Academia is infested with radical leftist professors who attempt to indoctrinate students into sharing their anti-American and anti-capitalist agenda. With the demise of Eastern European communism and China’s current transformation to capitalism, these ideologues are left only with Cuba and North Korea as examples of communism and with faint praise for semi-socialist societies like Sweden and the socialized medicine programs of Canada and Europe. Thus, these rogues have been relegated to denouncing America and capitalism, which they do with a relish.
Whenever one of these professors is attacked for their classroom activities, they are joined by non-radical faculty members, with everyone screaming that "Academic Freedom" is being attacked. And more significantly, students come out of the woodworks to defend their far-left teachers. They love the radical faculty members because those professors cater to the rebellious spirit of young college students.
The radical left in academia has a long history of teaching their students that capitalism exploits the workers and oppresses the masses, that American foreign policy is imperialistic, that our government favors the rich at the expense of the poor, that our criminal justice system is racist, etc., etc., etc. These far-left ideologues organize or belong to organizations which use the words "justice" or "peace" in their names. Back in the days of the old Soviet Union similar justice and peace groups were directed and financed by Moscow.
Since the founding of Israel in 1948, the academic left has had a love affair with the Palestinians – students are taught that the Israeli treatment of Palestinians is akin to the Nazi treatment of Jews. These professors have been in the forefront of calling for an international boycott of Israel and for the divestiture of all shares in Israeli companies and in American companies that do business with Israel which may be included in a university's investment portfolio.
An example of how students come to the defense of their professors can be found in an April 29th article by radical leftist Dana Cloud, an Associate Professor of Communication Studies. University of Texas, Austin. Writing in The Rag Blog, a "non-profit internet newsmagazine produced by activist journalists committed to progressive social change," Cloud took up the cause of Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, a professor who was denied tenure and was about to be fired.
Cloud wrote: "Opposition to scholars who expose and critique the treatment of Palestinians by Israel has been front and center in the case against Professor Margo Ramlal-Nankoe.
Margo Ramlal-Nankoe is an assistant professor seeking tenure in Ithaca College's Sociology Department. Her tenure process became a struggle when a small number of influential faculty and administrators began campaigning against her. She became a target of their negative campaign because she spoke out against sexual harassment within her department and challenged students and community members to think critically about US and Israeli policy in the Middle East. Ithaca College's Board of Trustees has denied Professor Ramlal-Nankoe tenure and she is scheduled to be fired on May 12th.
Despite the campaign being waged against her, Professor Ramlal-Nankoe's tenure review file is full of glowing letters from her students and colleagues. The Chair of the Sociology Tenure and Promotion Committee summarized the content of the numerous letters of support Professor Ramlal-Nankoe received from her students: ‘Most students tell us that working with Dr. Ramlal-Nankoe has transformed their views, their life, and/or their plans for the future’."
Here is another example from 2002. When an avowed Marxist government professor at College of the Mainland, from which I retired in 1993 and which I refer to as "College of the Marxists," was recommended for tenure, I joined several civic leaders in opposition to granting him tenure. The civic leaders were upset over his Marxist teachings and over his public opposition to the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban which followed the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon.
While I agreed with those civic leaders, I took a different approach to the tenure controversy. Because those who came to the professor’s defense did so in the name of academic freedom, I submitted a well documented paper to the college’s trustees spelling out how he had violated the restraints required by the principles of Academic Freedom which were formulated by the American Association of University Professors. The principles of Academic Freedom clearly prohibit a faculty member from injecting a personal agenda into the classroom and prohibit the indoctrination students.
After several months, the trustees called for a public meeting to resolve the controversy. We were set up because their decision was already cut and dried well before that meeting. After five or six of us spoke up, dozens of students followed us with profuse praise for the professor and condemning us as reactionaries opposed to academic freedom. Those students were not just highly impressionable young kids fresh out of high school. Several students in their thirties and beyond talked about what a privilege it had been to for them to be taught by such a wonderful teacher.
While Ramlal-Nankoe’s students may not have been able to save her bacon, that was not the case at College of the Marxists. Before the end of the public meeting, the trustees voted unanimously to grant the Marxist tenure.
Some months later, while I was attending a Veterans Day ceremony, one of the trustees went out of his way to approach me and actually apologized for what the trustees had done. He told me, "I’m sorry, but we had no choice because he was so popular with the students." My response was, "So what! Hitler was very popular with the German people." His face turned a purplish red, he spun around and made a hasty retreat for the exit. Needless to say, we have not spoken since.
"Most students tell us that working with Dr. (fill in the name of any far-left professor) has transformed their views, their life, and/or their plans for the future." That’s what happens when students are indoctrinated rather than educated.
The radical ideologues in academia thrive on student popularity while relying on "academic freedom gunslingers" to fight off their critics. What really astounds me is that most college professors, college administrators and college trustees seem to be ignorant of the prohibitions academic freedom places on classroom teachers. It is obvious that few of them have ever read the AAUP’s principles of Academic Freedom.
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