Posted on 05/19/2008 10:15:36 AM PDT by bs9021
Affirmative Action for Conservatives
by: Deborah Lambert, May 19, 2008
Does it bother most students at the University of Colorado-Boulder, that their school is known as a den of left-wing lunacy?
Probably not.
In fact, “sophomore Marissa Malouff” views her campus as a sort of re-education camp,” said the Wall Street Journal. Although “sheltered rich kids from out-of-state might come for the snow-boarding, . . .while they’re here they get dunked in a simmering pot of left-wing idealism. And that, in her view, is how it should be.”
But “Bud Peterson,” the school’s Republican Chancellor, thinks that campus diversity should mean more than just loading up the curriculum with courses like Chicano studies and transgender literature.
He plans to spice up the school’s liberal menu by raising $9 million for an endowed chair in Conservative Political Thought –the first of its kind in the country.
The announcement has already raised eyebrows on this campus—the former home of ethnic studies prof Ward Churchill—where tofu hot dogs are all the rage, where a recent pro-marijuana rally attracted 10,000 people—and where “the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Peterson’s plan to set up a rotating roster of conservative scholars, and others like Condoleezza Rice and George Will could definitely shake up U.C. Boulder's ideological landscape.
As John Leo reported in a recent column:
(1.) “Conservatives are prone to mysterious outbursts of unaccountable mirth. This can occur at any time, for instance immediately after someone suggests attending a convention of the Modern Language Association, or when a professor points out that studying Madonna is just as good as studying Shakespeare.
(2.) “Conservatives often go months without using the word ‘marginalized,’ which clearly puts a damper on faculty conversation...
(Excerpt) Read more at campusreportonline.net ...
I am definitely skeptical of this initiative. It may be an effort to define “conservatism” by using this position as a scapegoat or straw man to attack TRUE conservatives.
My diploma = fancy toilet paper.
CU-Boulder has no need of conservatives — what they really ought to do is lure the brilliant Judith Butler (referenced in article at link) with a pot of money and complete freedom to produce more of the great works for which she is already so renowned: /s
http://www.campusreportonline.net/main/articles.php?id=2142
“On the subject of lesbianism, Butler later writes that “Insofar as the phallus is an idealization of morphology, it produces a necessary effect of inadequation, one which, in the cultural context of lesbian relations, can be quickly assimilated to the sense of an inadequate derivation from the supposedly real thing, and, hence, a source of shame.” Professor Butler currently teaches in the Rhetoric Department at the University of California at Berkeley.”
“Professor Birkenstein-Graff openly admitted that Butler’s writings have been repeatedly criticized by public figures as obtuse, if not “bad writing.” In 1999, Butler received the “Bad Writing Award” from Philosophy and Literature. The journal’s editor, Denis Dutton, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “the desperate incantations” of the journals’ contest winners “hope to persuade their readers not by argument but by obscurity that they too are the great minds of the age.” “[Butler’s winning] sentence beats readers into submission and instructs them that they are in the presence of a great and deep mind. Actual communication has nothing to do with it,” wrote Dutton.”
As “conservative” as the backpage of Newsweek. George Will and Condi Rice are NOT conservatives. But George and Condi do like to be held aloft by the academic and media establishment and both have no qualms playing the niche bit part the establishment has carved for them.
I'm not surprised though I would have been in years past. I had a previous misconception that Boulder was very liberal because of the "hippy" culture and "granola" attire, the Mork and Mindy home, and the Mosaic Tea House. Especially compared to neighboring Colorado Springs ... home of the Navigators, Focus on the Family, etc. But in recent years while vacationing in Colorado I attended a local Bible church in Boulder and met some of the college profs who told me that they actually had a very large conservative group and that the percentage of conservatives/Christians actually competed with Col Springs. Surprising to say the least ...
I am definitely skeptical of this initiative. It may be an effort to define “conservatism” by using this position as a scapegoat or straw man to attack TRUE conservatives
That depends on who they hire and the scope of the group they create. Planted in any university, any avowedly conservative scholar will need to come complete with a well oiled logistical supply system so he can keep firing back. Any conservative group will be outnumbered and they will have to be prepared to deal with that. Personally, I’d make sure they have a brain trust of 2-3 conservative philosophers who can keep the attackers off balance. They’d be well-educated generalists skilled in handling big ideas and big picture issues. They’d be perfect.
They would also be good at deciphering the tortured language of liberal icons like Rawls and Sarte, getting at the core ideas hidden in all the garbage.
The affirmative action activists won't put a social conservative in this kind of seat. They're pushing for a libertarian, an economy-centered Republican, or foreign policy hawk.
This is also an attempt to shortcut the necessary steps to reforming the university. What really needs to happen is to have conservatives encourage quality students to enter academia. Too often, conservatives deprecate the liberal arts in favor of the hard sciences.
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