how we conduct business, how we relate to people who are different from us, how our courts and government systems work, and on how we relate to other nations.

–posted by Harry A. Gaylord–