Posted on 03/27/2006 1:39:26 PM PST by Conservative Coulter Fan
My name is Stephen Miller and I am a freshman at Duke University. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate why every one of us ought to be concerned about the academic situation at Duke, and to ask for your help in putting Duke at the forefront of a revolution sweeping across America's campuses.
As many of you know, conservatives across the nation have been decrying the political bias that is contaminating the educational system. Unfortunately, Duke has also fallen prey to political bias, and conservatives here have tried hard to open the eyes of a seemingly blind administration. In response, some liberals, rather then denying the existence of left-wing bias, have claimed that what conservatives really want is to transform liberal bias in academia into conservative bias. Indeed, this was said of me in a recent editorial in the Duke Chronicle.
The accusation is utterly absurd. My experience in high school made me understand all too well how severely education is damaged by partisan intolerance, and I would never ask for the introduction of conservative bias. Be it from the left or the right, bias in antithetical to education, and I believe I speak for nearly all conservatives when I say we only ask that all viewpoints be respected in the classroom.
It is true that left-wing bias most often comes under fire but this is simply because most of the bias in colleges is left-wing in nature. This is only to be expected when you consider the fact that, as a survey of the major colleges has shown (Duke included), the overwhelming majority of professors are Democrats, making right-wing bias highly unlikely. This does not mean that there should a 50/50 split of Republican and Democratic professors. All that matters is that all professors respect all beliefs. When a professor ignores, slights, or demeans opposing views liberal or conservative it is an abomination. Consider the following case:
In the first few weeks of school, Senior Matt Bettis had to drop a history course because on the opening day his professor unleashed a barrage of partisan intolerance, including an admission of bias against republicans. Matt wrote the professor, and was told in response that it was not a facts course. Another student informed me that the professor suggested Republicans should drop his class.
Disgraces like this explain why, as many conservatives will tell you, when deciding their schedules they will avoid certain courses, or even entire departments, because of their harsh left-wing reputation. This situation should appall all students as a violation of the most fundamental tenets of education.
An article in the Duke Chronicle called attention to the fact that many conservatives claimed they had been downgraded for presenting conservative points of view in their work, but to my surprise, this claim was simply dismissed without any valid explanation. It is time that we stop ignoring such abuses. If students feel their work is being slighted because of their political leanings, then this is a problem that must be investigated and dealt with accordingly. No student should ever have to fear that open expression of his beliefs may result in an academic reprisal.
Earlier in the year I was able to have a conversation with the Dean of Students, Robert Thompson. During my conversation with the Dean I expressed my concern that in only a short time at Duke I had already starting hearing accounts of bias in the classroom be it professors bashing George Bush, demeaning Republicans, or simply teaching the class from a one-sided perspective. Rather then trying to contest my claims, then Dean admitted to me that he has heard numerous accounts of political bias.
This begged the question: what is being done about this situation?
In that Duke?s chief duty is to educate, and that essential to education is respect for all viewpoints, you would think the present situation would be of tremendous concern to the administration. If Dean Thompson is aware that there is political bias in Duke?s classrooms, I see no reason why cannot ask that he take action. Incidences like that one that occurred with Matt Bettis should disgust anyone who values education. Professors take on the immense responsibility of shaping the way students think about the world. When they shirk this responsibility they are doing a disservice to their students and to their profession.
Thought its extent can be debated, no one can deny the presence of political bias at Duke. We have before us the chance to show that the status quo can be changed, that a major university can aggressively fight bias our goal should be to make Duke one of the first major colleges in America that is truly free of an ideological slant, dedicated to the unbiased pursuit of knowledge, and unwavering in its devotion to academic freedom. However, this will not be easy and it will require the support of many. The key lies in the adoption of a Students Bill of Rights.
David Horowitz has started a new national organization, Students for Academic Freedom, which is dedicated to fighting political bias, specifically through the implementation of this Bill of Rights. I have started up an SAF chapter here at Duke. There are almost 100 more chapters in colleges across the country. It is a wholly non-partisan organization committed to restoring integrity to the American college campus. In line with that guiding philosophy, the Bill of Rights SAF encourages universities to adopt does not favor any one ideology, but requires that all ideologies be respected in the classroom. The only way that one could oppose this Bill of Rights would be if one were actually in favor of a political bias, because even if you doubted the existence of political bias, what harm would there be in guarding against it? (The Bill of Rights can be viewed at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org)
In that the administration's first and primary responsibility is to protect the integrity of the learning process, I have faith that in the end, this is what they will do. Knowing that the Dean of Students is already aware of the problem, I am hoping that he will thus understand the need to take action, and that a long and difficult battle will not ensue. I am also hoping that before she retires this year, President Keohane will want to ensure every student here at Duke receives a fair, balanced education. I have a meeting with with both the Dean and the President later this month in which I will ask them to support the Students Bill of Rights. However, in my prior conversation with the Dean I was told that the Bill of Rights was not needed. Other administrators have expressed the same point of view. And this mindset is certainly not unique to Duke.
Thus, for this to move forward, college administrators will need to understand that American citizens have had enough, that it is time for higher education in America to change that it is finally time for our nation's youth to learn in an environment where their beliefs are respected and their academic rights are secure. In order to help set this academic revolution in motion, I humbly ask for your help. You can call or write Dean Thompson (919-684-3465 robert.thompson@duke.edu 919-684-3465) or President Keohane (president@duke.edu 919-684-2424) and voice your support for the adoption of a Students Bill of Rights.
The battle for academic freedom will be a difficult one. But working together, we can return dignity and decency to the American college campus. We can set an example to colleges all across the nation by making Duke one of the first major universities to officially, publicly, and universally reject political bias.
An academic revolution has begun will Duke lead the charge?
I await the administration's response.
People need to STOP PAYING for this cr*p. Starve the beast. A good start would to be pass legislation prohibiting the federal government from requiring or giving preference for any "degree" for federal jobs. Require specific relevant courses or skills -- accounting, physics, a specific foreign language, etc., but no degrees. And secondly, a school's eligibility for federal student financial aid programs should require that the school give no registration preference to degree candidates over non-degree candidates, or to full time students over part time students. The leftist takeover of academia is largely driven by idiotic "distribution requirements" which are nothing more than jobs-for-lefties programs, and students are forced to take these idiot courses, because if they don't, they:
1) Can't get financial aid (which is largely federal) because the financial aid programs all require students to be in a degree program and making satisfactory progress towards a degree -- as defined by the leftist faculty, of course; and
2) Even if they or their parents are footing the entire bill, at many schools it's impossible to register for the worthwhile courses, because they're all filled up by the degree candidates who get priority for registration, before non-degree candidates are allowed to register.
YOUR tax dollars are propping up this state of affairs.
good luck friend. you have your work cut out for you. duke is engrained with 60's has beens, just like so many universities. you have to remember something about the left that is different from you and i- to the left, this is their religion, and to stand up to them is to become the devil himself. we as conservatives, whether jew, protestant or catholic, descend our values from what we percieve to be the natural law, God given to man. the left feels that they are God and anything contrary to them is to be evil in their eyes. i was at duke, and will not participate in any alumni functions. they are just that wierd and screwed up down there.
Working, productive men and women, so very many at low wages support the hedonistic, wanker academic culture. I suppose this is what the elites regard as progressive.
Home schooling is a big growth industry in education, yes? Why not home schooling at the university level? Since the universities are pricing themselves out of business with liberalism disguised in sheepskin clothing, why not just LEAVE? Start your own university with a quasi-home schooling format? There's a lot of junior colleges around, yes? Convert one or more of them in each state to a conservative format, continuing the home schooling format they are used to, then watch enrollment explode as conservative students flock to them for a genuine, non-biased education. Universities are businesses, if you don't like their product, go buy somebody else's product. Who goes to a store to buy something and the clerks pound you with their personal opinion? Would you go back there again?
Let the liberal universities cut tenure and liberal's salaries. Another solution besides cutting state funding is to start your own university. There are lots of junior colleges around, make one or more of them in each state a non-biased format, something like the home schooling that conservative christian students are used to. There is a real opportunity here : give these lost-to-liberal universities some real competition. Universties are businesses, they'll mend their ways when their entering freshman classes dwindle down to drooling liberal-nothings as conservative students patronize other university-businesses...
The best was when he slapped down the last "student" during the question/answer session. She was mumbling on about pronouncing her name so that Horowitz would remember it... Horowitz planted the student saying he has no respect for a professor (this student's hero) that does not respect him (Horowitz).
The last shot was of this female student stomping off.
Horowitz, by the way, had a body guard standing behind him at all times.
Great in theory, but unworkable in practice, I'm afraid. Without "being accredited", any diploma granted by such a university would be worthless on the job market, which is what those who go to universities are looking for to begin with. Since the process to be "accredited" lies likewise in the hands of the same folks you're trying to do the end run around, figure the odds of your being "accredited"...
the infowarrior
That isn't quite what I was suggesting. Pick some 2 to 4 year junior college and load it up with conservative students, home school types. Junior colleges grant degrees of one kind or another, yes? Also, junior colleges are more subject to local control/funding, yes? So, just as one shops around for various items at the mall, one can choose to go to this or that jr college rather than Duke or some other "chain store" university that's dominated by liberals. Once businesses/corporations realize that kids graduating from those few conservative schools are far better educated than the drooling liberals from "chain store" universities, the PAPER degree won't mean all that much anymore, it'll be WHERE you're from that really matters....To wit, I once worked for a fellow architect from Urbana-Champaign. Nice enough guy but he spelled beam as "BEEM" and couldn't add a column of numbers to save his soul. Typical product from a liberal dominated university, poor guy didn't get enough "tough love" at the university as Rush Limaugh would say.
For good or ill, you cannot do that. Under many legal precedents, tenure is a property right.
And in your haste to have the state dismantle academic freedom in the institutions it has created for the public betterment you overlook the baleful effects of any such policy.
If the legislatures shut down the universities, they will not be able to reopen them: it will be hard to hire faculty in a state where they tenure is known to be worthless.
If the legislature targets liberals, or liberal-heavy departments or colleges (in some cases tenure resides with a department or college, so tenured faculty can be fired if their department or college ceases to exits), they establish a precedent which can be used by the left or whatever replaces the left as the opposition to liberty, two generations from no when we are the majority in the universities.
If you simply cut the budget, and let the university administration abolish tenure and fire people, it will be the leftists who are wielding the axe.
Academic freedom was the first freedom of expression: there was free speech inside the wall so the university when the Inquisition punished theological speculation with torture outside those walls. And just as free speech and the free press must protect the bad as well as the good (since the whole point is to not have the state judge what is good or bad), so too academic freedom must protect both the bad and the good.
Patience. The war of ideas is a long one, but ours are sound, theirs are not. In the long run, we will dominate academe as well as society at large.
What an astonishingly biased way to begin a news report.
For-profit universities have to go their own way. I think they have much to offer.
BTTT
I saw it last night as well. I loved how he torn Cornel West to shreds! The whole Larry Summers saga should be a wake up call to anyone interested in the fate of our "great universities." Horowitz was unleashed and he was brillant.
Thanks for catching 'notorious.' I was going to post on it. Judging from recent usage of the word, I think younger people especially equate it with "well known" instead of its negative connotation. It's amazing how much of the language we've lost just since I was younger.
The problem is liberal-laden universities in a majority conservative country. Yes, there is free speech and tenure but "political correctness" on university campii stifle CONSERVATIVE free speech, as is well known. If liberals are put on notice that their blatant left wing indoctrination will be no longer be tolerated by state legislators on budget committees it might be a "near death" experience for them. John Von Neuman, the great mathematician, was once stopped by the gestapo as a young man. He said of the experience that the imminent threat of death concentrates one's attention WONDERFULLY. So what we need is a Martin Luther Reformation in academia, to concentrate liberal's concentration WONDERFULLY. So where those state legislators with their 95 theses?
A century ago the major land grant universities were a great force for good in america, a vast improvement over the european model of taking the brightest kid and cramming his head with an entire library of knowledge, ie, Steven Hawking. By educating the masses our citizenry was more able to handle technical issues much better than your average european. Thus it's no mystery why the US is the sole remaining super power whilst europe is a second rate socialist backwater. Then came the 1960's and the left wing takeover of education, producing losers like clinton. Thus it's time to introduce some real competition into the university education marketplace, we owe it to our kids....A short story of my teacher grand father : he followed the alaskan gold rush of a century ago. Didn't find any gold, but he had an education certificate. Got a job teaching eskimos english on Kodiak island. No money for textbooks, so how do you get free textbooks? ans : write the Sears and Roebucks company in Seattle and get 100 catalogs with pictures, english language descriptions...so that's how the eskimos on Kodiac island learned their english... Thus, there are always challenges in education but creative minds can always find solutions, if you REALLY want to solve the problem; even starting private schools or jr colleges to counter liberal-dominated universities.
His book ProFessors is now on my to-read list.
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