The Thought Police: "Are American Colleges too Liberal?"

[cyn2]

upcoming on MSNBC.....I'm fuming and dumbstruck by this heading on their newshow!

[bushisanidiot]

1. Translation: Should colleges be teaching students to think for themselves?

repukes won't rest until everyone has assimilated to their way of thinking and their way of life.

[aden_nak]

2. Aren't they essentially asking if educated people wind up being Liberals?

Sure, they can frame it however they want. . . but that's really what they're asking. ^^

[FreedomAngel82]

3. Oh good grief

What is a liberal college? Because they're educating people on science or something? :eyes: Because of my views on this board I used to go on some of the right-wingers figured I went to a liberal school. Sure don't. Just your average community college. Should be interesting.

[BOSSHOG]

4. I sure as Hell hope so

Liberal meaning students minds will be exercised and that thought will not be restricted to a narrow conservative view of the world. Conservatives are the ultimate thought police ensuring their lemmings tow every line established by the neocon establishment. Liberals investigate evolution. Conservatives ignore it and carry on with their "beliefs." Liberals Know stuff, conservatives believe whatever they are told to believe from the pulpit.

Knowledge versus beliefs. Lets hope our College campuses are liberal. Any conservatives out there "believe" differently?

[cyn2]

5. Yikes.....so who do they ask? Joe Scarborough!!!

There's no bottom rung on this!

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. First they came for the Communists

but I was not a communist.....

[SpiralHawk]

7. Allow me to re-frame that question.

Is MSNBC (and the rest of the MSM) sold out 100 percent to the Rabid Right Wing Thought Police?

Discuss among yourselves.

[ThorsHammer]

24. No, they are sold out to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[DBoon]

8. Germany 1932

Are German universities too Jewish?

[tom_paine]

48. Bingo. Let's hope our Kinder and Gentler Nazis really ARE kinder

We will likely know within 30 years, possibly MUCH less.

[Jacobin]

9. A Better Question

Were the Founding Fathers Too Liberal.

I refer in part to Thomas Jefferson who founded the University of Virginia and forbade the teaching of any religious courses.

[Charon]

34. Founding Fathers

They were not to "Liberal" remember the 3/5ths clause for counting slaves for representation purposes.

[simcha_6]

10. Actually, in all honesty...

I'm a student at the University of Denver, one of the more conservative campuses. I'm sick of having teachers who all take the liberal line on things. One didn't even acknowledge that a conservative viewpoint existed! She just expressed her view on things as if they were facts! The problem isn't liberal teachers, its teachers who don't acknowledge other viewpoints (probably power-trippers, which would explain why they went into teaching in the first place.) The best teachers don't even reveal their viewpoints, I've found. I had a high school teacher, liberal, but it took me months to figure it out. He'd argue anything; I even heard him advocate FGM once.

Nevertheless, the Republicans have been trying to foment a crusade against intellectualism for a while now. If they're so concerned about colleges getting liberals, that's they're problem. They can start encouraging their smarter people to teach. But if they try to regulate Universities, it's going to get ugly. Talk about a new student movement- we'd tear the regulators to pieces (figuratively, of course.)

All we need to solve the "problem" are teachers that offer a diverse range of opinions. It's a problem that some don't, but the thought that this is a major problem is way off base.

On the off chance they do try to regulate colleges, be ready to stand with us on this.

[ieoeja]

13. Can you give an example?

I went to one year at Auburn and three at Indiana between 80 and 84. The student body at that time was pretty conservative. The teachers were ... well, I wouldn't have the slightest idea what any of my teachers were. I don't recall it ever once coming up. And I have been wondering why it seems to have come up for everyone except me.

Heck, I took a military history class, and don't recall any particular bias: liberal or conservative.

So I'd be interested in some real life anecdotes.

[DrWeird]

17. I can.

I was in, like, Biology class or something and the teacher just, like, assumed I believe in the theory of evolution and was totally ignoring my beliefs that the dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't fit on Jonah's Ark.

And then I was in history class and the teacher was totally an conservophobic biget because he didn't give enough lecture time to the truth that slavery wasn't that bad, expecially considering that if they had stayed where they belonged in Africa they probably wood have been eaten by tigers.

And then in Spanish class the instructor gave me an F because I answered my exam in English. This is America!!!

[Bouncy Ball]

18. Tee hee.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

20. Snork!

Go DrWeird!

[prairierose]

30. LOL,..thanks for that!

:hi:

[ultraist]

44. LMAO!!! Damn them for not allowing religion to be fused with fact!

How dare those commie pinko liberal professors stick to the facts!

[Bridget Burke]

14. Teaching doesn't pay enough to attract Conservatives.

How about some details about your teacher who "just expressed her view on things as if they were facts"? What subject? What are her views?

[simcha_6]

19. She taught an International Issues Class

The points that I remember weren't really political, exacty. "Health is a human right: Explain why" was a discussion question. I'm a semantics debater, I admit, but to discuss something without an opposing viewpoint bothered me. When talking about other issues- immigration, human rights, crime, etc., she had her view of what was good and bad and wouldn't talk about why immigration opponents were in opposition, etc. Keep in mind, I agreed with most of what she said, but anyone with an opposing view wasn't really encouraged to voice it. It just wasn't conducive to opposition.

[DrWeird]

22. You think health isn't a human right?

Apparently satire is dead.

[simcha_6]

26. Nunca lo dije!

Look, I don't care whether a professor agrees with me or not, so long as they acknowledge and debate both sides. To answer your question, I'm ambivalent as to whether health is a human right or not. I neither believe nor disbelieve it, and I'm a little vexed that you assume, because I want to discuss something, I'm automatically opposed to it. I'm a college student. I like discussion of all points for the sake of academic exploration.

Speaking of which, are the Rights of Man (and human rights) G-d given, or human constructs?

By the way, the subject line, if you're curious, is I never said that (it).

[Yupster]

52. I was a history major in the late 70's

It was a small private school.

Every history professor was a Marxist but one and he retired after my sophomore year and was replaced by another Marxist.

The fight within the department was between Trotskyites, Maoists and Castroists.

Not surprisingly I was a Marxist when I graduated.

That lasted for about a year of having a job outside of the campus.

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are both professors and both Marxists. I honestly think it's because they never have left the campus. They went from being undergrads to grad students to grad assistants to assistant professors to tenured professors.

My brother-in-law is the department chair. When there's an opening in the department, he chairs the peer committee that recommends the new hire. Not surprisingly, the new hire is usually a Marxist.

I think the peer committees to recommend hiring is a problem. If there is an overwhelming belief in the department, it will just be reinforced by the peer committee. Now you might think the committee would recognize there was a need to reach outside their point of view, but in this one case which I know much about, over many years, this just hasn't happened.

It's a pretty incestuous thing. And while I'm at it, another similar problem is that the department head will award the department head of a neighboring college with his "distinguished something award," and then the honoree will turn around and award the honorer his "distinguished something award." Makes it easy to fill in the "about the author" page on their books.

[smoogatz]

15. "Other Viewpoints"

Well, let's see--the Ku Klux Klan has a viewpoint. And the whackjobs who bomb abortion clinics have a viewpoint. So does the Taliban--and the guys who beat Matthew Shepard to death. Hitler had a viewpoint. Holocaust deniers have a viewpoint. And so on. Should every liberal professor acknowledge every viewpoint? Should conservative professors be required to acknowledge my viewpoint? Wouldn't that be forcing professors to be untrue to their beliefs? Isn't that intellectually dishonest, and a violation of their 1st Amendment rights? I'd much rather a professor was forthright about his/her biases; that way students can decide for themselves what to think and what to bvelieve. No?

[simcha_6]

21. Honestly, yes, they should

or they shouldn't voice opinions at all. Like I said at first, my favorite teacher could and did argue in favor of female genital mutilation when the role needed to be played in class. He argued anything, even if it put him in the most abhorrent rolls there were. It does no good for people to go through life thinking that they can ignore other peoples' points of view because they "know" they're right; that's what a lot of social conservatives think.

About the fantastic high school teacher- he was eventually tempted away from my rural high school and now he's teaching in an international school in Scotland. He obviously had what it took to be a good teacher. Even in college I miss him.

[smoogatz]

23. It's fine to play Devil's advocate...

it can be a useful pedagogical trick. But outside of the context of that safe high school classroom, it doesn't always amount to much--and can backfire miserably. Which side of the female circumcision issue do you argue if you're teaching college in Brooklyn, or Arlington, VA, and some of your students are Somali women? Frankly, as a college professor with fifteen years of classroom experience, I have neither the time nor the inclination to give equal time to bigoted or irrational viewpoints that are patently, obviously wrong--all opinions are not, it turns out, created equal. If my students want to be exposed to racists and holocaust deniers, there's always freerepublic.com.

[simcha_6]

25. Playing the Devil's Advocate

The argument to FGM, first of all, is the debate over tolerating other cultures practices, or whether we should judge them by our standards. As for Devil's Advocate, I don't see the logic in using it in the "safe" high school classroom, while judging it wrong for college. (Is it not a safe technique there, or are college students more susceptible to bad influence?) I hate the notion that college students shouldn't be trained to think by confronting dangerous or disturbing ideas. What do we gain by not being able to defend our core beliefs or challenging our ideas of decency, right and wrong. I'm Jewish and just had a class an our ago about the Holocaust, which brushed on what mentality led to genocide, but we didn't look at primary accounts or go into deep detail, like I would have preferred.

If we shouldn't give time to bigoted ideas, I don't know why anyone bothers to read Mein Kampf. As I see it, if I want to understand the world, I need to understand why people do the horrible things they do, even if it means exposing myself to weird things. Therefore, I intend to read Mein Kampf in the next month (racism), followed or proceeded Lolita (pedophilia) while watching plays/movies like "How I Learned to Drive" and "Angel Sanctuary" (incest), while tuning in occasionally to Fox news.

Sorry, I don't mean to be antagonistic, but I'm, I think, fairly intelligent and I know myself well enough, and after one year of academic Nirvana in high school, I'm sick of college classes that don't challenge me.

Anyway, what's your subject that you teach, and university? I'm a freshman at DU, international studies (and a cultural relativist, if you couldn't tell.) I'd like to talk more some time.

[Cats Against Frist]

37. What's an opinion?

That the U.S. was founded on the principles of Enlightenment? Or that the U.S. was founded and dedicated to a fundamentalist Christian God?

Everything's an opinion. Smart people generally agree on the first one, though. And that's what should be taught.

[izzybeans]

43. I don't know

I tend to agree with those that distinguish knowledge and belief. Beliefs are opinions based on a large empirical distance from the object of belief. God is in the realm of belief because that distance is infinite. Fundies believe that God founded the U.S. via the founding fathers. this is a belief based on their distance from history. Historians go back and follow the discourse that led up to the founding documents, the political turmoil surrounding it, and see only people there. Some of them are Christian, some not, but all had ties to enlightenment philosophy and ancient political discourse. historians create knowledge by decreasing our distance to those events. Decrease the distance increase the knowledge base.

Realm of Opinion -Disputes in this wider space are
- purely opinion and unsolvable
Belief --------------------> Object
Knowledge-----> Object
Episteme- Disputes in this smaller
space are purely academic and
should be revised as evidence rolls
in.

It seems to me that the academy should be striving towards maintiaining a workable distance from its objects to improve its knowledge base. Having to pander to ignorance in the realm of belief is a digression. Knowledge isn't liberal bias. It's a movement closer towards truth.

[simcha_6]

46. It might be well to at least educate smart people...

as to how those we deem unintelligent think. Otherwise we won't be able to understand them, and we won't be able to come to any belief. I don't believe a biology teacher should teach evolution, for instance, or anything like that, but what bothers me is when people talk about something like "these traditions are bad and should be stopped" or "Hitler single-handedly caused the Holocaust" without going into the implications of their argument, in the above cases, are we fit to judge other traditions, and did Hitler cause German anti-Semites or just bring it to the extreme.

It's the same thing as trying to understand why the terrorists attacked America. It's not to validate their actions but to better understand them so we can confront the prejudices that lead to those beliefs. Also, I happen to enjoy spirited debate, even over (especially over) values I judge to be obvious. Am I just an academic? Or are others just too insecure or elitist to deal with some one challenging their core beliefs for the sake of confronting one's own built in prejudices?

[Cats Against Frist]

35. I received a political science degree at a small, public Midwest U

and I can honestly tell you that the ONLY courses in which I could tell my professers were LIBERAL, were Race, Ethnicity & Inequality (and even that AA teacher was against Affirmative Action), and Women in Politics -- like, duh, it's a "liberal" course, anyway.

I had one modern political philosophy class where the teacher was a HARD CORE classicist, Catholic hard right style, and attacked Modernity up one side and down the other. The class? MODERN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. No liberal there.

The rest of the teachers, in more innocuous classes -- Voting & Elections, Constitutional Law, Empirical Research Methods, Campaign '96, State & Local Gov't, etc. -- did not wear their political affiliation on their sleeve.

The problem here, is that to a die hard regressive, conservative, superstitious sloth, the most "liberal" class that I took was Empirical Research Methods, because, in the social sciences, it tries to MOSTLY lend itself to the objectivity of science -- as much as it can. Qualitative data does go in, but there are sound research models for the social sciences.

Problem is, Empirical Research doesn't start off with the exception: "Oh, and it doesn't matter what I find, because God, George Bush and my strict father are always right."

That's the problem with "liberal" education. Education is liberal.

[simcha_6]

47. Good point

except maybe for business classes (just a joke.) W

When we challenge our deepest held beliefs, we not only learn how to defend them, we learn how to debate, say, a racist homophobe on their own terms and are able to better understand our own opinions and sometimes we discover hidden prejudices in ourselves. By debating someone taking on a radically wrong argument, the prof. isn't saying we're wrong necessarily, but helping us grow personally and academically.

At least that's how I see it.

[cyn2]

11. My letter to MSNBC

How dare you conflate Ward Churchill with liberalism! Your recent headline on MSNBC Right Now, posed the question, "Are American Colleges too Liberal?" How dare you even ask the question. I am incensed that being "too liberal" can even be a topic of discussion. Are you going to ask if Colleges can be too conservative?

The question on Mr. Churchill's comment should be re-phrased and asked in a way that does not confuse a stupid professor with the idea of liberalism.

signature...

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. --Voltaire

[TheMadHatter]

33. "How dare" = oh the horror!

I think its well within their right to "dare" to explore whatever subject they like. Don't like it? Get your news from another source.

You are inadvertently proving their point that any ideology predominately taught in school, whether liberal or conservative, can lead to lock-step ways of thinking.

Oh, and "how dare" you respond to this post. I'm obviously right so no further discussion is neccessary ;)

[Cats Against Frist]

36. Um... go crawl back under your rock

There is a broader subtext here that you're not getting, obviously -- and that would be the current struggle between modernity and that rag that preceded it. In the face of a group of people who are trying to hang liberal professors from the gallows and un-do the scientific method, it's irresponsible and OBLIVIOUS for the press to ask "are universities too liberal?"

If you knew one ounce about history, you'd understand that this struggle is practically eternal -- those who wish to ask questions, and make hypotheses based on observation, and those who rely on superstition, tradition or whatever kind of qualitative and arbitrary bullshit that they want to foist upon the dull.

And I'm a postmodernist, so I think it's all a sham, and that the GOP is proving Michael Foucault and the rest of them pretty sharp thinkers.

What's especially distressing is this question, in light of the right-wing's propaganda that is attempting to influence the notion of objectivity, secularism, etc., etc., in this society. Remember, they're the people who said "we're history's actors -- and you, all of you will be left to just study what we do." That is EXTREMELY postmodernist and rootless, which, is basically a pre-requisite for fascism.

Liberalism -- or modernity -- or whatever you want to call it, has brought humankind to its highest heights. And if the GOP doesn't believe in both of these things, they really don't believe in the concepts of Englightenment upon which this nation was founded. This is serious business, and there is a place for this dialogue, and this should be the dialogue of scholarship and exploration -- not the dialogue of superstition and supremacy.

If you, or the press were smart enough to understand what was happening, this question would never have to be asked.

[TheMadHatter]

38. No thanks...I'll stay right here in your face

"If you, or the press were smart enough to understand what was happening, this question would never have to be asked."

Tsk Tsk. And you wonder why we're painted as elitists? You are basically saying that there should be some questions that we shouldn't ask, just because 'enlightened' people should already know the answer. Therefore, the equation becomes:
people who ask questions = unenlightened

Got it. I suppose I'll crawl back under my rock, never ask any questions or seek any knowledge outside of my narrow realm, and magically become enlightened!

:)

[Cats Against Frist]

50. You're goddamn right I'm elitist

Back in the "reality-based" America, it used to mean something when you worked your ass off for eight years to get three degrees. And there is a difference between myself and "Joe fucking TV watcher," and that's that I have a background in scholarship in philosophy, political science, critical theory and psychology. Doesn't make me any better than Joe -- doesn't make me anymore important than Joe -- doesn't make me anymore fucking knowledgeable than Joe about mechanics, football, the fucking stockmarket, farming equipment, brain surgery, candy making, salmon hatching or shooting a porn film, but, you know what? It does make me smarter than fucking Joe in the areas of philosophy, political science, critical theory and psychology.

So fuck Joe, if he thinks I'm elitist. I think he's kick ass because he can change my fucking oil.

That, aside -- it's not the question being asked that's a problem. It's the question being MANUFACTURED to perpetuate a right-wing fucking whine session that's the problem. This is a fucking loaded question like nobody's business. And if you don't know why, you have no business debating me.

You also have no business debating me, unless you can respond to a fucking argument without resorting to logical fallacy.

[Salviati]

12. My answer:

In the sense that Colleges focus on the learned and reasoned debate and inquiry on issues, and that all these things, learning, reason, and inquiry, are anathma to the most recent wave of American Conservativism, which extolls anti-intellectualism, unfounded belief, and unquestioned loyalty, then yes, American Colleges are liberal, and God help us, if we ever have any hope of making our country well again they should remain that way.

[Bouncy Ball]

16. FUCK MSNBC

If people want their kids to go to "NO INDEPENDENT THINKING ALLOWED" schools, send them to Texas A&M, Baylor, Bob Jones University, Oral Roberts University, any of the service academies, or any of the lesser known religious based universities.

If they want them to go to a school where a university is TRULY a university and they are to expand their horizons and learn to think for themselves, then they can send them to one of our many fine institutions that reward such things.

Personally, I think there needs to be MORE liberal universities, especially in the south.

[DemGirl7]

27. They should go to my campus...

they will explode at the moment they arrive on campus, because of the very liberal vibe of it.

[Nitrogenica]

28. Evil & Greed 101

[woodsprite]

29. I just did a survey for work of college/univ sites

and I was VERY surprised to see that about 1/3 are religious institutions. I never would have thought that. There they were, and some of their sites were SCARY (stepford wife, koolaid kinda scary).

[dcn112]

31. Colleges have traditionally been liberal bastions

But this is only true for certain areas. I took an American lit class where my professor ignored famous writers like Twain and Faulkner simply because they were white males. I also had an economics class that could have been a manual from the WTO. Political bias of any kind has no place in the classroom. However the fact that MSNBC is doing a report on liberal bias in colleges instead of something like Bush's ss plan certainly concerns me as well.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

32. Is there enough CIA on campus? Should critics of US gov't live here?

Still building a brownshirt movement at schools to fence in our kids in an electric fence to thought, ay? Nip resistance in the bud...

http://www.cia-on-campus.org/
(The CIA on Campus)



http://www.cia-on-campus.org/surveil/chaos.html
(Operation Chaos: Spying on the Student Movement)

General articles

CounterPunch, 2003-04-07: "The CIA is Back on Campus"

Los Angeles Times op-ed, January 2001: "Academics and Spies: The Silence that Roars"

An article from Lingua Franca on the state of the CIA-on-campus issue in year 2000

Another general overview of CIA on campus (1989)

Excerpts from the Church Committee on the CIA in academia (1976)

CIA skips Church -- Harvard and all the rest can go to hell (1979)

Michigan State University

The Ramparts article that started the controversy (1966)

National Student Association

Another Ramparts scoop: NSA is funded by the CIA (1967)

CIA destabilizes Ramparts, plus more on the NSA scandal (1991)

Tracking Student Activists

Gloria Steinem spies on students for the CIA (1961)

Operation CHAOS: Spying on the student movement (1975)

International Studies and Area Studies

Spooky funding started this entire field (Ramparts, 1969)

MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, Cornell, Syracuse, U.Kentucky help Ford/CIA overthrow Sukarno (1970)

Scholars target Africa for the CIA (1976)

CIA recruitment ad Social Science

From Project Camelot to the coup in Chile: An unbroken thread

Scholars perfect psychological warfare techniques (1945-1955)

CIA and the American Anthropological Association (1951)

MKULTRA and such: CIA's behavior caper (1977)

History

A short list of history scholars who worked for the OSS

Documents

CIA document on how to co-opt academia (1968)

"The Agency has a wide range of contacts with academics..." (1991)

Officer-in-Residence Program (2001)

Columbia University

Research by the student strikers (1968)


Harvard University

Harvard in service to the national security state (1991)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How to start a war (1954)

Princeton University

Dulles papers reveal CIA consulting network (1980)

Rochester Institute of Technology

Is RIT a CIA subsidiary? (1991)



Rutgers University

By the way, class, that term paper you did was for the CIA (1984)

Tufts University

Students counter spies (1985)

University of California

UCLA asks CIA for affirmative action funds (1992)

University of Cincinnati

Brown-nosing the spooks (1990)

University of Massachusetts

Arrested protesters put CIA on trial - and win! (1987)

University of Southern California

A leaflet on the career of USC trustee John McCone (1977)

University of Texas at San Antonio

CIA cold warrior woos UTSA students (1994)

Yale University

Doug Henwood reviews Robin Winks' Cloak and Gown

[opihimoimoi]

39. ARE CONSERVATIVES INFLUENCING OUR SYSTEMS?

To the point of counter productive and stifling Human Advancement....

They are KILLING us with their DENIAL OF GLOBAL WARMING>>>>

Their wanton SPENDING...Tripling the NATIONAL DEBT

Their wars are bringing home coffins, expending toxic shit all over the place in Iraqi, and wasting resources that are getting scarce...

Now they wanna follow lap dog Bush and invade IRAN? Is this guy NUTS?

Are the Conservatives NUTS?

Bush and his Rovian/Hughes Slogans will not carry the day.....

They will go down in History as Arrogant Leaders who had the opportunity to do something nice to leave our children...but blew it because of greed, etc.

dupe

[Lone_Wolf]

40. All part of the Right's campaign to shape this into a conservative society

The Right have been pouring money into Right Wing Think Tanks to bring this about. Basically, they are seeking to exterminate liberal thought in all of society's institutions and replace it with self-reinforcing conservative beliefs. The goal is to create a society that promotes conservative viewpoints while ostracizing liberal viewpoints. Over time, it is believed such a society will move itself further and further to the right.

Amatai Etzioni's book, "The Spirit of Community" is an example of this.

[aWaKeNoW]

41. God forbid people in college actually

being able hear different sides of issues and formulate their OWN opinions!! :wow:

[PROGRESSIVE1]

42. This is becoming Nazi Germany!

:argh:

[ultraist]

45. Stifling intellectualism is a characteristic of fascism

Giving equal merit to faith based ideas is anti-intellectualism. If people want to study faith based positions, they should take a religion course or attend a religious college.

[zulchzulu]

49. The Real Question: How Can We Rid Amerikkka of Smart People

Those blasted intellectuals see past the NeoConMen!

Perhaps, like Pol Pot did, we must kill those that wear glasses first. This is no time for actual discussion!

America haters!

/sarcasm

[Jack Rabbit]

51. Are neocons too stupid?

!!