Question for college professors: What should a conservative do?

Even though you didn’t say it, as my linked post’s cites illustrate, “things like evolution in a biology class” are in fact a major source of actual disagreements between self-described conservative students and professors.

I think it’s a bit disingenuous for conservatives to complain about “liberal academia” being biased against conservatives without acknowledging that a large part of the way self-identified conservatism manifests itself in higher education is through viewpoints that are stubbornly anti-science and anti-fact.

The modern US conservative movement has a real problem with its dependence on its militant pro-ignorance wing that, for example, swallows all kinds of false statements and conspiracy theories from right-wing sources, while at the same time denying the validity of key science on, e.g., geology and biology and climate change. I’d like to see at least a few conservatives honestly confront the seriousness of that problem before indulging in their routine whining about how academics are so unfair to conservatives because they’re brainwashed socialist hippies who can’t see past their own biases or something.

And the intervening time provides a lot of opportunity for confirmation bias and false memories to get baked in by ideological antagonism. Given how much difficulty students often have with remembering what their professor said in yesterday’s lecture, I’m certainly not taking anybody’s unsupported word for how many “partisan soapbox rants” they heard in class nearly twenty years ago.

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So you’re telling me that my experience is invalid because the year 2009 (when Bush left office) is ancient history, but your vast experience of taking a whole ten classes in social science means you can authoritatively state this is not a problem for anyone anywhere? OK, so where exactly is the cut off for when we have to dismiss someone’s lived experiences as irrelevant? That way we know how many other people’s experiences in this thread we should throw out too.

If you go to a school where the professors have a culture of keeping their political opinions to themselves, great! That’s how it should be. Based on my experience, I do think this is a problem in at least some schools even if not everywhere. While I am not in school any more, the responses to this thread just reinforce to me that this is likely still a problem, with multiple people (including yourself) demonizing conservatives as racist or uneducated because they are skeptical of the current academic system, instead of considering that maybe the reason conservatives feel alienated from academia is because of the stereotypes about them people like you keep perpetuating.

I do not think "education bad"or “learning bad”. I actually have a doctorate myself. If you actually met me, you would never suspect I am a conservative, since I do not fit the stereotype that many liberals have developed of what conservatives are like.
However, I do think it is reasonable to question if all of what is being taught at schools is actually educational.

We had a big 5 page discussion of this when it came up.

So you dont have to read it all, the student appealed the suspension and paper and after lots of pressure the college dropped it.

As a conservative I would have to agree. I would like to counsel those students they are there to learn the topic. If it’s about evolution - fine. Learn the topic back and forth to get the grade. It doesnt mean you have to agree with it.

And then that’s actually kind of what this thread is about.

Since there are still a large number of conservative Christians out there who do believe in creationism, I’m sure this conflict does happen, but I don’t think that is what the majority of conservatives mean when they talk about a political bias in the classroom.

Liberals are not immune to promoting anti-science ideas or conspiracy theories. I also see liberals parroting a lot of things that have very little empirical evidence behind them such as unproven theories about “white privilege”, “male privilege”, gender identity, etc. as factual.

If you don’t believe me, so be it. I think the way people in this thread can’t admit that this could possibly even be a problem for conservatives just goes to show why my original advice to simply pretend to agree with liberals until you are in a position where they can’t fuck with you is the correct one for young conservatives to take.
Also, the Bush presidency only ended 10 years ago.

“Don’t mock the alligator until you are across the stream.”

And you know this [bolded sentence] how?

That’s kind of my point. Conservatives complaining about alleged academic bias against conservatism tend to resolutely ignore the entrenched bias against fact widespread in a large subset of modern conservatism, not just in the form of science denial but also in embracing ridiculous conspiracy theories and “birtherism”-type gossip in preference to responsible coverage of current events.

If conservatives insist on “talk[ing] about a political bias in the classroom” that they blame on liberals while refusing to acknowledge the political bias against knowledge and facts in much of modern conservatism, that’s rather hypocritical of them.

Feeble whataboutery. While it’s true that no group is immune to having some irrational and/or dumb people in it, pointing that out doesn’t refute the fact that modern conservatism is much more prone to irrational rejection of reality-based inquiry than modern liberalism is. Conservatives need to stop pretending that their movement doesn’t have a serious problem—significantly more serious than among their liberal counterparts—with embracing ignorance and ideologically rejecting informed rationality.

False equivalence. Having an opinion on social issues, which is what views about “privilege” amount to, is not at all the same thing as rejecting well-grounded scientific theories (on, e.g., human evolution or geological timescales) or ascertained fact (about, e.g., Barack Obama’s birthplace).

Whiny exaggeration. My very first post in this thread, for example, directly acknowledged that unfair bias could be a problem for conservative students in some circumstances (although not perhaps as many as some oversensitive conservative students may imagine), and gave specific advice about what they should do to stand up for themselves in those circumstances.

Self-pitying sulks. If conservatives can’t stand being honestly told that their own biases and emotional overreactions are a bigger problem for them than “oppression” by liberals, and that they invite anti-conservative bias by being so unwilling to confront their own internal problems with distrust of rationality and science, then of course they’re just going to keep stewing in their paranoid resentment and it will seem to them that everybody else is treating them unfairly.

Nobody claimed otherwise. Are you trying to say that you were in college closer to 10 years ago than to “nearly 20” years ago? If so, I apologize for inadvertently overestimating your age, but it doesn’t change the point I was making.

I remember my father complaining about liberal professors back in the 60s, which I was too young to understand what liberals or professors were. I just knew that they poisoned the minds of innocent youth.

The student violated regulations on recording without permission. He was never personally addressed by the teacher. The teacher did not accept any award for her actions.

He could have probably taken his concern to the dean and gotten some action. But instead took the video to his College Republican chapter who took it public, resulting in the teacher getting death threats. So he screwed himself all because he was so excited to play the victim.

My advice to that student would be - don’t do that.

No, No No. Look at my post #64 above. The college agreed to drop it. Again, we had a 5 page discussion of it. He DID take it to the dean and didnt see anything happening.

Now what was brought up in the last discussion is that discipline of faculty takes place behind closed doors in secrecy so the student has no idea what if anything happened.

I think this is a good point to make because many people in this discussion have said to take issues to the dean but if the student doesnt see anything come of it, what then should or could they do?

BTW, if you would look at #64 above I post that the college dropped the charges against the student. The teacher later got an award.

I once made a halfhearted effort to trace the origins of the “liberal academia” myth. By looking in media databases like EBSCO and Nexis, I got back to Goldwater before I ran out of time and energy. Plus, blaming Goldwater is a pretty good default position for many things. So, I’m pretty comfortable saying Goldwater first started claiming all the smart people were biased against him because he was fucking nuts. Unfortunately almost every Republican who followed him was similarly fucking nuts, so here we are.

Oh, and by the way, leading conservative intellectual Dinesh D’Souza is over on Twitter with his BA in English Literature and his felony conviction, telling all his followers that the trained scientists having a collective brown trousers moment over the destruction of the Amazon are lying.

D’Souza also periodically claims that today’s Republicans are the close ideological descendants of the 1860s Republicans, while today’s Democrats are still the same party of slavery. Every time he does this, historians, primarily Kevin Kruse, dogpile him. Because, you know, facts. Doesn’t matter. Professional historians are wrong, and conservatives are right.

I am a college instructor in a class that is pretty far removed from politics.

If a student slammed men, or white people, or women, or black people, I would ask them to show respect for their fellow students. And I’d change the subject. And the other students would back me in changing the subject. And there’s zero chance the subject was relevant to my class.

If one of my students physically assaulted another student (ripping off their hat) I’d ask them to leave the class and I’d discuss it with my supervisor. But really, I can’t imagine that happening. That’s so incredibly far from my experience of campus life.

We do have a policy about wearing clothing with inappropriate messages. If a student arrived wearing a shirt that said, “fuck the police”, for instance, I would ask them to change their shirt. (Or turn it inside out.) A MAGA hat would be allowed, if you were wondering.

Now, what might happen on my liberal campus is that the kid wearing the MAGA hat would be scorned by other students and have trouble making friends. But they might find other conservative to hang out with.

Maybe the student should step back and realize that the university isn’t obligated to act on frivolous complaints?

Because, let’s be frank, this complaint was absolutely 100% frivolous. A student got upset that a professor said something bad about his favorite politician. It’s a total joke.

Urbanredneck is simply pointing to the need for safe spaces on university campuses.:smack:

What does “take control” mean? Should the instructor stay neutral, and say that any idea is okay, as long as you can back it up? Should they say that there are many opinions and refuse to take a position? Or is it okay to say “That’s a racist simplification”? Or is that “taking sides” and “pushing a liberal agenda”?

Devil’s in the details, isn’t it? If a kid rips a hat off another kid’s head, I kick the kid who did the ripping out of my class in the immediate moment, and he doesn’t return until I’ve passed that up the chain–that’s assault. But “slammed whites with stereotypes” can mean a lot of things, which is why I was careful to give you a concrete statement.

My university and the programs I teach in have student conduct standards. Those are the bottom line. My syllabi and class introductions point to these and describe expectations for civil discourse, which includes listening to others with different perspectives, trying to back up your assertions, and no ad hominem comments. I let them know that I will sometimes interrupt or slow down our conversation if I’m concerned that it’s sliding toward disrespectful or actionable statements. I ask my students to let me know if they think I’m doing the same.

My experience in 20 years of university teaching, plus a good handful more of high school and adjunct instruction, is that there is no political position that has been more represented than others in classroom arguments or disputes. I will say that my liberal-identified students have never shouted at me in class about sin, damnation, or Jesus Christ in relation to, say, my research-based PowerPoint slide showing no significant negative outcomes for children of same-sex marriages.

A close family member is currently in college. She has very conservative views about many topics, as opposed to the majority of her fellow students. Last semester she took a class with an extremely liberal professor, who told the class they were expected to volunteer x number of hours in order to pass the course. The professor then took it upon himself to give a roster of the entire class (including phone numbers, addresses, etc) to a cause he believed in.

I’m extremely liberal, and even I found this reprehensible (especially when the “cause” started calling and writing to say when the family member was expected to show up to volunteer).

The majority of the class went to the head of the department to complain - and these were students who probably would be in favor of this particular cause.

The Chairman was upset and reprimanded the professor, who doesn’t appear to be teaching this upcoming semester.

My family member has expressed her views in different classes (when appropriate), and has never felt discriminated against in any way. As long as views are given (and listened to) respectfully, there shouldn’t be any problem. And if a problem does arise, there are avenues for you to follow.

It seems like you’re looking for a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.