Posted on 08/28/2002 8:12:41 AM PDT by vannrox
A Boston Herald editorial the dominance of liberals on university faculties. This is not news; what set Will going was a report of voting registration figures for professors at several leading universities in the September issue of The American Enterprise, a magazine published by a conservative Washington think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute. We think such a lawsuit should not be pursued. It was a mistake for the courts ever to permit sheer statistical disparities alone to be grounds for complaint. In the civil rights context, there are often many possible explanations other than discrimination for sparse representation of some group. But the disparity complaint about colleges is a good one to carry into the court of public opinion. There's no shortage of conservative scholars capable of meeting university standards. Think-tanks of all persuasions are full of them. Quarterly, monthly and weekly magazines of opinion are overflowing with their articles. More than a quarter-century ago, in a discussion of another manifestation of groupthink among faculties, B. Bruce-Biggs wrote that the preference for foreign cars was so great that ``in our leading universities, it would almost be an act of moral courage for a professor to own a Buick.'' Today, it would be almost an act of moral courage for a professor to argue against a single-payer health insurance system. Liberals dominate colleges disparately
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
George F. Will's commentary on ABC-TV's ``This Week'' show Sunday deplored
Will did not go into how this disparity might be challenged, but an accompanying article raises the possibility that some now-familiar claims from civil rights lawsuits might be used to sue some universities: the claims of ``disparate treatment'' and ``disparate impact.''
In other words, Republicans and conservatives could claim they were discriminated against, based on the huge underrepresentation of like-minded people according to those voting statistics, polls and other data. (Among 151 Ivy League professors polled in 2001, the magazine reports, 3 percent indentified themselves as Republicans and 57 percent identified themselves as Democrats.)
This probably wouldn't work in federal court, notes the author, New York attorney Kenneth Lee, because federal civil rights laws don't mention political ideology or affiliation - but the laws of some states do.
Colleges employ, and defend, racial quotas in admissions on the claim that ``diversity'' is important. They mean that diversity of skin color is important.
The important diversity is really a diversity of outlook, and students are never going to be exposed to much of it when Democrats outweigh Republicans on the faculty by a ratio of 19-1.
"This" editorial, or "this" situation where liberals dominate college faculties? (I suspect you meant the latter.) Heaven knows Boston and Cambridge are full of 'em.
I figure I have at most 5 years remaining to convince my older son that he wants to go to a conservative Christian college or university. Right now, being nearly 12, he thinks he wants to go to Miami (FL), Arizona, or Iowa State (sports, sports, and Mom-and-Dad's alma mater).
Then again, finances might mandate the local community college, to begin with...
If education is the objective, there's nothing wrong with taking the first 2 years in a Community College. The quality of eduction there oftens exceeds that at a University where underclassmen are taught by student assistants and teaching aids instead of real teachers, and in classrooms with hundreds of seats.
When I was learning C++ as a computer science freshman at the University of Maryland, fellow high-school graduates who went to the local community college as studying computer science were learning how to click on icons in Windows.
I often found TAs to be better teachers than real professors, mostly because the TAs were more adaptable and still learning. Arrogance and ego (and tenure) had not set in yet, and they were more familiar with newer developments.
They just now realized this? Bwahahahaaa!
Check out BOB JONES UNIVERSITY, Greenville, SC....an absolutely super school for the money.
Envy is a powerful, destructive emotion. It only requires you see something you would like that someone else possesses because of merit. You find yourself deficient compared to the successful person; hence, you envy, resent and attempt to destroy him or his reputation
1) To break the left over our effing knee because half their power base is the university which they took over in the 60's and 70's. It was all a part of Gramsci's "Culture War".
2) They do discriminate against Republicans and violate the very same laws they worked to enact. Conservatives has routinely been discriminated against and students are even purged if they do not tow the leftist campus orthodoxy.
3) The universities are being used as inodoctrination centers instead of schools of higher learning. Its a huge waste of taxpayer money when they hire terrorists and have anti-semitism protests run by faculty members.
This reminds me that the University of Colorado has a ratio of 31-1 democrts vs. Republicans. Talk about propaganda.
Yep. I would have quit too. Political Correctness rules.
Nor do I, but your caution is well taken. I served many years on the Board of Regents of a well-known Private Christian College (from which I also graduated) and know well the problems. While we would like to see them fiercely independent of public colleges, they instead want to emulate them.
The hard-a$$ed entrepreneurs on a governing board are always the best and clearest thinking Regents. But there is constant pressure to replace them with educational bureaucrats, ecclesiastical bureaucrats, non-profit bureaucrats, and other non-producers who cannot grasp the big picture and just want to be loved.
I sent several of my kids there, and now a Grandaughter, and regard this Private Christian College highly (in contrast to most public colleges), but as a Regent Emeritus remain critical of their failure to pull more towards the center and away from the standard left-wing garbage. In that sense, they are not unique.
I'll agree on this. The TA I had for discrete math was Korean, and had trouble expressing the logic in English. This is somewhat understandable, since "Aren't you going?" and "Are you going" mean the same thing in English, but mean very different things in logic. A word like the French "si" (affirmation of question phrased in the negative) would have made the whole thing much easier for the class and the TA.
Aside from that instance, there only other problem I had was with a little Chinese prof in my Stat class. She had trouble understanding questions.
As far as leftism, I majored in a mathematical science (little room or politics), and minored in Criminal Justice (very few professional proffessors -- most worked or had worked outside the University in "the real world" and leaned right)
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