Free Republic

Nearly three-quarters of faculty members at U.S. colleges and universities describe themselves as liberals, and at elite schools, the proportion is 87 percent, a survey has found. What's more, half say they are Democrats and 51 percent indicate they seldom or never attend church, according to the survey, published in the March issue of the online political journal Forum. "You would expect the majority of English literature and sociology professors to be liberals, but our survey found that 66 percent of those in physics and 64 percent of those in chemistry are liberals," said S. Robert Lichter, a communications professor...

Academic Freedom: The Latest Challenge Adapted from “On Academic Freedom,” remarks made by AAUP Associate Secretary, Marcus Harvey, at Irvine Valley College, November 13, 2003. Academic Freedom and Political “Balance” More pernicious than direct at- tempts to curb faculty speech is a subtler initiative intended to trans- form the meaning of academic free- dom, itself. Once denoting the faculty’s authority to determine the content and methods of their pro- fessional work, “academic free- dom” is in the process of being re- invented to connote the “right” of students to be taught by a politi- cally “balanced” faculty. The AAUP has...

College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says. By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.

My last column, "Forget Free Speech, Liberals Don't Tolerate Campus Conservatives," drew the ire and attention of thousands. Published online by GOPUSA and the Washington Times, it sparked still more debate on the issue of liberal bias on campus. Conservative professors from North Carolina, Wisconsin and across the country e-mailed their support. One celebrity endorsement came from former U.S. House Historian Christina Jeffrey, who currently presides over the South Carolina Association of Scholars. In her words, this past column was my "best ever." Still more students, parents and alumni stepped up, sending e-mails and notes, while weighing in on countless...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - More than 70 faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are demanding that administrators stop negotiations with a foundation that wants to create a Western cultures program at the school. Chancellor James Moeser said he believes many faculty members are wary of the proposal simply because of the John William Pope Foundation's conservative values. "It will be a major enhancement of our offerings in Western civilizations," he said Wednesday. "And it won't be done at the expense of any other program." The proposed program would include an academic minor in Western cultures,...

The Bluest State: Academia By Daniel B. Klein and Andrew Western Palo Alto Weekly 02/23/05 The popular vote for President went 48 percent Democrat and 51 percent Republican. This nearly one-to-one national diversity is unlike colleges and universities, where a one-party system prevails. We have conducted a scholarly study of voter registration and find that among Berkeley faculty the Republicans are outnumbered 10 to 1. At Stanford the ratio is 7.6 to 1. Lumping both together gives 9 to 1. Talk about a lack of diversity! If this were a gender, race or ethnic-background study it would be considered almost...

Good morning students! Welcome to our “senior seminar for college-bound students” at Springfield High School. My name is Dr. Obvious. I taught at ASU (Any State University) for thirty years until my recent retirement. I am pleased to accept a position teaching young students everything they need to know before they attend college. For most of you, that will be some time within the next year. Springfield High designed this course as a way of preparing next year’s freshmen to function in college. I have decided to take a slightly different approach. I intend to teach you things you will...

I was to be on a panel discussion at the AAAS annual meeting in Washington DC. I mis-remembered the time, though, thinking the event was at 11 A.M., when in fact it was at noon, so I had an hour to kill. Wandering around the conference center idly, looking for something interesting, I came across a meeting hall with an easel outside saying GENDER AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN ACADEMIC SCIENCE. Thinking this might be right up my street, I peered inside. About 30 people were listening to a woman lecturer. The people had their backs to me and were clustered...

Ex-professor at Clark rips ‘gender police’ "We’re dealing now with a religion of hard-line feminism While the president of Harvard University continues to engage in marathon mea culpas, Christina Hoff Sommers said she’s not surprised that the poor guy has been pilloried for committing a cardinal sin in academia: suggesting that men and women might indeed be different. “If you even hint that there’s a biological difference between the sexes — which most scientists agree there is — a small coterie of hard-line gender police will get very excited and start shrieking,” Ms. Sommers maintained. “They insist that any suggestion...

My mother is a teacher and has started working on her Masters Degree. One of her courses is on Family Therapy and she has to plot out her extended family as part of the course work. "Family Themes" was one of things she needed to write down so she asked me for ideas about some of our family themes. I started to look through her textbook to get a better idea of exactly what they wanted. Here is just some of what I found: The Expanded Family Life Cycle Individual, Family, and Social Perspectives Third Edition Edited by Betty Carter...

Regardless of age, we have all heard the phrase, "First Amendment Rights," bandied about. Free speech has been the rallying cry of the liberal elite since the 60s, and every time violent protesters are beaten back by police or cordoned off from a rally, the ACLU comes a calling. However, the same team of trial lawyers, rebel billionaires and Deaniacs turn a blind eye toward the abuses of their academic brethren. America's colleges and universities are anything but free speech zones. Contrary to their mantra of universal tolerance, Stalinist professors and administrators see intellectual diversity as a disease. Unpopular...

While the communications media concentrates on the world’s problems the biggest tragedy is right here at our doorstep. I'm referring to the sad saga of how public school systems promote millions of children all the way into and out of high school without ever teaching them how to read, write, do arithmetic accurately and/or learn re the greatness of this country thru its history. Then with the help of multiculturism, political correctness, and especially affirmative action we allow into the halls of higher learning too many youngsters who have been dumbed down and are easy prey for the minions of...

Once again it falls to a lowly columnist to explain something that has apparently flown over the heads of almost everyone else in this university town. I am speaking of course of State Senate Bill 24, or, rather, what is being called the "Academic Bill of Rights." The Academic Bill of Rights was first submitted to educators by David Horowitz, a noted author and conservative political advocate who wrote the proposal, and only when it was stonewalled by universities did Horowitz submit it to legislatures. The bill was introduced to ensure the freedom of ideas and expression in a profession...

Despite the nation's youth (under the guidance of Nickelodeon, MTV, and Hollywood brats) exhibiting all the narcissistic, consumer-driven attributes liberals practice and yet claim to despise, direct indoctrination on the university level is now starting to have real world consequences. The "by any means necessary" approach now sanctioned by "progressives" is producing young footsoldiers that perform according to their immediate feelings rather than utilizing logical thought to arrive at conclusions.

States Considering Legislation to Counter Perceived Liberalism on College CampusesBy Elizabeth DeForest Associated Press Writer Published: Feb 12, 2005 WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) - College sophomore Charis Bridgman tends to keep quiet in class if she thinks her professor might disagree with her Christian-influenced ideas. The 19-year-old says schools such as her Otterbein College in suburban Columbus should be a place for open discussion, but she feels some professors make students afraid to speak up. "They might chastise me, or not even listen to my opinion or give me a chance to explain," she said. Professors would have to include diverse...

A proposed bill of rights aimed at protecting college students from political indoctrination in the classroom is being actively debated in more than 20 states, including New York. The "Academic Bill of Rights" calls for students to be graded based on their reasoning and not their political beliefs. The measure also requires that professors offer diverse reading lists and "not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination." The proposal, which was drafted by a conservative author and activist from California, David Horowitz, also seeks to upend ideological conformity on campuses by insisting that decisions...

Muticultural Madness - How Western Civilization Has Been Turned Upside down in One Generation "We've been planning this for a long time, and it's a real treat," said WND Editor and founder Joseph Farah. "In this wonderful issue, multiculturalism is sliced, diced and roasted up as shish kabob and served up to our readers as a delicious journalistic feast. It's not only a stunning expose of multiculturalism and political correctness, but also a memorable celebration and affirmation of all that is truly American." "MULTICULTURAL MADNESS" documents how multiculturalism, which started on college campuses during the "cultural revolution" of the '60s,...

Ward Churchill has become a poster child for the incredible dysfunction of America’s universities. Churchill is the University of Colorado professor who, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, described the victims as "little Eichmanns." Their deaths, he argued were a "penalty befitting their participation in . . . the 'mighty engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved." These comments went largely unnoticed until Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College – he frequently lectures in exchange for a six-figure fee. (It’s an easy way to obtain the wherewithal to denigrate...

CRAFTY COLLEGE and university professors have figured out how to intimidate their students and get praised for it. Thankfully, some students are no longer standing for this. By manipulating public respect for the First Amendment, some professors disguise intellectual pressure tactics as mere expressions of opinion offered in the spirit of open debate. What they are really doing is using their positions of authority to bully students into agreement. And for this they often are praised by their peers and bosses. Take, for example, Keene State Professor David Stowell, who has some 15 political statements (left-wing, of course) displayed on...

She said she was not afraid to be controversial and that certain groups need to be protected. "If homosexuals are not defined as a protected group by federal law, they should be." When asked if she believed in academic freedom, she said not for those attacking "protected groups." She then explained that in 2001 before the Campus Student Environment Committee at UNLV she complained about an accounting professor who had a spread sheet up on a screen and when moving the cursor to another section of the screen he said of the cursor, "You drag this little black guy over...