Bill Seeks to Prevent Public College Professors from Pushing Ideologies

[Frodo]

Bill seeks to prevent public-college teachers from pushing ideologies

Mark Brunswick,  Star Tribune
March 3, 2005 MICHELLE0303

A national movement that supporters say protects college students from indoctrination by college professors but opponents say stifles debate made its way to Minnesota on Wednesday when two legislators proposed legislation that they call the "Academic Bill of Rights."

Sen. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, and Rep. Ray Vandeveer, R-Forest Lake, said their bill would require the state's publicly funded colleges and universities to adopt policies that would mandate that professors not use their classrooms to promote their personal political or ideological beliefs. It also says that students would not be punished for disagreeing with their instructors' politics.

While Bachmann, who has announced that she is a candidate for Congress, said the law would apply across the political spectrum, the focus nationally has been complaints from conservative students that left-wing professors have tried to use their classrooms to indoctrinate young minds with liberal propaganda.

At a morning news conference, speakers included students and professors who talked of feeling punished for their conservative views. No speakers complained about conservative instructors.

Lawmakers in 21 other states have introduced similar bills, part of a national movement spearheaded by Students for Academic Freedom, a Washington-based student network founded by conservative activist David Horowitz.

Horowitz spoke at the news conference, saying it was unprofessional for professors to impose their political ideologies on their students.

"You don't go into a doctor's office and expect to get a political lecture or see on his office door cartoons bashing John Kerry or bashing George Bush," he said.

Critics of such measures, including the American Association of University Professors, have said the bills could stifle debate and questioned whether its supporters had ulterior motives, such as wanting more conservative professors.

Michael Livingston, president of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he has heard the classroom horror stories anecdotally but believes they are rare occurrences at best.

"I find this very puzzling because it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist," Livingston said. "The purpose of college professors is to help students think. We help them by presenting divergent perspectives. Sometimes we believe those perspectives, but a lot of times we don't. We just need to present our students with perspectives so they can think them through and understand them."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5269299.html

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

"I find this very puzzling because it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist," Livingston said. "The purpose of college professors is to help students think. We help them by presenting divergent perspectives. Sometimes we believe those perspectives, but a lot of times we don't. We just need to present our students with perspectives so they can think them through and understand them."

The problem most certainly exists, but the proposed solution is worse than the problem.  Having professor slaries based on the numbers of students willing to take their classes and/or student feedback might help, but might contribute to grade inflation whihc is another problem.  You'd need to divorce grading from instruction somehow to combat that, which should be doable for most freshman and sophmore level classes, so at least the damage of inappropriate bias would be limited to those taking courses beyond the general requirements.

[opebo]

Even academia is not safe from the Republican attempts at censorship and thought control.  Presumably this would be the last shoe to drop - it starts with censoring sex movies and ends with professors drummed out of universities for disagreeing with the Party.

[they don't love you like i love you]

ha, I'd like to see them try to enforce this at my college!

I'm not worried about it passing though, out legislature is basically pure deadlock, since each party controls one house neither one lets the other one pass anything. Bachmann proposes loony nonsense like this all the time, it never gets anywhere.

[Richard]

This is just AA.  *yawn*  Now watch the liberals cry because it doesn't fit them.

[phk]

Affirmitive Action for Conservatives, quite humorous; they'd do better in school if they weren't anti-education.

Guess the trailer park was always good enough.

[Richard]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The answer for extreme professors is the alumni, if the alumni make it clear why they are not continuing to give, then the college will get the message.

[phk]

The answer for extreme professors is the alumni, if the alumni make it clear they are not continuing to give, then the college will get the message.

I don't want a teacher who teaches as if he were an interactive textbook. I want one with opinions, one way or another.

The overwelming of teachers skewed to the left largely is a supply-side problem, seriously if more liberals than conservatives want to enter teaching, can you force them to go elsewhere? No.

The process for "academic diversity" could begin when conservatives stop whining and write the books, and they'll get the jobs.

Not by this stupid Bill of Rights. If conservatives are diverting thier educated lot away from university faculties to the military and religous institutions, than what gives, thats thier perogative?

On the reverse end of the coin, should we have a Bill of Rights that protects liberals in the military and religious institutions because liberals tend to have a higher concentration of thier population in upper-education?

If conservatives want more voice in state schools, more of them should go to state schools. I imagine many end up going to private religious schools, which are bastions of conservative thought; that's their prerogative, but that doesn't mean the liberals who go in larger proportions to open and secular schools should have to kowtow to their conservative classmates...unless, of course, religious colleges are forced to be more respectful of the religious and political views of liberal students (no mention of Creationism, no mandatory chapel, in general no religion).

Maybe that wouldn't be so bad after all.

[Richard]

Now apply all of those arguments you just made to affirmative action.

[phk]

Shouldn't you be playing the "matching game"?

[opebo]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

[12th Doctor]

This isn't news.  People have been talking about this since the late 90's.

[Richard]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

Keep telling red America how backwards they are, and to go back to their trailers, and how you're elitists, and you'll keep alienating votes you desperately require.

[phk]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

Keep telling red America how backwards they are, and to go back to their trailers, and how you're elitists, and you'll keep alienating votes you desperately require.

This is a receptive audience for the ventings of Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter et al.,

There has been a conscious cultivation of a ‘plen-T-plaint’ mentality among white working-class Americans against a class enemy defined by its cultural and consumption patterns—the Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, fromage-eating liberal elite—not its position and role within the economic system; Weberian status rather than class.

[opebo]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

Keep telling red America how backwards they are, and to go back to their trailers, and how you're elitists, and you'll keep alienating votes you desperately require.

This is a receptive audience for the ventings of Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter et al.,

There has been a conscious cultivation of a ‘plen-T-plaint’ mentality among white working-class Americans against a class enemy defined by its cultural and consumption patterns—the Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, fromage-eating liberal elite—not its position and role within the economic system; Weberian status rather than class.

Excellent point New Left Marxist!

Richius, I understand your resentment of elites, but the white working class needs to jettison its hubris in order to vote in its own interest.  In other words admit its abject status in the social and economic hierarchy.  The right plays to the sensitive and bloated egos of this class by pretending they matter, and that their anti-intellectual prejudices and superstitions are worthy of consideration.

[ATFFL]

The funny thing is that Liberals traded Congress for their control of Universities.

Back in the late sixties/early seventies they voted to deny tenure to a lot of their Republican/Conservative colleagues.  Locked out of academia they went into politics.

In 1994 many of them were elected to Congress.  Chief among these academians turned professors was Newt Gingrich.

[Richard]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

Keep telling red America how backwards they are, and to go back to their trailers, and how you're elitists, and you'll keep alienating votes you desperately require.

This is a receptive audience for the ventings of Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter et al.,

There has been a conscious cultivation of a ‘plen-T-plaint’ mentality among white working-class Americans against a class enemy defined by its cultural and consumption patterns—the Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, fromage-eating liberal elite—not its position and role within the economic system; Weberian status rather than class.

Excellent point New Left Marxist!

Richius, I understand your resentment of elites, but the white working class needs to jettison its hubris in order to vote in its own interest.  In other words admit its abject status in the social and economic hierarchy.  The right plays to the sensitive and bloated egos of this class by pretending they matter, and that their anti-intellectual prejudices and superstitions are worthy of consideration.

I'm white, working class.  I don't resent elites, I just think they're dumb as rocks.

[opebo]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

Keep telling red America how backwards they are, and to go back to their trailers, and how you're elitists, and you'll keep alienating votes you desperately require.

This is a receptive audience for the ventings of Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter et al.,

There has been a conscious cultivation of a ‘plen-T-plaint’ mentality among white working-class Americans against a class enemy defined by its cultural and consumption patterns—the Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, fromage-eating liberal elite—not its position and role within the economic system; Weberian status rather than class.

Excellent point New Left Marxist!

Richius, I understand your resentment of elites, but the white working class needs to jettison its hubris in order to vote in its own interest.  In other words admit its abject status in the social and economic hierarchy.  The right plays to the sensitive and bloated egos of this class by pretending they matter, and that their anti-intellectual prejudices and superstitions are worthy of consideration.

I'm white, working class.  I don't resent elites, I just think they're dumb as rocks.

Hubris. 

[they don't love you like i love you]

The answer for extreme professors is the alumni, if the alumni make it clear why they are not continuing to give, then the college will get the message.

that won't work here, that's for sure.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

Keep telling red America how backwards they are, and to go back to their trailers, and how you're elitists, and you'll keep alienating votes you desperately require.

right, because we all know every person in the country reads what opebo says, and they all will never vote for a Democrat just because of him.

What 15 Democrats are vulnerable?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

People interested in learning  tend to not be right-wingers.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Richius claims that his IQ is in the top 99.997 percentile.
Richius thinks that the Republicans might have 70 Senators after this election.

No comment.

[TeePee4Prez]

Keep it up. 70 in 2006.

You were saying 66 just the other day.  Care to give an explication of how we get to 66 or 70?

Keep telling red America how backwards they are, and to go back to their trailers, and how you're elitists, and you'll keep alienating votes you desperately require.

This is a receptive audience for the ventings of Rush Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter et al.,

There has been a conscious cultivation of a ‘plen-T-plaint’ mentality among white working-class Americans against a class enemy defined by its cultural and consumption patterns—the Volvo-driving, latte-drinking, fromage-eating liberal elite—not its position and role within the economic system; Weberian status rather than class.

Excellent point New Left Marxist!

Richius, I understand your resentment of elites, but the white working class needs to jettison its hubris in order to vote in its own interest.  In other words admit its abject status in the social and economic hierarchy.  The right plays to the sensitive and bloated egos of this class by pretending they matter, and that their anti-intellectual prejudices and superstitions are worthy of consideration.

Excellent point.  The GOP is playing a very good game of mind control from the ground level up to gain power.  Witness the PA 13 thread with points from me and Keystone Phil.  Whether it be Section 8 housing resentment, anti-abortionism, church bulletins, etc., there are many issues the Democrats have to address in a common way, but stick to our core values.  The GOP sees a numbers game and seen 1960 and 1964.  It was white Protestants in the North and West for the GOP
and basically eveyone else were Democrats.  Enter the "Southern Strategy" of the late 1960 and the 1970s.  If that wasn't enough, the GOP then proceeds on to woo Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois for Catholic voters.  I hate to being up PA 13 again, but a lot of bases on the GOP's rise in these areas are touched there.  A fair number of my own relatives even fell for this "Reagan Democrat" trap in the 1980s.

Funny, I've had left wng professors that were so PC I loathed taking yet had conservative ones I loved.