Nick Zbu Having over fifteen years of space away from this film, watching it again makes me realize how utterly disconnected from reality this film is. The characters are stereotypes, the college campus is nothing like reality, and the whole affair screams 'Do the Right Thing' but without any real understanding about what that really entails. Spike Lee's film had a lot of valid points and understood the nature of racism and portrayed it brilliantly. This film just takes pleasure in reducing everybody to stereotypes, tossing in an education spiel that would make Bill Cosby roll his eyes, and basically just waste the audience's time and money.But it does have value. The movie attempts to portray America as a land seething with anxiety and bitterness over social norms breaking and bursting. But it's a childish movie in that it wants to be revolutionary without really knowing what it's trying to do. Why does rape equal becoming a lesbian? How does being dismissed by a bunch of black men immediately follow into racism? Huh? What is going on in this movie? And we'll never know. Higher Learning is a product of the '90s. If anything, it shows how we cannot judge history while we are living it. It's a bad clone of Do The Right Thing and is ultimately pointless and meaningless. If anything, it serves as a very good warning about moralizing in cinema: you better be damn sure you make something that, even if proved wrong, proves a point. If not, you're just making Sid Davis films with better stock.

Leonard Smalls: The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse To be fair, "Higher Learning" came out in the midst of one of the most liberal decades in the history of this country: the 1990's. Sadly, this does not excuse the blatant irresponsibility on display by writer/director John Singleton in his portrayal of both black and white college students. They remind me of characters from a film like "Not Another Teen Movie." Someone like me can watch this with a certain kind of eye and find the entertainment value in it, but to a young person or an impressionable teenager, "Higher Learning" is borderline dangerous propaganda and nothing more.The viewer is offered an entirely one-sided depiction of the racism that black people endure on a college campus, all the way up to the end. Not one campus security guard is black, they are all white and they are all racist. They even obstruct our hero in the end instead of going after the killer. It is absurd and unrealistic.The Neo-Nazi's are pathetic, mouth-breathing morons and the Black Power guys are intelligent, transcendent disciples of Huey Newton who, somehow, are still oppressed in 1995.I wouldn't say this is the WORST movie I've ever seen, but it sure is close. Only to be viewed by those with an IQ of 130 or higher and even then, just for pure comedic value.The acting is pretty good by all those involved, but the script stinks, the story is over the top ridiculous and the overall message here is not good. Anyone else notice that music in the 90's was better than now, but movies have definitely gotten better!?2 out of 10, kids.

Demetrio_Dagieu_S First of all yes I'm white, so I try to tread lightly in the ever delicate subject of race... anyway... White People Hating Black people = BAD but Black People Hating White people = OK (because apparently we deserved it!!). where do i start? i wish i had something good to say about this movie aside unintended comedy scenes: the infamous scene were Ice Cube and co. get in a fight with some really big, really strong, really really angry and scary looking Neo-Nazis and win!!! the neo-Nazi where twice the size :), and the chase! the chase is priceless... This is NOT a movie about race, tolerance and understanding, it doesn't deliver... this is a racist movie that re-affirm all the cliché stereotypes, the white wimpy guy who gets manhandled by his black roommate automatically transform in a skinhead...cmon simply awful I do regret ever seeing it.Save your time and the dreadful experience of a poorly written ,poorly acted, dull and clearly biased picture, if you are into the subject, go and Rent American History X, now thats a movie

brendanrau Despite, or perhaps in part because of the clever use of music to underscore the motivations and ideologies of each of the major characters, stereotypes are in, and verisimilitude and characterization are out in this not-too-subtle cinematic screed.One gets the sense that John Singleton was dabbling in post-structuralist literary theory because it was the flavor of the day, and "Higher Learning" was the tendentious result. The low point of the movie is the "peace" rally, in which the symbols of the 1960s "free love" movement are appropriated for what much more closely resembles a "Take Back The Night" rally with live, stridently identity-conscious musical acts in tow. Perhaps in his prim revisionism the director was trying to assert that identity politics is the new Vietnam? Ooh, how Adrienne Rich of him—and Remy's firing into the crowd is a nice touch, if you're into Rich's sort of political posturing.I wish I could give this movie negative stars. I can recommend it only to those interested in the 1990s as history, a time when radical feminists brought the academic trinity of race, class, and gender to popular culture and declared man-hating "a viable and honorable POLITICAL option". Where's Camille Paglia when you need her?