Nation & World: Saturday, November 29, 2003
Protection urged for campus conservatives
By David Kelly
Los Angeles Times
DENVER — Worried that left-wing professors are using college classrooms to bully those who don't toe the liberal line, a Colorado politician says it may be time to pass a law protecting students who hold more conservative or religious views.
Republican state Senate President John Andrews recently sent a letter to Colorado's 29 public colleges and universities, asking them to explain how they handle cases of ideological discrimination and how they promote diverse points of view. Their answers are due by Monday. If he's unhappy with what he hears, Andrews vowed, he will sponsor legislation to "ensure academic freedom."
How the law would do that has not been worked out. "To say college campuses are liberal is like saying water is wet," Andrews said. "I have heard that a conservative viewpoint is decidedly unwelcome."
Some students have complained of being forced to attend abortion-rights rallies, of being required to write essays critical of the Bush administration and of having a strident anti-religion agenda pushed on them. Some who protested have said they received poor grades or were asked to leave the class.
Colorado colleges say they have safeguards for those who feel under attack because of their beliefs. "I don't think we are biased. And if there are issues of bias, we want to know," said Bob Nero, a University of Colorado, Boulder, spokesman.
Andrews, who represents the Denver suburb of Centennial, said liberals began taking over the nation's colleges in the 1960s and are the dominant force on campus. He decided a few months ago to take on the issue, first consulting well-known leftist-turned-rightist David Horowitz, founder of Students for Academic Freedom, which pushes for more conservative viewpoints on campus.
Andrews was criticized by those who said he seeks an ideological quota system, where each liberal professor would have to be balanced by a conservative.
Andrews — who said he "abhors quotas" — charged ahead, armed with anecdotes he believed showed a systematic bias against conservatives on campus.
In one case, he said, a student went to class in an ROTC uniform and was berated by his anti-military professor. In another, a criminology class was told to write an essay on why President Bush was a war criminal. When a student instead wrote why Saddam Hussein was the war criminal, she was given a failing grade, Andrews said.
"Liberalism at its best adheres to openness and tolerance and is accepting and inviting of dissent against itself," he said. "Liberalism, when it gets lazy, wants the privilege of dissent against society but doesn't want others to dissent against it."
The request to review college policies on intellectual diversity and discrimination has drawn fierce criticism.
"I think the whole thing is ridiculous," said state Sen. Ken Gordon, a Democrat from Denver. "I think it's a witch hunt ... I am fairly certain that most professors are not punishing students for being conservative." Gordon teaches political science at the University of Colorado, Denver.
On a national level, Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., last month introduced a resolution calling for an academic bill of rights. "We want people to know when they walk into a college that they will get an education, not (a liberal) indoctrination," his spokesman said.
Until then, some students are taking matters into their own hands. They have formed groups to discuss and report incidents of bias against them by a professor.
"I had a professor who made fun of Jesus on the cross; another professor told the class no true scientist could not believe in evolution; and another time I had a professor say sex between a man and a boy is not necessarily child abuse," said Erin Bergstrom, 44, of Loveland, Colo., who attended two colleges before going to Regis University in Denver. "I expected a variety of viewpoints to be presented in a fair and objective manner. I am not there to hear a professor's own opinion; I am there to learn."
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