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Left-wing college seeks right-wing professor…or not

By Michelle Malkin  •  May 13, 2008 10:29 AM

After years of excoriating academia for defining diversity solely in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, it appears that one left-wing college realizes that intellectual diversity might actually be worth something to its students. Or does it? At first glance, it seems the moonbat-infested University of Colorado at Boulder is looking for a conservative professor (via the WSJ, hat tip - reader John):

How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder?

The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor’s analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.

Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. “We should also talk about intellectual diversity,” he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation’s first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.

Mr. Peterson’s quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical. “Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?” asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.”

Sounds good, no?

Well, there are caveats:

Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and “global gender justice.”

While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like “an animal in the zoo.” We “fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus,” replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

And if you read to the bottom of the story, you’ll see that in the end, the university may end up not with a bona fide conservative, but with a left-wing interpreter of conservatism:

Sophomore Marissa Malouff sees the campus as a sort of re-education camp. Sheltered rich kids from out-of-state might come for the snowboarding, but 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.

“They need to learn about social problems and poverty and the type of things liberal professors are likely to talk about,” says Ms. Malouff, a Democrat.

Chancellor Peterson’s response: Not to worry. He’s not trying to change the essential nature of CU-Boulder.

In fact, Mr. Peterson said it’s not imperative that the new professor of conservative thought be an actual conservative.

“We hire lots of scholars of the French language,” he says, “and they aren’t necessarily French.”

Same old, same old.

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  1. #1
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:34 am, DesertLover said:

    Dang … I was ready to ask where to get a job application until I saw that it was a position in Boulder, CO …

  2. #2
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:35 am, publiuswarmac9999 said:

    I have a doctorate, I have been a professor (10 years) and I am a conservative Republican. I wonder in University of Colorado would actually be interested.

  3. #3
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:37 am, alaskangrizzly said:

    It’s all good, we’re going to put aside 9 million dollars to open a chair head of the new African-American studies.

    But it’s not imperative that the new professor of African-American studies be an actual African-American.

    “We hire lots of scholars of Chemistry,” he says, “and they aren’t necessarily Chemistry doctorates.”

    Ahh yes, T.L.H. at its finest.

  4. #4
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:38 am, 30 pcs of silver said:

    In fact, Mr. Peterson said it’s not imperative that the new professor of conservative thought be an actual conservative.

    Talk about a 360…

    Walking in circles… It’s fun!

  5. #5
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:40 am, ajmontana said:

    The only good thing about working in that environment would be the mountain views.

  6. #6
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am, Katycue said:

    Sounds like this might be an opportunity for them to interpret conservatism in their own special way…

  7. #7
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:44 am, abstractmind said:

    Mr. Peterson’s quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical. “Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?” asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.”

    Let me get this straight. Liberals believe that setting up a conservative in their midst is too liberal and dont want to do it.

    Too liberal for liberals? Am I missing something?

  8. #8
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:45 am, sonofdy said:

    So for diversity we get a left wing professor teaching the kids how bad the right wing is. Sigh.

  9. #9
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:47 am, bloghooligan said:

    LOL. liberals never miss an opportunity to miss it.

  10. #10
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:49 am, bloghooligan said:

    the best way for us to fight back against academia, is to stop requiring degrees for careers that don’t need them.

    i’m coming to the conclusion that colleges suck intelligence from students anymore…like leeches.

  11. #11
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:50 am, mymanpotsandpans said:

    Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like “an animal in the zoo.”

    Look, Soledad, that’s a paper tiger! He’s so bitter, too!

  12. #12
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:57 am, spo-con said:

    Hmm, a left wing interpreter of conservatism ? That sounds like any ‘news show” on PBS.

  13. #13
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:57 am, Marshdaddy said:

    I am seriously considering a doctorate in my field. It is things like this that make me really want to do it to provide a conservative voice among the liberal ones.

  14. #14
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:05 am, libocrat said:

    I have an idea!! Maybe they could hire a few people who don’t think like themselves!!
    The idea that hiring one Conservative makes the campus diverse is like hiring UNCLE TOM to prove your not racist.

  15. #15
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:07 am, ACHefty said:

    “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.”

    That’s rich! Ballsy, but rich.

    Boy, liberals sure are entertaining. It’s like being the designated driver, watching everyone else get drunk and make fools of themselves.

  16. #16
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:08 am, undrseige247 said:

    Look at the good side if conservatives can get their foot through the door they can act as a fifth column and eventually take over the school.

  17. #17
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:12 am, davidleerothmann said:

    “They need to learn about social problems and poverty and the type of things liberal professors are likely to talk about,” says Ms. Malouff, a Democrat.

    Oh dear, oh dear! Hon, Conservatives talk about those issues, but there is a glaring difference. Conservatives have solutions to social problems and poverty that are absolutely, positively, a 100% lock to eradicate them. Liberals looove to talk about these things, but they have been running their solutions for 50 years, and they have not made a dent in those problems. In fact, they get worse every year.

  18. #18
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:16 am, libocrat said:

    32 out of 800 profs are Republican.

    Sounds to me like they need some Affirmative action.

    4% is far too many Republicans.

  19. #19
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am, DagneyT said:

    As a Colorado native, and long-time resident formerly, it’s a well-known fact that Boulder the “most educated city in America”, even the bartenders have degrees. Boulder is the proof of the adage regarding educated idiots.

  20. #20
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:22 am, Dave the Libertarian said:

    Chancellor Peterson’s response: Not to worry. He’s not trying to change the essential nature of CU-Boulder.

    In fact, Mr. Peterson said it’s not imperative that the new professor of conservative thought be an actual conservative.

    I can see it now. They hire a liberal to present the conservative viewpoint.

    “Hi, as the professor of Conservative Thought, it’s my responsibility to frame this discussion from the viewpoint of a conservative. Once I do that, I’ll tell you the real truth about the issue, and we can talk about that.”

  21. #21
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:24 am, nyc123me said:

    Honestly, why do they even bother with the weak facade? The only people they are fooling is themselves.

  22. #22
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:24 am, tre said:

    Think it might be like on “The View”, where there is one conservative among a pack of liberals, and that’s called “balance”?

    “They need to learn about social problems and poverty and the type of things liberal professors are likely to talk about,” says Ms. Malouff, a Democrat.

    I’m a college graduate,too. I thought the purpose of college was to teach a student a trade, not to learn all that’s wrong with the world.

    Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.”

    So explain Ward Churchill.

  23. #23
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:29 am, ArmywifeArmymom said:

    [sarcasm ] Oh sign me up!! I can only imagine how pleasant it would be to be ostracized, ridiculed and treated like crap everyday at work because I am the toke, resident Conservative! [/sarc off ]

    Is that “martyr” I smell burning?

  24. #24
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:33 am, see-dubya said:

    The funny thing is, to these people, Hillary Clinton is a conservative.

    Hey, she might be looking for work pretty soon!

  25. #25
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:36 am, Romeo13 said:

    Ahhh… I get it…

    They heard Ward Churchill was looking for a job… after all, he has a LOT to say about Conservative thinking…

  26. #26
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:43 am, psionickender said:

    so that student fully admits it is a reeducation camp? Doesn’t that even bother her? Doesn’t she see the hypocrisy in that statement and… urrrrggg!

  27. #27
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:47 am, shooter said:

    publiuswarmac9999 said:
    “I have a doctorate, I have been a professor (10 years) and I am a conservative Republican. I wonder in University of Colorado would actually be interested?”

    PLEASE TRY.
    We need you in Colorado, especially in ‘granola head’ land. ( not that anyone outside of Boulder considers Boulder actually part of Colorado.)
    Do you own birkenstocks?

  28. #28
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:51 am, shooter said:

    “Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person…”

    It might also set precedent that only ONE conservative on campus would be sufficient in this liberal-infested academic world.

    I can hear it now across the country…”Got your token conservative?”

  29. #29
    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:59 am, spo-con said:

    Hey Tre, that IS balance for them. It takes that many Libs to beat ONE conservative ! Even Elizabeth.

  30. #30
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:04 pm, lgm said:

    The Republican party has left academia. As they’ve become the party of voodoo economics. If there are fewer Republican professors, it’s more a result of Nixon and the Reagan revolution than changes within the university.

  31. #31
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm, wighttrasch said:

    I have a college degree, and now I work in a very large, public university. I see every year how more and more ridiculous programs are added and how erosive it has become to conservative values. In my daily contact w/students, I find they cannot coherently defend the crap they are taught! When I bother to point out that it is crap and therefore, indefensible, their usual reply is ‘what about the polar bears?!’-defense. I will have to agree with Mssrs. Walter Williams & Thomas Sowell in their assesment of how to stop the ‘diversity’ additions to certain campuses: never send your money to those schools.

  32. #32
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:10 pm, alaskangrizzly said:

    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:04 pm, lgm said:
    The Republican party has left academia. As they’ve become the party of voodoo economics. If there are fewer Republican professors, it’s more a result of Nixon and the Reagan revolution than changes within the university.

    More likely they were driven out by liberals clinging to their rainbow flags and Marx books. The theme from the movie Expelled doesn’t end with the one subject the movie portrayed.

  33. #33
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:11 pm, nbarry said:

    The quote by the student reminds me of a Russian proverb. “Anyone under 30 who doesn’t think he can revolutionize the world has no heart. Anyone over 30 who still thinks he can revolutionize the world has no brain.”

  34. #34
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:21 pm, tre said:

    #28 SpoCon

    You have a point. It’s like Rush Limbaugh says, “With half my brain tied behind my back to make it fair.”

  35. #35
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:49 pm, Dimsdale said:

    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:12 am, davidleerothmann said:

    “They need to learn about social problems and poverty and the type of things liberal professors are likely to talk about,” says Ms. Malouff, a Democrat.

    Oh dear, oh dear! Hon, Conservatives talk about those issues, but there is a glaring difference. Conservatives have solutions to social problems and poverty that are absolutely, positively, a 100% lock to eradicate them. Liberals looove to talk about these things, but they have been running their solutions for 50 years, and they have not made a dent in those problems. In fact, they get worse every year.

    Exactly. As we have learned from the tax returns of Obama, Gore, Kerry etc., their charitable contributions are a tiny fraction of their income. Sure they like to talk about it, just so long as someone else pays for it.

    For a recent account of how a liberal college treats a conservative in their midst, read the story of James Miller at Smith College in Northampton, MA.

    From the 2004 edition of Frontpage. There were similar stories in the leftist local free rag, the Advocate.

    CONSERVATIVE PROFFESSOR DENIED TENURE

    In fact, left-wing political views seem to be a condition of employment at Smith College. “Unfortunately, 95 (percent) of the political views students are exposed to in the classroom are of the angry leftist variety, which assumes that Republicans are evil and stupid,” said Economics professor Jim Miller. The Smith administration would exact a high price for his unguarded candor. “My belief is that I was denied tenure because I am a conservative Republican,” Miller told The Sophian.

    Miller has taught at Smith for seven years. He related, “In April 2000, my department recommended me for reappointment by a vote of 11-0-1 and said, ‘We strongly recommend Jim Miller for reappointment…and commend him on his progress to date.’”

    But that changed once National Review Online published Miller’s “Campus Colors” article, in which he criticizes the current state of academia, particularly its liberal and antiwar orientation. He wrote:

    The current crisis has exposed the academy’s true colors. Whereas most Americans support the war effort, university faculties are populated by professors who only want to give peace a chance The large number of non-U.S. citizens in American colleges necessarily makes these schools less patriotic…colleges are so politically correct because leftists in many academic departments will not hire outside their intellectual gene pool…Practically the only way for a women’s-studies professor to get a lifetime college appointment is for her to contribute to the literature on why America is racist, sexist, and homophobic.

    Smith College apparently believed this description hit too close to home. “(When the vote) came up for tenure in the Fall of 2002, my department voted 3-5-1 against my getting tenure,” he said. “This was very surprising. Since reappointment, I had five academic articles published or accepted for publication.” He had also written a book, Game Theory at Work, which “has been licensed for translation into three languages.”

    Miller explained to The Sophian that only one major event has happened since he was reappointed: “I basically came out of the closet as a conservative.”

    According to The Sophian, a faculty member in Miller’s department wrote to the tenure committee and asked that Miller be denied tenure due to this article, “in which Jim says, among other things, that ‘professors are mostly left wing’…I find it extremely disturbingly [sic.] that this could be Jim’s image of academia.”

    A student who has taken four classes with Miller said he “is a very competent and engaging professor” and deserves to receive tenure. “Jim is certainly a professor who enjoys a lively classroom debate. He challenges his students to view economic and social topics from a number of different perspectives,” former student Kristina Johnson said. “He does often bring a different social or political view to the discussion, but he always encourages his students to find flaws in his arguments. I remember a particular class discussion during which Dr. Miller defended the flat tax. His points were well-argued, and though he debates passionately, his views were not radical,” she said.

    She added that when two students blurted out that Miller’s ideas were “just wrong,” Miller “encouraged both of them and the rest of the class to debate” his views, helping students “attack his own view.” She added that Miller “promotes the idea that college is about critically examining one’s own beliefs through learning and understanding the beliefs of others, and that is what makes him such an effective professor.”

    Miller appealed the decision and is awaiting Smith’s final decision. (He finally did get it after shaming the liberals in the department and at AAUP)

    Also see:
    http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/news/7/200305conservative.html

  36. #36
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:52 pm, Chuck said:

    Does this prof have to wear a device on his collar like the Jews in WWII? Or maybe ring a little bell on a staff like the leppers, “Unclean, unclean”?

  37. #37
    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:53 pm, bradley said:

    On Georgia State University’s (Atlanta) web site, the section devoted to Womens’ Studies included (this was about a year ago) a listing of faculty members and their outside interests. One associate professor listed her main interest as “researching the social meaning of cunnilingus”. I kid you not. Since the dean was similarly inclined, they likely had lots to chat about over cocktails at faculty parties. Another listed her main outside interest as contacting the dead through spiritualism. Usually dead female writers. Ahh, yes. Education, where is thou sting? It occurs every registration day in their student’s parents’ pocketbook.

  38. #38
    On May 13th, 2008 at 1:33 pm, tuffy said:

    Ugh. I’ve just suffered through several college flashbacks. I wish I could share the horror but I don’t want to be hunted down and forced to watch student films through toothpick’d eyelids.

  39. #39
    On May 13th, 2008 at 1:52 pm, psionickender said:

    Thank you, Dimsdale, for that interesting read. I like how he said he came out of the closet. That is what it feels akin to. When I fully came out as conservative and joined the military, my friends went through the whole thing sexuality studies professors discuss about. They were angry and often asked, “Are you sure?” Then they realized I was the same person, I still cared for people, still kind, still loyal, and had my sense of humor still so accepted me. I have a few friends who disowned me though. I was so scared to say I was a conservative for the longest time though.

    I feel bad for Professor Smith. Being a good teacher isn’t implanting your thought processes on others but encouraging them to THINK.

  40. #40
    On May 13th, 2008 at 2:33 pm, bit_boy said:

    The University of Colorado at Boulder is a typical product of diversity: the mother of incompetence. The definition of diversity at Colorado includes not male, not white, and not conserative.

  41. #41
    On May 13th, 2008 at 2:36 pm, Khyris said:

    This is such BS.

    We DON’T need affirmitive action to be the token conservative on campus, so they can “feel better” about being inclusive.

    The point is that college campuses should be hiring solely based upon subject competency and ability to teach; not discriminating based upon whether you fit the ideological mold so you can help reinforce/refute the indoctrination from all the other moonbat professors.
    College is supposed to be about learning a USEFUL skillset to be successful in your chosen field. Nothing more, and nothing less.
    Even an unfocused but well rounded education in arts, sciences, history, languages etc. is marketable. I have yet to meet anyone who will pay me six figures because I took 4 years to learn how to put on a pink shirt, and lay in the middle of the street in front of a government office, chanting obscentities.

    Although come to think of it, I wish someone WOULD pay moonbats to play in the street.

  42. #42
    On May 13th, 2008 at 2:47 pm, Buckaroo said:

    # 35 D

    Sadly enough, one could conclude a lesson from that article is, “keep yer mouth SHUT until you get tenure?”
    :-(

  43. #43
    On May 13th, 2008 at 3:33 pm, Jeddite said:

    If you’re looking at sending your children to Colorado, consider Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

    I promise we Rams are less insane than the Buffs. And, uh, our football team is superior. :P

  44. #44
    On May 13th, 2008 at 3:40 pm, amigoneus said:

    On May 13th, 2008 at 12:04 pm, lgm said:
    The Republican party has left academia. As they’ve become the party of voodoo economics. If there are fewer Republican professors, it’s more a result of Nixon and the Reagan revolution than changes within the university.

    Is that because those who can, do, and those who can’t, become miserable little whiners “teaching” at universities how evil, racist Republicans are the devil?

  45. #45
    On May 13th, 2008 at 4:03 pm, graysonret said:

    I have always wanted, when I retire, to return to college and take several history courses, for fun. I thought it would be just the thing for someone who would like something challenging. But, the more I look at colleges and their faculties, the more I see that I would just not fit in. Well, maybe online courses…..

  46. #46
    On May 13th, 2008 at 4:35 pm, BrianNY said:

    #30 lgm said:

    The Republican party has left academia. As they’ve become the party of voodoo economics. If there are fewer Republican professors, it’s more a result of Nixon and the Reagan revolution than changes within the university.

    Baloney. I worked with guys on Wall St. who are 5x more competent than the average math teacher, and who also had real world experience. Some of them were turned away from the NYC Department of Education in their hopes of going into NYC classrooms and teaching students real math and business courses.

    The Department of Ed. said that these dedicated heroes didn’t have the requisite coursework in “teaching self-esteem” and “gym class.”

    US education is a liberal protected monopoly and you know it. If quotas were established for a certain representation of “conservative” professors, you would go ape poo poo.

  47. #47
    On May 13th, 2008 at 5:00 pm, brad_sk said:

    How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder?

    The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners..

    C’mon. whats wrong with vegetarian food? Its not tofu’s fault if its liked by liberal nuts. Secondly, I am sure the tofu based food is present to serve (and capture market) many international students - lot of Indian students (legal, not illegal) are vegetarians. It has nothing to do with how liberal the university itself is.

  48. #48
    On May 13th, 2008 at 5:22 pm, alamedaman said:

    I nominate Michelle to tear down the wall of stupidity at CU

  49. #49
    On May 13th, 2008 at 5:27 pm, jroberts said:

    On May 13th, 2008 at 11:24 am, tre said:

    I’m a college graduate,too. I thought the purpose of college was to teach a student a trade, not to learn all that’s wrong with the world.

    No, that’s the purpose of trade school. In college you learn how to think, and that includes being challenged with ideas that you don’t agree with.

    Look, most students enter college as conservatives. And most of these students exit college as conservatives. If these liberal professors were “reeducating” their students, and not educating, then you would think that more students would leave as liberals. I graduated just a year ago, and even though a lot of people I knew became more liberal relative to how they started out, I hardly knew anyone who changed from being a conservative to a liberal, and the number of people who did change from conservative to liberal is a small proportion of the number of conservatives who just became more staunchly conservative, and a handful became very loud and obnoxious pricks about it. (A handful of the liberals become pricks too. I think they were slightly more numerous but less than half as loud). This whole fear of brain-washing is total nonsense. If conservative thought collapses the minute a formerly conservative person is reminded that not everyone gets rich under capitalism, then maybe the problem is the argument conservatives are making in the first place.

    Dimsdale, did you read the link you provided?

    In my book, “Game Theory at Work,” I said that tenure, which is a lifetime job guarantee, sometimes attracts people who don’t really want to work very hard for the rest of their lives, and this person was very upset that I would criticize academia in a public way.

    Would you give someone who didn’t respect the tenure system tenure? I mean, his view of tenure is that if he gets it he won’t have to do any work. If he disrespects academia so much, why’s he whining about it? He’s just borrowing from the stereotypical liberal playbook. He gave a pretty legitimate reason not to hire him, and is now whining that he’s discriminated against.

    Don’t get me wrong. I think a lot of liberal academia is ridiculous. But whining about and taking a reactionary stance on every issue just further entrenches liberal academia. There’s a lot that academics of different parties can talk about other than politics. If conservatives want to conservativize academia, they should try being academics first instead of whining about everything.

  50. #50
    On May 13th, 2008 at 9:55 pm, jellibean said:

    Sophomore Marissa Malouff sees the campus as a sort of re-education camp. Sheltered rich kids from out-of-state might come for the snowboarding, but 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.

    Scary. Though it might make a good slogan: “UC-Boulder: Come for the Snowboarding. Stay for the brainwashing.”

  51. #51
    On May 13th, 2008 at 10:45 pm, Dimsdale said:

    Would you give someone who didn’t respect the tenure system tenure? I mean, his view of tenure is that if he gets it he won’t have to do any work. If he disrespects academia so much, why’s he whining about it? He’s just borrowing from the stereotypical liberal playbook. He gave a pretty legitimate reason not to hire him, and is now whining that he’s discriminated against.

    Thank you, but yes, I did read it, and several other articles at the time on the issue.

    Is “respecting the tenure system” a requirement for getting it, or worse, a reason for denying it? At best, the criticism should have been limited to “well, if it is so bad, they why do you want it?” In reality, this criticism of Miller was merely a convenient cover for the real indignation: that he would criticize the liberal infestation of that department at Smith.

    I have worked (and still do, currently) at several of these western MA universities/colleges and know whereof I speak. Conservatives learn to keep their heads down. You stay off the radar, because the liberals outnumber you and will turn on you. You find the like-minded eventually, but they all agree: smile and nod whenever the topic of politics comes up. They attack Bush, you smile and nod. They attack the war, you smile and nod. Etc., etc. Otherwise, you are ostracized, either overtly or subtly, but ostracized nonetheless. Miller should have known this, but felt his academic achievements would overcome the bias. It almost did not. It would have been much easier to keep his head down and suck it up until he got tenure.

    I think we can all agree that in the case of an admitted conservative on these types of campuses, tenure is a shield against the kind of liberal attacks that are becoming all too common, and a way to preserve his right to criticize what he likes.

    In many ways, tenure does preserve the careers of “deadwood” profs, but in the case of conservatives, it truly does allow free speech and thought to survive on campus. It is just that the process of getting there requires the exact opposite: you have to toe the line, be PC, and hide your true beliefs. That is NOT what college is supposed to be about. It is supposed to be about the free exchange of ideas, debate, research and drawing conclusions from all of the above.

    Liberals have squashed that premise. Be a conservative, get your car keyed or worse. It is suppression of free speech that many, nay most, of the students don’t get to see. They get constantly bombarded by liberal “thought” and eventually succumb to a form of Stockholm syndrome.

    Come out here to what I like to call “Berkeley East” and see what I am talking about. Come to the land of Professor Jennie Traschen (physics) and UMASS graduate Rene Gonzalez. The former had the bad timing to call the American Flag a “the flag stands for is a symbol of terrorism and death and fear and destruction and repression” to the Amherst Board of Selectmen to keep the flag from being flown in the town, on (you guessed it) 9/10/01, and the latter called fallen soldier Pat Tillman a “G.I. Joe guy who got what was coming to him.” “That was not heroism,” Gonzalez wrote. “It was prophetic idiocy.”

    And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Welcome to my world, jroberts. Go to grad school. Be a postdoc. Work in the liberal universities as I have, then tell me that I am crazy.

    When the phone don’t ring, it’ll be you.

  52. #52
    On May 14th, 2008 at 5:17 am, Thunderbird 1 said:

    I work in Boulder. Trust me, a conservative on that campus - nay, in that town - would stand out like Donna Douglas in the classic Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder.”

  53. #53
    On May 14th, 2008 at 7:28 am, everett_mansfield said:

    Celebrate this.

  54. #54
    On May 14th, 2008 at 7:52 am, Chief RZ said:

    Just like Obama’s Church which exposed black racism, this attempted lie should expose yet another code word for racism–diversity.

  55. #55
    On May 14th, 2008 at 3:00 pm, Barry F. said:

    In fact, Mr. Peterson said it’s not imperative that the new professor of conservative thought be an actual conservative.

    “We hire lots of scholars of the French language,” he says, “and they aren’t necessarily French.”

    Ahhhh. So, they are okay with a liberal’s take on conservatism. Isn’t that what students at CU and the like already get?

  56. #56
    On May 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm, Khyris said:

    #55
    Along those same lines, I wonder: how many liberal universities would tolerate a white person in charge of a Black Studies program?

    Does anybody know of a single Black Studies program in the entire country that is NOT headed by a black of any nationality? (I chose not to use the PC term African American intentionally here, because some departments are actually headed by black foreigners)

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Why Johnny can’t do math (Update: or English.)

June 30, 2008 07:40 AM by Michelle Malkin

109 Comments | 4 Trackbacks

Dummy variables.

Whiners of the day

June 25, 2008 12:25 AM by Michelle Malkin

72 Comments | 1 Trackback

Not enough “monny.”

Commencement indoctrination

June 23, 2008 09:45 AM by Michelle Malkin

86 Comments | 0 Trackbacks

Diversity? What diversity?

California home-schooling update

June 12, 2008 02:28 PM by Michelle Malkin

28 Comments | 1 Trackback

Parental control.

President Bush is giving Donna Shalala what?!

June 11, 2008 04:47 PM by Michelle Malkin

76 Comments | 1 Trackback

More mush.

G-u-e-r-d-o-n

May 31, 2008 09:47 AM by Michelle Malkin

63 Comments | 2 Trackbacks

Spellbound.

Teaching U.S. History: We didn’t start the failure…

May 30, 2008 01:13 PM by see-dubya

79 Comments | 3 Trackbacks

Reason number sixty-four bazillion and twelve to homeschool your kids.


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