<p>What is your opinion of the intolerance that many left-wing professors show for right-wing faculty members (if any exist) and right-wing students? What is your opinion of things like "diversity seminars" for freshmen, where politically incorrect students are publicly isolated during "group exercises" and so forth.</p>
<p>Please don't deny that this is a phony issue, just Google "liberal professor free speech" for about a bajillion examples, such as the "water buffalo" incident which even the ACLU found ridiculous.</p>
<p>I want to know what your response to all of this is. Obviously, if you go to UC Berkely or Reed or one of those feminist colleges they have in New England, you should know what you're getting into. But what about the poor freshman who goes to the local State U just to study Subject X? Nobody wants to be a captive audience to a sales pitch of any kind, so what is your response? Do you think liberal professors are justified with their open, off-topic political sermonizing?</p>
<p>I once had a professor who, against all reason, was a cranky conservative who went on off-topic rants. While I agreed with a lot of his views I was cringing and didn't speak up because it was a small class and I wanted my A. Is this how you feel? Do you cringe but go along with it? Or do you think "right on! preach it!" when your geology teacher decides to start blasting Republicans? I'm not saying peoples' views should be kept out of the classroom if it's part of the material, but the students are there to get an education, not a sermon. If you only hear the left-wing viewpoint all of the time, and the only time you hear dissenting viewpoints it's when filtered through a left-wing lens, you aren't "learning to think critically" at all. This would be true even if the left-wing viewpoint was 100% right on everything.</p>
<p>I am <em>not</em> trolling, I'm just a guy desperate for answers. I see and read about a lot of bad behavior coming from the leftists in academia and I wonder how the rank-and-file liberals feel, especially since they talk so much about free speech, diversity, and inclusion. I cringe when I see somebody "on my side" behaving like a hose monkey for all the world to see.</p>
<p>maybe my school is just that awesome but I have yet to be subjected to any sort of political proselytizing by my professors. The worst it ever got was one of my accounting professors would go on rants about politics and the economy but he wasn’t a big fan of either the dems OR the republicans. </p>
<p>Then again I’m a business major and almost all of my electives were not courses where politics would really come out. Even in something like Urban Studies and Planning my professor presented both sides of every UP argument (e.g. gentrification or eminent domain).</p>
<p>I am going to deny that this is an issue. Truth has a well-known liberal bias.</p>
<p>For example, the fact of anthropogenic climate change is not a “liberal” or a “conservative” issue - it just so happens that mainstream conservatives have decided to pretend that it doesn’t exist, and the fact that 97 percent of scientists who have studied the issue agree that it does exist is, for them, merely proof of a vast liberal conspiracy.</p>
<p>A scientist who points out, in class, that only a tiny minority of scientists disagree with the theory of anthropogenic climate change, and that many of them are effectively bought off by corporate America, is not expressing bias - he or she is telling the truth.</p>
<p>I’m in an extremely liberal residential college. Many of my professors, no matter what position you take, will take the opposite whether or not they believe it. </p>
<p>My other major is anthropology where there’s not a lot of left/right issues (this is outside of the RC) in the classes I take. Unless you want to challenge evolution, in which case anthropology is not for you. </p>
<p>I really have never seen a problem. I’ve had conservative and liberal professors. I take many controversial classes. There’s a good mix of conservatives and liberals in many of my classes and each get their say. </p>
<p>I know only one conservative prof well simply because I take classes that tend to attract liberals. We’ve talked about this issue and honestly he says it hasn’t really been a problem. </p>
<p>I really don’t think this is as big of an issue as a select few make it out to be.</p>
<p>Actually, the only teacher I can ever think of who went on a political rant (in a classroom- many of my profs and I talk about politics outside of the classroom) was my high school stats teacher. She was retiring the year of the election and was VERY pro-Obama and HATED Sarah Palin. This is a woman who was Hippie through and through and was extremely involved in womens’ issues throughout her whole life. Palin embodied just about everything she loathed about the Republican party with regards to women’s issues. It was first hour my senior year. I slept.</p>
<p>I go to a community college in a very, very Conservative state. My professors, as far as what I’ve observed, are actually pretty middle of the road. I’ve had a few that were obviously very Right-wing, but they stayed respectful- and so did the far-left professors I had at my last college.</p>
<p>I suppose I’ve just been extraordinarily lucky in my classes. For the ones that have been less than respectful, I ignored the biased BS, and focused on what the class was about. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard my professors bash other professors or their students for having different political views than them, but that’s probably because I’m an animal science major and the majority of classes I take are science classes (a few are upper division math courses). They talk science, not politics. Plus, at my school, I’ve noticed that the students are more likely to bash those with different political beliefs than the professors.</p>
<p>I am of the opinion that professors should do there best to not allow students to know what they think. They should inform students with cold, hard facts and allow students to think for themselves and develop their own ideas.</p>
<p>When my dad taught college, that was his mindset (despite being a staunch Republican who even worked on Republican campaigns). At the end of the semester, he asked all of the students on their final for “extra credit” to answer what party they thought he was. He got about half Democrat and half Republican. That’s exactly what he wanted. He taught US Government and didn’t want his own opinions getting in the way.</p>
<p>My physics teacher (I’m in high school still) always bashes a certain political party even when it has nothing to do with the class, he funds any reason to say they’re pretty much terrible people and all stupid. I’m in a different political party than he bashes, and I don’t agree with a lot of this parties views, but it kills me when he does this. It’s so intolerant and judgmental. This other group has every right to their own views and he shouldn’t even be talking about it since it has nothing to do with what he is supposed to be teaching us. My government teacher on the other hand, has always said that whatever our views are he will respect them even if it’s the exact opposite of what he thinks. I believe teachers should teach about their subject and bring in relevant info from outside sources, but not spout their views if it doesn’t even relate, it’s very annoying and unprofessional in my opinion</p>
<p>Okay let me rephrase my question in its most basic way so that people know what it is I’m asking:</p>
<p>How do you feel when a professor you agree with ideologically uses lecture/seminars/assigned reading/etc. to push their viewpoint? How do you feel when a non-left-wing student or faculty member is censored, fired, or singled out for harsher treatment?</p>
<p>I’m <em>not</em> saying that every professor who is a liberal behaves this way, most of them keep their politics out of the class room, but a lot of them <em>use</em> the class room to push their views with the full sanctioning of the administration. One only has to look at many required GEC courses to see how far left the curriculum is. At OSU a second writing class is required for all students, and <em>every</em> option for the second writing class is focused on global warming, labor organization, and various other boutique issues. Do liberals do this automatically because they are so wrapped up in their politics that they can’t help but give everything a political bent, or is this a deliberate attempt at indoctrination? What say you, liberals CCers?</p>
<p>I’m not so sure if many people are understanding what he is asking for (I’m not so sure myself as I’ve just glanced through this thread). The answers that he is getting are mostly “I don’t notice any bias” or “that’s the way life is,” not “I agree/disagree that professor bias in the class is ok.”</p>
<p>Even for the people who dispute aspects of the prevailing climate change theories, they are important to know about. It’s not much different from evolution: whether you believe it or not, it’s a big part of a lot of modern science and politics, not to mention that if you aren’t well-informed about it you’ll be unable to make a decent argument for your views.</p>
<p>As regards the original question, the only heavy POV pushing I’ve experienced thus far was in an economics class where the professor was one of those hardcore anti debt anti government “I got my start working in a salt mine and so should everybody else” types.</p>
<p>ald, his first question was: “What is your opinion of the intolerance that many left-wing professors show for right-wing faculty members (if any exist) and right-wing students?” If we don’t see it, we really can’t have an opinion.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen any of it. I haven’t seen any professors pushing their viewpoints on students, or making any students feel stupid and/or minimalized. I did have a conservative teacher IN HIGH SCHOOL who basically conveyed the idea that any sort of liberal thought was dangerous, and flat-out told us that socialism and communism were evil (and that its supporters were dangerous and crazy), and that upset a few liberal students, but I’ve never experienced this.</p>
<p>GLobal warming is not “pushing a liberal issue.” Global warming is a thing that is actually happening. It shouldn’t be a political issue.</p>
<p>You have to remember that the loud people in a group, are often not the best in the group and just give a bad name to that group, whether it’s liberals or conservatives. Both parties have bad people in them, but the majority are good people. And you have to remember that they’re actually very similar, sure they differ on specific issues but they are both considered in the middle of the political spectrum. Everyone has the right to their own views, but I agree that it should not be pushed on students when it doesn’t even relate to subject matter. Teachers should always give all sides of an argument and let students decide if the class is discussing politics. I’m truly sorry if you had a teacher that used a class as a soap box for their political views, it’s unfair to the student if if they agree with the teacher. But I think most teachers try not to discriminate against those with different views, most probably don’t even want to know the students views, but there are the very select few who cause problems</p>