Posted on 05/13/2008 10:26:26 AM PDT by MtnClimber
BOULDER — How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder? The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor's analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.
Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. "We should also talk about intellectual diversity," he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation's first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.
Mr. Peterson's quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical.
"Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?" asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. "I'd rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective." Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and "global gender justice."
(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...
Because those disciplines are difficult to teach and learn, which translates to low class sizes, which translates to fewer bucks in the university coffers. Students pay the same price per credit whether they're taking hard science or softball classes. It's in the university's best financial interests to fill an auditorium with "The Philosophy of Madonna" than to teach differential equations to a class of 13 students.
Many years ago I saw Charleton Heston speak at CU. They had to have police to keep the protesters from disturbing those attending the speech. One lefty got inside and had to be hauled away by police when she started screaming “murderer...” to disrupt the speech.
Ah, yes, the Shakespeare-quoting French Fry Chef. Found in the finest diners across the land!
“LEFTIST ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. by Linda Gorman.
Colorado Daily, Mar. 28, 2000.
The peculiar mix of doublespeak and intransigent intolerance that characterizes the Left was on full display in three separate incidents last week.
Before Charlton Heston’s March 21 speech at CU-Boulder, the Colorado Daily reported that 2nd Amendment defenders protested loudly but peacefully outside Macky auditorium until “a large contingent of gun-control advocates arrived.”[i] Tensions rose. Mr. Robert Howell “threw a punch at another man,” scuffled briefly, and was wrestled to the ground by police officers. The Denver Rocky Mountain News reported that Mr. Howell is vice-president of the Boulder chapter of the Bell Campaign.[ii] Charitably speaking, the Bell Campaign consists of utopian dreamers who would consider even complete gun prohibition a “reasonable” restriction, and who believe that when guns are outlawed not even criminals will have guns. Its accuracy can be gauged from its web page where, as of this writing, it calls Boulder “a suburb of Denver.”[iii]
In an Orwellian twist worthy of President Clinton, Boulder chapter’s president, Sam Cole, told The Denver Rocky Mountain News that the group was going to adopt new guidelines for protests because “Our protesters and members are a very peaceful group of individuals that believe in nonviolence, and we have a zero tolerance for violence at demonstrations.” Given that new guidelines are evidently needed to rule out assault and battery, one wonders what the old ones were.”
Either this prof will study conservatives much like an anthropologist studies stone age jungle civilizations or they will get a leftist, faux conservative who supports Obama as the only “true conservative” left in America.
Other students don’t have much sympathy. They love Boulder precisely because of its liberal swagger.
Sophomore Marissa Malouff sees the campus as a sort of re-education camp. Sheltered rich kids from out-of-state might come for the snowboarding, but while they’re here they get dunked in a simmering pot of left-wing idealism. And that, in her view, is how it should be.
“They need to learn about social problems and poverty and the type of things liberal professors are likely to talk about,” says Ms. Malouff, a Democrat.
A Polish soldier who was wounded and imprisoned by the Germans during World War II, Rozek studied at Harvard after the war and joined the CU faculty in 1956. His acclaimed book Allied Wartime Diplomacy: a Pattern in Poland (New York: Wiley, 1958) was highly critical of Allied efforts to appease the Soviets, at Poland's expense, during World War II.
While a professor at CU, Rozek sought to counter the prevailing liberal-left dogma by bringing conservative speakers, including Senator Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), onto the campus. Naturally, he soon raised the ire of the campus leftists. During the 1980's, they tried to railroad him into prison. The story of Rozek's ordeal at the hands of the "politically correct" crowd can be read here
Excellent, and chilling, article!
CU is starting to get some business-wise conservatives in top positions. I hope it can be a positive influence. They sure need it! The leftist faculty is fighting it every step.
That’s horrible — I have witnessed the depraved mentality and behavior of such leftist hacks from close up, but not in such an extreme case as this one. Simply unreal. Many of our universities are dominated by such vicious, dishonest leftists. I know that all too well.
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