Dissident conservatives have long bemoaned the prevalence of academic bias against them. The bias, indeed, has become so prevalent that liberal politicians are starting to notice.
“Liberals, especially in universities, profess ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance’,” Grove City College professor Paul Kengor said during an interview with the Young America’s Foundation. “In truth, they only tolerate things they agree with—which, of course, isn’t really tolerance. What liberals really practice is, at best, a selective tolerance and a selective diversity.” Kengor is the author of a number of books, the latest of which is entitled 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative.
Surprisingly, similar observations have been made on the other side of the aisle. In a recent commencement address at Harvard University, former New York mayor and publisher Michael Bloomberg made a compelling argument against politically homogenous university faculties and partisan indoctrination.
“Great universities must not become predictably partisan,” he said. “And a liberal arts education must not be an education in the art of liberalism.”
Bloomberg, an Obama supporter, pointed out that during the 2012 presidential race, 96% of all contributions from Ivy League faculty members went to Barack Obama. What does this indicate? There is an idea on college campuses that funding should only go to scholars and to work that conforms to a particular viewpoint.
Bloomberg disagrees with this idea:
“The role of universities is not to promote an ideology. It is to provide scholars and students with a neutral forum for researching and debating issues—without tipping the scales in one direction, or repressing unpopular views … Intolerance of ideas, whether liberal or conservative is antithetical to individual rights and free societies and it is no less antithetical to great universities and first rate scholarships … neither party has a monopoly on truth or God on its side.”
Dr. Kengor works to promote equal representation of ideas on college campuses and to correct biases spread by professors. He counsels students not to be embarrassed about what they believe. “There are more people on campus who think like you than you realize,” he says to students.
