[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 23 (Wednesday, March 6, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H718-H719]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          LIBERAL BIAS IN AMERICA'S COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, it was reported last week that an invitation 
to author Doris Kearns Goodwin to speak at the University of Delaware's 
commencement exercises had been withdrawn. This invitation was pulled 
because Ms. Goodwin has admitted that her books contain many sentences, 
facts, even whole paragraphs plagiarized from other writers.
  But today, Mr. Speaker, I am not concerned as much about Ms. 
Goodwin's plagiarism or shoddy research as about what the invitation to 
her says about almost all of our colleges and universities.
  It is well-known that Ms. Goodwin colors her history with a very 
strong liberal bias. We will soon be in the season of college and 
university graduation ceremonies. If my colleagues have ever looked at 
a list of commencement speakers, they have seen almost immediately that 
almost all come from a very liberal or left-wing background. Two or 
three years ago, Evergreen State college in Washington State even 
invited as its speaker a man who had been convicted of killing a 
policeman.
  Conservative speakers are almost never invited to speak at 
commencement or graduation exercises. People who started businesses 
with nothing or very little, and thus tend to be very conservative, are 
almost never invited to speak. The only business leaders who are ever 
invited are those from extremely big business and who can safely be 
identified as liberal or at least very politically correct. I know 
there are always a few exceptions, but I would guess that liberals 
outnumber conservatives 50 or 100 to 1 as speakers at graduation 
ceremonies.
  This reflects the fact that there is less true academic freedom, at 
least for conservatives, on U.S. college campuses than anyplace else in 
U.S. society today. College faculties, at best, have only a few token 
conservatives in fields that deal with political questions. Even 
professors in nonpolitical fields, such as English, often work in 
comments or assign books that show their liberal bias.
  The very liberal bias of our national news media has been well 
documented and is not even questioned today. However, there is a much 
greater or stronger liberal or left-wing bias on most college and 
university faculties than even in the national news media. Conservative 
students, unless they are unusually courageous, learn very quickly to, 
many times, remain silent or not express their true opinions in 
statements they make or papers that they write.
  Most colleges and universities have gone to great lengths to make 
sure minorities are well represented in their faculties and that they 
have diversity, and that is fine. But the most discrimination today is 
against conservative

[[Page H719]]

professors and speakers, especially at very liberal schools like 
Antioch, Oberlin, the University of Colorado, and some of the Ivy 
League schools.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that colleges and universities around this Nation 
will strive for full diversity and true academic freedom by allowing at 
least a few token conservatives onto their faculties, or at least as 
graduation speakers.

                          ____________________