Academic lefties, pinkos and liberal do-gooders
Are universities and colleges full of left wing radicals, ready to undermine the establishment at every turn? Well, that’s pretty much the view of a US organisation called campusreform.org., which says that it is ‘designed to provide conservative activists with the resources, networking capabilities, and skills they need to revolutionize the struggle against leftist bias and abuse on college campuses.’
Campusreform has taken a look at the 100 top rated US universities and has ‘unmasked’ the great liberal/left conspiracies in each of them. None of them escape, though you’d wonder at some of the ‘revelations’. Harvard for example offers courses and research in climate change, apparently evidence of unacceptable liberalism.
My own experience suggests that things are far more balanced than that. In Ireland certainly, the best known academic commentators come from the right or centre right. That didn’t however stop one of these complaining to me recently that all the universities had been overrun by the left.
Does it matter which political views gather a majority of supporters from the academic community? It is of course important (as I have said here before) to guard against indoctrination, but in my experience students are well able to detect political prejudices and to make discounts for them. Everyone else should take a deep breath and let this topic go.
Explore posts in the same categories: politics, universityTags: freedom of speech, left wing bias
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December 29, 2010 at 8:48 am
Interesting article. What I find laughable about the campusreform website is the shock/anger they express that US academics contribute more to Democrats than Republicans. Oh the injustice of it all! Nowhere do they say ‘actually, well-educated academics don’t like our policies so maybe if we changed them we’d get more support’.
December 29, 2010 at 10:29 am
A book by the conseervative author Horowitz ‘The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America’ (2006) even named the most radical lefties in American academia (with some caveats, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Professors:_The_101_Most_Dangerous_Academics_in_America
There are obvious cultural & historical reasons for such type of sectarian thinking in America which is not the case to dwell upon here, religion often plays a part in such discussion about education of course, still it is at times like this that I am glad we in Europe had Dante, who far from being ‘only’ a poet also theorised the separation of the two powers (secular and theological)!
December 29, 2010 at 10:47 am
Yeah, you’d think. But then exactly a hundred years ago the University class was as one across Europe in their protections of the status quo.
All that’s up with these scumbags is their feeling that someone of lesser cash/breeding/blood/address/school is taking positions ‘rightfully’ belonging by their notions to those they see as their brotherhood.
December 29, 2010 at 7:44 pm
I think that’s correct, and mirrors the anger conservatives sometimes express about clergy expressing liberal/leftwing views.
December 29, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Tis an example of the dis union and factionalism that inattentive minds allow to fester to the ruin of good countries.
It is arguable whether someone who would pay attention to such self indulgent ideology is capable of being educated, no matter what side of the fence they hang their coat.
December 29, 2010 at 6:08 pm
I don’t know about other colleges, but DCU has little or no political activity within the student body, outside the token actions of the student union.
This may have to do with the fact that DCU is largely a science and technology based university, a demography within which politics has never become very popular.
December 29, 2010 at 6:29 pm
I’m not sure that’s the reason – I suspect these are nation-wide trends. When I became DCU President the students were very active politically, and Sinn Fein in particular was resurgent. Later that changed.
December 29, 2010 at 6:42 pm
when and for what reasons?