Information and statistics are mounting about Generation Z (Gen Z; also called Zoomers), people born between 1997 and 2012, and the overall picture isn’t pretty. What’s emerging is that the most recent generation to reach adulthood (with the youngest members about to enter their teens) is not only the most catered to and over-protected, but also the most lacking in basic academic skills, knowledge of our country’s founding, and the great legacy of Western civilization.

Recently, the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, an international non-profit organization founded in 1958 to oppose Communism and socialist ideologies while supporting the rule of law, constitutional government, and the authentic teachings of the Catholic Church, delved into the topic of Gen Z. The foundation shared its troubling discoveries in its November 2024 Mindszenty Report.

Of the Gen Z-ers who have entered the workplace, many have already blacklisted themselves by voicing high expectations for salaries and promotions while offering little in the way of knowledge and work ethic. Describing the Gen Z population in general as “hypersensitive, poorly educated, highly polarized,” the report writers asked rhetorically how this might be explained, then responded:

• Numerous studies provide the answers—including “helicopter” parenting, social media, and educational institutions that tell them they are all exceptional people. When they enter the workplace and encounter inevitable criticism, they overreact personally. One consequence is that many employers are trying to avoid hiring Gen Zers.

The report cites a 2023 study which is no longer available online but which showed that “40 percent of business leaders believe recent college graduates were unprepared for the workplace.” The study was conducted by TechSpot and polled 1,243 employers. The general consensus was that these business leaders were reluctant to hire Gen Zers because, “as a group they lack a strong work ethic, communication skills, and preparedness to handle the technological tasks needed in a modern office.”

Some employers said recent grads were demanding starting salaries of $100,000 per year when the going rate for such jobs was $70,000. Many found that their new hires proved difficult to work with, lacked motivation, and “were unwilling to put in the effort to succeed at the job.”

Perhaps the most sobering characteristic of Gen Zers is their hypersensitivity, which many experts believe stems from their relationship to technology and their affinity for and dependence on social media. The Mindszenty Report notes: “Psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt maintain that social media have stunted this generation’s social development and have contributed to increasing rates of suicide and mental illness.”

Dr. Haidt believes widespread use of smartphones and tablets has contributed to negative childhood and adolescent mental health, which can continue into adulthood. In an interview on ABC listen’s Conversations podcast, Haidt said: “More governments, including the United States Congress, should follow Australia’s lead and mandate that 16 be the minimum age for accessing social media.” He was referring to a recently enacted social media minimum age law, which cracks down on use of these apps by Australian youth under age 16.

He added: “We have minimum ages for about four reasons: graphic sex, extreme violence, addiction, and physical danger, but once your kid gets a smartphone [and] social media, they’ve got all four ... this is insanity. We have over-protected our children in the real world and under-protected them online.”

Gen Zers, who have become “especially attuned to feelings of their peers acting through social media,” have also become more removed from actual social interactions. “They fear being canceled or doxxed by their peers,” psychologists say, “yet do not hesitate to attack or make fun of a peer they only know online. Thus, Gen Zers experience high rates of anxiety and depression.”

Impact of education

But Gen Zers’ problems stem from more than over-indulgent parents and relentless exposure to social media. As regular readers of Education Reporter know, many excellent books have outlined the dangers to young minds posed by indoctrination and brainwashing in American schools, particularly the colleges and universities. A few examples include: The Marxification of Education, by James Lindsay, which demonstrates the enormous influence of the Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire, who believed education must focus on political activism rather than academics. Freire’s philosophy distorts traditional education for an emphasis on ideology-based ideas, feelings, and attitudes, all of which are present to some degree in American classrooms.

The book, Brutal Minds: The Dark World of Left-Wing Brainwashing in our Universities, by Stanley K. Ridgley, Ph.D. is another excellent revelation of how both Millennials and Gen Zers have developed. Ridgeley explains that “brutal minds” are distributed all over college campuses, and that their far-left ideology is “embedded in their policies and programs,” which operate under the vague umbrella of “student development.” Almost without exception, he contends, these policies “constitute unauthorized psychotherapy sessions conducted quite often by unlicensed personnel under false pretenses.”

Finally, Mark R. Levin’s eye-opening book, American Marxism, sheds further light on how our youngest generations have been shortchanged and deluded by the education system. Levin writes that our youth have been indoctrinated to “have a passion for justice” in the Marxist sense of the term. They have successfully been convinced that their country is full of “structural inequalities,” and is “interminably dissolute, unjust, and immoral. There can be no justice or improvement,” they say, because “the entire enterprise was irredeemable from the start, and nothing since has or can significantly improve the society.”

Equity grading and inflated grades

In addition to all of the above, the practice of “equity grading,” is becoming more popular at all levels of education. The Mindszenty Report describes this as a practice that “prohibits teachers from giving students bad grades for late assignments, cheating or failing to turn in assignments,” and points out that, rather than helping students, “grade inflation actually decreases student learning.” (Also see Education Reporter, August 2024.)

As Mindszenty further notes: “If grade inflation has been on the rise in K-12 schools, it is on jet fuel in American universities. The average college GPA increased from 2.81 in 1990 to 3.15 in 2020, a 12 percent rise. The median college GPA increased even more, by 21.5 percent.” To the obvious question, are students getting smarter, Mindszenty writers reply with an emphatic “No.”

But grade inflation is a benefit to universities intent on retaining current students and attracting new ones. College “success counselors,” writes Mindszenty, “are the new buzzwords....” They are there for any student with poor grades, whether he or she attends in-person or online, and are inclined to attribute bad grades to factors other than poor performance, such as “time management, family problems, not knowing how to study, or whatever.”

The end result is that American education is shortchanging students. Mindszenty observes that not only are students failing to learn the basics of critical subjects such as civics, but that “a long-term decline in math, quantitative, and science skills is becoming a threat to national security. American students’ test scores in math are dropping, as is enrollment in STEM majors (science, technology, engineering and math).”

So, what are American parents and concerned citizens to do? “Cultural change begins in the grassroots,” states Mindszenty, “and it has begun, with more conservative parents running for local school boards and taking advantage of expanding school choice options and homeschooling.... These are good signs. But the fight for our children has just begun.”

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