The Sound of Silence

A 90-page report about leftist bias at the University of California has stirred controversy among academics and other interested parties, but so far, the targets of the study have chosen silence as their weapon of choice, according to The College Fix.

The report, “released last year by the conservative California Association of Scholars, cited a long list of studies, empirical data, anecdotal evidence, course descriptions, faculty surveys and other proof to support its conclusion that efforts to promote so-called social justice and Marxist views have replaced true higher education.”

However, spokesmen for the University of California Regents recently “stated through their board president that they not only disagree with the findings, but they will not discuss the accusations in the report publicly.”

“We have considered seriously your concerns and we respect your opinions, however at this point we simply disagree about these issues,” UC Regent Chairman Sherry Lansing stated in an April 5 memo to the association’s president John Ellis.

Lansing, the former CEO of Paramount Pictures, was named chairman of the UC Board of Regents in 2011.

Noting that the UC Regents had reviewed the report called “A Crisis of Competence; The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California,” she responded that “the regents agree that no board action be taken on this issue.”

Lansing’s comments came nearly a year after publication of the CAS Report, which had inspired several articles commenting on its findings.

The College Fix noted that “anecdotal evidence in the report included a UC Davis professor who cancelled an anthropology final exam and instead wrote anti-war and anti-American websites on the board and held a discussion on the war in Iraq; a computer science professor at Berkeley who frequently used his lectures to call former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger a Nazi and stated nothing Saddam Hussein had done could be any worse than what George Bush has done; and a sociology professor at UCSD who questioned whether the 9-11 attacks were terrorism or legitimate warfare, and stated that Americans have no moral ground to condemn the attacks.”

The CAS study showed that “bias could also be found in course descriptions, required readings and class load mandates. An American history course is not required for history majors at the UC Davis, Santa Cruz, Irvine and San Diego campuses, and also at several campuses, students can graduate with a major in English literature without having read a word of Shakespeare, Chaucer or Milton.”

There’s more.

“Results of national faculty surveys found that for every eight professors who identified themselves as either left-leaning, Democrat or socialist, one professor identified him or herself as conservative or Republican. Another survey found professors would be more inclined to hire a Communist than a Republican.”

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Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.
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