I am a minority. When I go into a class where I know politics will be discussed, I usually come braced for debate.
In an American government class last semester, however, I wanted to see what would be discussed if I didn’t make my conservative presence known.
In the first couple of weeks, students brought up universal health-care, Democratic nominees and the common Bush bashes.
I sat next to an old buddy from high school and just listened. I bit my tongue on a number of occasions to keep the pact I had made to simply observe – though I did speak up once to point out that this country is actually a Republic.
The occasion that struck my deepest nerve was when the professor brought in his left-of-the-center New York Times, which he swore by.
He pulled this edition out and showed the class the huge ad that took up the whole center page. The spot was purchased by moveon.org and the title was “General Be-Tray-Us.”
The professor had a smirk on his face as he simply showed the advertisement and read it aloud. There was no real point to showing it. It was something that just happened to catch his eye.
It took all my strength not to walk out of class.
Later on, Rudy Giuliani put his own advertisement in the same spot in rebuttal of moveon.org’s smearing of the honorable General.
I got to class that day and waited for this professor to pull out his sacred newspaper to show the class the Republican candidate’s full-page ad. It never happened. The Times never made another appearance in class.
I was disgusted at how this professor didn’t mind throwing this piece of liberal propaganda out in front of his class.
The worst part is that it’s not uncommon. Especially when there are conservatives in the room whose views need to be “remedied.”
When I was a junior in high school, a young English teacher, a graduate of Bates, was asked to supervise my history of film class when my own teacher had to leave early one day.
My reputation as a Republican was known among my teachers and peers, but I had never talked with this guy. I’d never even had him for a class – but he knew of me.
No more than a minute in the room, and he had started in with his political opinions – aimed at me.
I told him I didn’t want to discuss politics, it was the end of the day and I was just thinking about going to practice.
But it didn’t stop. He began blaming America for just about every bad thing that was going on in the world. The world, as this man saw it, was a result of America’s wrong doings.
I couldn’t get a word in before the guy was yelling – and in front of the whole class.
He was angry with me for what he thought was wrong with this country!
It was not only distasteful but completely out of line and out of sync with what the guy was getting paid for – being an English teacher.
All professors and teachers have opinions. But they’re getting paid to fairly inform and educate, not to indoctrinate. Stating their opinions is one thing, but throwing out propaganda and hatred of conservatives, America and its military is a whole separate entity.
The next time you hear something like this going on in your classroom, remember that you didn’t pay for an opinion. You don’t pay tuition dollars to hear why he or she dislikes our President. You’re paying for an honest education.
Dustin Gilbert is a compassionate conservative hoping to help his fellow students better understand right-wingers.