Academia Prejudiced

For those of you who don't know (out of those of you who read this, it can't be many) I am attending graduate school in Higher Education. In two years I will walk away with a Master's Degree in College Student Personnel from a division 1 institution in Ohio.

Over the next while, I will be sure to be relating my graduate school experiences in the context of what Slowpitch and I write about on this blog. To begin with, and for what I'm sure will be a common topic, I will relate my experiences with what I would consider academic prejudice and academic freedom.

From Google (which, by the way, is taking over the world) I get this definition from Princeton: Academic Freedom is "the freedom of teachers and students to express their ideas in school without religious or political or institutional restrictions." In a number of institutions (including the one I currently attend) I believe that this idea is foreign. The reason I believe this is that my professors, some of my fellow students, and university staff are all extreme liberals. While it is true that they may not all be "extreme," the reason I have derived this assumption is because of three reasons: 1) My fellow students, in social situations, commonly refer to the Supreme Court as being "in danger," 2) refer to George Bush as an "idiot," and 3) describe Bill Clinton as the greatest President the US has ever known. A new and fourth reason is what I wish to discuss: that my classmates and professors think being a conservative is being a "freak of nature."

Today in class one of my professors was discussing diversity with the class. He continued to make statements referring to George Bush and how his appointments to the courts would erode civil rights. He made statements referring to potential interviews the class could have about diversity and described talking to people that would define themselves as "liberals, progressives, or even moderates." Something missing there?

Furthermore, elements beyond my ability to discuss (university staff members) have routinely singled myself and my wife out for our conservative views - for discussion matters, and even for us to talk with students that hold "similar views."

These reason lead me to believe that in Academia there is no political ideology freedom. If you would dare disagree or comment on what is assumed (which you wouldn't) you'd be considered the political form of a racist - someone whose views and ideas it is absurd to uphold.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I just wanted to make it clear that I will begin to challenge some of these assumptions. In class and in social settings I will no longer shake my head when someone estimates George Bush's ability to understand a baseball game, or makes the statement that assumes a liberal point of view is the only that exists.

Look forward to my posts on these situations. They will surely prove to be interesting...