Some feedback:
“The only time I was ever really intimidated in class for my political beliefs, though, was in a Spanish class. The professor told us that there are no more dictators in Latin America. When I asked about Castro, I was informed that you cannot take the word of the defectors; they are the worms who want to live off the labor of others rather than having solidarity with the workers. What about the persecution of homosexuals? Well, we persecute homosexuals in the US too. When he asked what I wanted to do with my degree, I told him I was considering joining the Air Force. The next class began with him telling how disappointed he was in one of his students who had gone into the Army a few years earlier, supporting rather than criticizing the foreign policy of our horrible government. I have never been so eager for a term to end. I know he was the exception, but that doesn’t excuse it.”
Another case, this time pure misandry:
“From 1983-1987 I was a graduate student in European History at the Univ. of Mass. I was, very nearly, the lone ‘conservative’ and witnessed then and afterwards dozens of instances of left wing bias both in teaching and in the hiring of teachers for the Academy. The one that stands out, I suppose for humorous reasons, is the following: I had a good friend who was taking a class in the Women’s History department on advertising and women. I sat in quietly during one of the classes and noticed that it was a fairly well-attended class of around 25 women and one man (not including me.) It was about 2/3rds of the way through the semester and they were thick in the process of presenting to the class their research projects for the semester. The teacher was scheduling these for the next few sessions and she would call on each student by name and schedule their day to present. Eventually, she got to the lone male in the class at which point she asked … ‘What is your name again?'”
Ouch. This one struck a nerve as well:
“I’m a doctoral student in English Literature at a large southeastern University, and I also work as a research assistant for a professor who works in a rather trendy area in Theory. In a welcome change, my professor asked me last week to read a biography about apartheid South Africa and help her discuss the book with one of her undergraduate students. The notion arose in our discussion that once peoples previously separated by fear and stereotypes actually met individually, they were often able to put aside these fears. As an example, my professor put forward the abstract idea of meeting Republicans and trying to understand them as people. Misreading the consternation on my face, she quickly noted that she didn’t personally know any Republicans and, anyway, there could be NO justifiable excuse for being a Republican. Now, this professor is a lovely and amiable person, but she felt more than comfortable making this comparison in front of two students whose political leanings she assumed were her own. Considering our discussion of apartheid, I said nothing but savored the delicious irony all day.”
But I’m sure all these institutions are dedicated to the cause of “diversity.” If only they had a clue what it really means.
GOOD NEWS ON HIV: A promising new avenue for eradicating the virus entirely emerges – thanks to U.S. research. And infection rates in San Francisco are stable and even declining somewhat – yet again. No vast new epidemic, at least so far as we can tell.
The Dish 