Breaking down a College’s liberal bias? It’s the Horowitz and Grothman wrecking Ball.

In Wisconsin, we are blessed with the ultimate card board cutout conservative, State Senator Glenn Grothman, an electoral warning to all that democracy is hanging by a slender thread. He and every other Republican wish publicly supported higher education would just go away.

And like all Republicans, Grothman substitutes factual information with a “talking point” list of responses, culled from the writings of the originator of the “Academic Bill of Rights” David Horowitz. The theory is; conservatives have to hide on campus, and instructors are hunted down and subject to torture … or something like that.

Let’s see how many clichés Sen. Grothman can wedge into his negative assessment of the UW and its new Chancellor/lesbian, Biddy Martin.

1. Parents of students…are concerned that the Madison campus does not have enough money to be an effective first-class university. It always seemed to me that a more important question is what they’re doing with their money. (The old switcheroo, but still an easily answered question: if the universities academic reputation is first class, then the money is being well spent. Doh!)

2. Its important the chancellor stop the left-wing drift at the University campus. I have heard complaints … that they think the universities are … indoctrinating their children in left-wing values and not enough time preparing them for a job in the real world. (I guess that’s why, as Republicans claim, most Americans are conservative...?)

3. I’ve heard of concerns that it would be difficult to be hired as a professor or get tenure as a professor … if they do not toe the left-wing party line. (I’m sure the conservative prof’s would allow themselves to submit to doing just that, toeing the left-wing party line?)

4. Students are afraid in some classes their grade will be affected if they don’t agree with their professor’s views. (God this is so David Horowitz. A really dumb statement of fiction.)

5. Biddy Martin’s academic background appears to be very left wing. She was previously a Women’s Studies professor at Cornell (oh no not that). Many of you reading this column probably have never heard of such a department (Condescending assumption everyone is as dumb as he is). I talked to a graduate of Women’s Studies from the Madison campus. She felt this department was about indoctrination. It was very anti-man but also anti-Christian and anti-American. (Gee, you think the woman he talked to was conservative? Liberal women are so anti-American-they don't deserve to be in this country.)

6. The idea was that men, Christianity, and America have been holding back women. Another girl who took one class there said they read lesbian novels. (GIRL? Oh Glen, aren’t they all still girls? When it comes to holding women back, it wasn’t so long ago women couldn’t vote, but men could. Men even insisted their wives stay home. Those were the days. And lesbians-they’re just freaks of nature hey Glen?)

7. Not enough graduates are filling jobs for Wisconsin businesses. We need more engineers, nurses, and graduates from the hard sciences – not degrees in psychology and sociology. (Don’t you wish business’ could choose the curriculum?)

8. One requirement for the new Chancellor was that they had to be in favor of Affirmative Action – the policy of giving preferences to Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and women … essentially bans any conservatives or moderates from even being considered for the position. I will introduce legislation to address this problem. (After all, haven’t we already wiped out both racism and sexism?)

9. The second problem is that members of the Board of Regents are not scrutinized. If they are not well-grounded in the first place, the University bureaucracy quickly sucks them into the left-wing mindset. (Too many 60's spy thrillers, Glenn? Have you taken a tour of the UW's new brainwashing facilities?)

10. Most parents have to worry that their children will be victims of left-wing propaganda if they pay too much attention in our University system. (This is SO dumb.)

11. It’s much more important to focus on what’s happening with the money. Whether it’s at budget time or when the UW is looking for donations, make your opinion heard. (Code for: we’re going to make more cuts, forcing higher tuitions while keeping out more students. We also hope to discourage donations and bring the UW down. The less they know, the more they’ll buy into our snake oil ideology...oops, did I say to much?)

State Senator Glen Grothman talks pretty big for a member of a Party that has managed to take down the entire world’s economy. Instability in the Middle East and a devalued dollar has pushed crude commodities through the roof and has added to the cost of food. But all is not lost for conservatives.

According to the NY Times: A new study of the social and political views of American professors by Neil Gross at the University of British Columbia and Solon Simmons at George Mason University found that “Self-described liberals are most common within the ranks of those professors aged 50-64, who were teenagers or young adults in the 1960s.” At the same time, the youngest group, ages 26 to 35, contains the highest percentage of moderates, some 60 percent, and the lowest percentage of liberals, just under a third. “These findings with regard to age provide further support for the idea that, in recent years, the trend has been toward increasing moderatism,” the study says.

A final thought:

Republicans win if you buy into any of these carefully constructed frames. They have been repeated so often they almost sound possible. You will often find elements of truth mixed in with overwhelming fiction.

The final outcome of voucher schools/private schools and higher education will come in the form of major consolidations and buyouts where only a few educational corporations will control subject matter and outcome. That's capitalism, not democracy.