Katherine Kersten: The pariahs of our college campuses

StarTribune ^ | 10/25/06 | Katherine Kersten

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Over the years, Prof. Ken Doyle has seen a stream of students enter his office with a crestfallen look. The young undergraduates typically begin by saying they're worried about one of their professors. Doyle, who directs the communication research division at the University of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communications, has a good idea how the story will end. The particulars differ, but the complaint is usually the same. "Some students tell of being mocked for holding views that differ from their professors'," Doyle says. "Some fear they are endangering their grades. Many say, 'I've figured out what the professor wants to hear and I just parrot back his ideology.'"

It's become a common complaint that U.S. campuses are home to a stifling liberal orthodoxy where contrary beliefs are persecuted. Doyle says it's no illusion.

A new film, "Indoctrinate U," documenting that atmosphere, opens near campus tomorrow.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Kersten, dead on, as usual. It's always fun to track the local libs responses in the letters to the editor section as their heads explode after a Kersten column.....

[PrincessB]

For those of us who don’t look for this paper, I hope you plan to post.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Are you asking me to post the letters from readers?

I can do that....

[maine-iac7]

Not just in college. This is rampant in middle and high schools. One of my grandson's was always getting in 'trouble' - for example, in 7th grade, the assignment was to write an essay on CHE - He did. Problem was, it wasn't glowing with praise - it was the truth. They had quite a tete a tete and my grandson didn't get the mark he deserved. This scenario repeated itself throughout middle school and into high school.

My grandson was quite a history buff - not that he got any in school, but read independently. So he recognized the bul* they were teaching and would bring up the "But what abouts" =

Finally in the top of 10th grade, he left public school, enrolled himself in an accredited online school and haunted the public library.

He became so popular there that they gave him a sunny third story room with a library desk for his private study. LOL

At 18, he moved to Texas, where he also had family and took a year of college.

He then joined the Army and is now in Afghanistan with the famous 173rd Airborne Task Force...I don't know of anyone that was in school with him that went into the service...Indeed, I run into some of them now and then, and they seem to be treading water...and not matured noticeably

[GovernmentShrinker]

There’s nothing “liberal” about it. It’s Marxist, enviroextremist, and in some instances (like blaming America for the actions of Islamic terrorists) just flat out irrational.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Wow....You must be so proud of your grandson. I know I am!!!

[A_perfect_lady]

You know, I have to say in fairness to my profs at Southern Illinois University, I was as hard right as they come in grad school, and was in a department slightly to the left of Mao. I mean, these were some Che-T-shirt wearing, sandal-sporting, tofu-gumming, prozac-popping, swinging, grooving, procommie, incontinent red diaper hippies. And I argued vociferously with them all. I'd harass them in their offices, I'd wrangle with them in class, I'd write papers they HATED.

But not one of them ever tried to take it out on my grade. They dropped gentle hints to my advisor that he should try to reign me in, but no sirree bob... never took it out on my grade. I don't know if they had a certain honor system, or just a sneaking fear that I'd use my mysterious military skills to grease them in an abandoned stairwell one dark night, but either way... I never had a problem.

[Ukiapah Heep]

Good for him! My daughter has started to think more independently of the usual leftist shizzle. She can still pull down great grades (#1 in class!) but really does have quite a Conservative streak. And that was without any prompting on my part, although I do speak my mind.

Fortunately for the future she's more interested in Science than leftist flannelmouthing type subjects.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Good for you! You stood up and took no guff and survived.

However, I’d have to say that you are the excepton and not the norm.

[A_perfect_lady]

I guess it helps to wear your flight boots to school, sit in the front row, and stare at them like they’re prey.

[Frank_2001]

Agreed! And the nuttiness is spilling over into science as well, with a Bush-bashing geology professor, and anyway, in most other situations, being publicly ridiculed by a much-older male with a Ph.D. would be considered “harassment” and fostering a “hostile workplace” uh, right?

[maine-iac7]

Wow....You must be so proud of your grandson. I know I am!!!

Proud and scared.

He's deep in the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan - (173rd Airborne) up against the Paki border where the worst and strongest of Bin Laden's gang - and probably him - are.

They're on the new 15 month deployment - small groups in high mountains with canyons as porous as a colander...nearest running water 45 very dangerous minutes away...

They were in 5 firefights the first week there - normal - and mortared at night - etc ...getting cold now...bitter winters, little to no shelter,,,hutches made of sandbags, etc.

They are proud to be there helping the villagers who have been cut off, isolated and terrorised for decades due to the deliberate destruction of roads, water and power by the Taliban when they ruled...

My grandson's Unit guards the roads for the construction teams who are building roads and bridges to help the people get to markets to sell and buy and survive a bit better...

The troops have no love lost for the treasonous democrats in Washington...

[sergeantdave]

“...I’d harass them in their offices, ...”

There you go. You’ve revealed the secret of confronting leftists, mainly, they’re weasels when confronted one-on-one. They’ll hem and haw, wet their pants and not know how to handle a confrontation without backup from a mob of their beerhall-fascist buddies.

Consider changing your name to A_perfect_and_smart_lady

[Dems_R_Losers]

My 10-year-old just came home with a science quiz that was all about global warming.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

I know........they had a couple grade school kids say prayers at church on Sunday and they couldn’t get away from “end the war” and “stop global warming”.

[ChinaThreat]

I was a journalism major at one of the top 10 J schools in the nation. I then did an internship with the Associated Press covering the State Legislature. By the time i graduated, i realized i wanted nothing to do with these people. So i worked my way into a lucrative career.

The unique factor among the social sciences and journalism schools, in particular professors, is that they have NO real world experience. I work at a university now (albeit a fairly conservative one) and it is simply not the REAL WORLD.

Its easy to believe in all these utopian socialist ideals when its only experienced in a text book. Most of us who live in the real world, even liberal college students after they start earning a living, realize that the crap they push is simply ludicrous.

I fought my professors all the way through school. One, an ACLU board member, disagreed with everything i said. But he was reasonable (unlike most liberals) and we were able to have reasonable discussions and disagree without him punishing me academically. In fact, we are still friends to this day, despite the fact we don’t agree on much of anything.

But the opposite was a black activist professor from UNC who not only made me think disagreeing with him would affect my grades, i sometimes wondered if he would assault me physically.

[A_perfect_lady]

You're right, universities are SO not the real world. And the people in them have no sense at all. I remember one women's studies type telling me huffily that the profs were going on strike because right now, an adjunct wasn't paid much more than a groundskeeper.

I said, "I thought that was what you wanted. Equality. Why should you be paid more than a groundskeeper? Is that fair?"

You should have seen her stammer. She looked like I'd slugged her in the forehead.

[wita]

The screen name and picture tell the tale. I’m not sure ugly males or otherwise, would receive the same courtesy. Opportunity for someone to do a study on the subject.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Well, that did’t take long.......

KERSTEN ON DIVERSITY

Do as she says ...

It is ironic that Katherine Kersten complains about an alleged lack of objectivity and intolerance of diverse views on college campuses in her Oct. 25 column, “The pariahs of our college campuses.” Her own columns have not exactly been a model of objective discussion of her concerns.

For example, she has never found reason to criticize a Republican politician or a conservative activist. President Bush has not made, in her eyes, a single mistake. Social conservative have always been right and know what is right for the rest of us.

She has never shown any curiosity about why others may have views that differ from her own. Her columns never show tolerance of opinions that differ from her own. For her to accuse others of a “rigid orthodoxy” is pure hypocrisy, as her columns are textbook examples of conservative political rigid orthodoxy. Your editors would better serve the public by requiring her to, at least occasionally, show some of the traits that she expects from others.

RICHARD SETHRE, MINNEAPOLIS

Her case is weak

If we are to believe that liberal bias on campus is pervasive, as Katherine Kersten’s column breathlessly insinuates, why is it that she can’t present one specific case to readers, and let them judge it on its facts?

The most specific charge in the column is that a student had a geology professor who criticized President Bush — not terribly surprising given that Bush’s approval ratings have been in the 30 percent range for a long time.

Although I wouldn’t categorically state that there aren’t cases of professorial political agendas run amok, Kersten’s own examples, composed mostly of vague and anecdotal impressions, hardly indicate the crisis she desperately attempts to portray. As someone who used to teach at the college level, I think a “C” grade for this essay would be charitable.

MIKE BAILEY, MINNEAPOLIS

http://www.startribune.com/letters/story/1508745-p2.html

[PrincessB]

Thank you. High entertainment.