Lately we have heard a lot of complaints from our student there about the liberal arts teachers over at college. Several of them seem to like spending valuable class time spouting anti-government rhetoric and complaining about America. One teacher of an English composition class spends no time at all teaching composition. She merely assigns reading and writing projects and uses her classroom as a bully pulpit to bash the present administration and to belittle anyone who doesn’t share her views. Bush voters are called "Lizard brains" and she polls her class to make sure there aren’t any lurking there. Of course, there actually are a couple, but they keep their heads down and hope she doesn’t call on them.

She is very sensitive to minority issues and especially considerate of students from other lands, to the point of favoring them over native children. She has entirely separate rules for the two groups. She hates our culture and tells her students so, keeping them well apprised of their own shortcomings for having been depraved enough to have been born here.

I don’t like knowing that our tax dollars fund such behavior at a state run school, but judging by what goes on in several other classrooms, such behavior is the norm and is quite acceptable. It is pretty much the same in high school too. At any rate kids seem to survive it and I suppose it really doesn’t hurt them much as long as they are capable of thinking for themselves.

My biggest problem with this is that I don’t think teachers of this type bother thinking for THEMSELVES. Certainly there are plenty of problems in this country and our government is far from perfect. However, teachers can obviously say pretty much whatever they want to in the classroom. Even their students rarely argue with them, whether because they agree with them or because they fear reprisals in the grade department, I couldn’t tell you. But the teachers are free. Our Constitution specifically says that they have the right to say what they think. However, they just don’t get it that freedom of thought and speech is special.

Otherwise at least one of them would have noticed that very few other pedagogues are allowed such autonomy in their speech.

Witness the chemistry teacher in Saudi Arabia who was sentenced this week to 750 lashes and 40 months in jail for speaking openly in his classroom. According to Fox News, "Al-Harbi was convicted of questioning and ridiculing Islam, discussing the Bible and defending Jews."
Actually, according to Human Rights Watch, the poor man was only discussing current events with his class and happened to mention a couple of taboo topics like Christianity and the causes of terrorism. Had he lived in America he would have been granted tenure, handed a sweet pension and a terrific health insurance deal. He would have a nice car to drive and lots and lots of time off.

Instead I wonder if he will even survive his planned punishment.