Protests in college campuses crash like waves against pitiable rocks. Riots roil political forces and demand free speech, which the rioters graciously receive. These revolutions were led by people who felt like they were being oppressed by the government and other higher powers that be. Unfortunately, now the equilibrium has tilted too far in the opposite direction, and balance is lost. The activists are just as passionate about their beliefs as ever, but if their attitude continues on, what will be left but a country full of people being offended at every word said, yet still pushing for the freedom to shred their opposition to ribbons with their biting comments, people afraid to go to war and fight for the freedom they crave, and people who believe that our beautiful country deserves every attack she gets and does not merit a counterattack in turn. These people who fought so hard for the enforcement of the First Amendment are called liberals. Liberals are still fighting to defend the rights of free speech, but now it’s the other extreme that really needs those rights. In college campuses around America, liberals are still brandishing their big mouths and crying selfishly for their own rights, while the rights of others considered beneath them because they are a minority are stomped down for favor of the opinion of the majority. These are liberals who have unconsciously become exactly what they were fighting against. These liberals are the basest kind of hypocrite.
This is the definition of liberal: Open to new behavior or opinions/respectful of individual rights and freedoms. By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative. This imbalance is shocking even if you are biased, with 50 percent of those surveyed proclaiming to be Democrats and 11 percent Republicans. At elite schools, the difference is even bigger, with 87 percent of faculty being liberal, and 13 percent conservative (www.washingtonpost.com).This alone is not enough to condemn the liberals in universities, however. We must also ask the professors themselves how they view politics. There have been many conservative complaints about “liberal homogeneity in academia” and its disproportion. The conductors of the survey also concluded that there has been “a substantial shift to the left” since the mid-1980s, and is still increasing (www.washingtonpost.com). These are not diverse places; they are contrary to the very definition of liberal. They are one-party monopolies, and cannot produce well-rounded beings without the balance that having more conservatives and more real equality would provide. “Colleges like to characterize themselves as wide-open places where every thought can be thought, where any opinion can be held, where all ideals and principles may be pursued freely. The demonstrable reality, however, is that you will find a much wider-and-freer-cross-section of human reasoning and conviction in the aisles of a grocery store or city bus” (www.academia.org).
In the early 1960s, a protest rose called the Campus Free Speech Movement, in which students and faculty alike fought for the right to voice a dissenting opinion without fear of punishment. Now, people are being discriminated against—by the liberals who fought for the movement—because they have an opinion in the minority. “Today, protestors are fighting to shut down other people’s free speech. This happens frequently whenever someone happens to disagree with the dominant campus thinking. Policies that are supposed to be ensuring tolerance and diversity are instead being used to silence people with alternative views. Race, class, and gender issues are being used as ammunition in an all-out political war” (Indoctrinate U). This is evidenced in a case at Cal Poly University. A student at Cal Poly, Steve Hinkle, got into a lot of trouble merely for putting up flyers that informed other students about a meeting among the Republicans on campus. They were going to have African-American conservative author, Mason Weaver, speak on campus, but the posters and flyers were ordered to be taken down because the liberal community of the college found the material “offensive.” If campuses are advocating African-Americans as much as they can with affirmative action and other benefits, why would they shut down an African-American speaker? Because he was conservative; he was against their views. “It’s clear that the college was trying to charge him with something; they just had a hard time figuring out what” (Greg Lukianoff, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Indoctrinate U). When the people claiming to advocate African-Americans turn their back on one just because he has a different viewpoint, the world is in a sorry state indeed.
Another extreme case of discrimination of conservatives in college also concerns people of smaller minorities. Sukhmani Khalsa is a conservative student at the University of Tennessee. He commented in an editorial in the college paper about the bias in the Issues Committee, which is charged with bringing in speakers of interest and diversity. However, all of the speakers had been liberal, so he spoke as a conservative to give some variety to the newspaper. When Sukhmani wrote on his views, there were many threatening and hateful emails sent towards him and his group, the most offensive of which said this: “The next time you see one of these ragheads, shoot them right in the f***ing face.” The student who sent this email was brought in by the dean of students, who, after talking with the student, declared that he had NOT violated the school’s code of conduct. There was no punishment, and nothing was done about the hate mail. Another of the students said this: “I believe the reason that no action was taken was because Sukhmani is an outspoken conservative” (Indoctrinate U). A further situation that seems a little severe actually does not concern a minority at all. This particular group has millions of followers worldwide. This group is the Christians. At Indian River Community College, a Christian group of students wanted to show “Passion of the Christ” at an outreach meeting. The administrators denied their request, on the justification that the movie was R-rated, and “younger students” would not be able to watch. In the same semester, the administrators then allowed a play called “F***ing For Jesus,” in which the main character masturbated to pictures of Jesus Christ (Indoctrinate U). This appears more than R-rated to me. The difference is this: the movie “Passion of the Christ” is a traditional, conventional look at how Jesus Christ lived and died, while “F***ing For Jesus” is more open-minded. The liberals have done it again: they have denied the minority of conservatives because of their dissenting views.
It’s not just the students being discriminated against, either. Laura Freberg, a teacher at Cal Poly University, was questioned by her colleagues on her political standpoint. Another faculty member said to her, “Well, we never would have hired you if we had known you were a Republican.” She stated that she remained “cautiously neutral” before this in order to remain employed. She was removed as the Head of the Psychology Department, and isolated from the department in an attempt to coerce her to quit, just because the rest of the university was liberal and she was conservative. She eventually got frustrated with this treatment and the case went all the way to the federal court. The court ruled in Freberg’s favor, and the rest of the staff was ordered to stop harassing her (Indoctrinate U). My choice of wording here is ironic, since liberal administrators have classified anything offensive, anything contributing to low self-esteem, and anything even slightly unwanted or unwarranted as harassment (Indoctrinate U), and do not tolerate it by the students. Harassment rationales are used to shut down people with unusual opinions (often the socially conservative, the un-PC, or the merely unlucky) far too often (www.latimes.com), and yet the administrators and the party in the majority get to use this tactic to their advantage when it suits them. “What most faculty want is for students to validate their own pathetic life experiences. If we were securer, we would have different jobs, but, we’re faculty; and so we want people to agree with us, to nod, to write stuff down, as if it were important.” (Michael Munger, Professor, Duke, Indoctrinate U). This says that the bias in the faculty is not just made of closed-mindedness, but also insecurity on the professors’ parts; that they don’t want to be challenged by someone who they feel they should have authority over.
There has been another phenomenon where these “free-thinkers” have over-used their “fair-headedness” and opened their mouths wider than their (apparently not-so-wide) minds. Around the country, a minority of students has begun to protest against the military of any branch being in or on school campus. These people are shouting out to the world about the blood on the U.S’s shoulders, and how America is the root of all evil in the world. They roar that America, since it is evil, deserves to be wiped off the face of the planet; and since the military is the arm of America; that it should be cut off first. They say that the U.S. military is a large part of the evil in the country, that any force America uses against other countries is wrong (Indoctrinate U). What they don’t realize is without the military, these idiots would not be able to shoot their mouths off at all.
To reiterate the definition of liberalism: open to new behavior or opinions and respectful of individual rights and freedoms. What I have just described does not seem in the least “open to new behavior or opinions.” It appears to be the opposite; full of intolerance and hatred for those who do not share their beliefs. The liberals have become what they fought against hardest back in the 60s: oppressors who crush the minorities underfoot just because they do not like those particular minorities. The liberals in universities and colleges are so focused on having ethnical, racial, and gender diversity, that they have ignored the diversity that matters: diversity of the mind. They have twisted the meaning of liberal; they have warped the definition.
Sources
Evan Maloney, On the Fence Films, Indoctrinate U
http://www.academia.org/campus_reports/2002/october_5.html
http//www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-o-shermer-lukianoff14apr14,0,170548.story
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html
