Is There A Liberal Bias In Our Education System?
The following comes from the New York Times. In a recent survey of academics, 7 out of 8 are Democrats. This number is three times higher than it was in the 1970s. With those types of statistics, there has to be a liberal bias, right? Each and every one of those liberal professorial types must be working hard to transform their "middle-of-the-road" students to radical Berkeley types. Right? I mean, each of those six care only about creating a bunch of "mini-me's" to take over in the decades to come. Isn't that so?
As a conservative, I want very much to be able say with statistical accuracy that all of these Democratic teachers and professors are using their position to change the future of our country. But I can't. Oh sure, some of them do, maybe many of them, but it's not part of some predetermined plan created by the liberals. Liberals by design are more radical, more "in your face" then conservatives. They tend to wear their politics on their sleeves. The stories we hear about professors who force students to write anti-Bush essays are true, but they don't happen very often, and they aren't limited to the liberal left. A professor at Bob Jones University once forced a student to write over and over that "Darwin is a loon." It comes from both sides Is it bias? No. It's passion.
I am a junior at Idaho State University. Even here in the most conservative state in the union, we have liberal professors. My first was Dr. Shein, an English professor. She was funny and she was smart, and seemed like a good professor. During the first week, we got on to the topic of Native Americans and British Settlers. She referred to the colonizers as "European Invaders." I went quietly ballistic. Throughout the semester, I worked hard, but never forgot what she said. I listened to every word she said for more proof of her "bias." But a strange thing happened. She taught me how to think differently. She showed me how to see things from a different perspective. I never agreed with much of what she said politically, but I learned to respect her views. That was something very new for me.
So this liberal professor, this one of the six out of seven, taught me not how to be a liberal, she taught me how to think like an adult, to see and respect both sides. If this is the scary liberal professor my conservative friends have warned me about, then there is no reason to be concerned. Dr. Shein, and professors like her, are doing their job by making their students think. Sure, castrate the bad ones, but don't blame all the professors for the act of a few.
