A Conservative Kid Runs the Liberal Gauntlet: 7th Grader Decries Liberal Bias in Classroom

In the April 9, 2007 issue of the Weekly Standard, Mary Eberstadt’s article title, “Do Campuses Tilt Left,” initially appears to be a rhetorical question. After all, any conservative who attended college in the past 40 years could attest to the fact that all public university faculties and many private school faculties as well not only tilt left but do so openly and proudly. Thus my interest in Eberstadt’s title question with the obvious answer known to all was piqued. All, that is, except the left-leaning universities themselves, who apparently cannot recognize how homogeneously liberal their faculties have become.

In recent years, conservatives have produced several books aimed at exposing liberal bias on college campuses, such as David Horowitz’s newest title, Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom. These books contain hundreds of specific examples of college professors and administrators actively teaching personal political opinion as fact and universities uniformly supporting liberal causes, liberal candidates, and a liberal curriculum. Yet according to Eberstadt, in a new study sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, liberal educators have published an attempt to discredit conservative authors who expose liberal indoctrination on publicly funded campuses. According to the study conducted, of course, by educators and researchers beholden to liberal employee unions, there is no accurate quantitative method available to determine the percentages of Democrats and Republicans among faculty and administrators, thus there is no bias.

By that same logic, there is no accurate quantitative method available to determine the percentages of terrorist and non-terrorist Muslims in America, thus there are no Muslim terrorists in America. Actually, many professors, like Ward Churchill, already think there are no terrorists in America except President Bush and that our government staged 9/11 as an excuse for war, so perhaps this type of circular logic makes sense in a demented way.

The liberal study’s criticism of conservative books claiming liberal bias on campuses, ironically, was expressed in these words: "passing off personal opinions as facts is not science." I found that statement fittingly hypocritical, since even high school and middle school students today are suffering through anti-conservative lectures and diatribes that are blatant examples of teachers “passing off personal opinions as fact.”

Conservatives attending graduate school, sadly, expect such treatment and steel themselves against it. In some ways, being forced to defend one’s viewpoint is beneficial, as it develops confidence and clarity of thought, since one’s positions are constantly under attack. Sadly, even middle school children who consider themselves conservative must constantly be vigilant in filtering liberal bias from what should be objective classroom teaching, particularly of history, government, and current events.

Spy The News! is pleased to welcome a guest contributor today, who is uniquely qualified to report on current liberal indoctrination efforts on school campuses, and can assist Eberstadt in debunking the AFT and AFL-CIO study that claims there is no proof of liberal bias in academia. Today’s guest reporter is the lovely and talented O-Be-Wise Daughter #1, who is a 7th grade student at what most would consider a high quality public middle school in a metropolitan DC suburb. O-Be-Wise Daughter #1 is an aspiring writer, who is developing interests in history, politics, and government, following in O-Be-Wise’s footsteps. Her favorite teacher in this 7th grade year is her U.S. history teacher. This teacher, however, suffers from an academic flaw: “passing off personal opinion as fact is not science [or in this case, history].”

When asked over the weekend to write about her experiences as a young conservative student in a liberal classroom, O-Be-Wise Daughter #1 wrote the following, edited here for spelling:

As a middle school student in the 7th grade, I often experience political pressure from students and teachers. I know, first hand, that this pressure starts much earlier than middle school. When I was in 3rd grade, I was taught by my teacher that Christopher Columbus was a “bad man.” We were read stories about Columbus kidnapping Native Americans and taking them to Spain to work as slaves. The images of scared little Indian children and sad men and women were pasted into our minds. Lucky for me, I was able to go home and receive the truth from my parents. But how many of my classmates, still to this day, believe that Columbus was a mean and evil man?

Now, once again, I face an even more obvious political pressure. My history teacher is a perfect example. She almost always incorporates some reason why Republicans are unintelligent, and also incorporates rude comments and apparent disgust toward President Bush into our lessons. Our class has wasted multiple class periods discussing reasons why President Bush isn’t a suitable president. What makes it worse is the fact that the other students are being subjected to liberal ways of thinking, as well as the utmost disrespect for our president.

As one student put it after sharing a rude joke about President Bush, “I’m a Republican, but these jokes are just too funny.” Is it funny? I certainly don’t think so, and I know a few other students who don’t either. My honest question is: are we attending school to receive political opinions, and hear rude commentaries, or are we here to learn and gain an education?

It is plain that Americans have many different political standpoints. But I feel it’s unnecessary to bring these opinions into the school environment in such ways. No student should feel like they have to be in favor of a certain political party just to “fit in,” and they especially shouldn’t feel pressured. I for one will never change where I stand in politics. I will remain a conservative child in a conservative family.

The AFT and AFL-CIO study would have us believe that middle school exposures to liberal indoctrination like these described above do not occur. Spy The News! thanks O-Be-Wise Daughter #1 for her courage in standing up for herself and conservative principles at some risk to her grades, and for bravely sharing her experiences with an international audience of readers.
A disheartening aspect of this student's experience is her observation that the few other conservative children are finding humor in the Bush-bashing and they, like the proverbial frog who slowly cooks to death as the temperature in the water pot increases, are slowly embracing the marginalization of their conservatism. Despite our best efforts to convince them otherwise, children often believe their teachers know more about school subjects than parents. When history is presented only from the liberal perspective and the student does not go home and discuss it with parents, parents may never become aware of what their children are learning, or not learning, in all those hours under the influence of liberal teachers.

Eberstadt recently edited a new book titled Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys, which contains essays by former liberals who were so put off by the overwhelmingly liberal bias they experienced in college that it pushed them to investigate and eventually embrace conservatism in response. With attentive and active parental involvement, perhaps a new generation of conservative youth can be shepherded safely through the increasingly liberal gauntlet of American academia and bring the concept of “fair and balanced” to faculties and administrators that so desperately need it if they wish to remain credible in the public eye.

Previous posts discussing liberal bias in schools:
Can Teachers and Professors Hide Personal Bias? AZ State Senator’s Bill Would Require It

Avoiding Mistakes in Iraq by Revising “Quagmire Quixote” Histories of Vietnam War

Can Teachers and Professors Hide Personal Bias? AZ State Senator's Bill Would Require It

Is it possible for teachers to be completely objective while teaching history, politics, and other potentially controversial issues in the classroom? Not according to Arizona state Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor, R-Gilbert, AZ, who has introduced a state bill that would require public school teachers to be impartial and not present their personal political or social views to students. Teachers would, of course, retain their First Amendment rights to share their views privately outside of recognized teaching settings.

Predictably, the bill has generated passionate controversy among teachers, school administrators, parents, and even students, as reported in the Arizona Republic. The liberal opposition to the bill argues that it curbs free speech and will discourage teachers from teaching anything about controversial historical issues or current events out of fear of reprisal under the bill’s provisions. They further claim that students will be harmed by a sheltering intellectual climate and that “the classroom is precisely where these kinds of important controversial debates should be taking place,” as stated by the Executive Director of the ACLU in Arizona. Conservative supporters of the bill express concern that children and teens are very impressionable, view their teachers as authorities, and should not be subjected to the personal political or social beliefs of teachers.

Having experienced a tremendous amount of liberal bias and pressure to conform or receive poor grades years ago in graduate school, I gravitate toward supporting a bill of this nature, but I likewise am certain that it will have virtually no efficacy because teachers and professors are only one third of the problem that requires correction: the other two thirds are public school/university administrators and the selected curriculum being taught as authoritative within these schools. Legally requiring teachers or professors to teach impartially out of an approved school district curriculum implies a naïve faith that the curriculum itself is politically or socially objective. As I have described in a previous post, being forced to digest textbooks used in today’s schools is to be force fed a steady diet of history liberally laced with the collective opinions of academia, which is undeniably and overwhelmingly politically liberal. Author David Horowitz’s newest book, Indoctrination U:The Left's War Against Academic Freedom, illustrates the intellectually stifling effect that biased education continues to have on America’s students. If you have children in college or will soon be in that position, read Horowitz's book and discuss with your student what he/she can expect and how to recognize bias in texts and lectures.

In most local school districts throughout the nation, teachers could present only the approved texts and still influence students to adopt liberal views, as there is less fair and balanced presentation in textbooks than one would find on broadcast news or in print newspapers. The professors who write textbooks are notoriously biased to the left and, unlike journalists who feign impartiality, members of academia are proud of their stances and make no claims to objectivity. It is unrealistic to expect school teachers to be held to a teaching standard not similarly applied to college professors who produce texts taught to school children.

The Arizona Republic article included a quote from one college student who supports the proposed bill for the shelter from academic grade penalties often imposed by liberal professors on students known to hold conservative views:

"You might have your own opinions, but don't use a public university where people and taxpayers are paying you to teach," said Hyde, chairman of the Arizona College Republicans. "Don't use (the classroom) as your soapbox and think you're put there to teach me why you think the president is an idiot. That's not your job."

Liberal opponents of the bill argue that students need to be presented with differing viewpoints to facilitate their academic and intellectual growth. This claim, though it sounds rational, ignores the reality that students are not being challenged by a variety of interpretations. The problem is that there is only one item on the academic menu, and it is a stale slab of Euro-socialist anti-American propaganda not fit for consumption without something of opposite flavor available to remove the aftertaste. Some of the teachers quoted in the Republic article expressed concern that they will lose the ability to discuss controversial issues, but this is a red herring. The role of a teacher in discussions or debates of such topics is as a mediator, not as a validator of opinions or as an arbiter as to which viewpoint is right. Even in competitive debate courses, the judge is supposed to declare a winner based on the persuasiveness and construct of argument rather than whether the point of view argued is right or is in harmony with the judge’s personal beliefs.

The Arizona classroom impartiality bill is a noble attempt to correct a problem that is endemic to academia, but also impacts the media and the judiciary. All of these professions theoretically should be populated with objective people dedicated to teaching, reporting, or judging “just the facts,” but human nature is clearly more potent than even the most altruistic desire for objectivity in any of these fields. Perhaps an alternative solution might include required disclosures statements from teachers to their students prior to sharing any personal opinions in the classroom. A similar disclosure from the news media would certainly help the public recognize biased reporting.

Honesty in America would reach astounding levels if we could turn on the CBS Evening News and hear this anchor introduction: “Good Evening, I’m Katie Couric, and I have never voted for a Republican. I believe America brought 9/11 on itself and said so within minutes of the collapse of the second tower. I hate President Bush and believe he is a stupid cowboy. Thank you for choosing to let me influence you to be a liberal like me through my words, body language, and vocal inflections. Now, in today’s news. . .”

We require political candidates to reveal who donates money to their campaigns in order to determine what influences will shape the candidates views. Why not require teachers and the news media to likewise reveal their personal political affiliations so that students and readers can recognize that what they are being taught or are reading has passed through an opinion prism?