Faculty rating website employee on liberal college indoctrination: mostly a myth

Sketcher said:

It's one thing if the student decides to go off-topic. It's another if the instructor does. Plus, if the instructor goes into an ad-hominem attack, like some that were quoted here, it's a pretty reasonable assumption that grades would suffer if the students didn't tread lightly.

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You seem to just be assuming that instructors go into ad-hominem attacks here.

The students are free to just be assuming that they aren't allowed to disagree with the instructor which I have found is exactly opposite of true in cases where controversial topics are considered.

In my experience, it would be more likely that an instructor would defend an argument opposed to their political leanings to show how it could, and would easily be defended.

Doh, I'm getting slow in my old age.

I should have immediately realized that there was an excellent chance the question was loaded. Checking the site the question itself is not readily available. Perhaps someone else here is better or more willing to make a more significant effort to dig it out.

But I'll give a possible question.

Did concerns about your grade ever contribute to a decision not to speak out?

Even I could say yes to that, and if the preceding questions were politically polarizing it would lead to such a result.

I do not think the site is right wing, but they clearly are headline seekers, any shocking headline will do and highly one sided polls are the rule.

That they did not ask any liberals or middle of the road students should have warned me (and now you) that result of the poll is quite likely due to the form of the questions, otherwise why not ask liberals as a control group?

While not having the space to give the actual question asked they did have teh space for 15 comments. One is quite revealing and in my opinion pretty much nails it:

• UCSD: Not for fear of a bad grade. But fear of being a social outcast.

Doh, I'm getting slow in my old age.

I should have immediately realized that there was an excellent chance the question was loaded. Checking the site the question itself is not readily available. Perhaps someone else here is better or more willing to make a more significant effort to dig it out.

But I'll give a possible question.

Did concerns about your grade ever contribute to a decision not to speak out?

Even I could say yes to that, and if the preceding questions were politically polarizing it would lead to such a result.

I do not think the site is right wing, but they clearly are headline seekers, any shocking headline will do and highly one sided polls are the rule.

That they did not ask any liberals or middle of the road students should have warned me (and now you) that result of the poll is quite likely due to the form of the questions, otherwise why not ask liberals as a control group?

While not having the space to give the actual question asked they did have teh space for 15 comments. One is quite revealing and in my opinion pretty much nails it:

• UCSD: Not for fear of a bad grade. But fear of being a social outcast.

keith99 said:

So they assume their grades would be at risk et there is little to no evidence of that being the case!

I've got to wonder about such a high number. Are none of the Physics, Math, Chemistry or Geology majors Republican leaning?

I would be hard pressed to come up with more than one or two classes where there was a legitimate chance for me to have expressed political views. Or perhaps that is the point. Republican leaning students have refrained from bringing up off topic political issues because their grades would (quite rightly) suffer.

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keith99 said:

Doh, I'm getting slow in my old age.

I should have immediately realized that there was an excellent chance the question was loaded. Checking the site the question itself is not readily available. Perhaps someone else here is better or more willing to make a more significant effort to dig it out.

But I'll give a possible question.

Did concerns about your grade ever contribute to a decision not to speak out?

Even I could say yes to that, and if the preceding questions were politically polarizing it would lead to such a result.

I do not think the site is right wing, but they clearly are headline seekers, any shocking headline will do and highly one sided polls are the rule.

That they did not ask any liberals or middle of the road students should have warned me (and now you) that result of the poll is quite likely due to the form of the questions, otherwise why not ask liberals as a control group?

While not having the space to give the actual question asked they did have teh space for 15 comments. One is quite revealing and in my opinion pretty much nails it:

• UCSD: Not for fear of a bad grade. But fear of being a social outcast.

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I poked around some of the related articles and found a quote from a student claiming persecution after being pushed out of the College Republicans because he wanted them to be more aggressive in confronting liberals on campus. I’m sure some of these complaints are legit (particularly those levied against other students) but it’s hard to take them all seriously when campus conservatives have for so long embodied the snowflake attitudes they now deride in others.

If it really is true, if agenda pushing professors are the rare exception to the rule, then where does the culture of dis-inviting, protesting, disrupting and blocking conservative speakers on campuses across the country come from? Where does the culture of verbal and physical attacks on students who express conservative views or merely wear a MAGA cap originate?

Please explain this phenomenon, which is occurring on campuses across the nation.

keith99 said:

So they assume their grades would be at risk et there is little to no evidence of that being the case!

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Seems like a safe assumption if they're openly dismissive of certain views.

I've got to wonder about such a high number. Are none of the Physics, Math, Chemistry or Geology majors Republican leaning?

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Why would that matter? I can't imagine many discussions in those courses being very political.

Here's another good example....

Liberal professors, conservative students clash on College of Charleston campus

"So in the first of half of her Introduction to Philosophy class, McKinnon allowed her students to vent over candy about their fears of a Trump presidency. At one point, McKinnon said, she slammed her hand against the lectern after a student suggested South Carolina’s deeply conservative Legislature would protect gay, lesbian and transgender rights if the new administration attempted to yank them away.

“Where do you think we are?” she snapped.

And of course....

Zalirah Robinson, a 20-year-old junior, believes most students and professors aren’t even willing to engage with conservative opinions. One of her history professors last semester, she said, spoke openly about voting for Hillary Clinton, called Trump a rapist and encouraged students to go to Planned Parenthood for birth control. Robinson didn’t feel comfortable. But speaking out, she feared, would lead to “complete isolation.”

She dropped an African-American literature class this semester after a professor laughed at a student who tried to argue the federal government’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina wasn’t about racism.

And my personal favorite....

"The forum didn’t assuage McKinnon’s fears. As a professor, she said her duty is not to indoctrinate students, but to challenge power structures."

The highlighted part explains a big part of the problem. Postmodern "power" dynamic garbage.

bekkilyn said:

Heh, yes I've attended multiple colleges and universities over the years for all sorts of different things and it's extremely rare for an instructor to bring up anything unrelated to the actual subject being taught. However, I've often been informed otherwise by people who have never attended anything past high school. Go figure.

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The only things other than the course subject my professors have ever talked about are the weather & football. We've got far too much ground to cover for anything else. Idk if maybe folks studying music or art or something all frilly like that that has got room for lollygagging around talk about politics. Sure as heck is not the case for AE majors.

Go Braves said:

The only things other than the course subject my professors have ever talked about are the weather & football. We've got far too much ground to cover for anything else. Idk if maybe folks studying music or art or something all frilly like that that has got room for lollygagging around talk about politics. Sure as heck is not the case for AE majors.

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Even when I took courses in philosophy, the instructors would do things like pretend they supported whatever "-ism" we were discussing that day, such as determinism, hedonism, etc. and then the next day they might be "supporting" something completely different. Many would also intentionally refuse to reveal whatever they personally believed so that the discussion was about the topic we were discussing.

The vast majority of classes had nothing to do with politics and outside of the one instructor that was constantly making jokes about beer and college students, I suppose with the intent of sounding "cool", we stuck to the topics at hand because class time is short and there is typically a lot on the syllabus.

Though I suppose one might argue that we were liberally indoctrinated in my non-Euclidean geometry class since we came to the apparently heretical conclusion that two parallel lines can indeed touch, which could possibly incite riots among those conservative types who believe that at least blessed math was safe from relativism.

Ana the Ist said:

Liberal professors outnumber conservatives nearly 12 to 1, study finds

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That just tells me, most liberals are very educated.

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

That just tells me, most liberals are very educated.

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....not a very subtle dig.

The opposite of that is to say they fail miserably in the private sector. You know, the old "those who can...do, those who can't...teach" cliche.

Go Braves said:

The only things other than the course subject my professors have ever talked about are the weather & football. We've got far too much ground to cover for anything else. Idk if maybe folks studying music or art or something all frilly like that that has got room for lollygagging around talk about politics. Sure as heck is not the case for AE majors.

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Never taken a music class, eh?

Ana the Ist said:

....not a very subtle dig.

The opposite of that is to say they fail miserably in the private sector. You know, the old "those who can...do, those who can't...teach" cliche.

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Except that the counties with the highest economic output went overwhelmingly for Hillary...

iluvatar5150 said:

Except that the counties with the highest economic output went overwhelmingly for Hillary...

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Economic output?

essentialsaltes said:

You know... the doers, not the teachers.

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Here....lemme help you out....

https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/economic-demographics-democrats/

"An individual’s likelihood of being a Democrat decreases with every additional dollar he or she earns. Democrats have a huge advantage (63 percent) with voters earning less than $15,000 per year. This advantage carries forward for individuals earning up to $50,000 per year, and then turns in the Republicans’ favor — with just 36 percent of individuals earning more than $200,000 per year supporting Democrats."

You were saying something amusing but I didn't catch the punchline....

What was it?

Go Braves said:

I've taken several, in college to fulfill Gen Ed requirements & in HS for arts requirements. I took 9 yrs of piano lessons & my mom had me competing in pretty prestigious competitions for 4 of those yrs. Have you ever taken an aerospace engineering class? I've found them to be a tad bit more difficult than music classes & folks taking the highest level music classes have agreed.

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My brother was AE; I was Comp Sci, for the first go around anyways.

I was mostly joking around, but the performance majors I’ve known didn’t have time for any lollygagging, either.

iluvatar5150 said:

My brother was AE; I was Comp Sci, for the first go around anyways..

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Well the ones I know, including my sister, absolutely do but that wasn't really the point I was making in regards to the thread topic.