[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 148 (Tuesday, October 21, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H9742]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1015
CONSERVATIVES NOT WELCOME ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES
(Mr. DUNCAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, in last Friday's New York Times, columnist
Thomas Friedman quoted some advice Richard Brodhead, the dean of Yale
College, recently gave to incoming freshmen:
`` Above all,'' Dean Brodhead told the students, ``do not limit your
associations to people who agree with you.''
Yet as David Brooks pointed out in the September issue of the
Atlantic Monthly magazine, the place where there is the least diversity
today is on college faculties. Conservatives simply are not welcome,
except for a few tokens in some places. As Mr. Brooks wrote, ``No group
of people sings the diversity anthem more frequently 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 narrow segment of the population.'' Mr.
Brooks pointed out that conservative students and professors may be one
of the groups most discriminated in this country today.
Mr. Speaker, I hope our elite universities will strive for true
diversity and academic freedom and allow at least a few conservatives
to teach in their classrooms and speak on their campuses.
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