I have returned from the Left Coast intact. I lectured to an overflow crowd of more than 300 at the University of Oregon Tuesday night. The strong turnout is a testament to the laws of supply and demand: demand for conservative ideas at the U of O is met with a heavy supply of left-wing indoctrination. I gave the people what they wanted--well, some of the people.

The Left tore down fliers promoting the lecture. They posted their own fliers, stating: "Why the Right Hates Everyone but Rich White Guys." They defaced existing posters, scribbling out the "America" in "Why the Left Hates America" and replacing it with "the pricks that run the U.S." The magic-marker activists explained why they crossed out "America" in favor of the "U.S.": "America is the entire Western Hemisphere you ethnocentric numbnuts!"

The behavior of anonymous vandals became the behavior of many in attendence. Hearing me say things they disagreed with, audience members heckled--at times yelling incoherently. Thankfully, inappropriate shouts were the worst of it. Several University of Oregon College Republicans have been attacked in recent years. This includes the incoming chairman, who received a mild concussion after crashing a Teresa Heinz-Kerry political rally in Eugene. I escaped the punches to the head that greeted that College Republican, but I could have done without the repeated interruptions too. Several of those yelling during my lecture--I suspected at the time and confirmed afterwards--were U of O professors. That's really lame.

There's a lot of talk at the University of Oregon about diversity. The school's Office of Multicultural Academic Support goes so far as to withhold a majority of spots in certain entry-level math and English courses for minorities. But the diversity preached at the U of O goes only skin deep. Prior to my speech, I examined Federal Election Commission data concerning donations from University of Oregon employees. Twenty-five Oregon professors and administrators donated more than $12,000 to John Kerry in 2004, but not a single employee showed up on the FEC records as donating to George W. Bush's campaign. The school regularly doles out money to host the likes of Michael Moore, Maya Angelou, Howard Dean, and Howard Zinn. In contrast, I was invited by a student group that generated the bulk of its support off-campus through Young America's Foundation.

The diversity pushed at the University of Oregon more closely resembles conformity. And just as those heckling my speech follow the campus herd, the school encouraging their bad behavior follows the herd of universities preaching tolerance but practicing intolerance.

Dan,
there is a particular brand of leftist professor that consider it acting white to politely listen to views that run counter to their own: the redneck leftist. They are first cousins to the know-nothing party of the 19th Century, and they have no place in a liberal educational institute.
To you, bringing to light these anti-liberal attitudes in today's universities, I say bully!

You can’t expect Multiculturalism to work if you’re not from the culture that the Multiculuralists don’t approve of. Don’t you know? Multiculturalism rag sounds all-inclusive but demonstratively, is anything but unless your political philosophies and “cultural” slant works for them.

And it seems that these speaking gigs will only make you some $$$, if you have to start writing bad books and/or poetry and join the other side. That means you need to devolve into a whiny socialist baby.

That would be…..”You can’t expect Multiculturalism to work if you ARE from the culture that the Multiculuralists don’t approve of”.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Don't forget, most hardcore dems and even a few far right fools do believe in free speech. Of course, that's only if they agree with it. If not, they feel completely justified in any action that shuts you down. Yep, they are just sooo tolerant. I bet they sprain their arms when they pat themselves on the back.

I really am ashamed of the conduct of some of the professors at my universtiy. I may not have agreed with everything you said, but the lecture was still more interesting than the average college professor could produce. That paid employees of the University couldn't conduct themselves in a more respectful manner is a disgrace.

I assure you, this immature minority isn't representative of the U of O as a whole, and that some professors actually do try to provide a balanced view of the world.

Thanks again for visiting Eugene. Hopefully we haven't scared you off for good.

~An apologetic U of O student

Thanks, Mike. As you know from attending, the hecklers were a minority in the crowd. And those hecklers who appeared to be professors, and were identified as such by students afterwards, were few in number too. I enjoyed my time at the University of Oregon. Thank you for coming out to hear me talk.

"America is the whole Western Hemisphere!"

Do they realize that in saying so they advocate naming everything West of the Atlantic after a dead Italian? Heheheheheh..... Forza Azzuri!

Mr. Flynn,
I was also at your UO talk. I might add that I was one of the many in the "non-Repulblican yet non-vocal" category. I have a question for you:

You mentioned several times both in your talk and on this website that there is a 'liberal bias' in higher education. You proved that there are more liberals in higher education with data.

Since you describe this as a "bias", you must want me to believe that there is a large highly educated Republican constituent that desires, and is unable to achieve University postings. Since you are a smart man, you must know that the data you provide is insufficient in demonstrating this "bias". You must also prove that this dejected Republican constituent exists. Can you point me to this data?

Respectfully,
EM

EM,

As a fellow academic I am sure you clearly see the error in your question. The bias is not in the percentages of liberals in academics, while this may be the only data we have available at times. If liberals taught conservative/liberal views equally and representatively, the 70-80% liberal numbers in academics would mean nothing. The bias is in the classroom, and this is where it leads to problems.

Obviously voting rolls, and self-identification percentages of liberal professors is not enough to prove that these professors are indoctrinating their students. In a perfect world, we could study a number of incoming freshmen for four years and measure how their attitudes change over the course of being in college with a faculty that leans strong to the left. But, as I'm sure you know, this type of study is almost impossible when it comes to controlling for other factors that might be at work here. A good example would be a student who grew up in a very conservative home environment. By default college life, away from home, would be more liberal, regardless of faculty political stances. How would you control for this student? That's a tough one.

While this type of study may be out of reach, we do have qualitative evidence from all over the country, which 50 years ago might have gotten a publication in a top academic journal, but we know today in the world of quantitative empirics that's not going to happen. In spite of this, this qualitative evidence strongly suggests a liberal bias in the classroom, and very rarely suggests otherwise. Why should we expect liberal numbers so big not to produce some level of bias in the classroom? If I told you that 70 to 80% of acadmics believe in evolution you'd have a hard time beleiving that this wasn't being taught in the classroom. Many liberals believe more strongly in their politics than they do in their science. You can show them top academic studies that suggest that affirmative action isn't working, and they won't believe you, even though the science says otherwise.

But this is getting away from your original question. It doesn't really matter if there is some mass of Republican academics trying to get academic jobs. However, I will mention a recenty study (forgive me for not recalling who it is credited too) that showed when controlling for many things such as academic accomplishments, publications, etc. Republicans tend to end up at inferior institutions compared to their more liberal equals. So even when Republicans do transcend into the world of academics it appears they are being marginalized.

However, the broader point is that this would all be moot if liberal academics would be objective in the classroom, but the preponderance of qualitative (and some quantitative) evidence suggests otherwise.

To paraphrase Nixon: "It's not intolerance if the left does it!" [He smiles sarcastically as he types.]

Sorry for the slow reply. However, I think I more fully understand your position now. It is not that you mind numerical superiority of liberals over conservatives in education, it is the biased ideologies they provide to students. Even though my personal experience does not reflect this bias, nor does any of Mr. Flynn's data correctly expose this bias, I am willing to consider that a certain secular, non-nationalist, unreligious trend might permeate higher education in this country. In fact, I might also be swayed to believe that a majority of those who successfully complete an advanced degree might be irreparably swayed by this liberal bias...perpetuating the biased system!

Of course, there are alternatives in higher education that offer interested students routes to more conservative viewpoints. Liberty University, Patrick Henry College, Indiana Wesleyan, and a couple of other institutions spring to mind. But, as Future Ph.D. stated, it will be very hard to level the playing field in mainstream universities, especially considering that liberal professors tend to be so opposed to considering conservative viewpoints in areas such as religion, foreign policy, patriotism, and lifestyle preference.

I did a little reading in some conservative literature and found some ideas that might help to rid us of a liberal bias in universities. First, in order to make the university system equitable, professors should be required to express their political agenda UP FRONT, allowing us to guarantee that a fair balance of prospective is heard in the classroom. We might also consider starting a program that allows for figures such as ex-government officials, and ex-military men (those who have good conservative credentials, anyway) to have a fair chance in the classroom. A more drastic, but conceivable alternative might be to grant the university professorship 'civil servant' status so that state or national government can have a small say in what ideologies are presented and in what degrees. Or, a more appropriate idea might be to simply require something like "Education Sensitivity" workshops where professors will be instructed how to teach in a more open-minded manner.

Those are just a couple of ideas I read about, but if anyone else has some more I would be very interested to hear them. If you want to reference the excellent source I used while forming the ideas above please see "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany", by William L. Shirer, pp. 342-354. It's in the "Triumph and Consolidation" chapter.

-EM

Or, better yet, we could just make laws that require academic institutions to give perference to conservative applicants when making hiring decisions. We could require each applicant to put their political ideology in their application, just like their race, and then set quotas for how many conservatives an academic institution must hire.

But, I digress. One irony in your sarcasm above is that the left already has conservatives going to "Sensitivity Training" classes whenever a conservative states something as crazy as women do not perform as well in math as men do (even though the numbers suggest this).

The best solution is to just not bring politics in the classroom at all, period. That's how I teach. I let the students argue all they want all day, but in the end they have no idea where I stand politically. Sometimes I even suggest arguments from the other side just to push classroom debate. I let the students make their own decisions, I don't force mine onto them. You can discuss politics without being political. Isn't that what science is about? We don't make normative judgements, we just explain the way things work and let the philosophers figure out what's good and what's not.

This is a little harder in sociology and religion classes, but still possible. You teach objectively and respectively and let the students decide for themselves where they stand. You can teach about homosexuality without glorifying it. You can teach about Christianity without glorifying it. And you can also teach about both of these without denouncing them. You just have to make an asserted effort to do so. God forbid we ask our academics to be objective. If they can't be objective in the classroom, then should we expect them to be objective in their research? Maybe not.

Finally, I have no doubt your personal experience does not reflect the bias simply because you are not prone to see it. You colleagues typically aspouse opinions you agree with and as time goes on you become desensitized to what is going on. Plus you don't seem to have a problem with the bias, and therefore you pay little attention to it. For a conservative in a classroom, every little Bush joke, every little poke at conservatives as racist-homophobes, every little Iraq unjust war statement, are like little pins poking you over and over again. Sometimes I wish I could force liberals to sit in a room two to three times a week for 2 hours and listen to the Rush Limbaugh show. This might give them an even perspective of what it's like for a conservative to sit in a college classroom during their post-highschool education.