tequilamockingbird

I graduated in 2001 (seven years of undergrad) and I can tell you that I failed (well, actually dropped after recieving grades that wouldn’t have been recoverable) many many due to my political leanings. I learned which teachers wouldn’t do so – while all of them were also liberal they allowed opposing viewpoints (otherwise one could say I deserved the “F”‘s – I recieved A’s and B’s in those classes). Out of 15 or so teachers in the English department there were two, in the history department none but the Dean was an alright guy and I wasn’t afraid to complain by the time I took the last course, philosophy took me 3 different teachers before I found one, and the number of teachers who ranted and raved about Republicans in congress in the tech departments could get very irritating (though math, computer science, and others were not politically motivated in assignments it was tiring to hear – except that we were required to write papers as to why software engineers needed to be liscensed – no thought that we might disagree with that and an “F” (until you went and complained to the CS chairman) was the result).

The school I went too even went so far as to post that they *required* a liberal as one of the hard requirements for an English department post until someone pointed out that could result in a lawsuit.

Wether they considered themselfs biased, and I am pretty sure they just considered themselfs correct, being a conservative and expressing that idea was hit with a big sledgehammer with respect to grading in most of the humanities. I would imagine that attitude carried to hiring since several departments were at the 100% liberal, >%50 leftist. Most of the students, OTOH, were pretty nice no matter what. Nosr is my experience unique. I worked in a research department (computer science) at Oak Ridge National Labs and dealt with many students from undergrad to PhD candidates – mine was pretty good as many required raving moonbat leftist – even the fairly liberal students complained bitterly about it as I did.

Now I’ve read it all, and I’ve learned that John Tierney is a NYT columnist, which I didn’t know (I don’t know how I’ve missed it; I’ve been downloading the NYT daily for years, and I thought I recognized the names of their columnists).

Anyway, neo-neocon, I only glanced at your introduction before clicking on the link, and I missed the fact that he was an NYT journalist. I assumed he was some weirdo academic hack.

I’ve read the whole article now and done some reading elsewhere about it. If you sent out a questionnaire to every professor in every business school in the U.S., I think it’s safe to say you’d get a majority of Republicans and a scattering of flaky responses. The four points are simply rubbish. As a liberal, I’m not embarrassed by them: They’re simply the views of people who are seriously deluded (a very few, I hope). I don’t think the fact that there are some such nutjobs around is worthy of discussion, though; some people rave. So what? I don’t pay any attention to such junk, whichever end of the political spectrum it comes from.

The liberal preponderance on the faculty of journalism and law schools, though, is a fact of which I was unaware — yeah, I knew it was there, but I didn’t know the liberal majority was so massive — and a topic for discussion and consideration of why things are that way. I wish they weren’t; I’d like to see more balance.

tequilamockingbird

Look, anyone that disbelieves that liberal professors harbors uch beliefs, just cause the Helot followers of Leftist philosophy doesn’t belong to the Supreme Enlightened Sect of Professors and Ph.Ds does not mean we should believe the follower as opposed to the prophet.

Both sides have their perspectives, and each should be considered, regardless of whether either thinks the other as ignoramuses.

Sometimes people should really pay attention to and believe what others are saying. Whether that is Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifest, Al-Qaeda’s philosophy, or etc.

Regardless of how preposterous it seems on the surface, or farfetched, or utterly contrary to one’s own personal beliefs about the world.

Maybe we should start calling it advanced sense instead of common sense…

The “four reasons why conservatives aren’t in academe” (which, as neo-neocon pointed out, are *not* reasons that Tierney espouses, but are reasons that Tierney claims *liberals* sent him) are interesting, and in fact, I’ve overheard similar thoughts in the halls of academia.

I always found such thinking annoying and self-righteous, to say the least. The thinking here doesn’t represent a *real* attempt to come to grips with the phenomenon, as much as to make those espousing them feel good about themselves. One might just as easily say that more liberals aren’t in business because liberals a.) can’t deal with the real world, b.) aren’t able to handle hard facts instead of speculation, c.) are too lazy to work a forty-hour work week 12 months a year (this one might actually have some validity), or d.) don’t possess any real marketable skills. Yet somehow, I’m guessing these aren’t going to be making most college professors’ lists of why they’re not in business….

Well,if that’s true — and I’m not doubting your veracity, but Tierney’s — that’s a pretty huge embarrassment. I’m glad to join in the criticism of such stupidity.

“people don’t often like to go where they’re not wanted”, but here I am. (I tried to put in a smiley emoticon here, but your site watchbot wouldn’t allow it.)

tequilamockingbird

2. Conservatives do not care about the social good.

3. Conservatives are too greedy to work for professors’ wages.

4. Conservatives are too dumb to get tenure.”

Come on. That’s way beyond being enough. Any reasonable person knows that’s total horseshit (I’ve just today apologized for an intemperate remark, but there’s no way I’ll apologize for this one).

This thread has gone way off the rails.

Are you people stupid, or what?

tequilamockingbird

I don’t want to read all that junk just now; I’ll retreat in confusion and return to the fray another time.

tequilamockingbird