The term “social justice” serves as cover for just about every statist impulse these days. Whatever “transformation” of America they want to bring about is justified because it will bring about social justice. In Newspeak, social justice means good, while capitalist means bad.

In his latest Forbes article, Tom Lindsay takes a look at some scholarly writings by our wonderful corps of academicians. He writes, “As an academic who spent over three decades working in and with colleges and universities, I thought I had seen it all — the good, the bad, and the downright silly.” Tom proceeds to discuss a number of recent scholarly papers that, he says, “must be read to be believed.”

My own favorite among them is a paper arguing that mathematics shouldn’t be taught “straight” to students from underrepresented minority groups, but instead taught with “social justice” examples. Otherwise, supposedly, those hapless students just won’t have any motivation to learn the material.

When I read nonsense like that, I always think of Walter Williams’ statement, “Thank God I received my education before it became fashionable for whites to like black people.” Obviously, social justice pedagogy is simply a way for leftists to smuggle their failed ideology into math — and everything else.