An Ugly Feud: Do Colleges Have a Political Agenda?
EmailABC News On Campus reporter Chelsey Delaney blogs:
I was 12 when I first became aware of the inherent difference between the University of Texas and Texas A&M University. After a long day at Catholic school, my friend and I sat and discussed colleges we hoped to some day attend. "UT is a pretty good school, but my parents said there are too many liberals there," my friend said. "They are worried the teaching would have bias." Years later, upon my acceptance to UT, some cringed when my parents would deliver the news. The woman who cut my hair told my mom, "I would never send my children to that place. Don’t let those liberals fool Chelsey. Tell her to not believe everything she hears from those professors." And so discussion about the ideology of Texas A&M University versus the University of Texas revealed itself to be quite uglier than a feud concerning the two major Texas football teams; to send your child to UT was sending a message to all your friends that you were OK with little Lucy attending school in the only blue oasis in the big red sea of Texas. The issue of political bias during lectures has arisen recently, due to guess what? The election. A current article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, however, looks at a 2007 study that, despite any bias professors may show during lectures, students remain unswayed. The study also negated the stereotype that says most professors are liberals – lobbyists paid to have their own soapboxes. The Daily Texan reported this week that many students when hearing about political bias don’t really take it into consideration.
Osler McCarthy, a media law and ethics professor at UT, said, "One limitation is that I don’t know what may go on in other classes. That said, I don’t believe my role is to cram my beliefs into students’ minds. If anything, my objective is to challenge people to think and by thinking to challenge their own beliefs. I doubt seriously that A&M has some kind of ideological advantage for parents who don’t want their children to be exposed to liberal thought, or that Texas sits at the other end of the spectrum, at least as far as exposure to conservative thinking. In my book, we call the liberal arts just that for an intellectual reason, not to reflect ideology."
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I don’t believe for one minute that political bias and the university one attends go hand-in-hand. This from an Aggie Democrat… From my own university experiences, I can tell you that – while attending school – politics never entered my mind.
Posted by: Aggie Democrat | October 29, 2008, 3:34 pm 3:34 pm
As usual, the perceived BIAS of UT is that the school WON’T teach a neo-con agenda.
Neo-cons only see bias when it ISN’T an immersion in conservative thinking and ideology.
Posted by: JR | October 29, 2008, 3:39 pm 3:39 pm
Aggie – There are some Universities such as Liberty University founded by Jerry Falwell that cater specifically to these kinds of people .
Posted by: Jenny Rome Ga | October 29, 2008, 3:42 pm 3:42 pm
Of Course all Universities have their Biases. Most are liberal.
Of course Politics play into it.
Posted by: Joe V | October 29, 2008, 3:44 pm 3:44 pm
The premise of this column is beyond absurd. Anybody who’s been on a campus the last 50 years knows just how far they lean left of center. Only on a campus can you attempt disussion with a person and be surrounded, yelled at, and assaulted for exercising your freedom of speech. The system uses public money to operate as an ideological gulag, this is an abose of the worst order. Why do students who go to college for a specific profession have to be subjected to the “groupthink”, PC braiwashing? What does ideological agendas have to do with learning how to be an engineer, or an economist??? The purpose of the colege system is to bind ones allegiance to the sate, and even ignore the pesky “outdated” thing called the Constitution or the rule of LAW. If you can somehow find a career, while avioding these attempts to deconstruct and reconstruct your mind.
Posted by: hmn | October 29, 2008, 3:46 pm 3:46 pm
intelligent people become professors.. the unintelligent become “senior lecturers” but self title themselves “professor”.
Posted by: trettione | October 29, 2008, 3:55 pm 3:55 pm
Republicans hate colleges because they carry knowledge. The whole Republican platform is based on myth, so anything that would dispute it is labeled “liberal.”
Posted by: Reason | October 29, 2008, 4:16 pm 4:16 pm
In almost every speech, McCain pretends to self-correct, pausing after saying, “if I’m elected president” to add, “I mean, when I’m elected president.” His self-confidence always gets wild applause.
But very often, McCain is delivering those lines in half-full rooms and uncrowded outdoor spaces. McCain’s crowds are only a fraction of the size of those regularly streaming into Obama rallies.
On Friday, McCain drew a crowd of several thousand to a rally in Denver’s National Western Arena. Later that evening in Mesilla, Colo., about 8,000 people came to hear McCain speak, according to the campaign.
Two days later, more than 100,000 people attended an Obama rally in Denver, according to police chief Gerry Whitman. That night, another 50,000 came to hear him in Fort Collins, Colo., according to campaign estimates.
McCain’s advance team works hard to fill their events, either with voters or with some creative decorating. In Denver, loosely hung black curtains almost hid empty seats high in the stands. At a New Hampshire ice rink, half the seats were blocked off to make the arena look half its size. And in Kettering, Ohio, a riser with television cameras was set up to block rows of empty seats from television shots.
Posted by: Reason | October 29, 2008, 4:16 pm 4:16 pm
Of course colleges carry a liberal bias. It’s because they’re institutions for thought and learning.
Posted by: Jonathan | October 29, 2008, 4:23 pm 4:23 pm
oh is there ever. I work at technical college in Milwaukee. The Bias is almost sickening. Obama signs everywhere from outside the school on classroom doors not even a hint of bi partisim. No one even mentions McCain except to curse his name. Today they held a vote for change ralley for early voting in Milwaukee and I felt like they were signing up for a cult, and I am leaning towards voting for Obama but there is no objectivity on my campus.
Posted by: rachel | October 29, 2008, 4:24 pm 4:24 pm
I wonder if and when the the Fairness Doctrine is re-activated if it will have any affect on colleges? Probably not.If inforced properly, it would probably end MSNBC. My guess is it will only be enforced on the conservative side.Imagine Kieth Olberman playing by those rules.
Posted by: jamescbuilder | October 29, 2008, 4:29 pm 4:29 pm
Liberal? Certainly colleges support human rights and freedom of thought. Would you expect them to support the rhetoric supporting a plutocracy or the shouts of those who themselves have been deceived since they were children into supporting it?
Posted by: Jake Jackson | October 29, 2008, 5:07 pm 5:07 pm
i’m from UT but my brother attended A&M in the mid-90s and they had a gay and lesbian literature course and progressive social social sciences courses. so both universities are what you make of them. there are outstanding professors at both universities that are liberal and conservative. yeah overall A&M might be a little more conservative. but my information is dated. i graduated in the late eighties and my brother in the 90s.
would it be rude to give a shameless shout out to Barack?
Posted by: Paul Wall | November 1, 2008, 9:34 pm 9:34 pm
I was a student at Texas A&M during the 2004 Presidential election. I joined the Aggie Democrats organization, and obtained an Ags for Kerry t-shirt, which I proudly wore around campus.
However, certain students (howdy Moses Hall) felt the need to berate me for my choice of candidate (shouting “why don’t you vote for a REAL President” across the quad, etc). A&M itself may not actively encourage a conservative or Republican-centric agenda, but its students (on average) were definitely very, very right-wing at the time.
I wonder why they felt compelled to make fun of me for wearing a shirt, even in big kid school :(
Posted by: dillon | November 3, 2008, 6:02 pm 6:02 pm