Lefty CU seeks right-wing prof

Stephanie Simon, The Wall Street Journal

Originally published 11:38 a.m., May 13, 2008
Updated 11:38 a.m., May 13, 2008

BOULDER — How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder? The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor's analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.

Chancellor G.P. "Bud" Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. "We should also talk about intellectual diversity," he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation's first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.

Mr. Peterson's quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical.

"Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?" asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. "I'd rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective." Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and "global gender justice." While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like "an animal in the zoo." We "fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus," replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Boulder is far from the only campus to recognize a leftward tilt to the ivory tower. National surveys have repeatedly shown that liberals dominate faculties at most four-year colleges. And conservative activists have grown more aggressive in demanding balance. A group called the Leadership Institute now sends field workers to scores of campuses each fall to train right-wing students to speak up. College administrators are beginning to respond.

Academics studying the trend cite Georgetown University's recent hiring of former Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet.

And Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., kicked off a conservative lecture series with a talk by the now-deceased William F. Buckley Jr.

At Boulder, long known for its lefty politics, the notion of a chair in conservative thought had kicked around campus for a decade. Then, in 2005, the college was thrust into a polarizing debate over an essay by ethnic-studies professor Ward Churchill, who argued that the bankers killed in the Twin Towers on Sept. 11 were legitimate military targets because they were "little Eichmanns" who "formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire." Fox News television host Bill O'Reilly seized on those comments, and Mr. Churchill swiftly became a national symbol of political extremists running amok on campuses. The university opened an investigation into his scholarship, and Mr. Churchill was fired last summer for what the school described as plagiarism and academic fraud that was unrelated to the Eichmann essay. Mr.

Churchill didn't respond to a request seeking comment. Within days, the university launched an effort to woo back donors infuriated by the affair.

Several months later, fund raising began for the chair in conservative thought. Administrators say the move had nothing to do with Mr. Churchill, but was part of an ongoing effort to address weaknesses in the curriculum — for instance, by adding language classes in Farsi and Indonesian.

"That's what a good university does — look for an area where they don't have depth or diversity and start investing," Mr.

Gleeson says.

Mr. Peterson — a Republican who took over as chancellor two years ago — says he would like to bring a new luminary to campus every year or two to fill the chair, for an annual salary of about $200,000. No candidates have been approached, but faculty and administrators have floated big names like Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, columnist George Will and Philip Zelikow, who chaired the 9/11 Commission.

"Like Margaret Mead among the Samoans, they're planning to study conservatives. That's hilarious," says Mr. Will, dryly adding that "I don't think it would be a good fit." Ms. Rice didn't respond to a request seeking comment, and Mr. Zelikow declined to comment.

On campus, the chancellor's fund-raising efforts set off a prickly debate. Faculty members demanded to know whether donors would control the appointment. (They won't.) They asked for a chance to vote on the endowment. (They didn't get it.) "We don't ask the faculty if it's OK if we create a chair in thermodynamics," Mr. Peterson says — so why give them veto power over conservative thought? After all, he says, "It's an intellectual pursuit." Ken Bickers, who chairs the political science department, says that while he supports the concept of intellectual diversity, he has reservations about the university's strategy. He worries students will get the impression that the "conservative thought" professor speaks for all conservatives. And he resents the implication that ordinary professors don't air conservative ideas in class. Registered as unaffiliated with any party, Mr. Bickers says he makes a point of discussing all perspectives, but because he doesn't stick a political label on each lecture, students "don't realize, 'Oooh, that was conservative."' Mr. Peterson agrees that most professors try to be fair. He adds, "I don't know that it always happens." Indeed, on the lush campus, lined with flowering trees, professors tack articles slamming the Bush administration outside their offices. A humor piece posted in the philosophy department mocks the Bible. Job boards feature internships with left-wing groups and Democratic candidates.

Jack Roldan, vice chair of the College Republicans, has felt the lopsided politics keenly during his four years studying international affairs. He longed for a conservative mentor, and says he graduated last week with many questions left unanswered: When is military intervention necessary? Why does the GOP focus so much on economic policy? And what's up with the neo-cons? "There's a lot more about what I'm about that I'd like to know," Mr. Roldan says.

Other students don't have much sympathy. They love Boulder precisely because of its liberal swagger.

Sophomore Marissa Malouff sees the campus as a sort of re-education camp. Sheltered rich kids from out-of-state might come for the snowboarding, but while they're here they get dunked in a simmering pot of left-wing idealism. And that, in her view, is how it should be.

"They need to learn about social problems and poverty and the type of things liberal professors are likely to talk about," says Ms. Malouff, a Democrat.

Chancellor Peterson's response: Not to worry. He's not trying to change the essential nature of CU-Boulder.

In fact, Mr. Peterson said it's not imperative that the new professor of conservative thought be an actual conservative.

"We hire lots of scholars of the French language," he says, "and they aren't necessarily French."

• May 13, 2008

  12:26 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Big_D writes:

  Boy it might be tough to find a Republican with enough education to teach that isn't a nightmare like Churchill. They seem to be crazy if they are smart enough to teach college but still believe in the Republicans. I guess it does take some sort of mental defect to believe the GOP has been good for us.

• May 13, 2008

  12:28 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  RickyLee writes:

  I gotta get busy faking my Indian papers...

• May 13, 2008

  12:51 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  olsonmt writes:

  You're right Big_D. It is going to be very hard to fill this position. Most Republicans are too busy working real jobs and running real companies to jump into the liberal cesspool that is CU. Boulder is possibly the richest and whitest city in Colorado. CU's student body is one of the richest and whitest in the entire country. I laugh when people talk about CU being diverse. This article clearly shows the deep resentment to any sort of political diversity held by students and faculty at CU. I would expect every single community college in Colorado is far MORE diverse than our State's beacon of liberalism.

• May 13, 2008

  12:53 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  SASQUATCH writes:

  WHAT'S GOOD FOR THE BACK OF THE CLASSROOM IS ALSO GOOD FOR THE FRONT OF THE CLASSROOM.

  The problem I see is that most well-educated conservatives run big companies like Exxon, WalMart, Halliburton and IBM. Why should they take a big pay-cut to hang with the all organic, no MSG, all natural, no artificial coloring, no preservatives and range-fed liberal/socialist tofu and bean sprout crowd wearing Birkenstoks? Hanging with Marxists for the rest of your life could adversely impact one's sanity.

• May 13, 2008

  12:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Devil_Dog writes:

  Big_D

  The D obviously stands for Dumb. Because only an idiot would claim to be liberally minded and still be bigoted enough to insult people based solely on political affiliation.

  Glad to see your as enlightened as Ward Churchill and his ilk in the universities across our nation.

  But the educated liberal is smart enough to know that they don't want a light shined upon them or they will be revealed as the socialist frauds that they are.

• May 13, 2008

  1:29 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  denverinfidel writes:

  Sorry Big D, but most conservatives are too busy being productive citizens to spend their life sucking at the gov't teat.

  This may be a new concept, but someone's gotta make a profit to pay for all you socialists. Yes, it is a luxury to sit around on someone else's dime and ponder how wonderful and open-minded you are.

  If only we could all be CU/Boulder liberals and live amongst such amazing "diversity". What a joke. Rich white people beget rich white people. Even boulder knows this.

• May 13, 2008

  1:32 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Alive writes:

  Like those intolerant "progressives" would allow a conservative to even be on campus unmolested. These kids are too young and too spoiled to understand true fairness. The entire concept is lost on them. What a joke.

• May 13, 2008

  1:47 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Tommy writes:

  About time.

• May 13, 2008

  2:08 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  holekeeper writes:

  SASQUATCH,
  Sorry to tell you this but wal-mart is backing the demos, I know this little fact slipped your mind but hillary used to be a wal-mart lawyer.

• May 13, 2008

  2:37 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jconder45 writes:

  >Sorry Big D, but most conservatives are too busy being productive citizens to spend their life sucking at the gov't teat.

  What a joke that is. The whole Bush-Cheney administration has been about little else than funneling taxpayer money into the hands of their big business cronies. Of course, it's not just taxpayer funds they live off, but the blood of the young Americans killed in their cash-cow war.

• May 13, 2008

  2:51 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Spencer writes:

  It is true that they might have a tough time finding someone with the educational requirements. Perhaps there should be some sort of Affirmative Action for Conservatives?

• May 13, 2008

  3:07 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Scott writes:

  Man that diversity" shoe really pinches when it on the libs foot! :-) Typically the libs get their hemp panties in a knot when the conservatives bash the libs. The libs point out how "inclusive" and nice they are and would never do anything as childish as calling names.

  Now that the University of Cocaine may end up hiring a ... gasp ... conservative the libs are slinging all of the childish mud that they accuse conservatives of slinging.

  Oh well, why should I have expected anything different.

  Scott

• May 13, 2008

  3:09 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Oh_Wise_One writes:

  Spencer- Most Conservatives could tie their brain in half and still qualify to teach at CU but, they are out doing better things with their lives other than coddling white brats.

• May 13, 2008

  3:18 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  rickg19611 writes:

  Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. No wonder there are so many liberals teaching.

• May 13, 2008

  3:27 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  SASQUATCH writes:

  Holekeeper:

  The Walton family and their associates despise and detest Dems, Marxists and socialists...they only hire that lowly vermin as "greeters."

• May 13, 2008

  3:45 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Devil_Dog writes:

  SASQUATCH

  So how do you like you job at Wal-mart? Probably wish you'd received a real education instead of the one the liberals are handing out, trying to insure there's a second (lower) class of citizens to support their grand socialist ideas.

• May 13, 2008

  3:46 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  holekeeper writes:

  SASQUATCH,
  Really, if you would google hillary clinton wal-mart you might see little things like this

  In 1986, when Hillary was first lady of Arkansas, she was put on the board of Wal-Mart. Officials at the time said she wasn't filling a vacancy. In May 1992, as Hubby's presidential campaign heated up, she resigned from the board of Wal-Mart. Company officials said at the time that they weren't going to fill her vacancy.

  Clinton has been endorsed for president by more than a dozen unions, according to her campaign Web site, which omits any reference to her role at Wal-Mart in its detailed biography of her . . .

  or you might see videos like this
  youtube.com/watch?v=Z964tW_gNY8&feature=related - 92k

  or this

  So rather than promote her board membership, Mrs. Clinton is now running from it, even returning a $5,000 campaign donation from the giant discount chain in 2005, citing “serious differences” with its practices. But disentangling herself from the company is harder than it may seem.

  Despite her criticism, Mrs. Clinton maintains close ties to Wal-Mart executives through the Democratic Party and the tightly knit Arkansas business community. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, speaks frequently to Wal-Mart’s current chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., about issues like health care and even played host to Mr. Scott at the Clintons’ home in New York last July for a private dinner.

  And several months ago, Mrs. Clinton helped broker a secret meeting between a top Wal-Mart executive and former Democratic operative, Leslie Dach, and leaders of the retailer’s longtime adversary at the United Food and Commercial Workers union, according to several people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do so publicly.

  Yea they hate the democrats!

• May 13, 2008

  3:47 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Devil_Dog writes:

  SASQUATCH

  Sorry SASQUATCH I may have read your post wrong.

• May 13, 2008

  5:47 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  badbuff121 writes:

  I had Edward Rozak while at CU.......he kept me from leaning to far to the left......

  It's important to get both sides of a discussion......and CU has slipped to far left..having a voice from the other side would be good.....

• May 13, 2008

  5:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Froward69 writes:

  I know of a few Conservative persons who would be a great addition to the staff up at CU. However their inherrent Greed, would prevent them from accepting the position.

• May 13, 2008

  5:58 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Big_D writes:

  I guess it does take some sort of mental defect to believe the GOP has been good for us. Take a read at your own work today. Gave me a great laugh:} I think some things that are said are just to rile your feathers. Sometimes stopping and thinking for like a SECOND before you write could be beneficial. Thanks for some good lines today.

• May 13, 2008

  7:27 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  freethinker07 writes:

  A bunch of studies all done by people who vote Democrat "prove" that being gay isn't an illness.
  Global warming is a fact, according to research all done by people who vote Democrat.
  We are running out of oil reserves according to research all done by people who vote Democrat.
  Women are still discriminated against according to research all done by people who vote Democrat.

  A humor piece in a faculty publication mocks the bible and we don't consider it hate speech. Make a joke about gays and the world falls in. Make a joke about women and you get kicked out of school. Make a joke about Hispanics and you get picketed. Get the message about which group is powerless at CU?

  How long has it been since conservative thought was introduced to a CU classroom? I know that conservative undergraduates who value the GPA at CU keep their mouths shut. I'd give you names but they fear retribution.

  Yes, most professors try to be fair. But most professors socialize with their peers. And their peers are not Republicans. So they never talk to Republicans. They never hear well articulated conservative ideas. When a student raises a conservative idea, it sounds weird and "out of the box."

  And now, we will get a token conservative. Instead, why not start a Department of Conservative Thought?

  And children spare me your juvenile cracks about Bush and conservatives. If you are good representatives of the Democratic party, then all McCain needs to do to win is quote you.

• May 13, 2008

  10:45 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  HolierThanThou writes:

  Examples of conservative thought:

  1. Balance the budget by reducing income and increasing expenses. Prime example is cutting taxes to the wealthy, passing expenses on to the working folks, and spending a trillion dollars invading the wrong country to catch terrorists.

  2. Fight terrorism with cowardice. Spread fear and stupidity with the goal of having Americans put aside their traditional attachments to civil liberties and human rights.

  3. Improve the economy by reducing employment and cutting paychecks. Off-shoring jobs to China is the most effective way of reducing payrolls and cutting pay. Of course, this leads to massive foreclosures in the housing market. The fact that almost all consumer goods are made in China today is proof that communism works better than either capitalism or conservatism.

  4. Improve national security by decimating our industrial base. Now that the might of American industry is based in China, don't you feel so much safer knowing that if we had to mix it up with them that their industrial capacity would outstrip us in a week and they'd run us over like a truck versus a squirrel? Oh, so you want to resort to nuclear weapons? Good luck with that.

  Conservatism...yeah, that's working out real good... It's a bit like teaching delusions as if they were fact. Why not hire teachers to specialize in selling fascism and nazism to America's youth? It's the same basic stuff.

  Here's how you teach conservatism: it's a study in failure and how to trick a nation into being seriously stupid, impractical, delusional, and dangerous. It belongs as a topic in anthropology, not as a serious branch of philosophical reasoning.

• May 15, 2008

  7:51 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  HusseinMcCain writes:

  Very amusing!

  A conservative is promoting Affirmative Action for the benefit of conservatives.

  I love the irony.

  Obviously, they can't get the teaching gig based on their merits.