Universities Or Indoctrination Centers?

“It is imperative that our classrooms be free of indoctrination. Indoctrination is not education.”  Robert M. Behrdahl, chancellor, University of California, Berkeley (Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2002)

Over the course of a college education, students tend to become more liberal. There’s a reason for that: mainstream universities often brainwash, rather than educate their students. In the classroom, only one side of the political spectrum is heard: the liberal side. While conservative students find themselves under attack in class from time to time, it’s the apathetic students  on campus – constituting the vast majority on campus — who truly lose from the lack of a politically well-rounded education. They don’t know enough about politics to object to educational indoctrination, and they don’t care enough to actively seek out the other side.From the day they arrive on campus, students are bombarded by the liberal agenda. I know, because I graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in June (I’ll be at Harvard Law School this fall).

Within the first few weeks at UCLA, I became aware that a political agenda was clearly at work. My first Geography class, “Regional Development and World Economy,” stated in the syllabus that by the end of course, “students should be able tounderstand the basic features of the world economy . . . and how these processes create inequality and poverty.” Capitalism was depicted by utilizing Michael Moore’s anti-corporate hit piece “Roger and Me.”This kind of radicalism wasn’t rare at UCLA; other courses praised socialism as a “great idea” and explained that for the wealthy, “one person’s misfortune is another person’s gain.” After September 11, courses often cited American foreign policy as justification for the attacks – Professor Dan O’Neill, a self-described “bleeding-heart leftist,” even attempted to cite John Locke in justifying the terrorist acts.

Bias against the Bush administration permeated UCLA. Professor Daniel Garst labeled Attorney General John Ashcroft “Ayatollah Ashcroft,” Professor Lynn Vavreck told our class that those in favor of both tax cuts and helping the poor were confused, and Professor Robert Watson submitted a number of pieces to the student newspaper lambasting the Bush administration.

Anti-Israel bias was common. One teacher’s assistant sent out an e-mail recommending the works of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and asked the students consider voting for Lyndon LaRouche; an English professor told our class that Palestinian Arabs were undergoing experiences similar to those of 19th-century American slaves.

Meanwhile, the UCLA student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, slanted heavily to the left; within the first three weeks of class, they ran an op-ed comparing Ariel Sharon to Adolf Eichmann. In January 2002, the editorial board compared a Christian bookstore with a pornography shop.

After attending class and reading the Bruin, it wasn’t any surprise to find that extremism among the tuition-funded student groups as well. The Muslim Student Association at UCLA passed out pamphlets labeling terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizbullah “charitable organizations” and held a yearly “Anti-Zionism Week.” The founding document for MEChA, the Latino/Chicano student group, called for the re-conquest of the Southwest United States for the “Bronze people” through armed resistance against the United States government.

Other constituent-based student media promoted radicalism as well. In May 2001, the Muslim newsmagazine Al-Talib joked about making Osama Bin Laden its editor-in-chief and changing the name of Al-Talib to Al-Taliban.

When you’re confronted with leftist and radical bias day-in and day-out, you’re forced to either recede into the background or stand up for your values. From the beginning, I felt it was important to document instances of bias I experienced in the classroom. For years, I sat in class and transcribed direct quotations from professors, carefully noting the date. I attended counter-rallies to demonstrate that the conservative viewpoint was not altogether absent at UCLA; at one affirmative action rally drawing over 1,500 protesters, I was the only counter-protestor.