Watch list for Liberall slanted professors?
Apparently professors at the University of Colorado are forcing
their left-winged ideology down student’s throat enough for a
student Republican leader to start a Web site in which conservative
students can start a watch list of liberally slanted
professors.
According to a Denver Post story, Brad Jones, chairman of the
College Republicans, started the Web site to report professors who
promote their liberal doctrine to their students. Jones and the CU
College Republicans are affiliated with Students for Academic
Freedom.
This blacklist, err, I mean “watch list,” should send shivers
down the back of college students.
Students should remember last year when a bill was being
discussed that would require state college and university officials
to educate students and faculty better about their rights against
political and ideological bias by other professors and
administrators, reports Fox News. Colorado Sen. John Andrews told
the news channel that he plans on introducing the bill in the
upcoming weeks.
We live in times where politics intersect with almost every
aspect of everyday life. These days, everything is political: from
the economy to the Mad Cow scare to the blackout of 2003. With the
Iraq issue and the upcoming November elections, in addition to
everything else, stances on both sides of the political spectrum
are being fiercely supported, defended, argued and discussed. It
seems everyone has an opinion, a strong one, about everything and I
think that is a good thing, but I do agree that professors and
faculty members need to try to keep their arguments out of their
classrooms and teachings.
In my experience, I have had a teacher who was very open with
her opinions, especially about how she felt about the war in Iraq
and capital punishment. Retrospectively, I probably should have
discussed my concerns with a department chair or dean.
But what Jones and other conservatives are claiming is that
students can’t think for themselves. That students are mindlessly
hopeless to professors’ political allocution and that these
conservatives are encouraging students not to talk to the professor
or university officials about this problem but rather post the
professor’s name on a watch list. And they are claiming that only
liberal professors pose this treat, apparently conservative
professors have no problem keeping their political stance at
home.
I think professors who put their liberal perspective on the
classroom table are more easily noticeable than a professor who
does the same with his/her conservative perspective because of the
fact that conservative views are very much considered the norm in
some disciplines. Take business for example: if a business
professor talks about utilizing free trade agreements to move
American jobs overseas to maximize profits, no one is going to rush
to a Web site to report this professor as a conservative radical.
But yet if the same professor discusses the benefits of labor
unions or the idea of co-op businesses, that professor is going to
be flagged by students who feel this kind of crazy liberal thinking
has no place in a higher education department.
This kind of blacklisting is not going to improve higher
education, only set it back to the McCarthyism of the1950s, and who
wants to go back to those times?
I encourage students to send letters to the editors about any
experiences they may have had with teachers who they feel have
pushed their own political agenda on students or students who feel
the opposite. Please do not disclose the name of the professor or
class.
Chris is a senior majoring in history and journalism. He is the
opinion editor for The Collegian.
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