Aren't our classes supposed to be a political, racial, sexual and bias-free zone.
i think it's somewhat naive to expect an adult learning environment to be entirely free from personal opinion. active racism or sexism is one thing, but there's nothing wrong with buttering your bread on one side of the political spectrum, is there?
like fizzygirl said, the key is in the actual processes of academic work. if a professor marks good work negatively because of their political orientation then they are going against the spirit of education itself. and honestly i think such people would be an absolute minority in
any university.
Actually, I has come to a point where I believe students are worried in completing assignments which are clearly against the views Professors for fear of retaliation in marking.
if you are a capable student and produce good work it will be marked accordingly. if it is not you have a very real case for a discrimination claim yourself, and i would strongly encourage you to pursue it - all institutions have some facility for regrading.
i think people are missing the point a bit. further education is about understanding how different viewpoints can coincide under the umbrella of a discipline; it's about developing the ability and skills to think critically, to assess arguments, and to put forth your own case in a convincing manner. if you can do those things you will achieve - or at least that's the case in any halfway decent university i know of.
it is not about expecting a neutral and entirely objective regurgitation of previously-agreed state-mandated 'facts'. such a methodology does not adequately represent the reality of academic work, and therefore would be a poor basis for training the authors, lecturers and experts of the future. nothing exists in cotton-wool isolation - for which, imho, we really should be quite grateful.
It's funny how universities always talk about multiculturalism, an open and equal exchange of all ideas, and place with multiple viewpoints on everything, and people of open minds, but it is exactly the opposite when it comes down to the opinions of the faculty. In nearly all colleges it is almost unanimously liberal besides a few departments like economics.
having a faculty body with a vaguely similar political outlook - and btw, a survey on who is a registered 'democrat' or 'republican' hardly captures the subtle nuances and diversities of an entire teaching staff's political standpoint -is not evidence of an inequality in the exchange of ideas. it's just that conservatives aren't interested in academia
as ebola? touched upon, there are areas where we cannot insulate academic discourse from the vagaries of political opinion. and similarly i think there are areas which attract people of a certain persuasion more readily than people of other persuasions. we see this in politics itself, as you are well aware.
basing a study on public party registrations is somewhat misguided, imho. after all, most registered republicans have a lower level of education than registered democrats (anyone remember what that thread in CE&P was called?). perhaps if we were to put any stock in assessing party registrations in a two-party system we could argue that liberals are over-represented in universities because conservatives are less likely to be highly educated, or less likely to pursue a career in academia. or perhaps that when people are better educated they are more receptive to liberal ideas.
but then i wouldn't make any such argument.
to speak of 'unanimously liberal' colleges is disingenuous. liberal on what topics, by whose standards, with regard to which influences? liberalism itself - not the Fox News battle cry, but the actual political institution - is a varied and complicated beast.
the one area i can claim to speak for with any real degree of authority is the study of history. and imho it's quite logical that many historians seem to shun strictly conservative viewpoints. the study of history is often the study of our progress as a functional society; and our progress has been marked by a steady liberalisation. we are becoming more tolerant, more inclusive, less elitist, less militant (overall), more respectful of individual rights, more aware of the connections between local actions and global consequences, less tolerant of injustices... and generally speaking, the forces of Conservatism have often failed to be aligned with those issues.
I understand you got to get a good grade, but there are surely ways to butt heads with opinion and still keep in good grace. If you present a good argument the other side is almost obligated to take note.
agreed.
There is a problem when a history teacher starts ranting about how terrible Bush is, however true it may be.
do many history teachers actually do that?
it sounds like highly unprofessional behaviour that would be expected of a third-rate teacher at a shitty institution.
