University leftism is on a relentless roll. Academic freedom? The hallowed halls where open debate and conflicting ideas flourish? The sanctity of civil discourse? Ha! Not anymore. One side now has the freedom to state its views; others do so at their peril.
Professor Thomas Klocek of DePaul University in Chicago is a case in point. Quoting from Joseph Farah’s "When 'academic freedom' fails" article,
Last Sept. 15, the man who has taught critical thinking, college writing and cultures of the world at the Catholic university’s School for New Learning for the last 15 years, Klocek made the mistake of debating the subject of the Middle East with some extremists partial to Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Arab nationalists among the Students for Justice in Palestine and the United Muslims Moving Ahead at a student activities fair.
The informal debate was heated, with Klocek the sole defender of Israel and Middle East Christians in the room. But no blows were exchanged,
no verbal threats made. The spirited argument lasted between 15 and 20 minutes, according to everyone involved.
Nine days later, Klocek found himself the victim of an “emergency suspension” and unceremoniously kicked off the campus. No hearing by his peers. No formal complaints lodged against him. The unsubstantiated accusations by zealous students that Klocek made “racist” remarks was all that was needed to crush the claim of academic freedom at DePaul.
He was offered his job back if he agreed to apologize to the students and have his teaching monitored. He refused.
Now he has no job. . . .
You see, diversity is welcomed if, and only if, it agrees with what is the conventional wisdom in the rarefied atmosphere of academia. . . .Klocek’s students accused him of the unpardonable sins of “demeaning their ideas” and “dishonoring their perspective” and pressing erroneous assertions” and of using his power as a “professor over them” to force them to accept his arguments as true.
Exactly what did he say? He had dared to question the accuracy of literature asserting Rachel Corrie was “murdered by an Israeli bulldozer” and a verbal assertion that “the Palestinians are being treated by Israelis the same way Hitler treated the Jews.”
This is only one such story. There are volumes of horrific tales where the left have punished students and professors for their views, or in their mistaken belief in “academic freedom.”
Schools today are a major subversive force in our society undermining the idea of freedom, stealthily sliding us closer to tyranny. They indoctrinate our children and youth -- propagandize them into armies of “anti-war,” anti-globalization, anti-American, brain washed demonstrators and protestors. That is, before they eventually become teachers, businessmen, politicians and, of course, lawyers and judges, all to further, often unwittingly, leftist extremism.
What to do? Sunshine. Documentaries. Investigative journalism by blogs, talk radio, and the new media. Legislative hearings. Expose the truth. The left’s anchor to the schools -– tenure — could not survive an aroused silent majority.
Note this study."Leaning to the Left"
”Inside Higher Ed” (3/30/05 )
Three political scientists did a survey of 1,643 faculty members at 183 four-year colleges and asked them how they identified themselves politically. This article describes the results (full report not generally available):
Faculty members in the study were asked to place themselves on the political spectrum, and 72 percent identified as liberal while only 15 percent identified as conservative, with the remainder in the middle. The professors were also asked about party affiliation, and here the breakdown was 50 percent Democrats, 11 percent Republicans, and the rest independent and third parties.That the contemporary American university is an anti-American, pro-socialist propaganda mill is suggested by the survey above, but the true meaning of this division and its dire consequences for individual freedom hits home only through personal experiences such as Professor Klocek’s, and my own.
I was a professor for about three decades in a Political Science Department composed of democrats, socialists and Marxists. As the lone libertarian and conservative, I experience the leftism and the personal cost of this in salary and influence, and witnessed the indoctrination of students who were getting nothing but left wing propaganda.
See also the article "Nearly all my professors are Democrats. Isn't that a problem?" Yes, it is, and so tyranny is closing in on the United States
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