Tag Archives: Discrimination

News

Department of Education investigates school over Bible and homosexuality comments

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From Christian Post, a story about how far the secular left will go to censor anyone who makes them feel bad.

Excerpt:

A federal investigation has begun in an Alabama school district after a Junior ROTC instructor allegedly expressed his belief that the Bible does not support the homosexual lifestyle during class.

The U.S. Department of Education recently sent a letter to Huntsville City Schools Superintendent Casey Wardynski, informing him that the department will be looking into the incident that occurred in April at Grissom High School.

A female student in the class was offended after the instructor, 1st Sgt. Lynn Vanzandt, expressed his beliefs about same-sex relationships. The 15-year-old student and her mother, Mia Gonzales, then contacted a local gay advocacy group, GLBT Advocacy and Youth Services, which complained to the school on the student’s behalf.

“My first thought was, ‘What if there was a gay student in that class that looked up to that instructor?'” Gonzales told AL.com in August. “I’m not arguing with what people believe. But what if this one student would have committed suicide? That was a concern for me.”

[…]In May an attorney from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based atheist organization, also emailed the district’s superintendent to complain about the situation. The email says Vanzandt “bullied” students and “preached” his beliefs to them, and claims at least one student left the class in tears.

It also acknowledges that Vanzandt apologized to students, but says an apology isn’t enough.

Got that? If you disagree with homosexuality, then you are bullying someone who might feel so bad that they commit suicide. Therefore, you need to be intimidated and silenced so that you don’t offend anyone by disagreeing with their view.

News

New survey finds that university professors are moving further to the left

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From the Inside Higher Ed.

Excerpt:

Academics, on average, lean to the left. A survey being released today suggests that they are moving even more in that direction.

Among full-time faculty members at four-year colleges and universities, the percentage identifying as “far left” or liberal has increased notably in the last three years, while the percentage identifying in three other political categories has declined. The data come from the University of California at Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute, which surveys faculty members nationwide every three years on a range of attitudes.

Here are the data for the new survey and the prior survey:

2010-11 2007-8
Far left 12.4% 8.8%
Liberal 50.3% 47.0%
Middle of the road 25.4% 28.4%
Conservative 11.5% 15.2%
Far right 0.4% 0.7%

Gauging how gradual or abrupt this shift is is complicated because of changes in the UCLA survey’s methodology; before 2007-8, the survey included community college faculty members, who have been excluded since. But for those years, examining only four-year college and university faculty members, the numbers are similar to those of 2007-8. Going back further, one can see an evolution away from the center.

In the 1998-9 survey, more than 35 percent of faculty members identified themselves as middle of the road, and less than half (47.5 percent) identified as liberal or far left. In the new data, 62.7 percent identify as liberal or far left. (Most surveys that have included community college faculty members have found them to inhabit political space to the right of faculty members at four-year institutions.)

Professors are extremely liberal, especially in non-quantitative, non-scientific departments like English. It’s much harder to be liberal in academic areas where there is some connection to the real world that can be tested, like economics, business and computer science. Liberal bias is something to look out for if you go on to higher education. What you’ll find there is that there is often a lack of critical thinking on many topics. The left isn’t welcoming of other points of view. Their side doesn’t read our stuff, but we read their stuff. They think we’re evil, and we just think they’re wrong.

Here’s my previous post surveying several academic studies of liberal bias in the mainstream media.

News

Tufts University joins Vanderbilt in banning Christian clubs on campus

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The Weekly Standard reports.

Excerpt:

Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts has banned a Christian group from campus because the group requires student leaders to adhere to “basic biblical truths of Christianity.” The decision to ban the group, called the Tufts Christian Fellowship, was made by officials from the university’s student government, specifically the Tufts Community Union Judiciary.

The ban means the group “will lose the right to use the Tufts name in its title or at any activities, schedule events or reserve university space through the Office for Campus Life,” according to the Tufts Daily. Additionally, Tufts Christian Fellowship will be unable to receive money from a pool that students are required to pay into and that is specifically set aside for student groups.

[…]”The group had been operating in a state of suspended recognition after the Judiciary found that the group’s constitution excluded students from applying to leadership positions based on their beliefs. The clauses in question require that anyTCF member who wishes to apply for a leadership role must adhere to a series of tenets called a Basis of Faith, or eight ‘basic Biblical truths of Christianity.’

Here’s the previous story on Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt has a Muslim student group, and I assume that Tufts will as well. These rules are never applied to anyone but Christians, Jews, and conservatives of all stripes.