 by Michael Reagan March 31, 2005
For a long time the liberal mainstream media have turned a blind eye to this well-known fact, but for reasons I don't understand, The Washington Post - along with The New York Times a bastion of East Coast liberalism - have suddenly stumbled over the fact that Karl Marx is more popular among the educational elite than, say, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. The secret is now out. It's official. If the Post has written about it, liberalism's Washington mouthpiece has put its stamp of approval on the notion that liberals run America's higher education establishment and the rest of the media is therefore now free to write about it. It's only taken them about 30 or 40 years to cotton up to the idea, but what the heck, better late than never. Of course for years those of us in talk radio, David Horowitz, the Young America's Foundation and others in the conservative movement have been telling anyone who'd listen that liberal professors vastly outnumber conservatives and how they bring their Marxist politics to the classroom and indoctrinate our children. For our pains we have been laughed at and told we didn't know what we were talking about. Now comes the Post to admit that we did. According to the Post, the study authored by Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and fellow political science professors Stanley Rothman of Smith College and Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto, concluded that 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal while a miniscule 15 percent are conservative. Moreover, 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identified themselves as Democrats but only 11 percent admitted to being Republicans. Noted the Post, it's even worse at the most elite schools, where a whopping 87 percent of faculty are liberal while only 13 percent are conservative. The study was based on a survey of 1,643 full-time faculty at 183 four-year schools. Dr. Rothman said the study findings are evidence of "possible discrimination" against conservatives in hiring and promotion. Even after factoring in levels of achievement, as measured by published work and organization memberships, "the most likely conclusion" is that "being conservative counts against you," he said. "It doesn't surprise me, because I've observed it happening." This comes as no surprise to any parent of a college student who has paid any attention to what's going at their offspring's college. On most campuses you'd need the services of a private detective to find a teacher who is not a flaming liberal. My daughter Ashley attends a Lutheran university where you would not expect to find a clone of Professor Ward Churchill. If so, you'd be wrong. A year ago, she walked into a class she had to take, and on the first day the teacher said to the students, "Listen, I'm a liberal Democrat. If you are a conservative, you will have no standing in my class so I would suggest that you drop it." He wasn't finished. He then added, "In this class I regularly use the "F" word and the "S" word. If you don't want to hear that you should drop this class." After I called the dean and he confronted the offending professor, he admitted he'd made those remarks as if he was proud of his outrageous statements. He said that "this is how I teach." This is called higher education. Tragically, this is how hordes of his fellow liberals teach. It's comforting to know that The Washington Post has finally made the astonishing discovery that this dunderhead has lots of company on America's campuses.
Look for Mike's new book "Twice Adopted". All Rights Reserved. Distributed exclusively by Cagle, Inc. www.caglecartoons.com to subscribers for publication.
|