OPINION:
A pervasive rot is festering in the bowels of many American colleges and universities — a dangerous dynamic that threatens free speech and deprives young minds of rigor and truth.
Tragically, some of our higher education facilities have devolved into indoctrination centers that churn out students conditioned to embrace liberal ideals — or, at the least, young adults who are ill-equipped to fully comprehend divergent viewpoints.
As a result, students are often taught to bend their ideological views to the whims of progressive professors, with some institutions failing to create individuals able to properly and independently assess political and social norms.
This sadly impacts every facet of our culture, as generations of college graduates have been exposed to just one side of the political aisle. On a related note, many young people graduate assuming they’ll be cocooned in safe spaces that simply don’t exist in the real world, with the “my truth” and “your truth” mantra creating strange bouts of ideological isolation.
For decades, conservatives have lamented these facts yet too often have faced liberals’ rebuttals purporting that such university biases are overstated and not rooted in reality. This denial has become increasingly absurd in recent months, particularly in the wake of ramped-up anti-Israel terror.
It’s become routine to see professors and students sputtering nonsensical diatribes and even disturbing tenets about Israel, the Middle East and other related subject matter. The examples are anecdotal, though they seem to point to a broader problem of ideological inequity.
After the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, one Columbia University professor praised the “awesome” sights observed amid unthinkable horror. This was sadly far from the only example of such a bizarre reaction to the slaughter of innocents.
We’ve also seen equally disturbing responses on other fronts. Most recently, a University of Pennsylvania professor was accused of “celebrating” the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson before reportedly retracting her statements.
This comes amid a strange apparent uptick in the normalization of such happenings, with some people suggesting that people such as Thompson somehow deserve to be executed. The Network Contagion Research Institute of Rutgers University recently identified a surge in people taking to social media to praise the shooting, Newsweek reported.
While such dreadful responses might not be the majority or the norm, the presence of these reactions in our culture should rock us to our core. And we should be especially concerned when our youths fall into these traps.
Again and again, polling shows that young people are profoundly confused about basic facts, especially regarding the Middle East. Just consider the shocking 2023 YouGov and The Economist survey that found 20% of young Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 expressed the belief the Holocaust never happened.
Perhaps this is why so many young people have taken to the streets to express sympathies with Hamas, the terror group that savagely invaded Israel during the now infamous Oct. 7 attack.
One poll released in May 2024 by Intelligent found that 15% of college students who participated in an anti-Israel protest don’t believe the Jewish state has the right to exist. The survey also found worrisome levels of sympathy for Hamas terrorists.
Anyone with a brain should ask themselves: What in the world are college professors teaching these kids — and what’s the environment on American campuses enabling such wild misinformation and malformed commiseration?
While colleges and universities can’t solely be blamed for our collective moral incertitude, they certainly play an important role.
An expansive new report from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) titled “Silence in the Classroom” tells the story behind some of the campus chaos and confusion we’ve been witnessing — and the toxic bias that has raged for decades behind the scenes.
The survey, which included the perspectives of 6,269 professors at 55 four-year institutions in the U.S., yielded some disturbing findings, especially among those in the “political minority.” The report found conservative professors are far more worried than their progressive counterparts.
In fact, conservative faculty members were more likely (55%) than liberals (17%) to report that they hide “political beliefs from other faculty in an attempt to keep their jobs.” And that’s not all.
Conservative professors are also more likely to worry about reputational fallout as well as their jobs if something they’ve said or produced is misunderstood. A whopping 52% of conservatives worry about reputational damage if they’re misunderstood, while just 35% of liberals said the same.
Plus, while only 18% of liberals worry they will lose their jobs if they’re misconstrued, 32% of conservatives said the same.
We can go on and on with these statistics, but the reality is clear: there’s an ideological disparity among professors — a revelation that shows there are too many campus environments in which free speech and expression are hampered. It’s impossible to imagine this doesn’t trickle down to the student body, with instruction and social interactions being affected.
Most notably, this isn’t a liberal or conservative issue. Students should be encouraged to think for themselves and question, but they must be furnished with all of the details and facts to make such a decision. Professors, too, must be free to teach truth and reality.
An alarming percentage of professors overall — 35% — reported that they had to recently tone down their writings “for fear of controversy.” And 27% said they feel they cannot freely speak over fears about how administrators, students or fellow professors might react.
It’s far past time for our colleges and universities to rethink ideological imbalance, to encourage free thought and to take bolder action to ensure everyone is heard.
• Billy Hallowell is a digital TV host and interviewer for Faithwire and CBN News and the co-host of CBN’s “Quick Start Podcast.” Mr. Hallowell is the author of four books.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.