Education

‘Systemic Nihilism’: Professor Blasts Democrat Lawmaker’s Call To Abolish American History Classes

Fox News

David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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DePaul University professor Jason Hill said Thursday that it is “systemic nihilism” to want to abolish the teaching of  American history.

“What we are seeing in the educational system is systemic nihilism,” Hill told Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” He was responding to a report that Democratic Illinois State Rep. LaShawn Ford wants to abolish the teaching of American history in Illinois schools because he says it’s racist.

“Let’s go back a step further. A couple weeks ago, Rutgers University declared that grammar was racist. Grammar is the science that deals with the proper method of oral and written communication. When you attack grammar, you attack language, which is a method of cognition,” the Hill said.

The professor said that the attack is designed to prevent people from reasoning and from articulating dissent, leaving people “on the level of grunting farm animals.”

“You take away human history: you take away our constitutional rights, our Bill of Rights, our Second Amendment, First Amendment, our time-worn principles that we use to defend our way of life, our Judeo-Christianity,” Hill said. (RELATED: Gov. Cuomo: Toppling Historical Statues ‘A Healthy Expression’ Of Rage)

The professor said left-wing activists and politicians are not just going after history and statues but language itself — by calling grammar racist.

“You are looking at systemic nihilism.  You’re looking at the anti-Christ, as far as I’m concerned,” Hill said, noting that the people who want to abolish American history have “nothing” in mind to replace it with. “They want to destroy the good for the sake of it being the good.” (RELATED: Victor Davis Hanson: Taking Down Statues Is ‘About Humiliation And Power’)

The statue of the Roman Catholic Spanish priest Junipero Serra is pictured in Palma de Mallorca on June 22, 2020, after it was daubed with graffiti reading “Racist.” (Photo by JAIME REINA / AFP) (Photo by JAIME REINA/AFP via Getty Images)

The professor argued that the trend to disavow American history and values did not begin with the riots that have plagued U.S. cities over the summer months. “I have been warning … that these postmodern nihilists that started from back in the ‘60s when you had these big disciplines attacking reason … and dispensing with reason, objective reality and logic as the construct of imperialist, racist white men.”

“That is what we are seeing today. And so you dispense with history altogether.”

The “1619 Project,” sponsored by the New York Times, is not attempting to abolish American history but to redefine it around the foundation and preservation of slavery. Conservative academics and legislators have attacked its accuracy.