Another Academic Freedom Conflict In Colorado

What’s with Colorado? For whatever reason, that state seems to be ground zero for academic freedom battles, and especially for complaints over liberal bias in academia. (A few, but only a few, of my posts on various Colorado struggles are here, here, here, and here.)

Now, there they go again. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on an ongoing controversy between Oneida Meranto, a liberal political science professor at Metropolitan State College in Denver (she describes her politics as “very raw”), and an increasingly assertive group of conservative students who accuse her of bias against them.

Read the whole article for the she said/they said details. What struck me about the article were not the particulars of this specific conflict but the assertion in the article that when conservative students object to liberal bias they are in efffect demanding that professors be fired, although no evidence of that was presented. Indeed, the article states that

In the aftermath of a contentious presidential election, such tensions may only become worse as emboldened conservative students try to oust professors they perceive as too liberal.

David Horowitz, author of a proposed “Academic Bill of Rights,” has always vociferously denied that he supports firing professors to promote intellectual diversity. Still, there seems to be a growing sense among liberal academics that protests from conservative students are a threat to academic freedom.

“The atmosphere that’s been created in Colorado … does seem to bring out these tendencies to make students more aggressive,” says Robert M. O’Neil, founder of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and a professor of law at the University of Virginia. It gives them a sense that if “they pound and shout loud enough they’ll be able to make something happen to a faculty member with whom they disagree,” he says.

For the record (there is a record, isn’t there?), I don’t believe in firing or hiring professors because of their politics. But it seems to me that a little pounding and shouting might very well be in order on some occasions.

Say What? (5)

  1. nobody important November 22, 2004 at 11:50 am | | Reply

    What about all the pounding of fists and loud shouting from the Left for the past four decades?

    Beam meet mote.

  2. notherbob2 November 22, 2004 at 8:23 pm | | Reply

    Sorry. Professor Rothman’s article is at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110005928

  3. The Precinct Chair November 23, 2004 at 12:43 am | | Reply

    Oneida Meranto’s comments are intriguing, not so much because they reveal anything about conservative students, but because of what they reveal about the Left on college campi. If such protests by conservatives are merely attempts to get liberals fired, what else can that be but a concession by meranto that she and her ilk have been trying to do the same to conservatives for years. Id, in fact, conservatives speaking out are a threat to academic freedom, then the converse must also be true — liberals speaking out against consevatives impinge upon academic freedom.

    The difference is that conservatives specificly disclaim the desire to engage in an ideological purge, but merely seek to be included in the intellectual conversation of the university. Liberals, on the other hand, proudly proclaim “Hey Hey!, Ho Ho! Neocon Zionists have got to go!” and the like.

  4. jason December 22, 2004 at 5:12 pm | | Reply

    I had Meranto for a class and she is a complete weirdo. She teaches on emotions and shows a little racism in between. Metro State should have fired her. She is the the worse kind of a liberal…a communist liberal!

  5. Academicus December 23, 2004 at 2:10 pm | | Reply

    Meranto is a disgrace to the very idea of the University.

    Search her “Racist Speech” and you’ll learn more about the kind of rants she spews in and outside of the classroom.

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