UT College Republicans are compiling a list of liberal professors who they claimed have a bias against conservative students.
The list will include professors who students say have let their political views interfere with the way they interact with students in the classroom.
UT College Republicans President Matt Rubin, a junior majoring in political science and public administration, said the list is not an attempt to bash professors who have liberal ideas, but instead, it is an attempt to speak out for students who may have been victims of the bias, which was then reflected in their grade.
“We’ve been portrayed in the media, as well as comments from people in the community including College Democrats, saying that we’re creating a blacklist in order to smear the names of professors and that’s not true,” Rubin said. “We’re giving a voice to the students that have been harassed because of their political beliefs. It’s the same thing as bashing a student because they’re gay.”
Rubin said the list of liberal professors is important because of the many complaints he received from students at UT College Republicans meetings, concerning professors who made unnecessary political comments, including anti-Bush statements.
“At our weekly meeting, something we like to do is take time out for students to tell stories of any bias they have had in classes. What we’re doing is representing students who have had that experience. We’re trying to expose professors who have liberal bias and go against everything UT stands for,” Rubin said. “How is saying ‘President Bush is the dumbest president this country has ever had and should be hanged’ improving the human condition?”
The students who submitted and reported incidents such as these will remain anonymous, Rubin said.
“We had a student who said, in an ancient Greece class, Professor William O’Neal claimed that America did not liberate Europe in World War II. However; it was freed by Charles De Gaulle and the free French, not U.S. Soldiers,” Rubin said.
O’Neal, chair and professor of history at UT denied ever making the comment.
“To base this on the statement of a single student doesn’t seem as evidence to convict liberalism,” he said. “If you had a whole class come and say, ‘this guy is preaching his own gospel,’ that would be different, or if there was a substantial number of students from that class.”
Rubin said the list of dubbed liberal professors could also be beneficial to some students.
“We like to think of it as a liberal professor directory, not a list. Also, we’d like for it to be used as a resource for liberal students who are looking for like-minded professors that will positively affect their grade based on their bias,” he said.
Rubin added he and the UT College Republicans are not against professors who have liberal views.
“We realize that some professors are liberal, and that’s ok, it’s when they completely disregard a student’s opinion or they have a bias against them that might affect the way they are treated or graded, is what we think is wrong,” Rubin said.
O’Neal said although there may be some professors who let their political preferences affect the way they treat their students, it is not something he has witnessed as a common denominator at UT.
“We’re all human and there are some people who are totally committed to their own view points with very strong personalities, so I’m sure in our imperfect world this does exist,” he said. “But I do not know of anyone in this department who will base grades on hair color, eye color or political aspirations, and I have been the chair of the history department for three years and have been teaching here for 40 years.”
David Mann, a second year law student, said there are other important issues the College Republicans could be concerning themselves with.
“If I were a College Republican, I’d be spending my time trying to figure out why young people overwhelmingly support President Obama and the Democratic Party, and not waste it on this silly idea,” Mann said. “But if conservative students are afraid to defend their principles in the classroom, maybe they do need a list of professors to avoid.”
UT has an abundance of resources available to students to help them if they experience this sort of bias, O’Neal said.
“If the student feels abused, they should talk to their professor. If that doesn’t solve the problem, they should go to the department chair. If there is still a problem, they can even go to the dean or the Vice President [for] Student Affairs. There are so many places to go to avoid this type of thing,” he said.
Rubin said, though the directory of liberal professors is of high importance to the UT College Republicans, they have done many other positive things that people should focus on.
“We like to consider ourselves a well-rounded group. We’re not just a group of students sitting in a basement trying to slander these professors. We’re really doing a lot more this year. We’ve been helping out with several local campaigns and we also are having a school supply drive for students at Scott High School,” he said.
Rubin said the UT College Republicans are still working on compiling the directory of liberal professors, and expect it to be available on their Web site by Wednesday.
-The UT College Republicans Web site can be visited at www.utoledogop.com.
311 comments
Personally, I'd use the college Repubs list - I'd choose my professors from it - at least I wouldn't be subjected to the delusional drivel I can get for free on Faux "News" & all of the rest of the media outlets that constantly give air time to their copious right wing pundits.
By David French THE MOST leftist-dominated institution in American life today is our system of higher education.Studies have shown that liberal faculty members outnumber conservatives in some disciplines by 30 to 1. At colleges and universities all over the country, the watchwords are "tolerance" and "diversity" - which, in the university world, means a community where everyone looks different but thinks alike.By now, the evidence of leftist dominance is so overwhelming that no one can credibly dispute it. But does that dominance really present a problem? Not to the left (of course). They would argue that their universities are havens of free speech, outposts of dissent in a conformist world and hallowed places where students learn to "question authority" and "speak truth to power."In fact, the opposite is true.Virtually immune from oversight and invested with enormous power and financial resources, the campus left has all too often created institutions that suppress free speech, punish critics and sometimes even actively undermine U.S. foreign policy and military efforts abroad.Sometimes, the furor over national issues makes it easy to lose sight of the effect campus policies and actions have on real people all around us. Even outrageous statistics - like the fact that 70 percent of America's top schools enforce unconstitutional speech codes - fail to stir much concern.The Pennsylvania state legislature recently learned that its public universities suppress student freedom at an even higher rate than that national average. The politicians, like many voters, simply shrugged. Maybe they won't shrug at Christian DeJohn.Christian is a sergeant in the Pennsylvania National Guard and a graduate student at Temple University. Since 9/11, he's been deployed overseas three times, serving in Germany, Egypt and Bosnia. While he has not faced service in Iraq, Christian has served his country in hazardous circumstances. Bosnia is still a hostile fire zone, and soldiers deployed there take risks every day. When Christian left Philadelphia to serve in Bosnia, he requested a military leave of absence from Temple, but he still tried to continue his studies. He took a correspondence course from a distinguished retired officer, and he kept up with his university department via e-mail.While overseas, Christian received several invitations to sit-ins and other anti-war activities. These e-mails were written by a professor using publicly funded resources to advance his own personal political agenda. Christian objected.Though he never disputed the professor's rights to free speech, he expressed concern that such messages were being sent to a soldier deployed in a hostile-fire zone. He also asked what Temple was doing to support its students serving overseas.The professor never responded to Christian, and the e-mails stopped. But when he returned from Bosnia, Christian discovered that he had been expelled. He challenged the expulsion. Temple claimed "computer error" and re-admitted him. But worse - much worse - was in store.To receive his master's degree, Christian had to write a thesis and receive the approval of a "primary" and a "secondary" reader. His primary reader approved his thesis - hardly a surprise since Christian is an accomplished writer who has been published in nationally prominent newspapers and historical journals. (In fact, he has more publications than many Temple faculty members.) In a recent federal job application, he was rated first out of more than 60 applicants. But his "secondary" reader was a professor whose political beliefs are opposed to Christian's.This secondary reader not only flunked Christian, but made it a point to describe his work in insulting terms. Among other things, it was called a "hissy fit in print" that read like a "comic book for five-year-olds."Then, just for good measure, it was reported - falsely - that Christian was delinquent on his student loans.Christian is used to fighting authoritarian foes. He left Temple to defend the liberty of Bosnians, never imagining that his own freedom would be threatened at home. He continues his battle for liberty on his own campus, in his own state - filing a lawsuit against the university, seeking the justice and fairness that's been denied him. He figures free speech shouldn't be too much to ask for on an American college campus.After all, in a Temple, some things should be sacred.David French is a senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org) and director of its Center for Academic Freedom. The Alliance Defense Fund is representing Christian DeJohn in federal court.
The professor is "exposed" while the student remains anonymous?
Nice.
Grow a pair and stop being a crybaby.
If you are a solid individual with strongly held beliefs-you should be able to take a class with a witch doctor and come away with your beliefs intact. This means being able to stand your ground and defend what you believe truly believe in with a conviction and certainty.
What's their main concern? That the conservative propaganda indoctrination hasn't fully taken hold yet for some students and that they may still be open to new ideas?