When are these conservative ninnies going to get over themselves? Last year, Rush Limbaugh and hundreds of his teeming minions got up in arms about UNC’s summer reading, a book called Approaching the Quran. UNC administrators received hate mail from around the country about their effort to expose some young minds to a major world religion. This year, UNC has assigned Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, and Carolina’s newest crop of young republicans just won’t stand for it. I have read this book myself and I can assure you that students should be celebrating such an easy assignment. It has some good moral lessons, but it’s fairly devoid of big-picture conclusions and so easy to read that it could be completed quite handily in a day or two at the beach.
If these students (and their right-wing backers) are uncomfortable about dealing with the experience of someone not of their own economic disposition – well that’s the point, kids. Welcome to education.