Should institutions of higher learning be defunded until they cease militantly pushing a hard-left bias on their students?
The existence of the leftist bias is statistically well-documented and this overwhelming majority seeks to suppress contrary voices. A number of studies have provided solid statistical evidence of this, many of which were cited in a Discover the Networks article:
A 2003 Center for the Study of Popular Culture study examined the ratio of registered Democrats to registered Republicans on the faculties of 32 elite colleges and universities nationwide, finding that the overall ratio of registered Democrats to registered Republicans was greater than 10-to-1 . “At four schools—Williams, Oberlin, MIT and Haverford—the researchers could not identify a single Republican faculty member.” It was also found that administrators at the “32 schools examined in the CSPC study leaned just as far to the left as did the faculties: At schools like the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Melon, and Cornell, not a single Republican administrator could be found. In the entire Ivy League, the researchers were able to identify only 3 Republican administrators.
- The survey’s results have been backed by other investigations. A “2005 national survey directed by Smith College Professor Stanley Rothman and co-authored by Professors Neil Nevitte (University of Toronto) and S. Robert Lichter (George Mason University) found that left-leaning professors outnumbered conservatives by a ratio of 5-to-1 on American campuses…
- “Another survey of faculty political views released in 2006 by Professors Christopher Cardiff and Daniel Klein yielded similar results. Cardiff and Klein looked at the political party registration records for tenure-track faculty at 11 California universities—including large public universities as well as smaller, religiously-affiliated campuses. The ratios they uncovered, particularly in certain departments, were striking. In the field of sociology, for instance, the researchers found a Democrat-to-Republican ratio of 44-to-1, whereas in the humanities overall the ratio was 10-to-1.
- “These findings were again duplicated in 2007 by Professors Neil Gross of Harvard and Solon Simmons of George Mason University, who surveyed a random sampling of more than 1,400 faculty members teaching at 500+ colleges and universities across the United States. ..Gross and Simmons’ results indicated that 9.4% of respondents considered themselves “extremely liberal” and 34.7% considered themselves “liberal,” as compared with 1.2% who labeled themselves “very conservative” and 8.0% who answered “conservative.” Overall, only 19.7% of respondents identified themselves as any shade of conservative, as compared to 62.2% who identified themselves as any shade of liberal…
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The article notes that “These increasingly lopsided figures suggest that most students at these schools probably graduate without ever taking a class taught by a professor with a conservative viewpoint.”
Numerous inflammatory examples have been reported in the general media. A recent Wall Street Journal article noted that “Conservative thought on campuses these days is rare, though for some, it’s still not rare enough.” Among the most salient of the described incidents:
- Fox News reports that Charles Angeletti, a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, has his class recite an anti-American takeoff on the Pledge of Allegiance that denounces the U.S. as a Republican-controlled bastion of injustice.
- A Campus Reform article provided several other examples: “Donna Shalala, the president of the University of Miami, attracted criticism in the national press based on her administration’s decision to reject the application of four female students who wanted to organize a conservative group on campus. … the university reversed its decision after public criticism… Shalala, of course, is a prominent Democratic official, having served as Secretary of Health and Human Services for eight years during the Clinton administration. She was recently named the CEO of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation…Condoleezza Rice, who served at the highest levels of government, [was essentially] forced to withdrew as a commencement speaker at Rutgers University after protests. Students and faculty didn’t like the fact that she’d worked in the George W. Bush administration. They were successful in making sure her voice was not heard.”
In contradiction to America’s tradition of religious tolerance, universities have displayed bias against religious Christians and Jews. The Daily Beast recently reported that “From neo-Nazi graffiti at Berkeley to the grilling of a Jewish student at UCLA, anti-Semitism is on the rise at liberal schools thought to be bastions of political correctness.”
As these institutions continue to indoctrinate, rather than instruct, they absorb ever greater amounts of taxpayer, parental, and student loan dollars. A New America Foundation study notes that “The federal government provided $30.2 billion in grant aid to help individuals pay for a higher education in the 2014-15 school year.” In addition, Washington allows a variety of credits, deductions and exemptions for college attendance. And, of course, there are federally-backed student loans, which increasingly are the topic of discussion due to concerns that students may not be able to repay them going forward.
The states are increasing their higher education spending, as well. A 2014 US News report revealed the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association found state funding for higher education increased from $81.1 billion in 2012 to $81.6 billion in 2013. Overall, 30 states increased spending from 2012 to 2013.
All of this funding and loan activity pays for sharply escalating tuition. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that “Between 2001–02 and 2011–12, prices for undergraduate tuition, room, and board at public institutions rose 40 percent, and prices at private nonprofit institutions rose 28 percent, after adjustment for inflation.”
Does it make sense for taxpayers to continue to provide ever greater support to institutions that indoctrinate, not teach? Indeed, are Americans financing the very forces that are seeking to overturn the principles and practices they believe in?
Thomas Jefferson had a firm belief that an educated public was essential to the success of a free nation. In a 1787 letter to James Madison, he noted:
“Above all things I hope the education of the common people will be attended to, convinced that on their good sense we may rely with the most security for the preservation of liberty.”
Far too many American universities, at ever greater cost, are striving to eliminate the very concepts that gave rise to the founding of the United States. Rather than, as Jefferson hoped, provide a foundation for the preservation of personal freedom, colleges are now becoming a wellspring of collectivist authoritarianism. It’s time to defund them.