Critical Mass

By John Torrenti

There is almost no debate as to whether or not higher education is generally liberal or conservative. It is more a matter of how liberal colleges really are. I attend one of the most overwhelmingly liberal colleges, where around 95% of students and most professors are liberal.

A few examples: In my Government 101 class, “Intro to Political Science”, we received a survey, which asked questions about our political leanings. When students were asked to give their political heroes, Lenin and Ghandi were two of the most popular choices. Reagan appeared only twice (I and one conservative friend listed him) in a class of almost 40. We were also asked about our political affiliation and given the following options: committed Democrat, slightly inclined towards the Democrats, Green/Nader, Other. There was no option for Republican or conservative. Needless to say, I chose other.

This class’ teacher described President Bush’s general policy approach as “go-it alone” and noted that it is not very popular among intellectuals. He tends to speak negatively about President Bush and describes Clinton as a generally successful President.

The next example is even more striking: I’m in a class called “Perspectives in Genetics.” On the first day of class, the instructor gave a brief overview of genetics and what we would be learning. He ended the class by going entirely off topic and out of the realm of the class: “Now we have a president who is spying on our own American citizens,” he said, “This is remarkably similar to the events that lead to Nixon’s impeachment.” (He never mentioned the threat of terrorism.) He noted in a later class that “after a serious loss of brain cells, you can just become President.” He has also commented on the wonders of genetics, wondering in particular how “two fairly intelligent people, George and Barbara, could produce a son like theirs.” As far as I’m concerned, this teacher is entitled to his own opinion, but that opinion should not be shared so openly in a Biology class. His comments so far have been entirely unrelated to class material.

Students hand out weekly flyers at lunch and dinner entitled “This Week in Iraq” filled with statistics intended to excite negative emotion about the War. Sadly, there have been no stories of valiant soldiers or heroics – nothing that would make you proud to be an American.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend next weekend. I’m sure I won’t – there’s an Iraq war protest right outside the library, which is adjacent to my dorm. I’ll be hearing shouts of “Bush is a Liar” and other such worthwhile arguments for quite a while. Perhaps it will just take time before these people learn (and recall the whole "diversity and acceptance" thing they seem so proud of). But perhaps they never will.