The Wake

“Why would you work for that piece of shit?” It wasn’t exactly a response that Crystal Lachermeier expected to hear from a classmate when she announced that she would be working for the Republican National Committee.

As part of fulfilling a requirement for a service-learning class, Lachermeier, a senior at the “U” who is double-majoring in political science and sociology, interned for the RNC last fall. She pointed to this in-class incident as one of a number of times when she felt discriminated against because of her conservative political viewpoints.

Lachermeier and many other students face a unique challenge — being in the political minority on campus. While there hasn’t been a study conducted specific to the University of Minnesota, the general consensus between liberals and conservatives alike is that campus leans a little to the left politically.

According to Larry Jacobs, a political science professor at the “U,” young people between the ages of 18 and 24 were more likely to vote for Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. Add that with the fact that Minnesota has traditionally voted a little to the Democratic side and it’s no surprise that Republicans on campus are likely among the minority.

Over the last few years, there has been a considerable amount of debate concerning the issue of whether universities hold a bias (liberal or otherwise) in what they teach. Many conservatives and other students who feel they have been discriminated against because of their views have gotten behind groups such as Students for Academic Freedom, which has proposed an “Academic Bill of Rights.” If adopted by a state legislature, the proposed bill of rights, which you can see at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org, would allow state universities to be punished for what it deems as violations of students’ rights. According to an article by Sara Hebel of The Chronicle of Higher Education, a few colleges such as Wichita State and Utah State have adopted a “Student Bill of Rights.”

Marty Andrade, a fifth-year student who is double-majoring in philosophy and psychology, feels that students are being hurt by the lack of political diversity on campus. Most professors “don’t pander (to liberals), but they are liberals,” says Andrade.

Andrade, who is the president of Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, is grateful that he has a platform to express his political views freely. However, he feels that it would be beneficial for students to get a wider range of viewpoints, pointing out that he has had only one class in which he felt the material was balanced between both sides, liberal and conservative. Andrade adds that while a political bias isn’t as harmful in classes within his major, he believes that it is a problem in areas such as the political science department, where politics is at the center of much of the discussion.

“Every one of my colleagues has gone through rigorous training,” says Jacobs, referring to the process that political science professors at the “U” must undergo to make sure their teaching methods are politically unbiased. According to Jacobs the dominant trait in professors’ viewpoints in the political science department is toward ambivalence or non-political. “If you read the journal we put out, you will likely see that there is a fear of having any political affiliation shine through,” says Jacobs.

Lachermeier agrees that teachers must mask their political affiliation and she believes they do a good job of it. She remembers a class she once had with a conservative professor who had most of the students believing that he was liberal. “It was obvious to me that he was trying too hard, but I thought that was cool,” says Lachermeier.

Adam Axvig, a senior majoring in political science, has felt the effects of being in the conservative minority as well. He says that most of the problems that he’s encountered have been with students who were quick to shoot down whatever he had to say. He and Lachermeier both agree that voicing a minority opinion, whatever it may be, is likely to cause backlash.

Axvig says that while he thinks professors try to keep their views out of what they teach, sometimes unnecessary comments with political undertones come through. He points to an example where his human sexuality professor said that Republicans halted an attempt to test everybody for AIDS. While he has not had serious problems with instructors who didn’t accept his opinions, he thinks that politics could be kept out of some discussions. Axvig says he doesn’t believe colleges should look at professors’ political views upon hiring them, but instead “they should shoot for people with open minds.”

Trevor Ford, a sophomore majoring in political science who is active in College Republicans, says that while it’s obvious that he’s in the minority, he hasn’t experienced any major problems in class. He says that while an instructor’s political views may show from time to time, it has never come to the point where it was problematic.

Austin Miller, president of the University Democrats, says that while conservative student leaders have been good at bringing up points about biases in the classroom, he thinks they also have used scare tactics to get people to listen. Miller, a senior in the Carlson School of Management, says political views can go both ways among different departments. He refers to classes within his major in which his teachers and most of the students support more politically conservative principles which cause him to be in the minority. He says professors attack students so that they will strengthen their arguments and it doesn’t mean that the professors agree or disagree with what is being said, which may lead students to falsely believe that they are being unfairly targeted.

According to Jacobs, the labels “conservative” and “liberal” are oddly shaped. He says that many college students are conservative on some issues and liberal on others, adding that most students are concerned with environmental issues, regardless of what party they identify with. For this reason grouping people into these categories based on a few viewpoints can be problematic.