Posted by Orin Kerr:
The Plight of Conservatives in Academia:
In the [1]Chronicle of Higher Education, a pseudonymous assistant
professor writes about the burdens of being a conservative student and
then tenure-track professor. How bad is it? Pretty darn bad! One
horror story after another. The tragedy begins when the author was a
student and faced blatant political discrimination in his coursework:
During an "Introduction to Political Science" class, for example, I
was required to write paper on how to solve global warming. My
paper suggested that perhaps there was no reason to, since the
scientific evidence was inconclusive. I got a D.
Can you imagine that? The professor required his students to write a
paper taking a particular position, and the author declined and
decided to write on something else. And for that, a D grade! Unreal.
But wait, there's more. When the author became a professor, he had to
sit through an entire sentence at a faculty meeting -- yes, a sentence
with a noun, verb, and everything - joking about a film by Michael
Moore! Here is how the author recounts the harrowing experience:
I sat through 50 minutes of my first faculty meeting on the campus
with nary a mention of politics. . . . Then, in the final few
minutes of the meeting, a senior faculty member arose to make an
announcement: A faculty panel would discuss the impact of September
11 on the United States, with the dean of the college offering
summary remarks.
There was no hint of a leftward lean -- until, that is, the
senior faculty member added, "And just in case the students don't
get our message on how to vote in November, we have arranged for a
showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 directly after the panel."
Can you stand it? The author had to sit there the whole time. I
know, you didn't think it happened in Amerika.
The professor also recounts a striking anecdote that demonstrates
what of bunch of closeminded robots the academic left has become:
[D]uring the Republican National Convention, I ate lunch with
several colleagues. The discussion turned, inevitably, to politics.
The anti-Republican tenor at the table remained unbroken, but
reached its zenith with this vehement comment from one colleague,
"I'm not even going to watch [the convention]. I can't stand it."
This made my jaw drop. As we all know, every true American patriot
loves watching political party conventions. I am openminded enough to
realize that you can be both a loyal American and yet not agree with
everything said during the Republican convention, but to be so
vehement as to not watch it is really, well, suspicious. And how else
to explain the willingness to admit that curious decision to
colleagues but as a sign of moral depravity?
The author's story takes a particularly remarkable turn when he
finds out that the students at his college are in fact suffering in
silence just like he is: they're mostly conservatives, too. But of
course they are afraid to admit it; they're afraid to confess to their
Volvo-driving, non-GOP-convention-watching commie professors that they
have their own opinions. You just can't fight the system, I guess.
The author concludes with a
Shawshank-Redemption-Meets--The-Paper-Chase sense of resignation:
Which is not to say I'm not happy here. I am. I wouldn't trade life
in this most idiosyncratic of human institutions for anything. By
design, academe is meant to transcend human foibles, the better to
understand them. But in a masterstroke of delicious irony,
academe's very humanness turns out to be the best justification for
its own existence.
I don't know what that means, but I'm sure there is a masterstroke of
delicious irony in there somewhere.
(Hat tip: [2]Instapundit)
References
1. http://chronicle.com/jobs/2004/12/2004121501c.htm
2. http://instapundit.com/archives/019849.php
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