Apparently, the
Republican party thinks American college students are too immature to hear the personal views and theories of a professor and then analyze those views in order to figure out the truth for themselves. The thing is, I don't know how you study history, or philosophy, or even poetry for that matter, without the professor injecting his personal, or dare I say it, political views into the mix.
When I was studying for my masters at Georgetown we had an Israeli professor who clearly had his own take on issues. He had his own views. His own theories for how things worked in the Middle East and in politics overall. He wasn't just teaching "the facts" of the Arab-Israeli crisis - what kind of adult is going to pay thousands of dollars a year to take a class where the teacher simply reads you a list of facts? - no, our professor gave us his point of view as to what made the Middle East tick. And you know what, he was really good. Sometimes I agreed with him, sometimes I didn't. But the real neat trick was that I was adult enough to listen to his theories and then dissect them myself in order to determine if I thought he was right or wrong.
Another professor I had at Georgetown was Madeleine Albright. And you know what? She actually had her own political views and sometimes - eeks! - those views came out in class. Now, keep in mind, at the time I was a Republican (this was back in the mid to late 80s). Yet, I had no problem with Madeleine (as we called her, behind her back) having opinions. And I had no problem with former Reagan UN ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick giving lectures down the hall with HER opinions. One of the great things about going to a school like Georgetown is that you GET professors who have opinions, serious heavy opinions, because they've had such kick-ass jobs. I can't imagine what it would have been like if Albright and Kirkpatrick had to sanitize their lectures so that no one could guess what their opinion was on anything.
Finally, my Georgetown law education was ALL opinions. Each professor had his own take on the law, and again, that was fine. It was more than fine. It made me challenge the professor, and it made the professor challenge me, and I learned a hell of a lot. And even at Gtown law, I had conservative and liberal professors both, and their leanings were clear, and that was fine. It was actually great.
Republicans, or far too many of them nowadays, want to ensure that students, even adult students - hell, all Americans - don't hear any point of view at all about anything (lest some conservative idea be questioned) - or, on the contrary, Republicans want to require by legal fiat that EVERY point of view be discussed everywhere, no matter how absurd, even mandating classes to include pseudo-science that Pat Robertson dreamed up in his bathtub (again, lest the facts get in the way of somebody's agenda).
At what point will Republicans, today's Republicans, fess up and admit that they have a serious problem with extremism in their party? They claimed for years they were opposed to the Nanny State, only to now replace it with a Police State.
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