Because 'Dumbing Down', Ashley...

...that's why...

Before they arrive on campus this fall, many American college freshmen will already have finished their first assignment. Their colleges have given them a "common reading", one book that they are all expected to read. Last year, 309 colleges made such assignments. It's a great tradition, but something curious has happened since my days as a college student. Only eight schools assigned anything published before 1990, and only four assigned books that could by any stretch be considered classics.

It's something of a rhetorical question she asks, though. She really knows the answer:

Racism is probably the most commonly touched chord in the common readings. Of course, there are great works of literature such as Othello that might serve to introduce students to that, but the emphasis in the common readings is on indicting contemporary society, not on discerning an age-old affliction.

Quite...

Yet another reason why colleges harvest only new growth in the book vineyard is the idea that students are ready for only the most tender shoots. Defenders of the choices say they want "accessibility" and "relevance". Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and even Zora Neale Hurston just don't make the cut when it comes to relevant social issues. In response to critics, some of the colleges say that the books they pick are likely to be the "classics of the future", but the turnover among the choices from year to year suggests either that we are due for an unprecedented avalanche of new classics or that most of these hunches are off the mark.

I know where I'll place my bet.