Comments on: Radical Professors Exposed, Woo

By: chef

chef — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:27:35 +0000

Hey, what the big deal? Get better SATs etc., and take over the schools and, eventually, take their jobs.

Oh, sorry. I see . . . .

By: Brett

Brett — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 23:14:55 +0000

Just to rain on the merriment; if the views criticized on the website are now majority opinions, this could be seen as evidence of the undue influence the site deplores.

Besides, since when was majority opinion prima facie evidence of its truth?

By: josh

josh — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 22:26:46 +0000

I think the problem, ed, is that it isn’t clear whether what’s being laid out are facts, or ideologically-motivated distortions generated by people who either can’t stomach any robust expression of disagreement with their own views, or who want to get paid $100. I don’t know any of the profs mentioned personally—do you?—but I do know the work of some of them, and the accounts offered of that work on the website are travesties. If the authors of the website are so off-base, and indeed clueless, about what some of those they profile have written—and are motivated by the sort of ideological zealotry that seems to be revealed by their over-heated and very nasty rhetoric—it makes me doubt the accuracy of their reporting of other ‘facts’. This isn’t to say that the claims the authors of the website make are false; god knows there are people on the left who make such loony claims, and some of them are tenured. But I’d need more, and more reliable, evidence than UCLAprofs.com to accept that the profs in question actually said and did what they’re accused of. And, I’d suggest, you should have more and better evidence, too, before you make assertions about what are, and aren’t, facts.

By: Ed

Ed — Sun, 22 Jan 2006 17:34:39 +0000

Oh come on. If al these profs did was oppose the war and Bush it would be no biggie. But these profs accuse Bush of being alligned with the nazi party, accuse Bush of having orchestrated 9/11 and multiple other paranoid conspiracy theories.

A group of people laying out facts and letting the public make a decision on these facts. Whehre’s the problem?

By: TLB

TLB — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 22:39:16 +0000

Here’s an interesting discussion of the “People’s College of Law”:

http://www.uclaprofs.com/profs/wong.html

They provide facts and figures in case anyone actually wants to, you know, dispute what they’re saying.

The Bruin Alumni Association also broke some very interesting news last year about L.A.’s mayor. But, that was ignored by the L.A. Times, the same paper that continues to paper over his revolutionary past:

http://www.bruinalumni.com/antonio/antonioindex.html

By: gavagai

gavagai — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 19:09:09 +0000

I’m a philosophy instructor at a community college in California and had an opportunity to experience this type of thing first hand last semester. A student in my critical thinking class wrote a post on our class’ discussion board warning fellow students of my left-leaning agenda and how I unfairly squashed and cut off debates that expressed opposing views. I notified my chair and dean. then asked the student to substantiate his claims. In the end he had no supporting examples and he made no further complaints or comments of this sort. The lack of any examples of actual unfairness leads me to think that some Americans can’t quite stomach actual free speech (unless they find it agreeable). Also, gotta love the terms ‘brainwashing’ and ‘agenda’ that get thrown around in it all. It epitomizes the absolute lack of rigorous thought that lies at the foundation of it all.

By: Right-wingers are cavemen

Right-wingers are cavemen — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 18:12:47 +0000

oh yeah the “far-left”, i forgot about that one. Isnt that how you define all people who aren’t bush apologists? Young adults can make thier own choices and fall into whatever ideology they want
(young college republicans for example). The real underlying factor is that most professors are “leftist” because they are highly educated.
It takes powerful ignorance to remain in the right wing camp of thought after getting a PHd.
The truth is there are not enough people in the right wing who are not completely ignorant(intelligent design for example shows the ignorance of the right). If you want more right wing professors stop being ignorant. This is a cry wolf about lack of power from a group who currently,and corruptly, has absolute power.
If the college professors are leftist it could be the last vestige of balance in this country that the right has turned into a running joke for 5 years.

By: Marc Lawrence

Marc Lawrence — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 18:07:34 +0000

Crookedtimber.org, GOP Fascism on the march.

By: Outside The Beltway | OTB

Outside The Beltway | OTB — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:04:44 +0000

Study: Most College Students Lack Skills

When I saw the headline, “Study: Most College Students Lack Skills ” on Yahoo!News this morning, I had to chuckle. Like recent news that some professors at UCLA have far-left views, this was not a news flash.
It turns out, though, that the…

By: NickM

NickM — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 21:41:32 +0000

I looked through the profiles for 7 professors at UCLA Law School (my alma mater). I knew some of the listed profs personally, though I never took classes from any of them. For the most part, the profiles were garbage as far as showing interference with academic freedom and a fair educational process for students – and that is what this site purports to show.

On Joel Handler, the profile reveals one area of cause for concern (his participation as a panelist in Sumi Cho’s conference, which was organized around a theme that education should be used for indoctrination, but it fails to show any instances of him actually doing this in his classroom.

On Richard Abel and Gary Blasi, the profile reveals an area, common to both men, where taxpayer funds are channeled into very liberal public policy fights by means of clinical programs. Because of the nature of legal ethical rules, this actually is not a violation of the academic free thought that students should expect (you enter a clinical program to learn lawyering skills, and your ethical responsibility is to advance the client’s position, whether you agree with it or not), but it still politicizes the university and uses funds provided by the taxpayers to accomplish ends that may be wholly against their wishes.

Gary Blasi’s involvement, discussed in his profile, in UCLA protests involving walkouts bears further examination, but the profile does not present clear evidence of personal improper behavior by him (such as cancelling classes in order to protest or pressuring students to join a protest). Perhaps the Daily Bruin or other articles mentioned such details, but they should have been made explicit in the profile if they exist and it is to be a collection of the professor’s improper activities.

None of the other 4 law prof profiles show any improper in-class activity, and in fact some suggest that such has not occurred at all.

Perhaps the record in profiles in other disciplines is better. I’m not going to spend my time finding out.

Nick

By: nkirsch

nkirsch — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 21:18:32 +0000

Do more left-wingers wear cardigans than right-wingers? At least then you would know what direction they came from.

Check out Time magazine January 23, 2006 issue page 17 for Socialist leaning leftist Evo Morales and his alpaca-wool pullover that was sported in countries across the globe.

By: TO

TO — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:05:05 +0000

Also, what is the significance of “Woo” in the title of the post?

By: TO

TO — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 18:04:19 +0000

I’m guessing that there’s a liberal doppelganger of Karl Rove behind this. Sort of like Rather-gate.

The plan is to get conservatives worked up about something, then to expose their concern as being baseless and nutty, then to get the public to move away from conservatives as baseless and nutty and to assume that future conservative concerns are baseless and nutty.

I think that the anti-Rove started working on this general strategy a long time ago when he made Jerry Falwell publicly visible.

Then he did the same with Pat Robertson.

Some might say that he did this with George Bush, though he had to take a character at least slightly watered down from Pat Robertson so that he could get elected.

I’m not sure that it’s working, but I’m onto it.

By: josh

josh — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:26:27 +0000

Wow. What nutjobs.
My favourite line so far:
‘a tightly interconnected cabal of feminist radicals ‘.
Ah yes. I’m sure they have a list of 200 of them. Er, I mean 75. Or, maybe 450. And I bet they run the Army and the State Dept. too.
A conspiracy so immense, indeed.
I also like this, about my field:
‘Like most political theory, it veers between dense abstractions and wild-eyed policy prescriptions supposedly justified by the author’s theorizing.’
Yep. That’s Plato to a t.

By: David

David — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:09:12 +0000

Let me get this straight the President is Repulibican, the Senate has a Republican majority, and of the last 7 Presiential terms 5 have been Republican and there is wide spread liberal biased and brain washing?