Since When is Social Justice "PC"?

I was both amused and disturbed by Mona Charen’s column this week about Columbia Teacher’s College and the politics of education.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2006/10/13/letting_the_pc_slip_show

I have long suspected that one of the real reasons for the attacks on public schools since the 80’s is the realization by the right that the empowerment of the underclasses happens predominantly through the schools! It is teachers who say “you can become anything you want, and I’ll show you the path to get there.” Poor parents are not all going to either know the path or to believe in it. Hence, if they can decimate the schools, they can preserve the upper class as is into the future.

So Charen attacks Columbia’s statement that “we see teaching as an ethical and political act” as totally inappropriate, and the notion that teaching is part of “a larger struggle for social justice” as just wrong. (Then of course she goes on to blame the teacher’s unions for schools offering less than great education – typical.)

Because I can see through her rhetoric, I can afford to be amused by it. But given that much of her readership may not stop to think about public schools as the foundation of the democracy (and that democracy itself has been under attack in recent years) her column is still disturbing.