“And the other issue is whether or not students who hold a conservative ideology are punished for their views with lower grades for the same quality of work.”
I don’t think that’s true. I think students with a conservative ideology receive lower grades for BETTER quality work.
As for my son at Purdue, I tell him to just do what he has to do in the mandatory liberal arts classes to get a good grade. Whatever the subject matter, he has to put in that: “(insert book title) shows how man’s inhumanity to man transcends the class struggle.” It’s total nonsense but it works like an ancient magic spell to open the doors to a B+.
He doesn’t buy into any of this garbage and has been punished for “wrong thinking.”
And beyond grading there’s the issue of patronage. If some professor doesn’t write a good recommendation, the student’s graduate and professional prospects are significantly affected.
Ooh, better yet, tell him to use the word ‘heteronormative’ correctly in a paper. Personally, I’ve found that regardless of what you say around it, just proving that you know what it means is an instant A+ from any professor that’s even slightly liberal. Personally, I also just got an A+ for writing a paper about how zombie movies express a fear of loss of humanity... you’ve just got to find the right classes, and the right profs =)