[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 133 (Thursday, September 25, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8936-H8937]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         LACK OF DIVERSITY IN COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY FACULTIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Culberson). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on two very different 
and unrelated topics, Mr. Speaker, but both are certainly of national 
importance.
  First, almost every college and university in this country receives 
very

[[Page H8937]]

large amounts of Federal money through grants, appropriations, or 
student loan money. Yet, there is in some ways a one-sided brainwashing 
of students on many campuses today because of the lack of true 
diversity in college and university faculties.
  There is also a lack of true academic freedom because conservative 
students generally feel they cannot express their true views on papers 
or in person without being penalized on their grades.
  Possibly the group most discriminated against today is conservatives 
who wish to teach on college campuses. They simply are not welcome, to 
put it lightly, especially at left-wing colleges like Berkeley, 
Oberlin, Antioch, and many, many others.
  I wish our colleges and universities would make true diversity a 
major goal and hire a few token conservatives at least. I wish so many 
college and university faculties were not so intolerant toward 
conservatives.
  I wish the speakers who are invited to speak at graduation ceremonies 
or major college speaking programs were not 100 to one or more liberal 
to left-wing.
  What has spurred these comments, Mr. Speaker, is an article in the 
September Atlantic Monthly magazine, certainly not recognized as any 
conservative-type publication, but this article said, ``It is striking 
that the institutions that talk the most about diversity often practice 
it the least.
  ``For example, no group of people sings the diversity anthem more 
frequently and fervently than administrators at our elite universities. 
But elite universities are amazingly undiverse in their values, 
politics and mores. Professors, in particular, are drawn from a rather 
narrow segment of the population.
  ``A recent study found that roughly 90 percent of those professors in 
the arts and sciences who had registered with the political party had 
registered Democratic. Fifty-seven professors at Brown were found on 
the voter registration rolls. Of those 5,4 were Democrats. Of the 42 
professors in the English history, sociology and political science 
departments all were Democrats.
  ``The results at Harvard, Penn State, Maryland, and the University of 
California at Santa Barbara, other universities that were in the study 
were similar to the results at Brown.''
  This article continues, ``What we are looking at here is human 
nature. People want to be around others who are roughly like 
themselves. That is called community. It probably would be 
psychologically difficult for most Brown professors to share an office 
with someone who was pro-life, a member of the National Rifle 
Association, or an evangelical Christian.
  ``It is likely that hiring committees would subtly, even 
unconsciously, screen out any such people they encountered. Republicans 
and evangelical Christians have sensed that they are not welcome at 
places like Brown or other elite universities so they do not even 
consider working there. In fact, any registered Republican who 
contemplates a career in academia these days is both a hero and a fool.
  ``So, in a semi-self-selective pattern brainy people with generally 
liberal social mores flow to academia and brainy people with generally 
conservative mores flow elsewhere.
  ``The dream of diversity is like the dream of equality. Both are 
based on ideas we celebrate even as we undermine them daily. On the one 
hand, the situation is appalling. It is appalling that Americans know 
so little about one another. It is appalling that many of us are so 
narrow-minded that we cannot tolerate a few people with ideas 
significantly different from our own. It is appalling that evangelical 
Christians are practically absent from entire professions such as 
academia, the media, and filmmaking. It is appalling that people should 
be content to cut themselves off from everyone unlike themselves.'' 
That is, as I said, quoting from an article in the September issue of 
the Atlantic Monthly magazine.


              Vulnerability in Future Electrical Blackouts

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, the Associated Press reported a few days ago 
that the fix for the recent blackout in the Northeast ironically may 
make us even more likely to have such blackouts in the future. The AP 
story said the proposed improvements ``are making the electricity 
supply vulnerable to a different kind of peril: computer viruses and 
hackers who could black out substations, cities, or entire States.''
  Now, I know that everyone is supposed to worship the computer god 
today, and I know computers can do miraculous things that make our 
lives better in many ways. But when we decide what to do about the 
recent blackouts, surely we should not allow love for computers to make 
us even more vulnerable in the future.
  To quote the AP story, it says, ``In the past the grid's old electro-
mechanical switches and analog technology made it more or less 
impervious to computer maladies, but now switches and monitoring gear 
can be upgraded and programmed remotely with software and that requires 
a vulnerable connection to a computer network. If that network runs on 
Microsoft Corp. operating systems, which virus-writers favor, or 
connects to the Internet, the vulnerabilities are increased.''
  Also, we should not have an electric power grid that is nationwide--
even though that has some advantages--because a nationally integrated 
system also makes us even more vulnerable.
  It is ridiculous that we have allowed ourselves to get into a 
situation where a minor incident in suburban Ohio can black out almost 
the whole Northeast, and part of Canada, and cause 40 to 50 million 
people to lose their power.
  Bigger is not always better, and smaller, more independent utilities, 
with free competition, would make our power both more secure and less 
expensive.

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