A Review of "Indoctrinate U"

Recently, the Government and Law Society at my school held a screening of the documentary "Indoctrinate U," directed by the independent film maker Evan Coyne Maloney. Maloney seeks in this film to uncover and investigate political biases on college campuses. In fact, when he started the project, Maloney was convinced that he'd find both conservatives and liberals guilty of blatant political favoritisms. He was wrong- Maloney, a liberal (he even wears a shirt with the Republican elephant inside a circle with a slash through it during some of the film), discovered an overbearing liberal bias on college campuses, restrictions on speech, and oppression of conservative ideas.

Sounds like my type movie.

Maloney conducts several interviews with college students' families, professors, and college students themselves, and comes to the conclusion that conservatives are unfairly underrepresented and ostracized in colleges while liberals are actively sought out by colleges to be professors.

Take this, for instance: one professor, after her colleagues found out she was married to a local Republican official, (rightly) assumed that she too was a Republican. She was demoted from department head, and was actually harassed by her former friends. In order to settle the dispute, she had to take her case to court. As it turns out, a survey conducted by Maloney shows that the overwhelming number of college professors are Democrats, and liberals are far more likely to be hired than conservatives to teach. In fact, a colleague of the professor mentioned above even remarked, "If we had known you were a Republican, we would have never hired you." Talk about discrimination.

Of course, conservative faculty members weren’t the only ones who felt the liberal repression. Students found themselves targeted as well.

Take the conservative student who was threatened with expulsion for posting a flyer advertising an event at which a conservative was scheduled to speak. This conservative, who is black, had written a book entitled It's OK to Leave the Plantation. The student used the book title on his flyer, and the backlash was harsh- he was even accused of being a white supremacist, despite the fact a black man had written the book and the title. The student, not surprisingly, had the police called on him when he refused to remove his flyers, and again had to endure a college judicial process before finally having his name cleared- though the college refused to apologize for the incident.

Actually, as it turned out, race played a significant factor in the documentary, especially in its relation to affirmative action. In one interview, a liberal professor explains that "being white is a form of racial oppression." Yikes! But, I'm sure that this guy's opinions are not prevalent among the majority of professors- right? Well, not exactly. Black professors who opposed affirmative action reported being called traitors. A student group who held a bake sale in protest of affirmative action was hostilely received by many. Conservative student publications were stolen. All in all, the atmosphere of the majority of the campuses in “Indoctrinate U” was antagonistic towards conservative thought.

Even Maloney, the liberal, concluded that the colleges and professors failed to exhibit fairness and objectivity. Free speech was hedged, and academic openness disregarded. Professors used their classrooms as tools of political indoctrination. Actually, I don't think there's anything wrong with a professor sharing his political views with his students- but the problem that Maloney discovered was conservatives were not allowed to enter the conversation or were just plain intimidated into silence. After all, these professors have absolute control over students' grades.

My favorite line of the film basically sums up the unfairness of the liberal position: that liberals claim to speak from a standpoint of total objectivity, and that therefore, no other point of view should even be considered, because that point of view is automatically wrong- a view similar to the "intellectual shackle" I complain about in my previous blog.

I believe that the film "Indoctrinate U" showcases a serious problem in the American education system. It's not necessarily that students are being brainwashed by liberal professors (like the title might suggest), it's more that conservative ideas aren't even allowed in the academic arena. I do recommend the film.

We college students should demand our rights of free speech on campus. Fortunately for me, my college has adopted a "free speech" code, and does not punish students for saying whatever they please (as long as it doesn't threaten anybody else, of course). I do believe the vast majority of my professors are liberal, but they don't necessarily push their views. And I, for one, am not intimidated into silence. I can accept political biases of professors and colleges as long as there is someone out there like me who can speak out against the view and demand academic fairness, presenting the conservative side of an argument.

I think the mission of all of us college students, liberal and conservative, should be to demand an open-minded educational environment. As the American axiom goes, "Don't tread on me"- and that's exactly right, my fellows: don't let them tread on us.