Are Liberal Universities A Problem? | College and University

By JosephN.Abraham,M.D.
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In the interest of full honesty, I need to point out that I am generally (but not always) left-of-center. Despite that, I don't much care for liberal writers. On the other hand, conservative George F. Will is a writer I will generally read, even though he and I often do not see eye to eye.

My reasons for reading Will are simple: George usually gives good reasons for his arguments. Agree or not, I can see a logic to his conclusion.

Overshadowing that, however, Mr. Will may be conservative, but he is not an automaton. He regularly disagrees with other conservatives, and conservative elected officials. Critical thinking is, well, critical: if someone always toes the party line, then it seems unlikely that she is thinking for herself.

Having said that, I would like to disagree with one of Will's current criticisms, that our colleges are dominated by liberal (or even radical) thinkers.

As a way of contrasting and comparing, consider that the US Military is the best-funded branch of government. If you add the Veterans Administration to that, Military funding increases significantly. Well, the men and women of the Armed Services, and the many businesses that support the Military, are conservative-- by a wide margin. So we need to ask why that political disparity isn't a concern.

Likewise, huge conglomerates exert great influence over us, and they are almost uniformly conservative. They sell their wares-- and their lifestyle-- in the constant advertisements that surround us. In recent years, large corporations have also bought out much of our media, and so our news has also slipped to the right. That life-long educational input easily overwhelms the brief years of college, but conservative pundits are not so concerned about that partisan influence as they are about liberal college professors.

And our Churches, which ostensibly are our moral guides, are increasingly moving to the right. Evangelical churches, the fastest growing part of Christendom, overwhelmingly vote with conservative candidates. But Will doesn't worry about those.

Are George Will and the other conservative writers worried that our colleges are overly partisan? Or just that it's someone else's party?

Next, there is a matter of critical thinking, which is essential not only to democracy, but also to free will, which is essential to religious doctrine. If we only expose our young people to one aspect of human political thought, only indoctrinate them in the ideology of one party, then we cannot say that we have faithfully discharged our obligations to our country, nor to our religions.

That's an important point. Before and after college, corporate advertising and corporate news will be the main sources of information for our citizens. So if our young people aren't exposed to liberal ideas in college, when will they consider them? When else will they get an opportunity to truly reflect on different ideologies and decide-- decide for THEMSELVES-- what they believe?

George F. Will has been a staunch defender of freedom of thought, and freedom of choice. He cannot argue now that we should deny young adults the full range of these freedoms.

This arrangement certainly seems to work well in the real world. Our students go through "liberal" colleges, but then elect representatives from either party, from both wings. Liberals may dominate the college, but they have not extended that dominance to our political life. The citizen thinks for herself; perhaps precisely because she has an understanding of diverse viewpoints.

Finally, if we consider what 'conservative' means-- to conserve, to lean toward the traditional, to advocate the tried-and-true-- then it is clear that our colleges absolutely must be liberal. If institutions of higher learning are, by design, our places of innovation, of theorization, and of experimentation, then it becomes clear that it is precisely the mission of the university to challenge the status quo.

Of course higher education is liberal. That is its job.

So with all respect for George Will's independence and incisiveness, he may wish to reconsider his stance on universities and their liberal ways. If they were otherwise, America would not be the country it is.

About the Author

Joseph N. Abraham, MD is the president and CEO of booksXYZ.com, the non-profit bookstore listing over 2,000,000 books. He is also author of Happiness: A Physician Biologist Looks at Life, a synthesis of biology, medicine and Zen.

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