Classrooms must be open to all ideas

Across America, from the smallest classrooms to the grandest
lecture halls, a terrible plague threatens the intellectual honor
of our schools and the political future of our nation. The mutation
of the professor’s podium to the politician’s pulpit is
a violation of the value of individual exploration and thought
““ a violation of American principle.

Recently, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture released a
survey of professors at elite universities. At Ivy League
Universities it was found that 84 percent of the identified liberal
arts professors voted for Al Gore in the 2000 elections and only 3
percent identified themselves as Republicans, versus the 37 percent
of the general population. Another study compared publicly
available voter records with the names of professors. At UCLA and
UC Berkeley, the ratio of registered Democratic professors versus
Republicans is 12 to 1. At Brown the ratio is a startling 30 to 1.
Worse still at MIT the survey could not identify a single
Republican in the faculty.

The survey reveals similarly hideous results even in Republican
states. In Colorado, whose governor, two senators and four of its
six congressmembers are Republicans (and whose electorate comprises
200,000 more Republicans than Democrats), 94 percent of University
of Colorado at Boulder’s liberal arts faculty are Democrats,
and only 4 percent are Republicans. Of 85 professors of English who
have registered to vote, none are Republicans. Of 28 professors of
political science, two. Of 29 professors of history, one.

At the beginning of April 2003, after the United States and
Great Britain had liberated Iraq, the Academic Senate of UCLA
passed a resolution that “condemns America’s invasion
of Iraq.” Whereas 76 percent of Americans at the time
supported the war, 95 percent of the UCLA faculty voted to condemn
it.

These numbers have been dismissed by some liberals as being
meaningless. Duke University Professor Lawrence Evans writes for
the Raleigh News & Observer on September 23: “In short,
universities want people of some depth, subtlety and intelligence.
People like that usually vote for the Democrats. So what?”
This type of reasoning is prejudicial and discriminatory.

More genuine academics tell a more convincing version.

Historian John P. Diggins, when addressing a meeting of the
American Studies Association, said, “When my generation of
liberals was in control of university faculties in the Sixties, we
opened the doors to the hiring of radicals in the name of
diversity. We thought you would do the same. But you didn’t.
You closed the doors behind you.”

So what does this heavy bias mean for the academic world? It
means that conservatives do not feel welcome in the classroom. It
means that professors feel free to indoctrinate their youth. It
means that the college becomes a factory of one idea. And for
America, this means a lack of creativity, a lack of diversity.

And a profound lack of freedom.

It is for this reason that reform in academia is desperately
needed.

But the solution is not a quasi affirmative action program for
Republicans.

First, university hiring and educational practices must be
ideologically neutral, with merit as the chief determining
factor.

Liberal professors need not be punished for sharing their
opinion but at the same time neither should conservative students
for expressing theirs. Professors must be held responsible for the
power they hold as educators, and universities must ensure that
classrooms remain a free market of ideas.

Diversity seems to be the banner for the university of the new
age. We speak of the diversity of cultures and races and
religions.

But in doing so we forget that there is a more important type of
diversity to celebrate ““ the diversity of opinion. An entire
generation of Americans hangs in the balance. And it is at this
most crucial stage in our history that we turn to our schools for
leadership.

Moritz is chairman of the Bruin Republicans.