Back in June, the Pope Center ran a piece by David Randall on the phenomenon of summer book assignments by colleges for their incoming students. Randall argued that most schools waste this opportunity by selecting a book that’s too political, too esoteric, and usually too simplistic.

Today, we publish a commentary by Appalachian State political science professor George Ehrhardt that goes a step further. Ehrhardt’s daughter is about to start her college career at a liberal arts college (unnamed, for obvious reasons) and the school’s summer reading choice was typically lefty — Claude Steele’s Whistling Vivaldi, which explores the alleged problem of stereotype threat. What was of greater interest to Ehrhardt than the choice of book however, was the set of questions that were also sent to the students.

The questions never suggest to the students that they should question Steele’s thesis that stereotype threat exists and is a serious problem in America. Instead, they push “progressive” notions that probably only a few of the faculty at the school would subscribe to. One question, for example, assumes that, Ehrhardt writes, “The possession of a social identity — whether as African-American, WASP, LGBT, Good ol’ Boy, or anything else — is presumptively bad. It leads to things ‘you have to deal with.’”

Another question posed to the students: “How does stereotype threat interfere with cross-cultural understanding and relationships?” Ehrhardt finds that off-putting, writing “Ironically, for a college that talks so much about diversity, students aren’t asked to consider how misunderstandings might arise because diverse individuals genuinely see things differently.”

Not just the chosen book but the discussion questions “push a progressive narrative about how race divides the country.”

Here is what’s going on at this school and many, many others. Zealous faculty “progressives” have seized the commanding heights so they can select books and direct the discussion thereof so as to implant leftist tropes about how bad our society is and how much it needs endless social engineering.

Ehrhardt concludes that he thinks his daughter is probably inoculated against the corrosive effects of college, but he fears for her peers.