Posted on 09/17/2003 1:31:33 PM PDT by Vindiciae Contra TyrannoSCOTUS
Going off to college is one of the most exciting times in the lives of both the new students and the proud parents.
As a parent, you have done your best to instill in your children the values and morals required to live a good and decent life. You have taught them to appreciate education, to treasure learning and to treat everyone equally.
As a new college student, you look forward to new experiences, the freedom to say and think whatever you want, be accepted as an equal by your peers, and be treated with respect and encouragement by your new school.
Fast-forward one year and recap that first year of college. If you are a liberal student, you are quite happy with the educational system.
You eagerly signed up for the classic liberal arts classes in literature, history and political science. Your professors proclaim that President George W. Bush is a moron, that America deserved what it got on Sept. 11 and that America is an imperialistic warmonger whose only interest in the world is getting oil so we can drive our SUVs and destroy the environment.
You are encouraged to do whatever makes you feel good because the good times of college "won't last forever." And nine times out of 10, you, the liberal student, agree with them and are free to voice that agreement without fear of academic reprisals. You are not worried about free speech because your thoughts and ideas are expressed by your professors and imposed upon all students by the university's administration.
You can join any group you want: the College Democrats, environmental groups like Earth First! and Greenpeace, or you can fight for human rights by joining Amnesty International. You attend protest marches and hear university-sponsored speakers like Cornel West, Jesse Jackson and Hillary Clinton. Life is good and you are truly having the "time of your life."
Now put yourself in the shoes of a conservative student. You arrive on campus excited to meet new people and make new friends, only to be segregated by race, as in Brown's minority orientation program. You are placed in classes like the University of Michigan's class on how to be a homosexual. You go to "history" classes that teach you that America isn't the freedom-loving country we were taught about in high school, but rather a police state where the FBI and the CIA are monitoring your every move and that freedom has a sign over it that reads "Whites Only."
You are also taught by Marxist and Communist professors tenured by your school that morality is relative and meaningless, and capitalism is the reason poor people are poor. You naively believe that freedom of speech and religion applies to you, but when you speak out in class the result is a grade markedly lower than the one you expected.
You try to join or create groups that reflect your values and beliefs, like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, but your school, like Rutgers University, tells you that because only people believing in God and Jesus "feel" welcome, the group is not allowed. You try to form a local chapter of the Advocates for Conservative Thought, but the University of Miami decides that the College Republicans are the only conservative group that the university "needs" and refuses to sanction the group.
Meanwhile, you watch in amazement as liberal groups like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance form out of nowhere and not only receive recognition from the schools but also get funding from them as well. When you try to protest this unfair treatment, you are restricted to a limited "free speech zone" like the one at Texas Tech University. These zones are extremely small and are located in places on campus where the protest won't "disrupt" normal operations. You have to get a permit a week in advance to protest in these zones and are shocked and amazed when the local chapter of the employees union has virtually closed down the campus with their chanting and intimidation, for example what's currently going on at Yale University.
Unfortunately, the picture painted above is a sad reality for conservative students across the country, but conservatives are finally fighting back. There are now over 100,000 College Republicans in schools across the country, compared to only approximately 43,000 Young Democrats (any Democrat under the age of 36). Compare that with the national average of 10 self-professed Democrat professors to every one Republican.
John Adams said, "Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom." Yet every day on college campuses across America, conservative students' rights are being trampled. Freedom of thought and expression is reserved for those who are willing to toe the line of the university's administration. Everyone else is forced to bury their heads and hide their values and principles in order to be "tolerant" of others' beliefs.
Colleges and universities in America are engaged in a practice that is systematically depriving students of their fundamental rights of freedom of thought and expression. Those freedoms are at the absolute center of a balanced education.
College administrators are continually mouthing support for diversity in our American educational system. What they really mean is that only those who believe as they do may apply.
* * * * * *
Gary Aldrich is the author of the recently released hard-hitting book, "Thunder on the Left: An Insider’s Report on the Hijacking of the Democratic Party," an exposé of the clear and present danger the Hard-Left’s agenda presents to our national security and our freedoms. Available now at Amazon.com!
Write Gary Aldrich at PatHenCntr@aol.com
Christi Daisey is Assistant Director of Development and Liaison at the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty. Write Christi at christiphc@aol.com.
Editor's note:
"Treason" - Ann Coulter exposes the anti-American left: Click here now for special offer
EVIDENCE OF AMERICAN AMNESIA": ADMINISTRATION CITES RECENT SURVEYS SHOWING LACK OF BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF U.S. HISTORY
nha-announce: White House Initiative on Teaching American History ...
On September 17, President Bush delivered a speech on Teaching American History and Civic Education in which he cited recent reports showing "large and disturbing gaps" in American students' knowledge of history. Links to these surveys are provided by NEH on a web page entitled "Evidence of American Amnesia" (http://www.wethepeople.gov/news/amnesia.html), part of the official web site for the White House's "We the People" initiative to be administered by NEH.
Following are some of the surveys cited on the NEH site:
o "Restoring America's Legacy" (September, 2002), a report released by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni which "found that none of the nation's top 50 colleges and universities require students to study American history and only 10% require students to study history at all". The report was authored by Ann Neal and Jerry Martin. It can be downloaded at: http://www.goacta.org/Reports/america%27s_legacy.pdf.
In 2000, Neal and Martin authored the ACTA report, "Losing America's Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century," which provided part of the impetus for Congress' creation of the $150 million Teaching American History program within the Department of Education. The report can be downloaded at: http://www.goacta.org/Reports/acta_american_memory.pdf.
o "American's Knowledge of the U.S. Constitution" (May, 2002), a nationwide survey commissioned by Columbia Law School which "revealed that an alarming number of voting age Americans have serious misconceptions about the Constitution and Bill of Rights". More information on the survey can be found at http://www.law.columbia.edu/news/surveys/survey_constitution/press_release.shtml.
o 2001 U.S. History National Assessment of Education Progress, a report compiled by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, which found that 57% of 12th Graders scored "below basic" levels, and that more students performed "below basic" on the history test than any other NAEP subject, including math and science. The report can be found at: http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ushistory/results/.
My seven years went very quickly.
It seemed like no time at all had passed when I was thrown out for the last time.
This article takes college a little too seriously. the fact of the matter is, people involved in liberal and conservative causes make up about 10% of college kids- the rest are too busy drinking until they puke and having one-night stands with strangers to care about politics (which is as it should be- college is the last time you can do really stupid things with few long-term consequences).
Of course, Mr. Aldrich, an incredibly whiny, former bureaucrat, never addresses the fact that maybe, just maybe, these "conservative" students should have done their due diligence before committing to such liberal institutions. My alma mater, fer instance, boasts an entirely different set of values, an AFROTC program of 600 strong; highly disciplined engineers, mathematicians, aeronautical science students and the like; and short haircuts as far as the eye can see.
Perhaps, Mr. Aldrich should write about institutions that appeal to the conservative mindset (there I go again being solution based).
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