Faith writes:
Yes, the starting point is to correct the bias that has led to the preponderance of liberal professors, a preponderance which demonstrates bias in hiring and tenure
This is a total crock, as Chiroptera has clearly explained above. Do you know anything about what it takes to get a faculty position at a major university? How many educated people have to come to a consensus of opinion before you get offered a position? I interviewed for 6 or 7 different faculty positions before I got hired, and I can tell you for a fact that the process has *nothing* to do with politics. In fact, when you serve on hiring committees, you learn that any questions about political affiliations (or about religion, family status, or sexual orientation) are all strictly off limits. You are not allowed by law to ask such questions. But you would change that just to ensure that some underqualified conservatives get faculty positions they don't academically deserve? And just to correct this 'perceived bias' that has apparently evolved because the most educated individuals quickly see through the lies and hypocricies of the neo-con dogma. If there is a preponderance of liberals in academia, they got there on their own merits. So the question is not why academia is biased (it isn't), but rather why conservatives either eschew higher education for business, or are apparently failing miserably in fair and open competition for faculty spots.
Faith writes:
...keeping irrelevant political and religious topics out of the classroom
You mean like preventing ID from being labelled 'science' ?
Faith writes:
At the moment it's the conservative and religious students who are being intimidated
Intimidated? How so? Have you ever been to a university? In any debate setting, students are encouraged to take positions of their choice and defend them. That's part of the learning process. No one is ever 'intimidated' from expressing an opinion. That's crap. Good professors always welcome expression of opposing opinions because that is what is needed to stir up debate and make students think. There is no 'conspiracy of indoctrination' - the very idea is preposterous. The underlying premise of all higher education is that we teach the process of reasoning and creative thought, regardless of discipline.
Faith writes:
...direct intimidation of students by unfair grading based on their political and religious views rather than the course material itself.
I suggest if there were any basis at all to such allegations we would see some high profile law suits in progress (especially given the litigious nature of wealthy conservatives). We don't. It's simply not true.
Faith writes:
How about a whole semester's worth of anti-Dubya rants and a punitive refusal to tolerate another point of view? Yes this happens.
Two points raised. The first could be considered within the rights of a political science professor (and I, for one would empathize), but the second is something else entirely. If any professor was truly 'punitive' and 'refused to tolerate' students because of their political convictions, that would be grounds for a disciplinary hearing under policies already in place in most colleges. Again, I submit that no such allegations have yet had enough legs to warrant such a hearing. And disclipinary actions have been taken against extremist faculty who have suggested 911 was justified, or who have tried to deny the holocaust and such, so it does happen.
Faith writes:
...the power to ridicule the views of a student and grade him on his opinions instead of his knowledge of the course material? This is what is happening now.
More of the same. Where is the evidence for all these injustices? Where are all these poor, ridiculed and unfairly graded students? I suggest they don't have a case or they would have made it in court by now.
Faith writes:
...liberal refusal or inability to respect views contrary to their own.
I'm sorry. You are contradicting the very definition of the word 'liberal' here. You would have us believe you neo-cons are more respecting of views contrary to your own than we are? You people keep throwing the term 'liberal' around as if it was some kind of dirty word. You need to go back to the dictionary and read what being 'liberal' really means .
from Websters Unabridged:
liberal:
...favorable to progress or reform...
...favorable or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection..
...favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief...
...free from prejudice and bigotry; tolerant
...open-minded...
...characterized by generosity...
So I ask you, if right-wing Republicans are anti-liberal, then just what sort of 'freedom' is it that they are trying to export to the rest of the world and force down other country's throats whether they want it or not?
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