This Reeks

Since I don't know all the details, I should say that it's vaguely, minutely possible that there's something substantial to this. But it sure smells like rightwing scam posturing to me: Bill aims to curb profs' classrooom politicizing Denver Post 01/27/04.

It seems that Colorado universities are being overrun with scheming, nasty Evil Liberal professors who are forcing their hideous opinions down the throats of poor, innocent conservative students. So state Rep. Shawn Mitchell is introducing a measure to protect the poor young things. (Do I even need to mention he's a Republican?)

"This bill provides a level playing field and says that no one should be discriminated against because of the political content of their speech," Mitchell said.

The proposed academic bill of rights is aimed at protecting conservative students who say they are targets of harassment and discrimination by left-leaning faculty because of their political beliefs.

Golly gee, they don't want to create a "protected class" for conservative wusses, do they? I know that actually having to engage their brains instead of learning by rote is extremely painful for a lot of the College Republican crowd, as it is for many of their less ideological classmates.

But I would be greatly surprised to find out that the established procedures, rules and governing laws (state and federal) do not already provide adequate protection for any of the alleged discrimination the bill is meant to protect. It's pretty noticeable that the article cites not a single actual case of this occurring. It sure smells to me like a McCarthy-era style legislative witch hunt to intimidate moderate and liberal professors.

And how did conservatives get this idea that they seem to chronically hold on to that American colleges are crawling with Marxists? Good Lord, you'd be lucky if you can find a single professor on most campuses that could even give a half-tolerable description of what Karl Marx actually advocated. This whole story reminds me of an Oklahoma legislator in the McCarthy days who was drilling a university professor and asked him (quoting from memory here), "Do you know who Karl Marx is and have you ever read his book?"