University seeks right-wing professor

At the University of Colorado at Boulder, academic freedom is taking a beating from the Far Right. Conservative indoctrination is being intensified to a degree that you can only expect in, well, BushAmerica. Unlike most of the conservative schools we've all experienced, UCB (a public institution) seems to be making little effort to hide its leanings.

Amid protests from students, Chancellor G.P. Peterson - himself a Republican - wants to raise $9,000,000 for an endowed chair for a professor of "conservative thought and policy."

Now I'm going to go find some information about the university's effort to hire a professor of "liberal thought and policy."

Still looking.

Well?

Oh, that's right. They're not hiring one. They're starting a position for a conservative professor, but no counterweight who might be considered liberal, progressive, or (like me) a left-leaning populist.

And they call UCB a liberal campus? The Wall Street Journal article says it is, but only for caricaturesque reasons. (Everyone knows I'm far from conservative, but I've never consumed tofu, and I've only seen it once.)

At best, Peterson's proposal is like reverse affirmative action for conservatives! However, conservatives weren't being discriminated against to begin with. If there's any liberal organizations still allowed on campus, they should ridicule this plan with a bake sale fundraiser like the one a College Republicans group at another school had. I bet that would last a few minutes before getting shut down!

Conservatism is disproportionately represented in the American education system from grade school through college. How can a university get a dedicated conservative position and call it "intellectual diversity"? This isn't even the first time an American public university has done what UCB is doing. Kennesaw State University in Georgia gave Newt Gingrich his own class that for all practical purposes was specifically conservative.

If the University of Colorado at Boulder is so liberal that a dedicated seat for "conservative thought and policy" is "intellectual diversity", then here's an idea I have: How about if the conservative Catholic school I attended for the first part of high school hires a teacher of "liberal thought and policy"?

Do you honestly expect that to happen?

(Source: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_9244192)