Apparently, the University of Colorado at Boulder actually does not believe in equal opportunity. Equal opportunity of perspective, that is. Stephen Hayward, the first Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at CU Boulder, addressed the one-track ideology he experienced after a full year in the position in an article published by National Review.
It was not all a horror story, to be fair. Hayward reflects that departments like economics, classics, and even some philosophy and political science are home to thoughtful faculty and still reasonably pursue the collegiate values of “reason, objectivity, and truth.”
The system implodes, however, in less rigorous areas of study, specifically at CU, in history, English, sociology, anthropology, and geography. To which we ask – how does one make geography ideological? Palestine vs. Israel? Hayward observes the pride the women-and-gender studies department have for a certain activist-in-residence, which is not a professor or teacher with academic credentials of any kind, more like a Ward Churchill figurehead of insanity than an open-minded intellectual with an education and personal responsibility to actually teach students how to think for themselves.
And it’s not so simple as staking an ideological claim against the current.
“To speak out alone against the relentless and insatiable demands of grievance leftism is to risk losing out on promotion and advancement, even if you already have tenure,” explained Hayward.
This attitude is raising a sadly misinformed generation here in Colorado and in liberal arts colleges across the country. The divide between unbiased, fact-based disciplines and liberal arts pursuits that look increasingly more like propaganda growing fields is widening. Hayward predicts that save for science and technology, a college education will soon produce an intellectually-handicapped radicalist with no real skills for earning a living wage.
Ultimately, he concludes that with such a lack of even-handed transparency in education, “It is doubtful that the university in its current form will survive.” Ouch.
All that for the bargain price of approximately $25,000 in-state estimated costs and $48,000 out-of-state estimated costs per year. That really hurts.