Week explores “˜correct’ effects

The Bruin Republicans passed out fliers and spoke to students walking through Bruin Walk on Monday about various speakers and a movie screening they will be hosting for Political Correctness Week.

The week’s events will touch on the implications of being politically correct in advancement programs and speech codes on campus.

“I think there are students who have realized that a lot of things that have to do with political correctness are violations of academic freedoms,” said David Lazar, chairman of Bruin Republicans. “We really want students to know that they are not alone in feeling this way.”

Lazar said the events will allow students to hear about programs at UCLA that he believes put too much emphasis on race, one of which he believes is the Academic Advancement Program.

According to the AAP’s Web site, the program offers services such as academic advising and workshops to student groups that include first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students.

Shauna Peterson, vice chairman of Bruin Republicans, said she feels a public institution should not have programs that target specific demographics, especially if they are funded by student fees and tax-payer dollars.

Students who are not part of the program must apply to receive the same benefits members have.

“UCLA needs programs such as these to help underprivileged students, but I have heard of people feeling disadvantaged because they do not receive some of the benefits I receive, such as priority enrollment,” said Coco Morimoto, a first-year Japanese student who is a member of AAP and not affiliated with Political Correctness Week.

Mike Adams, a criminology professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington, is set to speak tonight about the culture of political correctness and how it can steer students away from expressing their opinions on campus. “The university should be the one place where you can have a robust exchange of ideas where the administration does not intervene with what the students have to say,” Adams said. “People end up bottling up things they want to discuss, because they are afraid of being politically incorrect.”

Peterson said she believes many students do not feel free to discuss their thoughts in the classroom because of a fear of offending people.

“I feel professors have a tendency to hold back arguments that might be offensive to people. Sometimes this stifles academic discourse when arguments that should be brought up are not,” Peterson said.

The film “PCU” (Politically Correct University) will be screened Wednesday night. It is a comedy about the effects of political correctness.

On Thursday night, Larry Greenfield, California regional director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, will be leading a discussion about what he said he believes are the biases and ideologies held by college professors and the impact this has on the education process. He will be providing statistics he said illustrate that, nationally, many college faculty in the liberal arts are politically liberal.

“I think some students feel intimidated by the one-sided political conversation on campus. Students should not fear being punished for being conservative students,” Greenfield said.

Universities should try harder to provide diverse political points of view both in and out of the classroom, he said.

“I think professors at UCLA tend to be more liberal,” said Colleen Meseck, a first-year biology student. “I can see how this could stop a conservative student from speaking up against their professor in fear of their grade.”

Meseck said while she understands this fear, she does not notice this very often in her classes. She said that conservative students’ voices tend to go unnoticed on campus.

“I think Political Correctness Week provides a good opportunity for conservative students to hold open discussions on campus,” Meseck said. “This will let administration know that this is an issue on campus.”