Posted on 08/30/2008 10:22:03 AM PDT by NewMediaJournal
“Most of our students come in as good Republicans, but that’s just because they’re ignorant. We change that.” – A distinguished professor of history
For the last decade or so, the general public has been regularly briefed on the fact that our universities, particularly the public ones, aren’t the places of balanced intellectual pursuit that they pretend to be. Yet study after study, report after report, and experience after experience argue the opposite: Intellectual “diversity” is often nothing more than variations on a liberal theme. Go too far away from the main leftist stream, and you aren’t being “professional” and aren’t a “serious” scholar. Therefore, university departments, schools, colleges, etc., feel justified in practicing what amounts to non-discriminatory discrimination. They won’t hire conservatives because, to paraphrase one chair of philosophy, “there are no intelligent conservatives to hire.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newmediajournal.us ...
Wow excellent text. And true.
I despise the campus leftist. They teach lies.
“Distinguisned” professor? I think not. This clown never took a hard course, let alone taught one.
Here is another good text by the same person.
http://www.newmediajournal.us/staff/b_melton/2008/print/07112008.htm
marking for later
Remember, whenever a leftist talks about the ‘fairness doctrine’ for the Federally licensed airwaves, always propose a ‘fairness doctrine’ for Federally funded institutions of higher education (meaning virtually all of them, since they all take Federal research grants, and let students use Federal financial aid to pay tuition).
I wish I could go back to college knowing what I know now. I would make my lib professors look like asses. The only reason professors can get over is because they’re bullying an audience of 19 year olds. Meanwhile the professor has had decades to tweak his arguments. In a fair fight, they’d be toast.
All the leftist propaganda is lost after the graduates start paying the democrats high taxes.
My son came out of school an avid liberal. After seeing his earning being confiscated and spent unwisely by the Washington politicians, he soon turned conservative.
Well, the universities are the worst, but the hard core leftists also have a deathgrip on the teachers unions and the public schools, from kindergarten on.
Hard to see how this can change, since they control the hiring committees and the deans’ offices, and anyone who disagrees with them is likely to be kicked out. At most, conservatives may represent 10% of a typical department.
bump
These pallatives of "just help your kid think for themselves, and then send them through the stalinist mill and hope for the best", are ridiculous and they do not work. It is way, way past time to go nuclear on these bastards.
What do Federal Judges and tenured professors have in common? Position for life.
I read an article recently which discussed University of Colorado at Boulder where our daughter went to school. Of all the professors there, only 1 is a conservative.
You against all funding of public education in its present state. Vote for privatization and school choice. Do not patronize evil leftists at college or university, do not pay tuition to them, do not have your kids borrow great gobs of money from the government to hand over to stalinist traitors. This isn't rocket science, just completely *exit* this mess of a system, and build our own. One that actually respects truth and will not tolerate for one instant any of their crap.
Just what I’ve been saying for a long time! A good read. I don’t see it turning around, though, until conservatives find another avenue to educate their children.
Retaking the University: A Battle Plan (Hardcover)
by Roger Kimball (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Retaking-University-Battle-Roger-Kimball/dp/1594031525/
Product Description
In this electrifying new book, Roger Kimball argues that Ward Churchill, far from being an isolated case, is typical of the radical mindset that characterizes the contemporary university. Kimball’s passionately argued investigation brings new light to such controverted issues as tenure, the relationship between academic freedom and free speech, and the moral obligations teachers owe to students and to society at large. Retaking the University shows how parents, alumni, and college trustees, together with other concerned critics, hold the key to rescuing the university from the institutionalized radicalism that has made American higher education synonymous with political activism and intellectual betrayal.
Product Details
* Hardcover: 175 pages
* Publisher: Encounter Books (October 20, 2008)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1594031525
* ISBN-13: 978-1594031526
Funny thing is that I read some of the drivel written by actual lib students. I could formulate my ideas (yours, actually) better than they could. And they actually believed that crap.
Maybe. But as soon as little johnny or suzie gets their first pay-check (sans huge tax amounts) after graduating from their socialist indoctrinating university they begin a rapid change back to being good republicans.
Also, there is an increasing number of GOP clubs on campus that's resisting the socialist indoctrination at the universities.
Not true in business schools, although there are liberals as well.
1) College professors are paid less than people in the private sector when appropriately matched. This is because of the tenure system. Hence, jealousy of the private sector despite the fact that they have tenure.
2) Think of tenure as a labor union. They seek to do as little work as possible, so tenured professors constantly vote for rules to prevent discrimination by talent.
3) Since the 1960s, universities have introduced and relied on teaching evaluations (rather than trying to really understand whether teachers are any good or not - remember, most teachers are lazy union types). So, classes are now popularity contests. Sounding cool and spouting Marxist rhetoric sounds great to 18-21 year olds who are poor and insecure.
4) The few conservative professors (like me) get attacked almost daily by feminists, gays, weaker faculty (like English, Sociology and Geography professors) because I have worked in the private sector, make more than 99% of them and actually stand up for what I believe (even if you have tenure, you are still going to work your a$$ off).
Tenure is offered at universities under the stated reason to protect freedom of speech. The REAL reason is that they grant tenure to avoid paying true market wages. That is why Obama’s rant about raising teacher salaries is completely bogus, if they have tenure or belong to a teacher’s union.
First, I’m with you.
I’m homeschooling, all the people I call close friends are as well. HSLDA keeps everyone in the loop on alternatives to lib universities, including home study.
My (and my friends’) kids are going to AFFECT society, not be AFFECTED BY society.
However, one thing we’ll have to be on our guard for: leftist thugs do not hesitate to use violence, ie, gov’t force, to make us comply.
Watch out for court rulings, like those in Germany, declaring homeschoolers to be anti-social because they are creating, quote, “a parallel society that cannot be tolerated”.
A very good article. For those of us who have been paying attention this is nothing we didn’t know already. It has been going on for a very long time. Many books have been written about this.
I’m glad I majored in Electrical Engineering. There was no political indoctrination possible in the Science and Engineering Departments.
For those parents who have there kids in the liberal arts, you need to find ways of immunizing them against the propaganda they will face at most universities.
How many private sector jobs are there for Humanities/Social Science PhDs?
I can see your point about #1 for Science/Engineering PhDs in Industry vs Academia though.
Homeschool sure, but it is not enough. Smash the public ones outright with vouchers for choice. And build conservative universities, while refusing to patronize or approve any kind of funding for the existing stalinist ones, public or private, direct or indirect.
Oh come on...universities are not biased. Any good electrical engineering student has always known that Power = (Voltage * Current) - (Gore_Offset_Constant).
When has that ever been different?
Then we are overstocked, and need to have a "fire sale".
IF they are really as smart as they believe, they will have no trouble adding some marketable skills that would complement their academic fields.
When the sole purpose of economic drones is to overproduce the upcoming supply of replacement drones, then it is time to Hope for Change we can Believe In.
Melton’s point if very cogent. Of the three main areas where liberals dominate (the media, academia, entertainment), academia (especially college and beyond) is the most important. College grads are the ones who end up running the media and making the entertainment. College is where many of them either learn their liberal beliefs or have them firmly embossed on their skulls full of mush.
I was tenured once, but I quit out of boredom. The overwhelming number of professors have spent their entire lives in school and have no real idea how the world really works... or why.
I'm not the only Freeper in this position. We're doing the good work where it matters. Shoveling sand against the tide, but in the end we will win.
Oddly enough, I haven't seen one of those lame “those that can do... those that can't teach” posts yet. I'm sure we will however. It turns out that liberal professors aren't the only arrogant fools out there.
Recognizing the problem is one thing resolving it another. This is what I believe. We are in a period where the radical useful idiots are running the show, they have grown up OK well aged to the point they are in positions of power. Most people I have talked to even if they vote Democrat actually talk like a Conservative. The pendulum will swing back in a couple of decades and maybe we finish the journey of America as was intended with all people being equal under the law and a Government that really is about protecting Constitutional rights and not declaring them. We need more brave voices in these Universities that are not afraid to stand up to the Establishment..hehehe
snip
Nice post.
Cheers
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.