College Slaps Allegedly Left-Biased Teacher's Wrist
by Jim Brown
September 9, 2004
(AgapePress) - A professor at Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado, has been reprimanded for releasing a conservative student's academic information without his permission.Metro State has placed a warning in Dr. Oneida Meranto's personnel file for her violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). However, the school has cleared her of a political bias charge leveled by former student George Culpepper. He claims he was forced to drop out of Meranto's Latin American politics class last year because of her animosity towards him and other conservative students.
Culpepper believes Metro State ignored the bias charge in order to protect its own interests. "What you have is the college versus the professor instead of the student versus the professor, and so in that instance, the college was only looking after itself," he says, "because they knew that she was in violation of FERPA."
According to Culpepper, the college officials acted first and foremost to save the school's own hide. He says, "They knew that if the Department of Education came in and reviewed [the case], that Metro State would be labeled in violation of FERPA and therefore could lose federal funding."
The former student is still asking that Meranto be fired and that she apologize for making derogatory remarks about conservatives. He says he intends to do "everything in my power to continue to make sure that Metro State is aware of the political discrimination that this one particular professor has done and will continue to do."
Just three weeks ago, Culpepper says, Meranto told students in her American Government class that higher education is dominated by liberal professors because "those on the right don't know how to think critically."
But the conservative former Metro State student who brought the accusation of bias against the professor is thinking very critically of her even now. "I'm not done with this fight," he says. "I will not stop until I'm satisfied with the end result, and I can assure you that my fight's not over with Dr. Meranto."
Culpepper feels the administration at Metropolitan State College did not go far enough in its discipline of Meranto. He says as long as this liberal instructor remains a professor at the school, the academic freedom of conservative students will remain in jeopardy.
