Thought Control Replaces Academic Freedom

Gone are the days when academic freedom was the watchword of college campuses. Today, thought control is the dominant theology on campuses, often hiding behind the mantras of diversity and multiculturalism. The American Enterprise magazine's survey of the political affiliations of professors in 19 major universities confirms similar surveys. The tally: Cornell, 166 professors registered in the Democratic Party or another party of the left, and only six registered with Republicans or another party of the right; the Harvard score is 50-2; Penn State 59-10; Stanford 151-17; Brown 54-3; University of California-Berkeley 59-7; UCLA 141-9; University of Texas 94-15.

More than two-thirds of colleges and universities have speech codes even though, at least at public universities, they are unconstitutional. The codes are aimed at forbidding the free speech of conservatives, Christians, and humor magazines (since the Politically Correct brigade and the feminists have no sense of humor).

Many of the speech codes are as silly and intolerant as the British speech code at Stockport College which made international news by banning 40 "offensive" words and phrases. Lady and gentleman are banned because of "class implications," history and chairman are sexist, "normal couple" is simply unacceptable, and "slaving over a hot stove" is offensive to the plight of real slaves.

Colleges and universities have hired highly-paid itinerant facilitators to train incoming freshmen to feel guilty if they are white and to think politically correct thoughts about race and diversity. Two of the films widely used at these Soviet-style re- education sessions are "Skin Deep," which presents intolerance and racism as the norm in America, and "Blue-Eyed", a 90-minute tirade designed to humiliate people with blue eyes and empower people with brown eyes.

Get ready for the next round of leftwing Commencement speakers. Cornell has already announced it has signed up that rowdiest of leftists, James Carville.

Al Gore and Madeleine Albright were recent Commencement speakers at Harvard, Robert Reich and Janet Reno at the University of California-Berkeley, Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter at the University of Pennsylvania, Gloria Steinem and Whoopi Goldberg at Wellesley. At most prestigious colleges, students never hear a conservative Commencement speaker.

Diversity includes requiring freshmen at Northern Arizona University to read "Science and the Case for Animal Rights" by Steven M. Wise so students can learn that animals can be "persons." But multiculturalism does not permit the campus newspaper at the University of California-Riverside to publish a cartoon critical of the large numbers of foreign teaching assistants who speak only broken English.

Nor does multiculturalism permit criticism of Hispanic students working for the Aztlan movement calling for revolutionary liberation from "gringos." When the conservative campus paper The Patriot printed a critical story, its staff was personally harassed, some received death threats, the office was broken into, and 3,000 copies of the magazine were stolen.

At the women's studies program at the University of South Carolina, students must acknowledge the existence of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism and other institutional forms of oppression of women before being permitted to participate in class discussions. Alas, this is typical of the 900 women's studies courses taught nationwide.

The textbooks in women's studies programs teach that women are the victims of a male-dominated society, that marriage is an "instrument of oppression," and that fathers are "foreign male elements" who stand between mothers and daughters. This was the conclusion of an Independent Women's Forum review of five of the most widely used textbooks and 30 course outlines from major universities.

The obscene show touted by feminists as the way to observe Valentine's Day, "The Vagina Monologues," will be staged on 667 college campuses this year (up from 550 last year). The original version eulogizes the "good rape" of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman who plies her with alcohol and leads her to conclude "I'll never need to rely on a man."

At Georgetown University, the student who dared to write a critical review for the campus newspaper was fired.

College thought control is not merely political. The attack on morality is so savage that it sometimes even breaks into the New York Times.

One Times headline read: "No Big Deal, but Some Dorm Rooms Have Gone Coed," with the push coming "from gay groups that said it was 'heterosexist' to require roommates to be of the same sex." Another Times headline described The Naked Dorm at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, which advertises itself as a diverse, multicultural, political active dormitory for men and women where clothing is "optional."

Students who are victimized by the new thought control should contact the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization dedicated to the First Amendment and academic freedom. FIRE is piling up a series of successes in discrediting the intolerant Politically Correct campus gestapo.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phyllis Schlafly column 3-26-03

Schlafly puts several disturbing trends together into a compendium -- but this doesn't come to a coherent point. (She's had that problem since she shilled for Goldwater in 1964.) Specifically, she doesn't actually demonstrate that "thought control" is crowding out "academic freedom."

Intimidation among the students and rule-bound stupidity are both on the rise, undeniably -- but where is this preventing the non-socialist academics that do exist from performing their responsibilities? Or from writing and teaching freely in their own specialties, without having their livelihood threatened by the administration? This last is what "academic freedom" means. Words have meanings, Phyllis.

Citing a dominance of one side of the "spectrum" in voter registrations among faculty does not prove intimidation of those faculty.

As usual, Schlafly's rhetoric gets ahead of her arguments -- or even her attempts to make them in the first place. She's been overrated for 40 years now.

The American Enterprise magazine's survey of the political affiliations of professors in 19 major universities confirms similar surveys. The tally: Cornell, 166 professors registered in the Democratic Party or another party of the left, and only six registered with Republicans or another party of the right; the Harvard score is 50-2; Penn State 59-10; Stanford 151-17; Brown 54-3; University of California-Berkeley 59-7; UCLA 141-9; University of Texas 94-15.

I'd like to see this survey. The faculty of Harvard is much larger than 52 professors, Penn State, larger than 69, etc.. If they were sampling only various departments perhaps they intentionally failed to ask the engineering and science departments, often well more conservative than the humanities.

Privatizing is not enough. Government student loans will still prop up leftist universities. We actually need to take back the campus. We also, unfortunatly, need to get men back to the university. Thanks to the NEA and their ilk, they have diverted men to vocational schools.

There were four women on larry king last night talking about men in the business world are evil and women need to support each other. In otherwords, female favortism good male favortism bad. This is the thought police of the next generation. The oprafication of thought and promotion.

I noticed these words - "Thought control"

There are special techniques used to perform "thought control". The range from "loading the language", to "rote learning" to using "fear tactics".

None of them are practiced at unversities that I know.

There are radicals on the left and on the right expressing "opinions" with little facts at school at times. But that is the minority, not the majority.

I agree with your comments on the survey too.

I think we can say: "gotcha!"

Don't miss the latest issue (September) of The American Enterprise. The magazine is filled with interesting articles about America's campus culture war, but most interesting of all is the extended statistical study of party affiliation on America's college campuses ("The One Party Campus"). TAE sent out student volunteers to painstakingly check voter registration rolls for the party affiliations of faculty members in a number of humanities and social science departments at campuses across the country. The results were exactly as you'd expect, although having the proof is of tremendous importance. Stanford University departments sampled, for example, had 151 faculty members belonging to the Democrats (or other parties of the Left) and only 17 to the Republicans (or other parties of the Right). The departments surveyed at Harvard had 50 Democrats and only two Republicans; U.C. San Diego was 99 Democrat and 6 Republican; University of Texas at Austin had 94 Democrats and 15 Republicans; and so on at all the other colleges surveyed. (Again, I'm lumping some miscellaneous parties of the Right and Left in with my Democrat and Republican reports.) The departmental breakdowns are also interesting. As you might expect, most Women's Studies departments had no Republicans at all. But there were lone Republican Women's Studies professors at a few places. Women's Studies at University of Texas, Austin, for example, had 27 Democrats and 1 Republican. These sorts of disparities shows that America's college campuses are actually far less diverse most other places in the country.

We already knew that, of course, but having the numbers helps

My bold. Can't find the article online but this quote was here. The fact that they only checked 52 professors from Harvard's humanities and social science departments, still a low number, makes me think they intentionally left out departments that didn't strengthen their "numbers."

Intimidation among the students and rule-bound stupidity are both on the rise, undeniably -- but where is this preventing the non-socialist academics that do exist from performing their responsibilities? Or from writing and teaching freely in their own specialties, without having their livelihood threatened by the administration? This last is what "academic freedom" means. Words have meanings, Phyllis.

One such device of intimidation is called Tenure...the screening process alone to select new instructors is enough to insure that only the left survive.. and then there is the line they must walk between being hired and obtaining that magical state of grace which is not only a fine one..but a precarious one as well... and you best be PC or you are HISTORY

There is no value free learning anymore...perhaps in Physics or Mathematics..but that is about it.

Can I cash in the kudo from the Stieglitz thread here?

I think the survey is skewed by the absence of professors from other departments, which would paint a different picture of these universities, one that may not support the American Enterprise's agenda, or at least not as strongly.

My college required that classes be taken in science and the humanities before the classes for one's major kick in. I think that is as it should be, though humanities and social science students tended to take "easy" science or math courses, vice versa for science students.

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