UCLA Students Urged to Expose 'Radical' Professors 1229
rts008 writes to tell us Reuters is reporting that a conservative alumni group is working hard to expose 'radical professors'. The group is a creation of 2003 UCLA graduate, Andrew Jones, who stated that he runs the organization on his own with $22,000 in private donations. From the article: "Jones told Reuters he is out to 'restore an atmosphere of respectful political discourse on campus' and says his efforts are aimed at academics who proselytize students from either side of the ideological spectrum, conservative or liberal. 'We are concerned solely with indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies and unprofessional classroom behavior,' Jones said on his Web site." The tactics used by Jones and his group are raising quite a few questions, however, offering to pay students for recordings or teaching materials that could provide 'evidence' against professors in question.
Let's out the conservatives too! (Score:1, Interesting)
reactionary professors too. Then there will be _two_ meaninless
lists to kick around.
Re:Bias in academia (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Bias in academia (Score:5, Interesting)
Statistically speaking people with collage educations are more likely to be liberals. Oddly enough the people with passports tend to overwhelmingly liberals. Furthermore a study showed that on average the viewers of the John Stewart show (liberal) were better educated and made more money then the viewers of Bill Oreilly.
I am afraid the facts disagree with you. Sure there are educated conservatives but the majority of people with degrees as liberals by a long shot.
WTF??? (Score:4, Interesting)
And what's wrong with that is
Why are people afraid that others will find out their opinions? If you don't want people to find out your opinions, DON'T VOICE THEM TO A LECTURE HALL FULL OF STUDENTS. If you don't want people to think you act unprofessionally in your position as a professor, DON'T ACT UNPROFESSIONALLY IN YOUR POSITION AS A PROFESSOR.
When did it become damaging to free speech to spread someone's message?
That's not a rhetorical question. Please, tell me.
Liberal Arts Liberals (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking around the class room, I was shocked to see many students dutifully writing down that answer.
Re:They're not "conservatives". (Score:2, Interesting)
Almost everyone I know that identifies as a conservative drives a fuel efficient vehicle. Mostly, they drive hybrid Hondas. Personally, I consider myself conservative, and I haven't owned a car in almost nine years. I'm all about public transportation and carpooling.
On the other hand, I know a large number of self-proclaimed liberals (I live in a major city) and a tremendous number of them drive large SUVs and gas guzzling sports cars. Of course, it stands to reason that most of them aren't really liberals at all, outside of proclaiming it like a fashion statement, but that's what you get when people mistakenly identify being intelligent with automatically being a liberal.
The rest of your opinion is pretty much hogwash, too, but I understand why you hold it - you can't admit that a position you don't hold has merit. It's a common human disease, along with demonizing that which is different.
It's a shame - attitudes like the one you're expressing contribute to the weakening of society, to the detriment of all.
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, I have to admit, I was born in the 1930s, so I was quite young when fascism became a serious matter. However, I do know many veterans who fought in World War II, and were well aware of the political landscape at that time.
One thing you'll notice when you talk to almost any of them is that they're scared today. They think back to what they fought against, and they see it present yet again. Except this time it is being done in their name, by their countries. The proof is all around. It's obvious to them, and even to somebody such as myself, who has vague memories of such times.
Of course, somebody born in the last 30 or 40 years might not be able to notice such things by themselves, as they grew up within the confined of the system and thus cannot see beyond it.
Re:Works for me (Score:2, Interesting)
I have a homework assignment for you. Go out and buy Churchill's new book on the forced assimilation programs that were inflicted on Native American youth for decades. Come back here and explain to everybody what in that book makes Churchill a nutjob.
Re:Hooray America! (Score:1, Interesting)
After talking to a number of my relatives who live over in various parts of Canada, we tend to agree that the Conservative Party of Canada does not represent conservatives. It can best be viewed as the Canadian branch of the American Republicans. Hence it would best be referred to as a "Republican" party, rather an a "conservative" party. Why is that? Because they do not follow the ideals of conservatives, but rather a train of thought oft associated with the Republican Party in the US.
Re:Nazi party (Score:2, Interesting)
What's interesting in comparing Republicans to Nazis: the Nazis gained power only after the world-wide depression of the 1930's. While the Nazi party was founded in 1920, they didn't get much interest until the depression (revolutions usually do not build momentum during prosperity.) Contradicting this, to wit: the Republican movement was born during a long period of increasing wealth and prosperity in America.
Then, how did the Republicans take power in the U.S.? It didn't take an economic downturn. Americans had everything they wanted, much more than the rest of the world. Seems that they brainwashed the half of American that votes for them. They spent years colonizing voters' minds with hateful, anti-democratic thought viruses, focused almost entirely upon non-germane social topics such as sexual orientation, abortion, health care, the public retirement plan, the Clintons' finances and sexual adventures ... the list goes on and on.
And, most sadly, in fear of losing what power they held onto, the Democrats mostly went along for the ride, voting up Republican plans to strip the country of its social safety nets, to run an endless, world-wide war against terrorism, and invade energy-rich countries on the pretext that they masterminded the 9/11 attack.
It almost makes the Republicans look like they're power grubbing just for power's sake.
I'm actually rather grateful... (Score:5, Interesting)
This student group's attacks are full of cute asides, winks and nods to their compatriots: those sorts of people who think that protesting the Vietnam or Gulf Wars amounts to treason (they like to call it "treason" because it carries the death penalty). The writer makes a lot of fun of Kellner, for example, for doing what many young people did in the sixties - growing his hair, smoking weed, and rebelling against symbols of authority. (I like to remind such people that Jesus Christ himself preached open rebellion against authority, but not all these kids call themselves Christians. Still, they almost universally cite "authority" to back their views, and what better authority than the penultimate divine, right?)
As near as I can tell this student group is really just a bunch of kids who have glommed onto the extreme right-wing because it makes them feel powerful. They can go around pointing fingers at professors who are unhappy with the direction of American politics - those who refuse to applaud every time Bush tells a whopper or the corporate media cites American mythology - and count themselves among the "tough, rugged individualists" represented by such bastions of goodness as Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. They have taken the short road to authority by becoming like-minded sycophants of the Regimented Order. Instead of having a truly nuanced view of human affairs and the politics of power they have attitudes based largely on pure style founded in nothing. Toughness for its own sake. Their kind of strength requires someone else to be weak, and they've chosen professors as an easy target.
If these students had truly critical minds they would be more like these so-called "radical" professors. They would be more interested in undermining authority, taking the road of self-discovery, and after gaining some experience, perhaps taking part in the unglamorous social movement to restore social balance. They would be less interested in ridiculing professors, who have about as much political power as your friendly neighborhood bartender, and more interested in restoring honor to our representatives in Washington by freeing them from special interests that run increasingly counter to the general welfare.
Have I said anything too "radical" here?
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:3, Interesting)
But you must admit, there would be a certain delicious irony in that, wouldn't there? ;)
Anyway, I think we'll just have to wait and see what happens - for all I know, the only examples of what they're looking for at UCLA will turn out to be rather picayune, and these guys will do nothing more than blow their own credibility.
Re:Read my ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclosure: I am a conservative. I am not a republican. I have never voted republican in a national election. I've also never voted democrat. I think national politics in America is an institution rotten to its core.
So I see 7.5 out of 14. We'll call it 8. Terrible score overall, but it doesn't add up to fascism to me. I'm pretty sure we'd see a lot more suppression of dissent if we lived under a fascist regime.
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:3, Interesting)
Suggestion: Pepperdine. Or Biola. (Score:5, Interesting)
Alternative 1, for those wanting to study Political Science, Business or Law: Pepperdine [pepperdine.edu], Malibu, CA.
Yes, you can study at a law school where Kenneth Starr is the Dean! [pepperdine.edu] And that's just the beginning. Pepperdine was founded by Southern Baptists and is almost thoroughly Conservative-run. Only the school of Education and Psychology (why am I not surprised?) harbors liberal rebel scum. If you avoid that bastion of hippie-dom, you are good to go. And besides, it's in Malibu. Righteous waves and babes in bikinis. You know you want it.
Alternative 2 for those wanting to get their Divinity degree: Biola [biola.edu], La Mirada, southern Los Angeles County, CA.
The Bible Institute Of Los Angeles has been known as the province of fire-breathing Fundamentalist Christians for about a century. You don't have to go to the Southeast and the Bible Belt to get that old time religious education, it's right there. Perhaps the only place more hardcore than Biola is Bob Jones University.
Both of these places are realistic alternatives for those who would rather not go to UCLA. I guarantee you, you will not have your precious Right-Wing political preferences challenged either place. You might have to pay more, because both of these are private institutions, but that wonderful feeling of not having to listen to grubby liberal eggheads spouting off with opinions that Rush and O'Reilly and Hannity tell you are "just plain wrong" is priceless, right? Right?
Re:Read my ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Answer #1: You are exaggerating. He is saying that opposition to the government in the form of free speech would not be allowed if it was fascist. You responded that we shouldn't have to wait for imprisonment, torture, and death to oppose an abusive government. Restriction on free speech is not the same as imprisonment, torture, and death and would certainly be a precursor to such.
Answer#2: He never said he ignored what they had to say.
Answer#3: He didn't. He assumed they were trying to appeal to people that were ignorant, not that they were.
I'm not saying I agree with what he had to say, or how he said it, but your questions were phrased in such a manner that they made it seem like he said things that he did not. This is a common, and rather irritating, way that people try to draw support for themselves in an argument. Sort of like: Guy1: I voted for Bush. Guy2: How can you support torture, corruption, violence, fascism, etc.? Guy#3-10: Wow, those are bad things, Guy1 must have have made a bad decision/be a bad person/be an idiot.
The Biggest Mutual Admiration Society. (Score:3, Interesting)
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn, Sec. 297
Todays higher education shouldn't encourage everybody to be different, and it certainly shouldn't encourage everybody to be the same. Observers should wonder why hard science and math professors rarely get into trouble with with political leanings in their subjects, and realize that its because they have huge huge history of established fact that can be seen, felt, measured and observed. Even history has some standardization that students and professors can hold onto, that is until one asks about particular motivations of people and events.
Then take into consideration all the vogue subjects like SO-and-SO studies where all they have to grasp are notions and ideas that ultimate are self reinforcing to ones own political and socialogical thinking. This type of teaching provides the catastrophic regenerative feedback we see to day where only those that think alike are exceptable or worthy of good grades.
Colleges and Universities all over should flock to and agree to David Horowitz "Academic Bill of Rights". http://www.frontpagemag.com/Content/read.asp?ID=50 [frontpagemag.com]
Re:Read my ... (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, I'm also tired of hearing the Bush bashing from professors. For one thing, they're preaching to the choir (University of California). But more importantly, some of these profs just ramble on and on so long it's easy to forget what the lecture was supposed to be about. In a quarter-based university, it's important to be concise and get to the point immediately. If I want to talk politics, allow me to do so outside of the lecture hall. I do not want to hear the latest bush joke, I want to hear the solutions for the problem set assigned the week before. Or for my most recent bush-bashing professor, the ethnomusicological analysis of the Ottoman Empire, a class which is completely lecture-based and has no accompanying textbooks...
Right to speak freely (Score:5, Interesting)
What about the student's rights to an education and to speak freely?
I'm a Graduate Student in History, I focus on the Military History in the Middle East since 1918 and the American West from 1865 to the close of the Frontier in 1900. I've been graded down for writing about the Israeli Defense Forces vs. Egypt and Syria rather than focusing on the Palestinian "cause" in the Arab-Israeli Wars. I've been told flat out lies about the Conquistadors and when I tried to cite facts have been shouted down for it.
I'm not paticularly Conversative and I don't spout off in classes but I know that I can't take any class I want from any professor I want because there are some who do grade you down for your outlook on History and the subject matter you write about. In Israeli-Palestinian classes as I said before, I've been docked for looking at Arab-Israeli conflicts and history rather than the "occupation and resistance" even after clearing the subject with the Professors. I've had papers returned with a lower grade with the justifaction of "you pay for your focus". I've had TAs stop speaking to me and refusing to let me ask questions because I told them I lived in Israel, was attacked by Hezbollah and have more of an Israeli viewpoint to the Golan Heights.
Today, in Public Universities I don't see where a Student, at least in History, can study what they want and look at a subject from all sides because many professors either won't let you or punish you for it.
Re:Thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
So we get two groups: Students who have been carefully indoctrinated not to ask hard questions, and students who don't need to ask hard questions because the answer will always be,"Society would be better if those other people would just do what we tell them to without asking so many questions."
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:2, Interesting)
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." Uh, I mean, I'm right and you're wrong. There is no need to follow truth to see where it may lead, for I already know all truth. And, uh, if you're wrong I'm gonna obliterate you.
--
What, students have the right for any education they buy to intersect perfectly with their previous political views? If you disagree with your professor, be not afraid of a "B". Let your reason outshine your professor's argument. However, should you refuse to tolerate what you think is error, you show faith not in the light of reason but in the righteousness of yourself.
I'm a university teacher and... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:3, Interesting)
Since I went back to College in 2003 (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I got an A in her class, and I didn't even do the oral presentation of my paper because I got all crossed up about when the final was to be held. I've kept in touch with her, in fact. We disagree a lot, even now, but we respect each other. And on issues that really, really matter, we find more to agree upon than disagree.
I've yet to meet someone on the Right, however. Very odd. Closest thing was another prof who was staunchly pro-Israeli to the point of fanaticism. I suspect that folks that are on the Right tend to get jobs at political think tanks, in campaigns, and in business instead of going for a career as lacking in financial reward and respect as being a Community College or University Professor. You have to have motivations other than the Almighty Buck to put up with all the crap you get teaching for the money you make.
Then again, Kenneth Starr's the Dean of Pepperdine's College of Law, as I pointed out in an earlier post.
Re:Read my ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldn't stand it, and neither could a conservative friend of mine. She would spout her liberal happy place nonsense, and then we would hipcheck her back to reality. When she insisted communism was the only form of government that would ever last, we pointed out how long it did last. When she pointed out that capitalism "discriminates" against people that are not capable of working high paying jobs, we pointed out that communism discriminates against those that are.
The real problem with wealth redistribution is that it takes away from the most capable of society to give to the least. The reason capitalism works so well is that the people that are "discriminated" against, really aren't very capable of doing anything about it. The people that make the most money tend to be the smartest, most well adapted individuals. When you tell them they have to work in demanding fields for long hours to receive the same as the guy flipping burgers, these are the people that are capable of, and will ultimately, rise up and do something about it.
Leftist professors should leave there "political insight" at the door and teach the class.
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Liberals" in academia have no tolerance for dissent with the party line on racial equality of abilities, female superiority, white male culpability, or the insight of major incoherent French literary theorists. Nor will they tolerate dissent with their conservative values of professorial dominance over instructors, students and staff, within- and between- school hierarchy, and their faith that drawing a practical distinction between education and the educational establishment's credentials is seditious.
Even so-called scientists have a hard time looking at evidence objectively on controversial topics; in the humanities, the truth is whatever the professor says it is. Debunk any faulty argument or fabricated statistic that anyone uses to support any sacred-cow cause and you will be branded a heretic. Facts are irrelevant - if the opinion is "hurtful" the student will be punished one way or another - lower grades, denial of opportunities, ostracism, and discipliary measures.
Academia is really one of the most rigid cultures in the world, with many tabus, caste structures, distinct in- and out- groups, irrational rituals and shibboleths. Putting a social check on the excesses of professors by reminding them that their classes are in the public sphere of a wider culture than academia is a good idea which may in the future prevent or at least mitigate some of the abuses that professors have often committed against students in the past.
it's a bit different (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at this way: do you think it equally troubling that newsmen and members of the general public might tape record the speeches of other public employees, like your Congressman or the Governor? Even if those speeches are later posted to blogs and used to criticize the guy?
Part of the bottom line here is that when your salary for speaking is paid by the citizens, you give up most of your rights to keep that speech private. I think professors at a public university have almost no reasonable expectations of privacy during their lectures. If they really don't like that, the solution is simple: give back the nice money to the citizens, and go work for a private organization supported by private money.
Re:It's only fascism when the government is doing (Score:3, Interesting)
So where does the US government stop nowadays? It stops and starts (or should) at the same place it always did - an informed electorate.
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:3, Interesting)
The paper was returned with a C with the explanation that all of my points were a "straw man" which could easily be knocked down. I've since learned that, when debating potential disadvantages of any not yet implemented plan, just about anything can be decried as a straw man. I'd like to say that my paper was correct in predicting that NAFTA would be an impotent flop, at best, and a big corporate handout, at worst. It may be (if I still had it around) but, from the other side of the fence, you don't hear anyone on the street echoing the professor's assertion that NAFTA would revolutionize trade in the Americas, create tens of thousands of jobs, and lower prices for all consumer goods which are traded in the Americas. Mainly NAFTA was something which came and went like any other law which was flavor-of-the-day for the newspapers.
The fact is that professors do let their personal slants and opinions creep into their lectures and that it does affect grading. In my case I got shafted, not because I didn't agree with the prof, but because there simply wasn't enough reliable evidence to back his point of view--even though my intent was to fall in line with him. My situation was not extreme (I still scored a B+ in the class) but, even if it had been, I wasn't about to try and lodge a complaint over it. The professor wasn't tenured at the time but it was quite apparent that he was well liked by his colleagues. Attempting to lodge a complaint against him would've been a fast track to getting the cold shoulder from all other professors and maybe even a fast track out of the school.
I can't say that I agree with the approach that this alumnus is taking but the problem does exist.
Re:Right to speak freely (Score:2, Interesting)
I took a "Capstone" class for my BS which are required for all Undergrads, 6 Quarter Credits and the one I took was on Grant Writing for Non-Profits. In the class, which was Fall Term of 2004, I was one of three males in the class of 18 students. Every day ramping up to the Election we went around the table to talk about what is on our mind. Increasingly it would focus on the upcoming election where we were told by the Professor that the Republicans were no different from the Taliban, that Gays would be imprisoned by a Bush re-election and that all men are rapists deep down and of the three males in the class, two of us would or had raped woman.
Any attempts to shed some light on things, like the fact that all former Presidents talked about God in thier speeches, were denounced as "off-topic" or ignored in our "feel free to speak your mind" round tables.
So to pass the class, people had to suck it up and let the BS flow out for four hours a week, four hours a week I paid for to learn something.
Re:This sounds less like (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no "agreeing to disagree" with these people. You have to shut the hell up if you plan on passing the class. Meanwhile, there's nothing you can do.
You're vastly overgeneralizing.
Many--I daresay most--professors are going to exhibit some degree of bias in their teachings. And really, why shouldn't they? Personally I like it; I enjoy knowing where people, my professors included, stand on issues.
The vast majority of those exhibiting a bias are reasonable people. Many of them would enjoy nothing more than for students to stick their hands in the air and say "no, I don't agree." Many of them will ENCOURAGE it. I had a philosophy teacher who would provide topic options for papers, and there would always be at least one that said something like, "Dr. [suchandsuch] contends that [. . .] do you agree or disagree?" She WANTED you to challenge her. She undoubtedly feels the same way I do: That by arguing and debating your beliefs, one of two good things happen: Either you change your mind and now believe in something more strongly than what you believed in before, or you strengthen your current belief by being forced to examine your reasoning and how it stands up against the counter-reasoning.
The people who damage you grade-wise for disagreeing are a small minority. When you encounter them, you have options. For most classes, there are different options for instructors. You could always take the unfairly-graded work to... whoever the heck handles that sort of thing, I honestly don't know, and get some action on it. Or you could suck it up and tell them what they want to hear.
Let's be clear, only dumb people get "brainwashed." My conversative professors railing about their conservative viewpoints has not made me any more conservative; if anything, it has made me more LIBERAL by giving me new, elaborated positions on precisely why I disagree. After all, to disagree intelligently, you have to know what the opposing argument is first. If I needed to tell them that Ronald Reagan was my personal hero to get a decent grade in the class, that's fine. It's life. If you go through life without having one person in a position of power over you force you to do or think in certain ways to avoid trouble, you're a truly lucky or very indepenent soul. Take THAT as the lesson for that class that semester and move on.
Interestingly, most of the teachers I have had, when they have truly extreme viewpoints, have been conservative viewpoints. While I think most of my teachers have been liberal overall, they tended to be less extreme and less vocal about things.
He spends more time yapping about his current axe to grind, rather than teaching the subject... what do you do?
Depends. If he is the only option of a professor for that class, I ask myself: Is this material important to me because I have to graduate or because it's going to be relevant to my life after school? (Let's face it, not all classes are.) If it's actually important, I'll do the studying on my own.
I had a teacher in high school, sophomore English teacher, who was a greatly insightful guy. I feel I learned more in that class than any other English class, and very little of it was about English. One day he found the words to say something that I had always believed but never articulated very well: "School is a game. All you have to do is learn the rules, and beat them at their own game." If a shitbag professor with an axe to grind wants things done a certain way, I'll do them that way. It's a game, and those are the rules. I intend to win either way.
Re:Read my ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Would you rather they spend the entire lecture session on their cell phone?
Welcome to university, it's called "tenure."
Re:Hey, the right to speek freely... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Right to speak freely (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been my experience that nobody gets 'shouted down' in a class unless they're pretty strident themselves. Maybe things are different where you go to class than where (and when) I did. The statement, "you pay for your focus" is legitimate, to some degree - extraordinary (or unpopular) claims demand extraordinary proof. You will have to work harder and make your arguments stronger than someone who repeats the standard belief, in any field and any subject. This may be good or bad, depending on the circumstances, but fighting against it it mere tilting at windmills.
I would question whether your Excessive Use of Capital Letters has gotten any Marks docked from your Papers. However, I'm more curious about how you worked your point of view on Israel and the region into this article. You should be able to see that censorship (implicit or explicit) of professors is not the way to fix censorship (again, implicit or explicit) of students; and your experiences, valid as they may be, don't really have much bearing on the article in question.
Or could it be that you have an axe to grind?
Re:Swoosh. (Score:4, Interesting)
That seems to be an article of faith. It's not reflected in the people I see around me. I teach a contentious bioethics class, so I'm constantly running into views that go against mine.
If that were the only problem, a prof's academic integrity would be a suitable counterbalance.
You've really missed the point here. I was arguing that the system is set up in such a way (via grievance procedures and the like) that flagrant lack of academic integrity can be challenged. It's a system that doesn't depend, Pollyanna-ish, on the unfailing good will of everyone involved.
It's not professors having opinions that is the problem. It's that expressing those opinions creates a herd mentality in the classroom.
I freely admit to trying to produce a herd mentality in the classroom: that of a herd of truth-seekers.
Disagreeing with those opinions means fighting the herd, something a young person finds difficult, and should not be forced, to do.
I'm trying to understand this and I can't. I do understand that it is difficult to express one's thoughts in what one feels is an unfriendly environment. (That's why I strive to produce a civil environment in the classroom and hold students to that standard. It's not really difficult to do. That said, I also think it's appropriate to respond to aggressive comments in such a way that reflects how aggressive they are.) But how do you go from "that's difficult" to "no one should have to do that"? I happen to think the skill of remaining in conversation with someone who doesn't agree with you is an essential component of thinking, and probably ultimately of peace, as well.
Adults disagree. You claim that students are "paying for knowledge." Maybe they should gain the knowledge of how to disagree without being disagreeable.
Students expect to learn, and have to have open minds to get the most out of their studies. Students shouldn't have to filter the chaff of political opinion from the grain of truth with which it's presented.
I think you couldn't be more wrong. Some of what I convey to students is information: that, however, is the least significant and easiest to verify or disprove. Much of what I strive to convey to students is the ability to think for themselves. That means precisely what they have to learn to do is to "filter chaff from wheat." That said, I don't do this by pummeling them with anti-administration talking points in classes that are not about that.
You claim it's the nebulous "environment" of presumed authority that is the problem. Let me note in passing how much this resembles a kind of point that's been made by opponents of racism, sexism, etc. for decades, and one that has been routinely mocked as an invalid kind of complaint for appealing to "unreal" entities like environments, communities, and unstated norms. My point is that if you've got actual leftists for professors, like myself, they are very familiar with this kind of idea. I for one strive to make students into authorities. My long practice at challenging half-articulated convictions is a tool for this kind of constructive work, not for "brainwashing." I happen to believe, as you apparently don't, that persuasion requires cooperation on the part of the person being persuaded. They have to choose to treat the person who's doing the persuading as an authority. I strive to help people make those sorts of choices and judgments less on the basis of personality and more on the basis of demonstrable truth.
I say all this only in order to offer a different perspective on what you think you're seeing in the classroom environment.
Re:Bias in academia (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This sounds less like (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to see this sort of thing in action, hang around a college campus, read the student paper (profs do write-in some times). Some of these people are completely unhinged.
From today's LA Times:
Is America's Ivory Tower Leaning Left?
Do Democrats and liberals dominate campus faculties in America? Here's what some studies show:
Among faculties
Academics who identified themselves as left or liberal
in 1984 39%
in 1999 72%
Academics who identified themselves as right or conservative
in 1984 34%
in 1999 15%
Among campus faculties in 1999, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 5 to 1
The Democratic advantage by department in 1999
English: 35 to 1
History: 17.5 to 1
Biology: 4 to 1
Engineering: 3 to 1
Computer science: 2 to 1
Chemistry: 1.5 to 1
But in agriculture, Republicans held a 1.3 to 1 edge.
In 2004, employees of the University of California and Harvard University were John Kerry's largest dollar contributors and among Howard Dean's top five.
Among students,
Incoming freshmen who identified themselves as left or liberal
in 1984 22%
in 2004 30%
Incoming freshmen who identified themselves as right or conservative
in 1984 21%
in 200424%
Sources: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1984); Stanley Rothman, S. Robert Lichter and Neil Nevitte (1999); Harris Poll (1984, 2004); Center for Responsive Politics (2004); Higher Education Research Institute (2004).