Fair and Balanced Do Not Apply to Academia

One of the unfortunates of living with someone who watches The O'Reilly Factor is the sometimes you catch a whif of the bile yourself. Tonight, Bill had as his guest two students from Columbia University - one a charming, well-polished President of the young Republicans, the other a bumbling Allen Colmes clone who is the Editor-in-Chief of the school newspaper. Around his third comment or question, Bill just threw the matter at hand (the near-riot at a speaking event last night) straight to four winds and went straight to his Agenda (yes, I meant to capitalize that).

Looking right at the left-leaning editor-in-chief, he said, "recently we found that every single Professor at the Columbia School of Journalism was a Democrat. Don't you think the environment would be a little more friendly if it was more like 50-50? Shouldn't conservatives have a fair shot at education?" He then went on to use irresponsible and offensive terms like "liberal jihad" to describe our campuses in a manaical tirade.

The answer to your question, Bill, is no. Conservatives do not deserve a fair shot at education. Neitherdo liberals, libertarians, socialists, fascists, anarchists, environmentalists, nor any other political creed. Want to know why no political sect is entitled to a voice in academia? Read this, Bill, if you can:

A good college education has nothing to do with the political beliefs of the teachers. The best colleges in the country do not screen out potential candidates due to political affiliation. If they did, it would be discrimination. What gets published in the journals has nothing to do with political affiliation. The arguments currently going on in most intellectual fields have nothing to do with modern politics. Papers are not graded with political slants. College classrooms are not the place to bring up the platforms of political parties and discuss who is better. They are the place to discuss the issues pertaining to the student's education or training in that specific field or topic.

When you see someone complaining that their particular viewpoint is not being discussed in the classroom, it means two things: 1) their idea already lost in the intellectual "marketplace of ideas" and 2) they have no interest in objectivity or academic integrity and want to use our education system as a propaganda machine.

For example, creationism and intelligent design have been beaten dead to a pulp as bona fide scientific ideas. The objective scientific has overwhelmingly chosen evolution as the best possible theory. In reaction to this rejection, the creationists sought public support to make their viewpoint mandatory. Why? Because they wanted to use our classrooms as platforms for their social and political agendas.

No socialist who wants to teach Das Kapital will be allowed in an Econoimcs department (which are almost exclusively fiscal conservatives) under the same logic. Our schools do not exist to give outlets to every wacky belief. They are outlets to give the best possible education to their students. If a group believes their idea superior, they should fight the reigning idea on academic terms (which has a rousing long-term success record, by the way) instead of forcing their views through political action or ignorant social angst.

Trust me, 99% of college professors' top priority is academic integrity and the truth. Most academic types love proving others wrong, and would embrace any idea that had genuine academic merit. Only a fool would believe that their primary interest is to infiltrate the minds of their students with political agendas.

True, many professors in the liberal arts are left-wing or Democrats. But instead of assuming bias, did they ever consider that there might be an inherant reason for that? For one, the Democratic party is more likely to uphold or give grants to academics who rely on them for work; the Repulicans are more likely to take them away. The Republican image over the last 25 years has been one of the "common man." Even George W. Bush pushes his Yale diploma aside for a leather jacket and a shovel in photo ops. Republicans generally portray a belief set and image that is entirely hostile to someone who wants to devote their life to learning. That is, as long as the learning is for the love of knowledge and not for a paycheck from the Heritage Foundation.

There is nothing liberal or conservative about teaching students Plato or Dostoevsky or Godard or Ibsen or Austen or Newton or Darwin. Can these teachings be used to form political beliefs? Of course, but they are taught because of academic merit to a given field, not the belief they will bring about. Tolstoy is not taught because his works will opposed centralized governmental planning. His works are taught because he is a literary giant with few peers.

Can bad teachers try and turn their classroom into a political debate center? Absolutely. I had it happen a few times during my four years. Once, a political science professor turned a 200-person lecture course into a "Fair and Balanced" debate about "today's issues," and it was the worst class I had ever taken, nothing but hackneyed, worthless baloney.

If one honestly believes that a "fair and balanced" education is a must in college, then they either have a political agenda of their own or have no idea what a proper college education is supposed to be, and how it's supposed to enrich the mind.