Liberals on the List: Conservative Students Are Tracking Professors Who Arouse Ire

ABCNEWS.com ^ | Dec. 13 | Mike von Fremd

[nickcarraway]

D A L L A S, Dec. 13— University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen is an unapologetic liberal who openly expresses his strong views, both in and out of the classroom.

"My political views are left," Jensen said. "Some people would call me a radical." In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, student Austin Kinghorn felt Jensen crossed the line.

"We walked in, and he had the overhead projector turned on, and on there was a sentence, 'What is terrorism?' " Kinghorn said. "And Jensen took the next hour and 15 minutes of class to basically make his point, two days after 9/11, that the American government is a far worse perpetrator of terrorism than the 9/11 hijackers."

Kinghorn, chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas, was deeply offended.

"I felt like Professor Jensen was manipulating a national tragedy," Kinghorn said, "to make a point that he wants to make about his far-leftist agenda that seems to blame every problem in the world on American policy."

The Young Conservatives decided to make Jensen No. 1 on a newly created "watch list," which was posted on their Web site and also published in a local newspaper. It includes 10 professors at the University of Texas, the nation's largest public college, whom the conservatives accuse of trying to indoctrinate students and using the classrooms to promote their personal agendas.

"It's a list of professors that need to be scrutinized, watched," said Brendan Steinhauser, a member of the Young Conservatives of Texas. "They need to be held accountable for their actions in the classroom. And they haven't been yet."

Conservative Trend

The number of conservative and Republican groups organizing on college campuses has nearly tripled in the last four years. And some officials in Washington also have acted.

"I think you're going to have more and more conservative students standing up and creating a new counterculture that doesn't believe that all morals are relative, that believes in absolute values, that believes in conservative government," Kinghorn said. "And they're going to get louder and louder as they feel more and more oppressed."

Though colleges have a reputation as bastions of liberalism, college students are more likely to call themselves political independents than any other affiliation, according to the ABCNEWS polling unit. For those in college, ages 18 to 22, 27 percent call themselves Democrats, 34 percent Republicans and 35 percent independents. College students are more likely to say they are liberal than other Americans, but the biggest percentage, 41 percent, call themselves moderate.

The general public is roughly evenly divided among Democrats, Republicans and independents.

In Washington, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., recently introduced an academic "bill of rights" to protect students from "one-sided liberal propaganda." The House of Representatives passed a bill to monitor whether federally funded centers for international research reflect and respond to the needs of national security.

And a group founded by Lynne Cheney, the wife of the vice president, that blasted academics right after 9/11 for being "the weak link in America's response to the attack" urged a Senate committee to raise public awareness of what it called the problem of liberal bias on campus and to encourage universities to conduct "intellectual diversity reviews."

"It's a trend which, if it got completely out of hand, could lead us to another McCarthy kind of situation," said Edmund Gordon, a UT associate professor who is on the Young Conservatives of Texas list. "I certainly hope it doesn't go that far."

‘Labeled a Radical’

Gordon is accused of overemphasizing white oppression of African-Americans.

"I was actually not labeled a liberal," Gordon said. "I was labeled a radical."

He said his classroom has undergone a dramatic change.

"I never had people who were avowedly Young Conservatives in my class, as students, who announced that they were that from the very beginning," Gordon said. "I feel like they were put there to watch me. And this watch list or my position on this watch list is a result of that. So, do I feel like I'm under surveillance? I am under surveillance."

Jensen gives the conservative students plenty to watch, hanging posters of Cuban revolutionary leaders in his office and writing controversial editorials in the Texas papers. One such editorial, published in the Houston Chronicle just after Sept. 11, 2001, was headlined, "U.S. Just as Guilty of Committing Own Violent Acts."

"It led the president of the university to issue a public statement denouncing me, in which he called me foolish," Jensen said.

The reprimand did not bother Jensen or affect his behavior. He's a tenured professor and his job at the public university is protected.

He loves to stir things up in the classroom, and some students are complimentary.

"I think what Jensen really wants us to do is to learn to think critically about our role in society and society as a whole," one student said.

"I think that if a teacher is completely neutral, which I personally don't think is possible, it would make a class boring," said another.

Censorship?

Jensen fears he could be pressured into toning down his message.

"Nobody with power is telling me I can't say something," Jensen said. "It's only going to become censorship if university administrators, who have the power to hire and fire and the power to punish faculty, start requiring a kind of ideological conformity for advancement in the profession. If that happens, then higher education is dead."

The very idea of making lists of members of opposing groups has a long and checkered history in America. Hollywood once had its black list, an unwritten understanding of those who would be denied work because of their suspected affiliation or sympathy with communism. President Nixon had an infamous enemies list, and his political opponents had their own scoreboard of so-called war criminals in his Cabinet. The National Rifle Association recently put out its own listing of adversaries. Some of them said they were proud to be on it.

So, perhaps there's no wonder the latest incarnation of political watch lists has caused such a stir on college campuses. Whether these lists are promoting tactics of intimidation or simply exercising free speech is a matter of debate.

The Young Conservatives say their watch list is about promoting intellectual diversity. But others say it feels more like censorship and the start of a campus culture war.

The Young Conservatives bristle at any suggestion their watch list is a form of censorship. But they intend to put a select group of professors on notice that the classroom is not the place for a one-sided bully pulpit.

"I've had liberal professors who are great professors," Kinghorn said. "I'm not afraid of opinions. None of us are. What we're afraid of is students who don't get both sides of the stories and don't have enough information to make informed decisions, which is supposedly what a college degree is all about."

[Vigilanteman]

"It's only going to become censorship if university administrators, who have the power to hire and fire and the power to punish faculty, start requiring a kind of ideological conformity for advancement in the profession. If that happens, then higher education is dead."

By Jensen's definiyion, higher education is already dead because conservatives cannot get hired at publically funded universities in other than token numbers. The tokens do not advance, get published or get advanced in any degree comparable to their Liberal counterparts. Noam Chomsky, for instance, is a brilliant linguist but a political moron. His views are widely known and published. Walter Williams, on the other hand, is absolutety brilliant on the topics where he does the most publishing-- and largely unknown outside the conservative press.

[thoughtomator]

"Nobody with power is telling me I can't say something," Jensen said. "It's only going to become censorship if university administrators, who have the power to hire and fire and the power to punish faculty, start requiring a kind of ideological conformity for advancement in the profession. If that happens, then higher education is dead."

Briefly... memo to Prof.: higher education is dead and you have nobody but yourself to blame

[ExSoldier]

"That is not education. That is indoctrination."

Well, you're correct. BUT it's not so much outright indoctrination...although there is an English teacher at my school, (I teach social studies) who is telling the kids that the American Revolution was won by Haitians (based on Haitian volunteer participation in the Battle for Savannah, Georgia--and they lost 500 men in an hour and lost the battle)....and the Principal is encouraging this...I was shouted down and reprimanded....

It's the way in which information is presented.

All that is required is that the facts be presented with a liberal slant. That is what the district AGENDA is in Miami-Dade County....the liberal side, and not the conservative side. They will tell you there isn't a "side" to anything, but that's not true. I prove it everyday. See my about page.

BTW, on the Haitian issue in the American Revolution, I just changed my tactics from declaring both the Principal and the English teacher to be communist LIARS, to the following statement: "ABSOLUTELY CORRECT! Those brave HAITIAN soldiers provided the British with so many PRISONERS that they didn't have the troops to pursue the colonials back up to the northern states where the Founding Fathers and their army subsequently won the war....."

See? It's all in the presentation! My remarks infuriate the Principal and that teacher, but they can't "get" me although they'd really like to do that. I may be out numbered and out gunned, but no conservative in a sea of liberals is out smarted.

[randita]

I would have no problem with radical leftists professors spouting their garbage IF some radical rightists were permitted to do the same. When David Horowitz and Ann Coulter (hardly radicals), e.g., show up at a college forum, they are threatened and shouted down. Would either of them ever be hired as professors at Texas or any other university? How about David Duke?

Is there close to an equal percentage of professors who are politically to the right of center to those who are politically to the left? It's not even close.

Just like the affirmative action bake sale concept, this "Watch List" turns the tables of political correctness back on those who created it.

[Theodore R.]

An effective tactic might be to organize against such professor by urging students NOT to take their courses. There is nothing that administrators reject more than professors who do not "draw" the students in. Why? It's all about the money: more students mean more money to the institution, if not to the professor.

[an amused spectator]

"It's a trend which, if it got completely out of hand, could lead us to another McCarthy kind of situation," said Edmund Gordon, a UT associate professor who is on the Young Conservatives of Texas list. "I certainly hope it doesn't go that far."

"Left-wing professors like Edmund Gordon who hate America and indoctrinate their students in the same treasonous ideas is a trend which, if it got completely out of hand, could lead us to another Stalinist gulag kind of situation," said an amused spectator of the Free Republic. "I certainly hope it doesn't go that far."

[Redbob]

"'I never had people who were avowedly Young Conservatives in my class, as students, who announced that they were that from the very beginning,' Gordon said."

How can you be a college professor and be this stupid?
Does Gordon actually think that somebody who wants a good grade in his class is going to make himself a target by saying he's a conservative?

Does this idiot really think he's never had a conservative in his class?

[kanawa]

Someone should check out this fellow

Richard Hayes Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes

"so we should rejoice that Texas is not as bad as Iraq? I mourn because Texas is not as good as New Mexico and that New Mexico is not as good as Canada, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France or any number of other nations that have found alternatives to capital punishment and large-scale incarceration."

"...it's time for a change of regime in the USA."

"George W. Bush could also end this situation now by resigning from the presidency and going into exile, along with all his advisors, into western Texas. But it is likely he won't, and like Hitler, will make his people suffer. The thing is that Saddam and George W. have dreams about each other. Each is the projection of the other's unresolved emotional complexes."

"I do no side with Bush against Saddam or with Saddam against Bush. I wish them both the very best in health and happiness. I believe that if they were happy they would not be so filled with hatred and contempt for one another and would easily be able to sit down and negotiate a peaceful means whereby the United States would purchase from Iraq all its weapons and would then destroy not only all of Iraq's weapons but also all the weapons stockpiled by the United States. Until the United States completely disarms, it is the height of hypocrisy to ask anyone else to do so. If the United States government does not agree to disarm, then there is no rational alternative to a regime change."

[stevio]

They are paid to teach, not to indoctrinate.They are OVERpaid to teach. The cost of tuition keeps skyrocketing. Why? The biggest expense are these hypocrite teachers who think they deserve all this money for what they do. With three children under 5 I'm hoping something turns around before they are college age. But just like homeschooling is now legitimate choice, the internet will probably expand to cover college courses.

[The Right Stuff]

Isn't Jensen the same guy who dressed down an ROTC candidate in class?

[EdReform]

Bump & Ping

[whereasandsoforth]

I have been reading about this problem with US colleges and universities for some time now. I have the opinion that education is non-existent inside these hallowed halls. If that is correct, why bother? What is the point in going there? It cost a royal fortune - a fortune spent to have the students' minds turned to mush. What's the point in attending a class that one cannot pass unless one assumes the postion and espouses lockstep ideas of the anti-American endoctrinators?

It also causes me to wonder why the EVIL corporations of this "imperialistic capitalism" swine-of-a-nation would put so much emphasis on higher education in their choices for hiring and promoting the graduates of such a vile system of re-education. I wouldn't want some socialist-newby starting his or her career in my company. I damn sure wouldn't want them in my boardroom. It is something to think about.

[MeekOneGOP]

Liberals on the List: Conservative Students
Are Tracking Professors Who Arouse Ire

Excerpt:

D A L L A S, Dec. 13— University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen is an unapologetic liberal who openly expresses his strong views, both in and out of the classroom.

"My political views are left," Jensen said. "Some people would call me a radical." In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, student Austin Kinghorn felt Jensen crossed the line.

"We walked in, and he had the overhead projector turned on, and on there was a sentence, 'What is terrorism?' " Kinghorn said. "And Jensen took the next hour and 15 minutes of class to basically make his point, two days after 9/11, that the American government is a far worse perpetrator of terrorism than the 9/11 hijackers."

Kinghorn, chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas, was deeply offended.

"I felt like Professor Jensen was manipulating a national tragedy," Kinghorn said, "to make a point that he wants to make about his far-leftist agenda that seems to blame every problem in the world on American policy."

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas ping list!. . .don't be shy.
No, you don't HAVE to be a Texan to get on this list!

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

I skimmed through the story and was unable to locate any mention of the television coverage of this story. The personal interviews with the leftifts were great.

[Texagirl4W]

I guess you were right about the University Of Texas.

By the way, how is the little Texas Termite doing?

[kegler4]

The real problem here is this idiot professor taking class time to push his poinht of view instead of teaching. As a parent who is about to spend lots of bucks to send a child to college, I'd be equally outraged to hear that a conservative or moderate professor did the same.

As for the fellow who wants a bill to protect college students from left-wing bias -- give me a break. You think you can leglislate this kind of thing?

[TexasCowboy]

I went there, but it's a lot more radically liberal than in my day.
I'm very happy to see that there are some students standing up to this push to the left.

The Texas Termite is doing good!
He was scheduled to have his pulmonary exam today, but it's been put off until Friday.
This is to determine if he can get that canula out of his nose and breathe on his own.

I've had so much trouble with my ping list that I may not have you on it, but I'll correct that problem right now.
Thank you for your prayers.

[MissAmericanPie]

I wish they had a list like this when I was in college.

[MegaSilver]

The real problem here is this idiot professor taking class time to push his poinht of view instead of teaching. As a parent who is about to spend lots of bucks to send a child to college, I'd be equally outraged to hear that a conservative or moderate professor did the same.

Yes, that's true. But the real problem goes a bit deeper than that. The real problem is that these leftists' so-called "academic freedom" has become a new anti-intellectualism. The great scholars of the past would be appalled to see what's been going on at Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Princeton, etc. for the last 35 years.

Law schools are especially bad. Since the liberals took over, no longer are students taught to uphold the law and constitution, but rather, that law is a means with which to further one's own sociopolitical agenda. This explains why liberal justices in the Supreme Court are always ruling in favor of liberal causes according to their own convictions, while conservative judges usually don't rule in favor of conservative causes unless it is constitutionally warranted. I suspect it also explains why we have so many frivolous, ridiculous lawsuits today. Lawyers give people the impression that the practice of law is a tool with which one can better him/herself or his/her causes.

In my opinion, McCarthyism, for all its freakishness, was not anti-intellectualism. On the contrary, it was protecting tried and true methods of education from the radical fringes of Marxist modernist/postmodernist types who wished to replace them with meaningless psychobabble to further their ridiculous ambitions. Their philosophies were not derivatives of logic and scholarship; they were pure drivel based on what "sounded nice."

Given the state of the higher education today, I'd say McCarthyism failed rather miserably. Perhaps that was not the best method of counter-leftism. Hopefully, my generation will begin a new, more effective movement.

[MegaSilver]

Isn't Jensen the same guy who dressed down an ROTC candidate in class?

If he is, he deserves a lot more than a blacklisting.