Midd lacks political diversity

Author: Colin Kikuchi

Thoughtful dialogue is necessary for students to become critical thinkers - only through defending our ideas can we determine our real views. The majority of Middlebury students identify themselves as Democrats, and this fact raises an important question - does political affiliation in the student body hinder dialogue on important national and foreign issues?

A Dec. 4 article in the Economist criticized American universities for harboring faculty whose biases prevent meaningful discussion on many issues. "Students hear only one side of the story on everything from abortion (good) to the rise of the West (bad)." The author goes on to argue that despite all the emphasis that institutions such as Middlebury place on diversity in race and sexual orientation, we have neglected diversity of political opinion. In doing so, academia is dominated by one worldview which too often coincides with the party line of the Democrats.

I recently talked with Roman Graf, the Dean for Institutional Diversity, about this problem. He raised several important points. First, professors evaluate students not on the findings of their work, but rather on how we argue our points. Second, the hiring trend of our academic departments is towards diversity because it is a waste of money to hire two professors with identical views. Lastly, he mentioned the results of the Senior Exit Survey from 2001 and 2002. When students were asked to rank ability to express their political views, find mentors and become involved in the college communities, there was no significant difference between the responses of liberal and conservative students.

All of these points indicate that at Middlebury, we are doing something right. If academia in the United States is generally of one political view, Middlebury may be an exception to the rule. However, Roman and I both agreed that in the current political climate, conservatives may be more excluded at Middlebury than in the past. The problem is that the policies of the Bush administration are not really conservative. For example, federal spending has significantly risen since 2001 administration and the scope of government has increased. We would be mistaken to associate conservative thought with the Republican Party and liberal thought with the Democratic Party. Any factual information about issues like globalization and social security are obscured when these issues become politicized.

The only way to really engage our minds is through dialogue. Because diversity of political views encourages dialogue, we need to encourage this diversity. Conservative thinker David Horowitz has proposed an "academic bill of rights" to guarantee that professors will present politically balanced views. Such a policy, however, would hinder discussion even further because college curriculums would be decided by political agendas. In Middlebury's academic environment, we have the opportunity to study with many different professors, and the so-called "balanced curriculum" would diminish the richness of opinion that we experience.

Instead, I think that the best way to advance discussion at Middlebury is from the bottom up beginning with us, the students. We need to recognize and then question the limitations of our two-party system. As Roman told me, the viewpoints of any individual seldom fit within the Republican and Democrat configuration. Political opinion is unique from race, ethnicity or sexual identity because it can be changed. If we are more critical of political affiliation, we can improve dialogue on campus.