An article in The Tufts Daily ("Campaign donations from Tufts community go to Democrats," March 19) on the "100 percent Democrat" rating of the Tufts community on campaign contributions underscores the appalling lack of intellectual diversity at the University, a fault Tufts shares, of course, with essentially all of the self-anointed "elite" institutions of learning.
Professor Neva Goodwin offers a smug, self-righteous appraisal of why only Democrats are beneficiaries of Tufts faculty largesse. "The clustering of support towards Democrats suggests to me that a variety of values which Tufts faculty and students tend to share are more in line with values that are apt to be espoused by Democrats than with those that are associated with Republicans," he said.
Let's deconstruct this statement.
Goodwin starts by postulating that faculty and students "share" a set of liberal values -- that, in the face of a recent poll showing a sizeable and growing, but largely clandestine, conservative bent among Tufts students. Let that be fair warning to any student who might be tempted to probe any of the received liberal tenets in a term paper or to deviate from the party line in Ms Goodwin's classes! To quote the first President Bush, "Don't want to go there; not prudent!"
Goodwin's condescension and self-satisfaction are bad enough. But, more importantly, this insouciant remark is indicative of the failure of the powers that be in the Tufts academic community (as well as those of the other "elite" schools) to recognize that the lack of intellectual and political diversity in "elite" academe is the serious problem that it in fact is.
Are we to assume that half the population of this country is incapable of generating at least three individuals who are capable of representing the conservative perspective, the perspective espoused by more Americans than the liberal alternative, and who are also bright enough to serve as professors at an "elite" institution? Or is it simply the case that anyone who does not kowtow to the liberal viewpoint is systematically eliminated from consideration?
I say three, because I have identified two such individuals. One is Marty Feldstein (you know -- the Nobel laureate, the one that the liberals at Harvard have been trying to oust from his post teaching the introductory Econ course there). Feldstein is one of two Harvard Arts and Sciences employees who have made contributions to Mr. Bush's campaign; the other, a Mr. Radislav Krystic, is a window washer there, that is, if poor Rad hasn't already been tarred, feathered and ridden on a rail out of Harvard Square -- he doesn't have tenure! (By the way, I am not making this up; if you don't believe me, check the CRP site mentioned in the March 19 article).
Or, alternatively, let us suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the collective faculty and administration of the University, starting with President Bacow and right on down the pecking order, is correct in taking for granted that the Democrats have a monopoly on Truth and Virtue. Then why does the University do nothing to attract those benighted, bad-teeth, red-neck Red State students who are so in need of being shown the light? Don't they, much more than the current "right-minded" student body, require indoctrination (strike that -- education)?
Setting aside for a moment the sarcasm that the current astonishing bias of the faculty so clearly warrants were it not for the danger it represents, is it not the case that the principle of a liberal university is not that it be "universally liberal," but rather that it tolerate and indeed encourage a catholic approach to opinion and knowledge -- seekingout, rather that chasingout-- those perspectives which are at odds with those of the majority of the instructors of the institution and those which the not-yet-educated students bring as baggage to the institution? Isn't it the case that the essential objective of education is to learn to weigh and sort out opposing beliefs?
Who at this institution is qualified or willing to articulate with passion the view that the past has something to teach us, that perhaps the state might not be capable of running our families better than we ourselves, that dependence on the state is not a good thing, but rather a bad thing, that maybe it is not COMPLETELY true that the Left knows best? From the CRP report, apparently no one, or perhaps only those faculty members who have appreciated that the current atmosphere is so overwhelmingly hostile to the probing of liberal dogma that it is imprudent for a conservative to make a political contribution that might become a matter of public record or to express their opinions in front of their fellows or their students for fear of ostracism -- or worse.
Is not the price of having those very institutions which arrogate to themselves the formation of the future leaders of the nation -- no, indoctrination is the correct world -- is not the price of those institutions being monopolized by a single political stance -- nothing short of tyranny?
William Boone is a Graduate Special Student in Physics.
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