Professor's Political Views in Class--Who's Listening--Who Cares?

According to a recent article written by InsiderHigherEd.com entitled, Bias Seen in Bias Studies, “Professors are all Democrats, except those who are communist. Professors all hate Bush. Professors favor like-minded students and love converting those who love God, country and the president.”

In the article education researcher and consultant, John B. Lee says, “Among the most serious claims the authors make is that this liberal dominance results in systematic exclusion of conservative ideas…that damage student learning.”

His study was conducted in elite institutions where the faculty members are more likely to be Democrats than Republicans. He writes, “Passing off personal opinions as facts is not science; it is the antithesis of what serious researchers try to do, regardless of whether they are conservative or liberal.”

This controversial topic is not limited just to the “elite institutions” but all areas of higher education from high school classrooms to college and university campuses all over the country.

In a story written by the Sun Chronicle, Paula Sollitto, a history teacher for 35 years at Attleboro High School says, “I think there are two schools of thought…there are those people who let issues be worn on their sleeve. My style was to try to get out of the students what their views were and get them, working together, to form their own views.”

She says she directed students to research all sides of an issue—lead them to make informed opinions—and get students to learn how to respect others’ opinions.

A recent poll published in the campus newspapers of Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, University of Arizona, University of Chicago, Tufts, UCLA, UC-Berkley, Bucknell, and Dartmouth, by Campus Corner, entitled, Top Ten Things Professors Do to Skew You, showed;

• 70% of students say their professors express their political views in class.
• More than one-third of students describe their professors as either somewhat or extremely liberal.
• 42% of students report political discussion in the classroom lean to a leftist point of view, with only 18% saying they hear the conservative side of an issue.
• Only 13% of students can describe their professors as conservative.
• 31% of students report having to do an assignment which forced them to take a philosophical position they were uncomfortable with. Professors are using their influence as “teacher” to teach you what to think, not how to think.
• Nearly one-third of students say they are uncomfortable expressing their opinions in class if they differ from their professor’s point of view.
• 16% of students say they fear their grade could suffer for disagreeing with a professor’s political point of view.
• One-quarter of students say they are afraid to speak up in class if they don’t agree with a professor. Professors should welcome debate, not stifle it.
• Only 24% of students report their professors have the same viewpoints on issues the do.
• 32% of students identify themselves as Democrat and 29% identify as Republican. But overall ratio of Democrat to Republican registered faculty at 32 elite schools was more than 10 to 1.

Assistant professor of English at Johnson C. Smith University, Matthew M. DeForrest, says, “If an instructor cannot maintain a separation of our personal politics and our professional obligations, that instructors needs to, learn to do so quickly.”

While in Arizona, Senate Bill 1542, written by, Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, was approved 4-3 in the Senate. This law if passed by Congress would forbid public K-12 and college instructors from giving their partisan political opinions while teaching. Currently this law reads,

• Apply only when instructor is acting in an official capacity.
• Forbid specific endorsement or opposition of candidates, legislation or court action as well as any social, political or cultural issues of a partisan nature.
• Mandate three hours of instruction annually to tell teachers what is expected under the law.
• Forbid instructors from impeding military recruiters on campus.
• Punish those who break the law with possible suspension, firing, certification revocation or $500 penalty.

According to an article published in USA Today, by David Horowitz, similar laws are before legislatures in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia and a dozen other states this spring.

Horowitz view on solving the problem would be to have a “Academic Bill of Rights” for universities, which says, “shall provide its students with a learning environment in which the students have access to a broad range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects they study.” He says, “It’s not so revolutionary.”

It may not be revolutionary but it seems it definitely debatable. And as with all things political and social in our society—it will be up to the politicians and the courts to decide.

Where does the money go?

The foreign spending policy of the United States is an ongoing debate, which incites emotion and political agendas from both sides of the issue. “Does foreign aid actually help the poor?”

In a recent article published by the National Post it stated, “True aid bestows benefits…. eases rich-nation guilt and makes those who favor government solutions very happy.”

According to Jeffrey Sachs in his book The End of Poverty, 30,000 children die every day from the diseases and malnutrition that go along with extreme poverty. Meaning, nearly 2 million children die a year from diarrhea, which could be easily prevented with 10-cent doses of oral rehydration therapy.

Also, the West has already spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over five decades, and babies with diarrhea are still not getting the 10-cent doses of oral rehydration therapy. Even in what the World Bank calls an aid success story like Ghana, 50 percent of babies with diarrhea never receive oral rehydration care.

The point is--this money never reaches the desperate poor. And the circular response when asked how can we help the poor in places like Uganda, Somali, Darfur--is to give more money. Yet it doesn’t answer the question of where the original funds went.

According to the Africa News, “not long ago the G-8 summit, in July 2005, agreed to double aid to Africa. They also agreed to double foreign aid a whole by the year 2010, and the aid campaigners will then ask for doubling aid again after 2010.”

Unfortunately, the mania with the amount spent substitutes for customer feedback, incentives, and accountability. It substitutes for focus on whether the money actually reaches the poor, so a second tragedy occurs. It also creates the perverse incentives in aid agencies just to spend money, because if money is the indicator of success, then all the incentives are just to spend aid money and not get results. So here in lies the conundrum.

Nobel prize winner in economics, F.A. Hayek said, “the success of action in society depends on more particular facts than anyone can possibly know.”

According to experts, “the Sub-Saharan Africa is an aid magnet--$400-billion has flowed in since 1970.” If foreign aid worked, Africa would be a prosperous nation, yet, living conditions continually deteriorate in poverty stricken areas like Uganda.

The African Times states monies allocated to help the migrant farmers in Africa went instead to build a new road for mining and drove “the few existing farmers out of business. This is the kind of mess-up on the ground that happens when you try to plan from the top down.”

While African baby stomachs remain distended from malnourishment—wars escalate from factions within corrupt government— the monies allocated to end world hungry and poverty will never produce the desired results. This will continue as long as hidden agendas go unchecked and propaganda in government continues to intercept the funds. That’s why you’ll often find fleets of Mercedes for government officials in aid-receiving nations while the poor stay poor.

When Austrian philosopher, Karl Popper was asked if there could ever be any sort of comprehensive plan to remake society in a way that eliminates poverty, he said, “it’s not reasonable to assume that a complete reconstruction of our social system would lead at once to a workable system.”

Convenience verses Conviction

One of the many traditions passed down by the early American settlers was that alcohol is the “good gift of God” to be used and enjoyed by all, including small children. But this tradition quickly faded and Prohibition took its place by claiming alcohol was the cause for all poverty, crime, and violence in existence.

These ideas of the past have made many today still fearful and hostile toward alcohol beverages. Laws which govern who drinks and when is not a result of science, logic, or evidence, but from a continuing tug-of-war between those who wish to use alcohol beverages and those who don’t want them to.

Recently an editorial in the Atlanta Journal, by columnist, Cynthia Tucker, brought this controversial debate to the surface. She stated, “Because of the influence that religious conservatives wield over the Georgia General Assembly, most observers believe there’s little hope this year for a proposal allowing local communities to vote on Sunday sales of beer and wine by the bottle.”

In the editorial a recent poll of Georgians estimated an overall 58 percent in favor of allowing local communities to decide whether to let their stores sell beer and wine on Sundays.

Currently, Georgia is one of three states—others are Connecticut and Indiana—that still upholds the “Blue Laws” which does not allow alcohol to be sold. Many feel this is a violation of their First Amendment rights.

The first blue law in the American colonies was enacted in Virginia in 1617. It required church attendance and authorized the militia to force colonist to attend church services. The blue laws also protected Christian business owners from competition on their Sabbath by restricting the activities or sales of goods.

But in today’s society some say it is hypocritical to allow a restaurant or bar to serve a glass of wine when the liquor store nearby cannot sell it by the bottle. They argue also that someone drinking in a bar is more apt to drive drunk than someone having a private drink at home.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving takes no position on Sunday sales legislation. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States said that in the past three years alone, 12 states have loosened their laws to permit the Sunday sale of liquor.

Jim Tudor, who heads the Georgia Association of Convenience Store Owners, said the issue is about local control. “People are wringing their hands as if alcohol is going to be flowing in the streets,” Tudor said. “But really its about giving local residents a choice about what they want.”

A Georgia legislator who spoke under the condition of anonymity suggested that the court may be the only option to fight this law:

“We’ve learned from the unpopularity of blue laws that very few people are in favor of the law. However, it’s not enough of an imposition that they take the energy to fight the law. The supporters, however, are rabid, and will withhold their vote, as a group, from any politician who endorses the end of blue laws.”

In the days ahead as the battle over “the bottle” brings heated debate from both sides of the issue, the new legislative session will work to keep all Georgia voters on their side.