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UT students single out profs
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF ^ | Friday, October 31, 2003 | By Sharon Jayson

Posted on 10/31/2003 5:09:05 AM PST by Arrowhead1952

The Young Conservatives of Texas target professors over ideology


By Sharon Jayson

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Friday, October 31, 2003

A University of Texas student group has put the names of 10 faculty members on a watch list designed to warn students about professors that the group thinks push a political agenda in their classrooms.

UT's chapter of the Young Conservatives of Texas created its Professor Watchlist in time for spring registration, which began this week and continues through Nov. 7. The group distributed the list Thursday at a West Mall table. The list also is posted on the group's Web site.

"It's not a blacklist. It's a watch list," said Austin Kinghorn, a senior government major who is chairman of the UT chapter. "This gives students a little bit more control in their education to help understand what ideology a professor is pushing before they go to class."

UT students rely on various sources to choose teachers, from official teacher evaluations to the more informal "slam tables" on campus, to national Web sites. Those methods offer such opinions as how boring or interesting a professor's lectures are or how difficult tests are.

The Young Conservatives say their list is the only one of its kind at UT. It is similar to one on a national site called NoIndoctrination.org, which offers faculty evaluations based on perceived political biases.

UT's academic freedom policy, adopted 30 years ago, allows a faculty member "freedom to explore ideas on their merits" while cautioning that a professor should "avoid giving undue weight to his own political or moral judgements."

"The magic word there is 'undue,' " said UT President Larry Faulkner. "That's going to be some extent in the eye of the beholder."

Faulkner said the Young Conservatives have the "right to make the list and make the declaration."

Some of the group's 50 or so members provided information based on class visits or classes in which they were enrolled. Kinghorn asked for nominations via the Web site, including details on the teacher, department, specific classes and examples of bias.

The Web site also lists some faculty members on an "honor roll" for their perceived neutrality. The first three are government professors Bruce Buchanan, J. Budziszewski and Rhonda Evans-Case.

The watch list blasts Bob Jensen, a vocal anti-war activist who teaches courses in media law, ethics and politics, saying he introduces students "to a crash course in socialism, white privilege, the 'truth' about the Persian Gulf War and the role of America as the world's prominent sponsor of terrorism."

Jensen said he's not surprised. He describes his political philosophy as left-progressive.

"There are students who thank me for bringing up these issues and being straightforward," he said. "I have also had complaints and comments from those who think I'm pushing a certain political agenda in class."

Comments about government professor David Edwards say he "teaches one side of the story."

Edwards, who has taught at UT for 39 years, said the critique is "selective perception."

"It is true that most of the examples I use are from the Bush administration because that is the current administration," he said. "Any attentive student may have heard criticisms of the Clinton administration, as they may have heard about the Bush administration."

Most of the faculty members were chosen for perceived liberal bias, but Kinghorn said the list is nonpartisan. He described economics professor Stephen Bronars as "economically conservative."

"The group decided to do this because the majority of professors who push an agenda are liberal," he said. "That's not to say there aren't conservative professors out there doing the same thing."

Accusations of a liberal bias in higher education have been around for decades. Mary Burgan, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said that perception is more myth than reality.

"To get a picture of a whole university, you have to see what people in the business school and in the sciences and in physical education do," she said. "If you take the whole view, you would find a great variety of political beliefs on any university or college campus."


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Miscellaneous; Politics/Elections; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: academia; antiwaractivist; businessschool; education; liberalbias; students; ut; youngconservatives
There is not question that this article would have been on the front page of the "A" section, if the proffesors on this watch list had been conseratives. This was in the Metro section, with a teenie tiny start on the front page of the section. I just happened to see the continuation on page 5 and looked back at the first page. This paragraph says it all. The bold, underlined part is BS.

Accusations of a liberal bias in higher education have been around for decades. Mary Burgan, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said that perception is more myth than reality.

1 posted on 10/31/2003 5:09:05 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
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To: Arrowhead1952
Jensen said he's not surprised. He describes his political philosophy as left-progressive Stalinist-Communist .
2 posted on 10/31/2003 5:15:23 AM PST by Paleo Conservative (Do not remove this tag under penalty of law.)
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To: Arrowhead1952
UT Austin is a big school. They must have 200 faculty, at least, and only 10 made this list. Only 10.

Just had to point that out as one who's been a professor for many years. It's not as bad as you may think. There are fewer radicals in place than a lot of people think. It's just that they're very vocal . . .
3 posted on 10/31/2003 5:19:43 AM PST by TPartyType
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To: Arrowhead1952
Here's the list. Longhorns beware.

http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/yct/watchlist.html
4 posted on 10/31/2003 5:24:32 AM PST by jimbo123
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To: Arrowhead1952
"Accusations of a liberal bias in higher education have been around for decades. Mary Burgan, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said that perception is more myth than reality."

Then the perceptions of the left regarding everything conservative, the war and Presient Bush must be called into question since the leftwing's perception of reality is more than myth. They are frozen into a paradigm of socialistic and communistic beliefs that have failed. They left is unable to deal with reality and change..
5 posted on 10/31/2003 5:47:22 AM PST by OpusatFR (The leftwing lies because the truth would kill them all off.)
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To: OpusatFR
They left is unable to deal with reality and change..

My take on the liberal left is that they wouldn't recognize the truth if it hit them in the face. They cannot accept facts of any nature.

Between the left leaning media and liberal profesors, kids going to college must learn family values at home.

6 posted on 10/31/2003 5:58:16 AM PST by Arrowhead1952 (Ban dumbocRATs forever!)
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To: Arrowhead1952
When this list starts to hit the rat faculty hard enough, we'll hear bleatings about "McCarthyism" Hee hee hee hee.
7 posted on 10/31/2003 6:02:52 AM PST by jmaroneps37 (Jersey GOP needs your help we can win back the Assembly two weeks to go, step forward)
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To: Arrowhead1952
The Web site also lists some faculty members on an "honor roll" for their perceived neutrality. The first three are government professors Bruce Buchanan, J. Budziszewski and Rhonda Evans-Case.

I know a little about J. Budziszewski. He writes frequently for James Dobson's Focus on the Family. I'm not exactly sure you could qualify him as "neutral." Rather, his bias is exactly the same as mine: Christian and conservative.

8 posted on 10/31/2003 6:06:58 AM PST by jude24
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To: Arrowhead1952; NYer; narses; Desdemona
When Bill Buckley wrote about liberal and anti-Christian bias at Yale over 50 years ago ( God and Man at Yale), there were the usual squeals from liberal and socialist crybabies. Higher education in America has been systematically junked for quite some type. It's not just that there is liberal bias among the smarmy types. The faculty ideologues have not been educated very well at all. There is a vast social engineering agenda that comes out of Ivy League grad schools. It spreads like a virus through most colleges.

The half-baked synthesis of Marxist and Freudian nonsense that forms the theoretical landscape of much higher education in America is quite convaluted and just about unreadable. The secular humanist leftist gurus wasting students' time (and money)on this absurd nonsense should be jailed and fined for child abuse.

This should be an issue in presidential elections. Government aid to colleges should be cut off wherever a majority of the professors espouse anti-Christian bigotry, leftist, and secular humanist bias.

9 posted on 10/31/2003 6:20:22 AM PST by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: Paleo Conservative
Absolutely correct. Barely hides it.
10 posted on 10/31/2003 10:45:46 AM PST by Tall_Texan ("Is Rush a Hypocrite?" http://righteverytime2.blogspot.com)
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To: Paleo Conservative; TPartyType; jimbo123; OpusatFR; jmaroneps37; jude24
Here is a letter to the editor from today's Austin paper. Note the underlined sentence. That is what many others here are saying about the list.


List is shameful

Sen. Joseph McCarthy must be dancing in his grave. A group of University of Texas students, ignorant of history, have created a watch list of liberal professors (Oct. 31 article, "Group's ideology watch list singles out 10 UT professors"). It is a shame the list was created. It is a bigger shame that more faculty members aren't on it.

JERRY W. SHEPPERD

Manor

11 posted on 11/04/2003 4:46:42 AM PST by Arrowhead1952 (Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter are living proof that not all blondes are dumb.)
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