UNLV Professor: Republican Too Stupid To Teach

Las Vegas Review-Journal ^ | 3-23-04 | editorial

[Nevadan]

EDITORIAL: Too stupid to teach?

UNLV professor says Republican Party now a haven of slope-browed troglodytes

Back in 2002, a survey by the American Enterprise Institute found America's colleges and universities to be a virtually monochrome refuge of the political left. More than 80 percent of most schools' employees were found to be registered Democrats, despite the almost even split between registered Republicans and Democrats among the public at large.

The AEI report found one consequence of this lack of diversity was that conservative thinkers tend to be isolated and intimidated on American campuses, with the predictable result that they do not fare as well when it comes time to seek tenure.

Thus it was hardly a surprise when two UNLV student groups -- Students for Academic Freedom and the UNLV College Libertarians -- released a report March 12 revealing that the faculty in a number of UNLV departments are more liberal than those at Berkeley.

Authors of the study selected professors from seven UNLV departments: civil engineering, economics, English, history, philosophy, political science and sociology. And the students found no registered Republicans at all in some departments, including history, economics and sociology.

When asked why so few Republicans seem to inhabit the academic environment, Ted Jelen, a UNLV professor of political science, told CityLife: "Liberals are smarter."

"I'm quite serious," Mr. Jelen said. "The Republican Party has taken some outrageous positions on issues like abortion and free speech, and has in effect priced itself out of the intellectual market."

Yes, it's a natural part of human nature to suspect those who haven't adopted our own political philosophy are simply too slow-witted to grasp our arguments.

But consider for a moment how successful the free market has proven in generating wealth, technological progress and high standards of living in the Western world over the past 500 years, and how miserably the competing doctrine of socialism worked out in Eastern Europe in the 20th century. Given that reality, the burden is surely on those who still cling to the failed doctrine of mandatory redistribution to prove they're not either intellectually impaired or excessively buffered from the realities of a world where the "needs" of the mendicant class can never be met, no matter how much income of the productive class is seized and thrown into the statist wood-chipper.

And when it comes to "free speech," Mr. Jelen surely knows most of the cases investigated and litigated these days by the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) involve conservative professors or students running afoul of the new "speech codes" erected by the forces of "political correctness" on the left.

No one is yet proposing the "affirmative action" hiring of conservatives, constitutionalists, free marketers and libertarians at UNLV, in search of some arbitrary target of "equity" ... though the prospect would be delicious, in its way.

For if the imbalance stood the other way, does anyone doubt that's precisely the kind of remedy good liberals such as professor Jelen would be demanding?

[hattend]

If Barney Gumble wasn't a cartoon

[weegee]

"Liberals are smarter."

The Houston Comical, the only daily paper in one of the nation's 5 largest cities, routinely runs letters and idiotorials that make exactly this claim.

If liberals are so smart why did they ignore all of the signs that "Uncle Joe" Stalin was an evil tyrant who killed more people than Adolph Hitler?

[Euro-American Scum]

And of course everyone knows UNLV is a bastion of cutting edge intellectual activity (sarcasm "off"!)

It doesn't matter if they are or not. This professor is a good example of how the corruption of liberalism infects the entire academic community, from the halls of Harvard, to the pits of. . . UNLV.

It's everywhere.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - EDUCATION - UNIVERSITY - POLITICS

[weegee]

The liberal ideology that is Political Correctness needs no justification. If you oppose the left's way of thinking you are an idiot. You are a racist. You are a homophobe. You hate the environment (at your own peril). You are a sexist. You are greedy. You are selfish...

Marx: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

How can you eat meat when that requires killing an animal that must be raised on land and feed crops that are only grown to feed doomed animals. Besides it's a "proven" fact that eating meat is tied to the oppression of women.

Why is it okay to kill an infant in the womb but not alright to eat a chicken egg?

Why is it alright to kill an infant out of "efficiency" but not alright to execute a guilty man for the horrendous crimes he has committed?

Why is it that the "diversity" crowd embraces homosexuals when they cannot even tolerate being intimate with a member of the opposite sex?

[subterfuge]

Here is the e-mail I just sent him and his reply that came back just a few minutes later:

Where is the documentation to back-up your assertion? If you don't have any you are a fraud and now everyone knows it.
Except for liberals who will continue to delude themselves.

Oh well, continue living in your isolated little academic world where everyone agrees with you.

Hey, at least us conservatives can get a date to the prom.

His reply:

Thank you for your interest, and for sharing your viewpoints.

Sincerely,
Ted G. Jelen


Yep, he's a genius alright.

[Montfort]

It is more complicated than that. Liberalism recruits many of the brightest students because it plays to their egos and their sense that smart people like them should run the world.

Liberalism's elitism is very intoxicating and appealing stuff for many bright students, very much like the Dark Side is for would-be Jedi in Star Wars.

Of course, the reality is that many of the brightest minds in politics and law today are conservatives like Laura Ingraham, Antonin Scalia, Thomas Sowell, and Walter Williams. Of course, Thomas Sowell was an angry Marxist when he was young, so perhaps that partly explains the problem.

[Benrand]

Too dumb? I'm sure my friend who did his post-doc (UConn)work under one of the leaders in cancer research at Sloane-Kettering and is now employed as a research chemist at Eli Lilly and is very conservative would agree...yep...

[BlessedBeGod]

"The Republican Party has taken some outrageous positions on issues like abortion..."

Okay, so killing helpless, innocent little babies in their mothers' wombs is not outrageous -- not killing them is?

[AmishDude]

Political science professors should not be calling anyone stupid.

There's a reason you ain't a theoretical physicist, bub.

[Fedora]

Is that him?!!! Dear Lord - he looks like one of the pig-people in that Twilight Zone episode about beauty in the eye of the beholder.

Hey--you're right! I knew something about his nose looked familiar and I couldn't place it until you said that--ROLFBO! :)

[ErnBatavia]

Ted Jelen, too stupid to be able to make it in the real world.

[vetvetdoug]

..why so few Republicans seem to inhabit academic environment...
Its because Republicans can make more money working for themselves and off the public teat. Without government subsidy and welfare, Democrats would starve and that includes a good many college Professors.

If Republicans are slope-browed troglodytes then Democrats are Round mouthed flat nosed penis suckers. The flat nose is evolutionary response to his actions as evidenced by this UNLV Professor's physical profile.

[MEGoody]

The leftists say the Republican party is the party of the rich.

Then the leftists say the Republican party is the party of the stupid.

So can someone explain to me, how does a stupid person become rich?

[pax_et_bonum]

LOL! post #37!

[HungarianGypsy]

The other day my husband was flipping through channels and MTV (yes, you read right. I know it's odd)... MTV was doing a report about how there are more and more of a conservative movement on campuses. They talked about those who crashed the anti-war demonstrations. They never mentioned Freerepublic by name, though.

[pointsal]

Dear professor....I now have another reason to support cutting the academic budget....

[flying Elvis]

He did his MA and PHd at the same school which is a big red flag. It means he probably didn't get accepted at another school for his PHd and decided to stick it out at OSU.

[ought-six]

The reason so many liberals dominate academe is because they are not capable of making a living in the real world. Academe was once the home of some intellectual giants (Einstein, Fermi, etc.), but the Left took over and created a haven for incompetent and intellectually challenged fellow-travelers, who, once attaining tenure, need not even show up for work, but are still guaranteed a hefty salary and an attractive retiremnent. It is socialism writ large.

[familyop]

Jelen projected his complaint about conservative "positions on issues like abortion and free speech," while many left/liberal teachers and administrators use illegal methods to attack their conservative acquaintances' speech.

Have a look at one book being read/distributed to students by Pub. Ed. now (fifth grade in one instance known to me), and see what kind of behavior is being taught to children. A glimpse of what it's really about starts with the Publishers Weekly review.

http://www.bookfinder.us/review7/0375821813.html