Liberal faculty and politically correct thinking at the University of California has resulted in students receiving a decrepit and biased education, a report released this month by a conservative think tank claims.
An April report released by the privately funded California Association of Scholars entitled “A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Influence of Political Activism in the University of California” states that a “leftist” education has resulted in a decrease in the quality of academic teaching, analysis and research at the university.
The report — addressed to the UC Board of Regents — encourages them to impose “a rigorous marketplace of ideas” and establish a sanctuary for a broad political and social ideological spectrum at UC campuses. Presenting dissenting opinions is a quintessential characteristic of quality academics and must be reintroduced to the university, according to the report.
“I think the report simply raises the undeniable reality that many of our UC campuses are failing to truly encourage a marketplace of ideas from all ideological backgrounds,” said Berkeley College Republicans President Shawn Lewis. “There is an important difference between promoting ideological exploration in the classroom versus simply ‘not blocking’ conservative viewpoints.”
In the humanities, teaching classics and rigorous analysis have been replaced by professors advocating their viewpoints and discussing minorities’ grievances, the report states. The report also claims that the influence of “radical politics in academia” results in lowered academic value at the university.
However, according to media studies professor Jean Retzinger, political advocacy and high-quality academia are not mutually exclusive.
“The challenge is to find a way to make the past continually relevant to people,” she said. “The way contemporary politics are played out could be a great vehicle to understand the past.”
Arguments against the university’s liberal reputation are not new, she added.
Though the study primarily focuses on the UC, it also looks at research done by other higher education institutions. The study examines newspaper articles, graduation requirements, course descriptions and syllabi and includes faculty and student interviews.
The report also states that UC campuses silence minority opinions.
The status quo in society is generally conservative, so progressive UC professors are needed to balance out the bias, said Berkeley Political Review National News Editor Luis Flores.
However, according to the report, when faculty members and departments attempt to advance social justice, they undermine their credibility.
It is important to have faculty in academia who are unbiased, said Jeremy Palmer, who is running for both ASUC executive vice president and senator with the Defend Affirmative Action Party. Biased faculty risk disenfranchising students, Palmer said.
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Folks folks, a little bit of perspective here: we should
start defining what the liberal/conservative
dichotomy is all about, and then inspect who the conservative think tank
issuing the report truly represents. It is my view, and I may find support for
it among some of the participants in this forum, that the liberal/conservative
concept has been hijacked by social engineers bent on keeping a tolerable state
of chaos, and not interested at all in fomenting meaningful debate and putting
forward true solutions to our common problems. Are liberals pot-smoking conspiracy
theorists? Socially engaged hypocrites? The youth? The unemployed and
uneducated?
And who are the conservatives? All plutocratic assholes?
God-preaching hypocrites? The bankers and their economists?
In my very humble opinion the terms do us a disservice: they
divide us and smears us in fruitless parrotry and paralyzing finger-pointing,
not as an accident, but as a purposeful distraction from a hijacked economy and
a collapsing environment. We know the criminals responsible for the meltdown of
the economy in 2008; have we punished them? We know the bribers and corrupters who
feeling untouchable by the law intervene our communications for tabloid fodder;
are they all in jail? Aren’t we growing madder and sicker in this First World
country with Third-World enforcement of environmental regulations?
And now we call them job creators, skillful politicians, and
opinionated scientists (science is not about opinions) and turn to them to hear
that this, our university, one of the best research institutions of the world,
is “too liberal”?
Make no mistake it is fear that drives their label-slapping
and fight-picking attitudes; the fear that we may soon understand what is ours
and what we are truly capable of as an organized society.
Even in control of missiles and the best of eavesdropping
technology, the idea of organized citizens demanding answers as their march to
their palaces and mansions must be unnerving and utterly horrorizing…
Conservative academics asking for affirmative action… you got to love the irony of this.
They aren’t asking for “affirmative action”, merely balance – two different concepts altogether.
One thing that I’m glad my “liberal” education has taught me is to always evaluate where information is coming from and to discern potential motives. You just have to go to their website to see that they’re not really an unbiased organization: http://www.nas.org/about/issues_and_ideals
This article kind of misses the point by calling the CAS (division of the National Association of Scholars) a “conservative think tank” when they are actively against…multiculturalism!? Since when has attacking diversity been part of conservatism, or even classical liberalism?
I’m all for thoughtful evaluations of the university, but not from organizations that are designed to protect privileged systems of power because they’re threatened by POC/women/LGBT having their perspectives represented.
Also, there’s another report on their website arguing that The Hunger Games should be considered a classic….thought that was pretty lolworthy.
[I'm all for thoughtful evaluations of the university, but not from organizations that are designed to protect privileged systems of power because they're threatened yy POC/women/LGBT having their perspectives represented. ]
And there’s your problem right there – in your small mind, it’s all a struggle between “systems of power” and the “diversity” crowd. How ludicrous. If ANYONE has any disproportionate amount of political power on the Cal campus (or elsewhere in the UC system) it’s the LGBT, which only represents 2-3% of the population, yet can mau-mau the administration into silencing or ostracizing anyone on any group who dares question or criticize their chosen “lifestyle”. The BSU, which can freely invite a known bigot and hate spew anti-white and anti-Semitic rhetoric on campus cows the usual spineless wimps into acquescence while at the same time demanding to chase another student group off of campus merely because they dared lampoon affirmative action with a bake sale. If ANYONE is trying to protect their “priveleged systems of power” in the UC system, it’s the autocratic and intolerant hard left, which simply can’t tolerate dissent. This is exactly what the report is trying to point out, even if you choose to ignore it…
As a neutral observer, it seems to me that the use of the words “liberal” and “conservative” have become meaningless. “Liberal” does not mean, for example, that the “Students for Justice in Palestine” are somehow privileged to interrupt speakers with differing points of view or to harass Jewish students at checkpoints on campus. It has become obvious that some folks at UC feel that they are “more equal” than others, and that this is tolerated or perhaps condoned by the administration.
“Attempting to advance social justice” has become a vapid cliche. The fact that hundreds come out to protest people who question Affirmative Action while no one comes out to protest the hate speech of Louis Farrakhan tells you all you need to know about the committ to social justice, respect, and equality at UC. Those who invited this bigot to speak, those who gave him a standing ovation, and those who remained silent or defended it have forfitted the right to lecture anyone about “social justice”
Louis Farrakhan is the past, and people can change (did he? didn’t he? i don’t know the guy). affirmative action is for the future.
The deferential treatment given to Farrakhan vs. the sense of outrage over either Kooker or the BCR Bake Sale merely reinforces the claim of the authors of this report.
Ya think?
Not many know that online courses follow the normal academic schedule for each term. They are not self–paced. For instance all registered students at the High Speed Universities proceed through the course as a group
Whatever. I comes as no surprise that a conservative think thank would bemoan the particular political perspectives prominent in the humanistic faculties of Berkeley, though it should be considered doubly ironic that they would want to ESTABLISH a market place of ideas — both due to their ideologically inconsistent desire to get an external correction of the existing market place of ideas at Berkeley, the state of which the current situation is a freeze frame of; and, due to the highly dubious notion that holding a particular viewpoint is the same as the right to representation within the curriculum and the faculty — there is nothing intrinsically natural and legitimate about the various positions along the american political spectrum, and it is laughably pathetic that they demand that UCB faculties should be an amalgamation of all possible political beliefs.
If you believe that the faculty should not try to present opposing views then all that liberal talk about “diversity” is just hogwash since diversity of opinions and ideas was never important at all.
A Crisis of Censorship: A Response to Rick Santorum and the NAS:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/03/1080153/-A-Crisis-of-Censorship-A-Response-to-Rick-Santorum-and-the-NAS
what do the authors of the report hope to gain from this propaganda?
Liberal about what? Such vagaries. UC Berkeley is not “liberal”; it just rides on its own historical prestige of being “liberal.” It is a good school, but in terms of politics it is no different than UCLA or UCSC or UCSD. We’re paying tons of money for this education, and the school administration is obviously driven by money. This sort of vague concept of “liberal” is probably largely describing the STUDENTS of the university. If by “liberal” you mean lazy, decadent, pleasure-seeking, ambivalent-until-direct-consequence hypocritical lemmings than you are not just describing your average UC student; you are describing a whole generation of Gen-Y students. In that regard, Berkeley is no different than any other university.
That is Berkeley. We are top rate when it comes to degree programs like those in the sciences, math, and business. We fall far behind when it comes to many of our liberal arts degree programs. They always kill us when we are compared to the top private universities.
Race/ethnic/gender studies achieve high mau-mau rankings. Yawn
we are top 5/10 in almost all of our liberal arts programs dumbass
We are top 3 for all of our science, math, and business except number 5 for physics. We are top in English, history, psychology, and sociology. Yet we are number 21 overall. Something is dragging us down.
So the truth finally comes out, I wonder how this slipped into the Daily Cal
Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have called in sick last night to the Librul Office of Censoring Real Facts.
Ever considered taking your head out of your ass and considering that those who disagree with you might have some legitimate basis for their viewpoints? The semi-coherent blatherings of Occupy supporters, “diversity” admittees, and their ilk should make it quite clear that by no means does the Left have some form of monopoly on intelligence and/or education. The different treatment given to people with controversial views by the campus administration, their willingness to support those who share their political views while calling for punishment for those who dare to dissent, as well as the slavish promotion in the Daily Cal of left-wing mouthpieces who wouldn’t rate even mention in the local small town gossip sheet, are all pretty indicative of a systematic political bias in place on the Berkeley campus, and to lesser degrees elsewhere in the UC system. There is definitely a left-wing bias on the Cal campus – not just a preponderance of people with liberal political or social views, but an entire institution that openly exhibits different treatment based on where one falls in the sociopolitical spectrum. To pretend otherwise is simply being intellectually dishonest…
“The report also states that UC campuses silence minority opinions.”
I don’t think anyone can deny that the University (or at least certain factions of the University, including the ASUC and the Chancellor) have strong biases against certain political opinions.
Of course those people would vehemently deny it, while at the same time pressuring you to retract your opinion.
I doubt that anyone will “deny” that Berkeley is more liberal than most other universities. I like how this report claims to be non-biased or third-party or something while the first line says “a report released this month by a conservative think tank claims:”. Well hell yeah either side of the issue is going to slam the other with their own “facts”.
And I call bullshit on the “quality of education” shit…then why the hell are we the best public uni IN THE WORLD??? There are plenty of other way more conservative public unis…
I mean, sorry that UC Berkeley actually has professors that address issues that you’ll never hear anywhere else (OBVIOUSLY everyone goes to college to hear things they’ve already heard in order to justify their own preconceived opinions!). If you don’t like it, put up with it because you’ll only hear those sides of the issues for 4 years and you’ve got the rest of your life to live up the other side.
Of course Berkeley is liberal. But just because it is liberal doesn’t mean that the liberals have an excuse to try to shut up the other side.
I didn’t come to Berkeley because I knew I’d hear my own opinions regurgitated a lot here. In fact, I came knowing I was a conservative gong to a liberal university. An education is not supposed to be about having your preconceived opinions reinforced.
Just because we are the best public university doesn’t mean we are the best we can be. A lot of what makes us so good are our various programs that are not affected by politics. Leftist education doesn’t really sneak into science and math. Our politics are often simplistic instead of being critical. For a great university it is kind of embarrassing to have something as out dated as the Nation of Islam speak on campus.
[ I doubt that anyone will "deny" that Berkeley is more liberal than most other universities.]
There’s a difference between merely having a distinct majority of people with a given political point of view, and exhibiting outright bias. I work in an industry where the predominant political views tend to be conservative or libertarian in outlook (much of it thanks to the chunk of change taken out of our paychecks every 2 weeks to pay for a plethora of failed social programs), so liberals are quite the minority here. However, we don’t give out promotions or pay raises (or decide what co-workers we treat to lunch) based on people’s political outlook, but on their performance and productivity. In other words, we have a preponderance of conservatives, but we don’t exhibit a bias with regards to our workplace. OTOH, how likely do you think someone who openly identifies him/herself as a conservative or Republican is going to be offered a teaching position (or tenure) in any Liberal Arts or Humanities department at Cal or any other UC campus? There is most definitely a left-wing bias, as the entrenched individuals in power there simply can’t handle dissent. This fact is well-known to most people who have attended any UC campus, even if you are personally in denial…