"Defenders of academia claim that while professors are liberal, few of them bring their politics into the classroom in a heavy-handed way"

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/forbidden-city_707668.html?nopager=1

Forbidden City

The left-wing stranglehold on academia.

Defenders of academia claim that while professors are liberal, few of them bring their politics into the classroom in a heavy-handed way. Gross challenges that assertion by examining courses offered during the fall 2011 semester at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin department of sociology. While some appeared neutral—“Marriage and the Family,” “Criminology”—-others had an obviously leftist perspective: “Feminism and Sociological Theory,” “Intercultural Dialogues,” “Environmental Stewardship and Social Justice,” “Class, State, and Ideology: An Introduction to Marxist Sociology.” The same themes and angles prevail in anthropology, history, literature, communications, education, geography, and “in nearly all programs in ethnic studies, women’s and gender studies, cultural studies, and social work.” 

Another liberal theory holds that conservatives attack academia out of “status anxiety,” that is, the feeling on the part of a heretofore-dominant group that its power is fading. Here, we have white male Protestants upset that women and minorities and secular visions have taken over. But in his work, Gross found that, for example, “more than two-thirds of evangelicals think that colleges do welcome the faithful,” and so “there would appear to be no widespread perception among them that higher education per se represents a threat to Christian values or their way of life.” Gross also had an assistant comb through the interviews to check whether “any interviewees expressed—even in a veiled fashion—frustration with their life situation or a sense that contemporary society was leaving them in the dust. None did.”

MAR 25, 2013