Lockstep U.

Universities are supposed to be settings of intellectual inquiry, great debate, the arena of ideas, the challenge of critical thinking skills. We know they’re – largely – not anymore.

Not even at the University of Iowa, for goodness sake.

Rarely have the hypocrisy and mendacity of academia been so thoroughly exposed as in the history department’s damage-control campaign.

What?!

The school has stacked its faculty with professors who think one way. How stimulating.

History department chair Colin Gordon is doing damage control right now over the revelations that they……seem to be afraid of other points of view. The fact that they have 27 Democrats and no Republicans on the history department faculty is kind of hard to explain away. But he’s trying…

Professor Gordon contended that the history department cannot discriminate against Republican or conservative job applicants because it does not know the political ideology of applicants. But the University’s own hiring manual states that search committees must “assess ways the applicants will bring rich experiences, diverse backgrounds, and ideology to the university community.” So they are obligated to understand applicants’ ideology, and to make sure not to overlook people with differing ideologies.

Read the article and you can’t miss the…er…intellectual dishonesty in the application of the so-called policy. Which leaves you wondering, what are they afraid of? What do these schools fear when they blockade the doors to prevent entry – or tenure – of professors who bring diversity of thought….at the very least….to the very place where thought is supposed to be most stimulated and provoked and reasoned?

They fear the force of truth and reason.

The article refers to an Associated Press story that said this:

Some conservative students said they cloak their political leanings to appeal to professors…. Conservatives say the abundance of Democratic professors affects course offerings, reading selections and class discussions, shaping impressionable minds…. Some conservative students complain their political views are not just absent, but criticized when professors show political cartoons mocking President Bush or allow Republican bashing.

My only surprise is that the Associated Press acknowledged that. There is abundant proof it is true.

So what to do about it? Discern carefully where you should put student and your money in academia.

And this professor has another idea.

Students, parents, alumni, taxpayers, and politicians should pressure the University of Iowa’s administration to enforce the university’s non-discrimination policies, and to create new faculty positions for conservatives beyond the reach of other professors’ tentacles, as other schools have started doing. They should demand that the university use its lecture series to bring in conservative speakers, not just liberals and radicals. In the meantime, students must realize that the university is not a free market of ideas, but a one-party state that strives to convert the impressionable and unwary by hiding half of the political spectrum.

Challenge the people who are supposed to be challenging you. Refuse to submit to indoctrination. Truth fears no question…..ask questions. Where’s the balance? Why isn’t conservative thought allowed to share the forum with liberal thought?

And….how do you define ‘discrimination’ and ‘tolerance’?