The New York Post profiles Indoctrinate U director and star, Evan Coyne Maloney:
KYLE SMITH: Why did you make this movie?EVAN COYNE MALONEY: What I wanted to do was show the faces of academic people whose careers have been put in jeopardy for something as simple as expressing opinions that might be the minority opinions on campus but in larger society are actually pretty commonplace. Film has a level of emotional impact that simply can't be matched in other media.
Q: Summarize the film.
A: It says that there is a predominant ideology on campus and it's almost a case of groupthink.
In any community, once you pass a critical mass of people who share the same views, they tend to act poorly to people with different views. This is a human failing. You see it around the world with religious strife, you see it in different businesses where a successful company will collapse because they've become ossified in their thinking.The film is about free speech and free thought. I think that most Americans, regardless of ideology, would say that the things I'm covering are absolutely appalling.
Q: Where'd you go to college?
A: I went to Bucknell University from 1990 to '94. I had a political opinion paper. It was my experience there that made me question what was going on. Entire stacks of the paper would get picked up and thrown away in Dumpsters. This is something that is still happening. It was that incident that made me realize that the ideals of tolerance and diversity were empty platitudes. My university was not interested in diversity of ideas.
Q: How have distributors reacted so far?
A: We're talking to them. Many distributors don't see a market yet for documentary film unless it's the standard Michael Moore-Al Gore worldview. So we probably have an additional hurdle. But ultimately there is a market for this. I'm optimistic that we're going to get distribution.
Maloney's message is as important as it is subtle. Indoctrinate U is not arguing that the current political climate of campuses needs to be shifted to the right--as some have suggested--but rather that any campus that is a de facto political monoculture is going to run into serious problems realizing its mission. Intellectual vitality cannot exist where there is not intellectual variety; free inquiry cannot be genuinely embraced in the absence of diversity of thought. It's really very simple -- even if it's also quite subtle.