College Democrats On Steroids

Metaphorically speaking, that is. Nationwide, partisan types on campus are going into overdrive on behalf of the presidential campaign, sometimes causing fistfights—and that’s just the faculty.

The University Democrats at the University of Iowa (UI) sent out a mass mailing to students at the school inviting them to “vote early” and attend an October 14 rally featuring actor Josh Hartnett, a Kerry supporter. Belinda Marna of the office of the Vice President for Student Services tells us that every group on campus is entitled to one mass mailing to the student body.

While, one the face of it, this looks like an evenhanded policy, in practice it can result in lopsided promotion. At UI, liberal campus groups outnumber their more conservative counterparts by more than three to one. Hence, Students for Bush, the College Republicans and the Objectivist Club are outnumbered by Amnesty International, the Environmental Coalition, Engineers for a Sustainable Future, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Iowans for Peace with Iraq, Students Against Sweatshops, Students for Kerry and the University Democrats.

Dr. Harvey Kline has lectured on his specialty—Latin American History—at gatherings of U. S. military officers and American diplomats when not teaching his students at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Currently he is working on a book on Columbian President Alvara Uribe. His take on Columbia’s chief executive:

“Uribe’s policy is to negotiate only with groups that have declared ceasefires. Some paramilitary groups have done that; guerillas have not. The previous president tried the honey approach and it didn’t work.”

When he makes it to class, he tells his students that Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush have caused many of the problems in Latin America. He also gives his students a solution to the dilemma: Elect John Kerry.

At least one of his evaluations on ratemyprofessor.com indicates that though Kline may be laissez-faire about the running of his class, he possesses a demonstrable temper.

He “let his teaching assistant run the class,” one reviewer wrote. “Had fit one day, cussed, and kicked a chair half way across the room.”

Professor David McCally was considerably more demonstrative in his efforts on behalf of the Democratic nominee. He punched the chairman of the Alachua County (Fl.) Republican Party in the mouth.

McCally’s victim, a veteran of the first U. S. war in Iraq, “defended himself” until the police arrived to take the professor of social and behavioral sciences away. Sante Fe Community College (SFCC) in Gainesville, where McCally teaches, relieved the environmental expert of his course load.

McCally, the author of several books on the environment, is listed as an adjunct faculty member at both SFCC and the University of Florida (UF) at Gainesville. Although listed on the UF web site, Campus Report could not find students at either school who had taken McCally for a class or could pull up any record of his employment on campus.