Revolutionary Marxism class draws national attention

Portland State’s Chiron Studies program offered Revolutionary Marxism as a spring 2012 course, which has already drawn notice from well-known conservative figures in America.

The Blaze, a magazine publication closely affiliated with prominent Republican Glenn Beck’s radio show, attacked PSU in an April 11 article for allowing a class on Revolutionary Marxism to be taught as a part of the school’s curriculum. The article, “Portland State University offering ‘Revolutionary Marxism’ course—and wait until you see the syllabus,” referenced parts of the class syllabus and implied that the course instructors were forcing their students to connect with instructor-chosen, left-wing activist groups.

“That leaves a lot of unanswered questions,” wrote Erica Ritz, the article’s author, “such as: Why is the taxpayer helping pay for these courses at a public university? With socialist professors and mandated participation with leftist groups, is the other side being presented at all?” Ritz questioned.

However, the course’s student instructors insisted that they were not attempting to force students into working with any specific organization and that they are teaching the class simply because they want to and are allowed to as part of the Chiron Studies program.

“I’m a socialist, and it’s a political theory that’s helped me understand the way the world works, and with the economic crisis and the Occupy movement here, I believe it would be a really powerful form of analysis for students and useful in understanding the world and working to change it,” said Wael Elasady, one of the course’s two student professors.

The other course instructor, Grant Booth, added, “For Chiron Studies, students present a course syllabus, and they can be about almost anything as long as there’s a mentor and enough of a syllabus and workload for four credits of work.”

Booth and Elasady also wanted to make it clear that, although a similarly hardline conservative-leaning course is not currently offered at PSU, it could be if a student wanted to teach it and prepared the proper syllabus.

This addressed another of the main complaints in the Blaze article, which bemoaned the lack of a PSU class that taught politics from the opposite point of view as Revolutionary Marxism, in an effort to achieve a sort of balance in political theory learning.

“I am absolutely not opposed to the class being taught. I think that everyone should know as much as they can about competing ideologies and their respective histories, and then they can decide what form of government they’d really rather live under,” Ritz said. “I only have a problem with the course if the school would not allow a class representing the other side of the ideological spectrum, where students were encouraged to seek out Tea Party or NRA events, for instance.”

Ritz wanted to make it clear that she was simply speaking for herself, and not for the entire Blaze magazine. At the time of this article’s publication, Blaze officials, as well as Glenn Beck and various Oregon Republican organizations including the PSU College Republicans group and the Oregon Tea Party, had not replied to requests for interviews. For a full text of the Blaze article, visit www.theblaze.com/stories/portland-state-university-offering-revolutionary-marxism-course-and-wait-until-you-see-the-syllabus.

Elasady and Booth believe that this public outcry is a freedom of speech issue, and one that probably would not have become a problem if their class had been taught on the opposite form of political theory.

“The fact that they don’t respect freedom of speech and that they’re willing to censor an idea is very dangerous. The reason they want to is because Marxism helps explain the economic misery that many people in the United States are living in, and it shines the light on the ‘1 percent,’” Elasady said.

“They take so much concern over Marxist ideas because those ideas are a challenge to the system itself,” Booth said.

There are four areas of focus for the course that present opposing ideas to the current political system of the United States. The syllabus lists fundamentalsof Marxist theory, Marxism and oppression, revolutionary practice and the future of socialism as the four main points of study.

Booth and Elasady explained their motivation for focusing on these specific ideas by noting that related Marxist ideas have been prominent in history and historical events for centuries, although they have not been explicitly taught in schools.

“When you actually get to read A People’s History of the United States or about the struggles of regular everyday people, it’s inspiring that they were able to do this under this much oppression,” Elasady said.

Students in the course agree that these ideas are inspiring and are excited by what they have already learned about and will learn about in the future.

“I’m really enjoying the class. It’s a good introduction to Marxist theory and a good way to apply it to activism, putting theory into practice,” said Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies senior Shelly Merry.

Business junior Justin Lindley said, “I saw an advertisement for the class; I was actually part of the Occupy movement, and I came here just to get a broader perspective of economies and societies in general.”

Booth and Elasady likewise believe that their students are really enjoying the class thus far and are determined to keep teaching what they believe in regardless of any criticism that gets thrown their way.

“If we’re on the opposite side of Glenn Beck, I think we must be doing something right,” joked Elasady.

A laughing Booth added, “Or, something left.”