Hypocrisy on Campus?

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-09-16 05:35pm

This article was in today's school paper, and I thought it might make for some...uhm...interesting conversations:

Campuses plagued by hypocrisy

Have you ever noticed that the same people who claim to love "tolerance" and "diversity" are the same people who refuse to practice it? Sure, they are tolerant of views with which they agree (how hard is that?), but they revile anyone who dares express views not in keeping with their own.

Here at UT, the College Republicans chalked an announcement of their first meeting on the side of the Humanities building. Shortly thereafter, some people chalked "join the facists (sic)" below the announcement. Whoever did this may have been a product of our public schools, as they didn't spell "fascist" correctly.

Unfortunately, incidents like this are common on campuses across the country. At Michigan State University a conservative speaker was nearly arrested earlier this year. Dan Flynn had been authorized to speak as a guest of the College Republicans. Apparently an administrator was offended by a flyer promoting the event which read, "Why the Left Hates America: The Irrationality of Anti-Americanism." The administrator demanded an explanation from the students coordinating the event just minutes before the lecture was scheduled to begin. The students offered to show her Flynn's lecture notes. The administrator refused and threatened to call the police.

At Citrus College in California, Professor Rosalyn Khan gave her students extra credit for writing letters to President Bush letters concerning the then-pending war in Iraq. There was a catch, however: Students only got credit for the letters if they opposed the war. So much for diversity of viewpoint.

In 2001, David Horowitz placed in ad titled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Is a Bad Idea - and Racist Too" in college newspapers. The ad was submitted to 71 student newspapers, of which 43 rejected it. The ad caused an uproar on campuses where it did run. Students stormed into newspaper offices demanding apologies and attempted to bully and intimidate others until they got them. Newspapers were stolen and burned. Apparently censorship is okay as long as it's against ideas that aren't politically correct.

The attacks against free speech on campus aren't just directed at students. Sometimes professors are muzzled as well. Jim Miller, a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts, was recently denied tenure (which translates into being fired in academia). His crime? He published articles in National Review Online, a conservative publication. Miller appealed his denial to the Smith College grievance committee who, to their credit, unanimously ruled that his academic freedom had been violated.

"There are far more conservatives than you might think on campuses, but they're afraid for their jobs," Miller said.

A recent study by the University of California at Berkley attempted to determine what makes conservatives tick. This profile of respect to diversity determined that conservatives are intolerant and view the world in simplistic terms. Rush Limbaugh and Ronald Reagan were compared to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Who helped pay for this study? The taxpayers, of course.

How can universities, who claim to be beacons of academic freedom and who never tire of lecturing us about the virtues of diversity, be so monolithic in their ideologies? How can they in good conscious repress thought with which they disagree? Perhaps it's because, as Lord Acton put it, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." College professors and administrators were once students too, and many saw themselves as being oppressed by "the system" during the 1960s and 1970s, when campuses were even more radical than today. Their views were repressed, at least in their minds, and now they want to protect those views at all costs. Somewhere along the way they missed the fact that they have now become "the system."

George Orwell's "Animal Farm" is a good analogy. In this classic, the animals revolt against the oppressive farmer and establish a new order where all animals are equal. Gradually, however, the more powerful animals took power, and they were just as brutal as the farmer. In essence, the other animals had simply swapped one tyrant for another. The situation is the same on campus: Many administrators and professors, who abhorred restrictions on speech as students, have unwittingly become that which they once hated.

If colleges and universities really want to embrace diversity, maybe they should try to recruit more conservative professors. Colleges are strong advocates of preferential treatment in hiring, but this creates a superficial diversity: You get professors of various ethnic groups who all have the same ideology. This is no true diversity at all.

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Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-16 05:43pm

It's the natural human tendency to hypocrisy. College campuses are the magnet for liberal attacks conservative because they are usually liberal dominated. The reverse is true in many areas of society where conservatives dominate. It's appalling but it happens all the time.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2003-09-16 05:55pm

Can't help but wonder if you're only hearing one side of the story. My economics professor bitched about the anti-conservative bias in other colleges often. Of course, he didn't stop to think that just maybe his colleagues' views on child labour had anything to do with how they were treated (snicker).

Personally, I never encountered this kind of bias and discrimination when I went to college. That certainly doesn't disprove the charges entirely by itself, but it doesn't help their chicken-little claims.

As for this claim:

At Citrus College in California, Professor Rosalyn Khan gave her students extra credit for writing letters to President Bush letters concerning the then-pending war in Iraq. There was a catch, however: Students only got credit for the letters if they opposed the war. So much for diversity of viewpoint.

I'd like to see proof of this, not merely a claim from a disgruntled college republican.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-09-16 06:01pm

Personally, I never encountered this kind of bias and discrimination when I went to college. That certainly doesn't disprove the charges entirely by itself, but it doesn't help their chicken-little claims.

And, of course, you're the very heir of Ronald Reagan.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2003-09-16 06:06pm

HemlockGrey wrote:
Personally, I never encountered this kind of bias and discrimination when I went to college. That certainly doesn't disprove the charges entirely by itself, but it doesn't help their chicken-little claims.
And, of course, you're the very heir of Ronald Reagan.

I'm a bonafide Reagan clone

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-16 06:44pm

This smells like bullshit to me. They produce a handful of examples of wackos and use them as the basis of a hasty generalization. In many of these cases, the supposed "attacks on freedom of speech" were anything but, as they were actually protests against someone else speaking! Sorry, but if the speech is protected, so is the fucking protest against it, people.

And I've never heard of a real course where some prof gives marks for writing letters to politicians. Perhaps there's some goofball professor out there who did it, but that would only indicate hiring incompetence. It certainly isn't common practice.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-09-16 07:09pm

CRs and other conservative folks certainly don't have much trouble getting their views across here (an anti-abortion group was allowed to put up a disgusting display of aborted fetuses in public a few years back in order to make their point).

Axis Kast · Post by **Axis Kast** » 2003-09-16 07:15pm

I'm in college now. Lectures by at least three professors or teaching assistants in the humanities department have been liberally sprinkled with negative jibes at George Bush - after which, they all implore the student body to "speak out if offended," rejecting the notion they might be pushing an idea at all. It doesn't bother me, but that doesn't mean the bias - in this case liberal - isn't "out there".

MarkIX · Post by **MarkIX** » 2003-09-16 07:17pm

I'd like to see proof of this, not merely a claim from a disgruntled college republican

try googling for Rosalyn Khan and citrus college. There where several articles about it she was given leave pending a review, but I have heard no more than that I haven't looked as I wasn't very interested and actually came across the topic by chance, which is why I can't tell you exactly where to look.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-09-16 07:28pm

here is a thread I started on a study regarding bias in the school system. The study was carried out by a non partisan group and both democrats and republicans have accepted the findings.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-16 07:40pm

This smells like bullshit to me. They produce a handful of examples of wackos and use them as the basis of a hasty generalization.

It's a new article, not a case study. There's only so much they can include before people stop reading it.

In many of these cases, the supposed "attacks on freedom of speech" were anything but, as they were actually protests against someone else speaking! Sorry, but if the speech is protected, so is the fucking protest against it, people.

And some of the more frightening incidents involved illegal hiring practices, vandalism, destruction of property and out and out intimidation tactics. That stuff is illegal and has nothing to do with free speech what so ever.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-09-16 08:20pm

I thought I could throw in a column by Walter Williams somewhat related to the subject: Link

Diversity is a big buzzword on college and university campuses. Diversity has fogged and claimed the minds of campus administrators so much so that they've created diversity fiefdoms. Harvard University Medical School has an Office for Diversity and Community Partnership. Brown University has a Diversity Institute. UC Berkeley has a Diversity Committee and a Diversity Officer. At George Mason University, where I teach, there's a Diversity Advisory Board and an Office for Diversity Programs and Services. At most colleges and universities, there's a diversity or multiculturalism agenda to propagandize students.

According to Merriam Webster's dictionary, diversity means: diverseness, multifariousness, multiformity, multiplicity and variousness. The opposite of diversity is uniformity or identity. For the bulk of universities and colleges, diversity means race quotas, sex quotas and programs to insure that representative forms of sexual deviancy become an accepted norm. To insure this politically correct vision of campus life, there's one form of diversity that can't be tolerated. That's ideological and political diversity; there must be uniformity and identity.

According to Karl Zinsmeister's article "The Shame of America's One-Party Campuses" in The American Enterprise (September 2002), campus political, and hence ideological, diversity is all but absent. Mr. Zinsmeister sampled faculty political affiliation obtained from local voter registration records at several universities. He classified faculty who registered as Democratic, Green or Working Families Party as members of the party of the Left and those registered as Republicans or Libertarians as members of the party of the Right.

The results were: Brown University, 5 percent of faculty were members of the party of the Right; at Cornell it was 3 percent; Harvard, 4 percent; Penn State, 17 percent; Stanford University, 11 percent; UCLA, 6 percent; and at UC Santa Barbara, 1 percent. There are other universities in the survey; however, the pattern is the same -- a faculty dominated by leftist ideology. In some departments, such as Women's Studies, African-American Studies, Political Science, Sociology, History and English, the entire faculty is leftist. When it came to the 2000 election, 84 percent of Ivy League faculty voted for Al Gore, 6 percent for Ralph Nader and 9 percent for George Bush. In the general electorate, the vote was split at 48 percent for Gore and Bush, and 3 percent for Nader. Zinsmeister concludes that one would find much greater political diversity at a grocery store or on a city bus.

So what does all this mean? It means your son or daughter will be taught that the Founders of United States were racists and sexists; capitalism is a tool used to oppress women and minorities; literature and philosophy written by "dead white men" is a tool of exploitation, one person's vision of reality is just as valid as another's, one set of cultural values (maybe the Taliban's) is just as good as another, poverty is caused by rich people, and America is destroying the planet.

Johonebesus · Post by **Johonebesus** » 2003-09-17 12:36am

College and university campuses can be pretty bad, or at least they were a few years back when I was in college. Some college students could be almost violent in their repression of anything that even seems like it could be politically incorrect. Make the wrong joke at the wrong time, and you were doomed. Disagree with the "correct" viewpoint, and instead of a rational debate, you would be shouted at and drowned out. Of course, the fact that conservative arguments usually came down to emotional and religious appeals didn't help, but the liberals could at least have tried to rationally debate.

This has suddenly reminded me of a book I read in college called Culture Wars. Among other things, the author pointed out that liberals were no more tolerant than conservatives, they just found fewer things to be intolerant about.

Kynes · Post by **Kynes** » 2003-09-17 12:52am

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:I thought I could throw in a column by Walter Williams somewhat related to the subject: Link

The opposite of diversity is uniformity or identity. For the bulk of universities and colleges, diversity means race quotas, sex quotas and programs to insure that representative forms of sexual deviancy become an accepted norm.

Stick that heterosexist propaganda up your ass. I cannot believe there are actually semi-literate people out there who believe this garbage. It's like when they teach monkeys to do sign language.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-09-17 02:23am

Do I even need to mention MEChA?

Get this: inside one of the buildings at CSUN, where the MEChA office is located, there are a number of full-wall murals. Harmless enough, right? Yeah. Sure. These are murals depicting Latinos rising up against the "opressing" whites; part of it includes the campus's most recognizable building flying the Atzlan flag.

What's so tolerant about that? I thought tolerance was about equality, not riots and secession?

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2003-09-17 07:56am

"Why the Left Hates America: The Irrationality of Anti-Americanism."

What I want to know is how people could tolerate this kind of subject? in the article someone obviously disliked it enough to disrupt it, I dont blame them.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-09-17 08:40am

"Why the Left hates America" is a bullshit title in itself- I'd bet that 'america' is more accurately described as 'tried and true conservative ideology'.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-09-17 03:15pm

You'd be surprised at what I've seen here at UCDavis, or 'little Berkley'. When the CRs have a pro-war or pro-Bush rally, they get surrounded by counter-protestors screaming at them and calling them racists. I was called a bigot for submitting the viewpoint that suicide bombings were not likely to lead to a Palestinian state and that if Arafat conceeded the Right of Return they would have a nation by now.

At an anti-war/bush/whatever ralley, the CRs showed up in their T-shirts. They walked around and asked protestors questions. They didn't scream or shout or throw things, and generally behaved well. In return the 'tolerant' and 'nonviolent' protestors beat two of them to unconsciousness with protest signs. I know because I helped carry one of them out of the crowd while people were throwing Aquafina bottles at me.

So in my experience, the nonviolent, tolerant, green protestors are the ones more likely to turn to violent protest and to be unaccepting of other viewpoints.

Also, they make those giant puppets which I just don't get.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-09-17 05:20pm

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:I thought I could throw in a column by Walter Williams somewhat related to the subject: Link

Please tell me that this loony is not famous Cyberpunk novelist Walter Jon Williams...

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-09-17 05:20pm

Nope, it's not. Whew.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-17 05:48pm

Well, of course the antiwar people are more aggressive! They're not getting their way!

It's much easier to be calm and dignified in your protest when you don't really need to protest at all, and you're getting your way, isn't it? I can't believe I actually need to point this kind of thing out, for all of the fucking conservatives out there who would try to pretend that this somehow means the left is insane.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2003-09-17 07:14pm

I'm sure conservatives do the same sort of stuff at conservative-dominated universities; that doesn't mean conservative viewpoints are wrong, it's just that there are asshole extremists everywhere, on the edges of all spectrums.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-09-17 09:39pm

Darth Wong wrote:Well, of course the antiwar people are more aggressive! They're not getting their way!

It's much easier to be calm and dignified in your protest when you don't really need to protest at all, and you're getting your way, isn't it? I can't believe I actually need to point this kind of thing out, for all of the fucking conservatives out there who would try to pretend that this somehow means the left is insane.

That still doesn't justify attacking and beating people. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with civilized behaviour. Criminal assualt isn't justified no matter what the situation. Easy or not, that's behaviour clearly beyond the bounds of civil conduct. Simple as that.

If they get so bent out of shape that they feel the need to assualt the other side then that group sure as fucking hell is out of control.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-09-17 10:27pm

Stormbringer wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:Well, of course the antiwar people are more aggressive! They're not getting their way!

It's much easier to be calm and dignified in your protest when you don't really need to protest at all, and you're getting your way, isn't it? I can't believe I actually need to point this kind of thing out, for all of the fucking conservatives out there who would try to pretend that this somehow means the left is insane.
That still doesn't justify attacking and beating people.

Did I say that it justifies it? I'm just trying to explain why protesters act that way, but it's ridiculous to cast broad generalizations about "the left" on that basis.

It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with civilized behaviour. Criminal assualt isn't justified no matter what the situation. Easy or not, that's behaviour clearly beyond the bounds of civil conduct. Simple as that.

Yes indeed. However, for people to try and paint left-wingers as intrinsically more volatile because of situations like this is totally fallacious.

If they get so bent out of shape that they feel the need to assualt the other side then that group sure as fucking hell is out of control.

What if they had enough power to arrest people for getting in their way or cutting into their profits, as certain business groups now do? Left-wing protests sometimes erupt into uncontrolled violence; this is part of the unfortunate nature of protests. Right-wing violence is more controlled, and more methodical; that does not actually make it any more ethical.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2003-09-17 10:35pm

The worst part of these accusations: they spin and exaggerate to give you the impression that these events happen all across America's colleges and universities. They KNOW that isn't the case.