File this one under "We already knew that". Daily Caller reports that a new study has found that there really is liberal bias in academia.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/20/study-academia-really-does-discriminate-against-conservatives/
Speaking from the perspective of a conservative who has been teaching in colleges since 1995, the real losers here are not the conservatives who might want to pursue a career in academia (what few there are), but the students. It is not that they are not being trained to be good little conservatives; rather it is that they are not being exposed to both sides-or all sides, if you will- to various issues. Most universities, especially public universities, are overloaded by left-wing types in the Humanities. Not only are they activists in the field of writing, speaking and being involved in seminars, most even take their views into the classroom, which is unprofessional, in my view.
I suppose I could try and counterbalance that by taking my conservative views into the classroom, but, as stated, I consider it unprofessional even though many teachers view their title as "professors" as a license to "profess" their personal beliefs.
Like most conservatives, the idea of going into academia never occurred to me until I was nearing retirement in the real world and decided I wanted to teach English to foreign students. Most of the people I work with are like me (though not necessity conservative) with life experiences living overseas, learning other languages, and even being married to spouses from other nationalities and ethnic groups.
At any rate, universities today are in trouble even though they don't recognize it. They are turning out graduates who are unprepared for the real world, young men and women who have not been properly educated, rather indoctrinated. The universities have fooled themselves into thinking that they are giving students diverse points of view that they had not heard from the their high schools, families or churches/synagogues. The problem is there is nothing else to counterbalance that supposed diversity. There is very little diversity of opinion. What diversity is there when students can go to school and hear their own country trashed day in and day out, but never hear anything positive about America? That is hardly diversity. What do students learn about tolerance when a steady stream of left-wing agitators come to speak and are cheered, while the occasional conservative who comes to campus is loudly disrupted?
The truth is most conservatives gave up on academia as soon as they got their bachelor degrees. They have gone off into the real world and left the campus to the dolts whose degrees generally only qualify them to become the next generation of professors. They live in theoir own Fantasy Land, where Marxism is still lauded, capitalism is attacked, the Third World is celebrated while Western culture is disregarded as "oppressive", the Tea Party people are dangerous extremists, but the Occupy movement is "progressive", and red is grey and yellow white as the old song goes.
So to the learned professors who did this study, I say great, but you have only succeeded in taking coals to Newcastle.
Apparently conservatives lack the courage of their convictions. They used to DOMINATE academia. Now they sit on the fringes and wail that nobody listens to them.
ReplyDeleteThese professors were actually from a Dutch university (Tilburg).
ReplyDeleteFigures.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteYou might want to ask UC president Mark Yudof, or the UC Irvine administrators, or the Muslim Student Union at UCI if I lack the courage of my convictions.
I recently had a list of 10 objections to the Republican platform from a liberal publication sent to me by a liberal I know.
ReplyDeleteI had to point out to him that every single offer of evidence or proof was from an article from MoveOn.ORG.
So while conservatives routinely see liberal views on CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, the NY Times, the LA Times, the St.Louis Post Dispatch, Newsweek, Time Magazine, etc. etc.,etc, the liberals will never hear a conservative point unless he reads the Wall Street Journal or watches Fox News TV. Both are highly unlikely. So the liberals talk back and forth among them selves in academia and in the media and reinforce each other. If they think they have heard a conservative point it is only after it has been edited or twisted in someway to present it in the most unfavorable way.
That is not NEWs, it is propaganda! The fools who only read their own stuff reinforce their preconceived perceptions.
Ah, so your presence negates the liberal bias in academia?
ReplyDeleteOr, to put it another way, if conservatives generally are as courageous as you are, why aren't there more of them in academia?
Miggie: The problem with liberals is that they are so out of touch with the somewhat different reasons the rest of us object to the Republican platform. If they ever catch on, watch out for the landslide. But then, they wouldn't be liberals anymore.
NO Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteVery few conservatives are interested in being in academia.
So quitcherbellyachin'
ReplyDeleteIf most of your compatriots are unwilling to enter the arena, stop complaining that someone else is dominant.