READER RESPONSE: TEACHER INTIMIDATION IN THE CLASSROOM
In response to our last Dispatch entitled, Teachers Intimidate Students…reader Eugene wrote,
“The allegation that professors are so are ideologically sadistic is silly. I went to a very left wing university and not a single prof ever docked marks or penalized a student solely because he/she disagreed with the tone of the class. In one poli sci class I took (of which the prof was openly Marxist), we had to write a book review of "The Wealthy Banker's Wife" by Linda McQuaig, and guess what, our prof told the class that those who tended to disagree with McQuaig did better than those who did! The key is how well one defends their arguments in essays and tests etc. Perhaps conservative students just aren't as articulate as their leftist cohorts? So much for bias. “ (please see comments section for Eugene’s complete post)
Eugene,
Thank you for your comments. The War Room welcomes posts by those who disagree. Now, read back what you wrote:
"Perhaps conservative students just aren't as articulate as their leftist cohorts? So much for bias."
Do you not see the irony in this statement? This is exactly the bias that every conservative student must go up against.
I must say in my experience it was quite the opposite. Conservative students had to be smarter/more articulate than the rest because they knew they were going to suffer consequences somewhere down the line for their views. Most 'left' students on the other hand would merely parrot back whatever the professor said to them. They were also the first to get flustered in a debate and would more often than not respond with baseless accusations of racism, misogyny or homophobia in order to intimidate and silence.
Unfortunately, academia, like culture, art, music and science is also susceptible to trends. Right now, for reasons we have discussed in The War Room before, the trend in academia is for virtually every subject to be filtered through the philosophical prisms of Marxist Oppression Theory and Radical Feminist Gender Identity Theory. Put in simple terms, to question these theories-and it runs through every faculty from arts to politics to economics to law- is like an employee at McDonald’s questioning why there needs to be beef patties in the Big Mac. It is quite simply unacceptable.
Now there are of course oppressed people in the world; children dying of starvation or AIDS in Africa; Christians and Catholics in communist China; innocent Israelis or Palestinians caught in conflict in the Middle East; innocent victims of war. All of these could be considered as legitimately oppressed.
Middle to upper-middle class white students at a North American university are not oppressed.
Unfortunately, a good many-way too many- think they are. They are taught that they have been ‘oppressed’ at the hands of a white, Judeo-Christian patriarchy and they are responsible for righting the wrongs of two-thousand years of history. They are also taught the nexus of this ‘oppression’ is capitalist America. In some courses the Vatican also weaves it’s way into this ‘theory’.
Now, when you drill this into young people non-stop for four years (or more), they get it into their heads that people who disagree with them are ‘evil’- and I use that word with all the force that it is intended.
At my university, Queen’s at Kingston, one incident saw a young man running for student council accused of rape. His accuser finally admitted she was cajoled into saying this by campus feminists who believed someone had to pay for this ‘oppression’. Extreme cases like this were very common at Queen’s University when I was there in the early nineties.
Teachers routinely downgraded students who disagreed but even worse…threats were made against people’s lives, careers were threatened and in some cases destroyed.
Eugene, I understand this is hard for you to comprehend. I am sure you are a decent person and mean well. Many older conservatives or libertarians do not understand this phenomenon either. It really is a Gen X and Y experience. Again, this goes back to Marxist Oppression Theory which is why I took the detour to talk about it. The New Left (I do not call them liberal because true classical liberalism is a good thing) defines itself by its ‘oppression’. They see themselves as liberators of the weak…defenders of the poor…upholders of justice if not law. To accept what we are saying would mean two things that they and you cannot fathom;
1) They are not oppressed. If what I (and many others) are saying is true, the New Left holds the power in our culture.
2) If they have the power in our culture then they must recognize that they may be abusing it because they are hard-wired to believe that power and oppression are synonymous
The New Left cannot accept either of these. These stories happening on our campuses will be the legacy of the New Left. And they will come out.
These stories are neither trite nor incidental.
Real damage has been done.
Lives have been threatened and careers destroyed on university campuses to New Left ideology. Now as my generation becomes elementary and high school teachers, this mentality and abuse (and it is abuse) is finding its way to younger students as well.
I have witnessed and experienced it first hand. At Queen’s University, in the early nineties getting docked grades for disagreeing was commonplace…you worried about the big stuff.
Would your name be scrawled in paint on the wall of the campus library for all to see as a ‘rapist’ because you made a comment in your political science class that someone didn’t like? Would your future be destroyed because of it?
Would you be in a class that all of a sudden got held ‘hostage’ by a bunch of balaclava wearing lesbians and feminists trying to make a point to the administration (who ironically enough were on their side)?
Would your professor that you liked find himself before a tribunal because he made an ‘incorrect’ comment that someone took out of context?
You see Eugene, these stories are real. They have scarred many and they will be told. Indeed in modern North American society those who claim ‘oppression’ hold the most power of all. A good rule of thumb is that if you are taught in school that demographic xyz is oppressed, it’s a good bet that demographic xyz is not oppressed. Oppressed people do not have university curriculums based around their lifestyle. That’s why they are oppressed.
For further reading on this subject matter I recommend a website called www.thefire.org which is linked to on the right side of this web page. I also recommend a book called
The Shadow University by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate. I also recommend anything by David Horowitz. The War Room will also continue to make this topic a recurring theme.
All the best.
And to all of those students out there past and present who have experienced what we are talking about…have courage.
posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 7:34 AM
12 Comments:
My wife is currently attending McMaster and I've warned her NOT to share her pro-life, non-radical femenist views after an incident with he sociology professor.
Scary when you can't discuss issues at a university without being a pariah.
Les,
It is both scary and sad. University should be about teaching you how to think...not what to think. I wish your wife the best.
Nicole, my god, Queen's? You might as well have gone to the University of Pyongyang! Coming from a lower middle class family myself, I find it the height of arrogance to hear these limousine liberal professors and even worse, the students they've managed to brainwash, tell the rest of us how awful our lives are and how terrible Canada is when they really have no clue at all. I say we deport all socialist profs to North Korea and see hwo wonderful communism is.
Fabian,
University of Pyongyang! Damn! I just had a hard laugh that one. I also come from a lower middle class background. My parents worked hard and I was raised to vote Liberal. I got to go to Queen's based on hard work, scholarships and awards.
It was these wealthy people's supreme arrogance and hypocrisy that ultimately got to me. I would have some wealthy, white rich professor telling me I was an 'oppressor' when I couldn't even afford to eat during some weekends and would raid the condiment basket in the vending room while I was waiting for the next installment of my scholarship to kick in. Literally.
Funny...and because of the amount of wealth concentrated at the school...Queen's is considered by many to be Canada's 'conservative university'. Ironic indeed.
I'd be curious to know what its reputation would be like now, 10 years after the hard core New Left completed it's take over.
I have many more 'horror' stories that I will share about my time there. Perhaps I'll save them for the Halloween edition of The War Room.
I also hope other will share their stories.
Nicol,
I always knew that bias and political correctness existed in our educational system - just didn't realize how widespread it has become. I would hate to be a conservative minded student these days, faced with this kind of discrimination.
Thanks for providing this important forum.
Bill,
Thanks, for your kind comments.
I linked you here. Also see my post, here.
I am going into second year engineering this fall at Queen's University.
My program obviously does not allow for much New Left bias, consisting exclusively of science and math courses. However, the general feel these days on campus is definitly Left.
I grew up in Alberta, and would probably define myself as a red tory in Albertan standards. I had an awesome social studies teacher in highschool that tought me critical thinking. He made it known where he stood on the political spectrum(centre-left), but always accepted and encouraged opposing views, as long as you could support yourself with evidence.
This in stark contrast to the climate I have found at Queens. I pretty much avoid talking politics because there are pretty much two conservatives on campus, including myself. I remember talking about the 2004 election with some friends, and them expressing how Harper is a racist Bigot. How if he had his way, everyone would act and look like him, and if elected, they would be the first to leave the country.
I asked for supporting evidence, as I was taught in highschool, and pretty much got lambasted for being an Albertan neo-fascist. I'm never talking politics publicly again.
Ontario needs standardized testing and better education in the political sciences. I heard that in order to graduate you only need 2 of 5(or so) options in social studies. So many kids can go through school never learning about politics, economics, history.
Actually, this reminds me of something else. My girlfriend is in Poli-Sci at OttawaU, and her roomate was in PoliSci too. She had a 94 entrance avg. and had used classes like, art, drama, sewing, english, humanities. She didn't know what the political spectrum was, ie. what right and left meant, and then asked who was more right, the conservatives or the NDP. Seriously. A highschool graduate. Completely unaware.
I guess there is no left or right wing bias there because she has been left with a blank slate after 12 years of highschool.
AND, after 1 year of engineering at queens, I've learned practically NOTHING new, all review of my gr.12 classes. So much for higher learning. Basically the Alberta school system is awesome, and the Ontario public schools need a ton of work. Starting wth standardized testing for gr12, and then expansion of the curriculum. Maybe a little more right wing ideology somewhere would be nice too...
James
Wow Les. It is funny because when I was in seminary about 5 years ago, I was hearing about a lot of quality work being done in the graduate programs at McMaster - that McMaster stood as a lone beacon of Reformed Theology amongst the sea of secular liberal universities...
I guess that only applied to their theology department...
Russ,
Thank you for your references. It is greatly appreciated.
James,
It seems Queen's hasn't changed all that much. The only difference I suspect is when I was there, there was at least a pretence of a debate. Now, the New Left has won and everyone lives in fear or conformity.
At least you are right, in engineering you probably won't get hit as hard.
If you have any other stories please feel free to contact me or post. This will be a recurring subject at The War Room and I will tell more stories from my times there. There is no shortage. All the best.
Shane,
Hmmm. I know it's none of my business but did you graduate the seminary? I've always thought that if I ever went on to do a Masters I would take theology.
I am maried now, but when I was very young I also seriously contemplated becoming a priest.
Thanks
Interesting post. I went to Queen's as well, where I received my bachelors in politics in '99 and my masters in public administration in '00. While there was certainly some bias against conservatives on campus, I never felt particularly oppressed or victimized by my conservatism. I was outspoken in class, a member of the Queen's PC executive and the Tory leader at Model Parliament one year, so my views were not a great secret.
Generally, my profs seemed happy to have an informed debate. I certainly never felt that my marks were affected by political issues (I managed a first class degree). Perhaps a difference is that there was less diversity in student opinion when I was at Queen's. Since the battle was over, maybe conservative students were seen as more of a curious novelty than a serious threat.
To the extent that anyone was hostile, it was the relatively small hardcore of International Socialist types. I found most people (even politics majors) blandly apolitical, in the most Liberal way possible. This is not surprising in a group that self-consciously considers itself a fledgling ruling class. For such folks, politics is a transactional venture best carried out with a hefty rolodex. The conformity of views, much like the conformity of Queen's jackets and the Oil Thigh, was substantially more upper class than radical. The real problem was not that you were a conservative, but that you were outside the accepted (partisan Liberal) doctrines of the 'in group'. The consequence was generally not condemnation, but subtle exclusion. This also applied to those of strong left views (unless they were really cool).
Anyway, fascinating discussion.
I am a Queen's Sci'03 (electrical engineering) but I have just finished a history degree at the University of Windsor and felt this to be a good place to relate a story.
In one of my mandatory history classes we were discussing different types of history and different points of view. Inevitably, this led to Marx and communism in general (as opposed to the Marxian class struggle model of history - which our "progressive" professor was a big fan of). I wanted to leave but sometimes I just can't help myself so I said some things in defence of capitalism and then proceeded through the usual routine of espousing the wonders of invidualism. Some of the students were indignant and one even told me that I didn't know what I was talking about (like he had thought through the ramifications of communism!!).
After class I was talking to the prof (who I was working for at the time)and she mentioned that one of the students came up to her afterwards and said that "Marxists have an answer for people like him [that would be me] -- it's called a firing squad." Professor thought that was pretty funny, I was less than amused. However, not wanting to be portrayed as someone with a stick up my a** I let the incident go.
As for Queen's the Eng. faculty is apolitical for the most part - in fact many of the people I assciated with were (and still are) staunch libertarians or conservatives. From what my history friends @ Queen's told me it was always better to speak your mind and have an opinion - they all found the profs to be accepting of different ideas (not that they had any as they were all to the left of the NDP). Maybe just the luck of the draw?
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