WSJ: Congress Wades Into Campus Politics-Republicans Push Right To Ensure 'Dissenting Viewpoints'

Wall Street Journal ^ | October 4, 2005 | JUNE KRONHOLZ

[OESY]

College campuses can be political hotbeds. And that has some members of Congress thinking they should get involved.

Some Republicans are pushing a measure through the House of Representatives meant to ensure that students hear "dissenting viewpoints" in class and are protected from retaliation because of their politics or religion. Colleges say the measure isn't needed, but with Congress providing billions of dollars to higher education, they are worried.

The measure's chief promoter, Marxist-turned-conservative activist David Horowitz, says an academic bill of rights will protect students from possible political "hectoring" and discrimination by their professors....

The federal government provides loans to more than half of all college students and grant aid to about one in three, leaving many colleges vulnerable to congressional displeasure....

Colleges also have battled House attempts to hold them accountable for the graduation rates and learning progress of their students.....

Those groups complain about a lack of intellectual diversity on their campuses, even as universities undertake high-profile and expensive racial- and ethnic-diversity programs. To prove the point, conservative groups this year tabulated the political-party registrations of their professors, then published statistics that they said show Democrats predominate on most campuses....

Through an organization called Students for Academic Freedom, Mr. Horowitz also has called on students to report professors who they think promote a political viewpoint or discriminate against students for their beliefs....

[OESY]

As Kronholz's snarky article illustrates, academia hates diversity of opinion, characterized as allowing "dissenting views". It also exposes as a fraud the liberal's diversity argument as simply a high-minded sounding means of helping Democrat Party core constituencies.

[pikachu]

I like the idea of Universities and Colleges being held accountable for graduation rates. You'ld have to put in some sort of test so that the grades are not inflated but I'd like to see them LOSE money for every x% of people who fail to graduate.

I wish the NCAA would pull two scholorships for every one 'student athlete' who fails to graduate when their eligability expires.

[LS]

As a conservative who teaches at a pretty liberal campus, I'm concerned when the government gets involved. First, I've seen enough laws of "unintended effects" to know that rules and regulations are bent by those in power on campus to the detriment of the rest of us; and second, I don't think change will come through this approach anyway.

I don't know HOW it will come, only I have faith that it will come. Remember that 20 years ago, no one foresaw the end of the MSM.

[DeweyCA]

The end of the overwhelming influence of the MSM came as a result of talk radio and the internet. The internet (via virtual classrooms) may also be the vehicle to dilute the power of liberal profs.

[LS]

Perhaps. I tend to think if we can "see" it now, that probably isn't what will do it . . . sort of like the next breakthrough in transportation.

[SteveH]

As a conservative who teaches at a pretty liberal campus, I'm concerned when the government gets involved.

This is a red herring. The government is already involved. Academics are simply loathe to admit it. However, do the mental exercise. What happens when an altercation between a prof and a student happens? Naturally, given the imbalance of power, the student is flunked out. The university then encourages the student to perform a "grade appeal." The grade appeal process in most cases is a kangaroo court resulting in a denial of the appeal. The courts are lax in overseeing this area of administrative law-- see Kaplin, William, "A Legal Guide for Student Affairs Professionals" (with Barbara A. Lee) (Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1997). Case law is weighted towards cut and dried cases of academic lack of merit, without regard to invididual student rights, which therefore become devalued since there is no incentive in the courts to uphold them. The universities know this and take advantage of this (most universities taking taxpayer funds in doing so), hence the 'Ward Churchill' phenomenon will become more frequent (not less frequent) with time, unless and until the problem is fixed.

The modern university is no longer a place of higher learning. It is a place in which, by and large from the student perspective, collectivist political indoctrination runs unchecked. This is counter to principles that some may be familiar with-- just to take one example, 'no taxation without representation' comes to mind.

[LS]

Well, you simply have no clue as to how it is on university campuses. First, in ANY confrontation/discrepancy between a student and a prof, you cannot be "flunked out" for disagreeing with a point of view in most cases. I've been involved in LOTS of grade appeals, and 90% of the time, it involves a failure on the professor's part to specify what constitutes a grade. For ex., if a prof says "class participation" is 20%, that's a big problem, because it means agreeing or not agreeing with a prof results in your grade. In those cases---barring other mitigating circumstances---the appeal usually goes with the student.

However, I've found few of these. Usually the case is that a student is over-protected by the parents, chose not to do a majority of the work, then sought an "out" through some flaw in the prof's grading structure. It has never, in my 20 years, been political---on either side.

Now, I admit my little university isn't Vassar or Berkeley---but I did my Ph.D. work at UC Santa Barbara, and found the profs, even the lefties, extremely fair in their grading and class structure. I took a class at Arizona State from one of the leading feminist lefties and even she was fair.

Beware letting the state government decide what is, and what is not, legitimate classroom material. They mean well, but trust me on this: it will result in far more oppression of conservatives than libs. I am pretty much left alone, and even though I'm outnumbered in my department 10 or 12 to one, I more than hold my own. Some other profs spend much of their time trying to refute what I've explained to my students. But that's good. Let 'em.