'Intellectual Diversity' the Remedy for Campus Liberal Bias, Educator Says
by Jim Brown
January 21, 2004
(AgapePress) - A history professor at a public university in the Northeast is concerned about the lack of intellectual diversity on his and other campuses across the U.S.Conservative lawmakers in Colorado plan to introduce a bill soon that would require state college and university officials to better educate students and faculty about their rights against political and ideological bias on campus. During hearings in December regarding the bill, students accused liberal professors of discrimination, intimidation and refusing to fund conservative speakers on campus. (See Related Article)
For years, Dr. Jay Bergman, a professor at Central Connecticut State University, has been calling for similar action by his state legislature. He believes if school do not practice intellectual diversity, oversight from external groups is needed.
"I don't see how anyone could object to intellectual diversity. How can universities function as places where students are educated if students are not exposed to a diversity of viewpoints?" the educator asks. "Without intellectual diversity, universities are institutions of indoctrination rather than of education."
Bergman believes states should adopt an "Academic Bill of Rights," a measure proposed by conservative activist David Horowitz to fight liberal bias in schools. (See Related Website)
"The Academic Bill of Rights, as I understand it, does not impose any kind of litmus test," Bergman says. "Rather the opposite; it simply calls upon universities not to evaluate professors on the basis of politics and not to hire people on the basis of their political points of view. I don't see how anyone could object to that."
Bergman says he has been treated with animosity at CCSU for simply requesting that opponents of abortion and racial preferences be allowed to speak on campus. And because of his opposition to slave reparations, two of Bergman's fellow professors accused him last year of standing on "the same platform that produced apartheid, Hitler, and the KKK."
