Persistence of Vision

Indoctrinate U played to a packed theater at D.C.'s Kennedy Center on Friday night--and got a standing ovation into the bargain. People who attended the film have reported that it drew laughter at many points--as well it should have; one of the movie's great strengths is its ability to let spineless campus administrators and raging academic ideologues simply speak for themselves. That can be funny at times, in a distressing sort of way. And Indoctrinate U makes the most of that.

This film has great charisma, and is just about alone in its ability to combine hard-hitting analysis of higher ed with an engaging, wry outlook; what's happening with higher ed isn't funny by a long shot, but Evan Maloney has recognized something pivotal: In order to effect meaningful change on campus, people not only need to see the problems in a film format, but also need to have the absurdity of campus excess brought before them. As Maloney said in an interview with the Washington Post's Express, "A book doesn't have the same emotional immediacy that a film has."

Friday night was proof: People not only came out for the film, but they loved it.

Thor Halvorssen was CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education before he founded MPI--and his role as a producer of Indoctrinate U speaks to the many points of contact between the work of fighting for free speech on campus and that of promoting freedom through film. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Halvorssen speaks about freedom, film, and MPI:

Q: What is "Indoctrinate U" about and what's its political message?

A: "Indoctrinate U" is America's first feature-length documentary about the assault on individual rights on America's campuses. It is a hard-hitting, entertaining and remarkably well put-together film -- and I can say that because I'm not the director, I'm one of the producers. It will make a difference in communicating what is occurring on college campuses -- from speech codes to discrimination to the watering down of standards to the unspeakable bias in the hiring of faculty members and the disparity of ideological diversity. The film shows that college and university campuses talk a lot about diversity but they ignore the diversity that truly matters -- diversity of opinion, diversity of views. Their use of the term "diversity" is a perversion of meaning and language.

Q: And the movie's message is what?

A: The message is that whatever you thought about how bad it was on college campuses, it's a lot worse. You get to talk to a number of people who survived the kangaroo courts of judicial systems on campus. And you get to talk to the professors who can explain what the climate is like. The film is a call to arms that something needs to be done about this. The film's political message is one of freedom and is one of equal rights before the law, and it's one of diversity of opinion. This is not a conservative film; this is not a liberal film. Of course it talks about the discrimination that most of the time Christians and conservatives are victims of, but that is a reflection of the reality on campus, not a reflection of what the director wants you to see.

Q: On the "IU" Web site it says, "American higher education bears a disturbing resemblance to the totalitarian societies that are anathema to our nation's ideal of liberty." How so?

A: I'll give you an example. College campuses are the only places in America, other than prisons, where people have fewer rights -- i.e., students are in there with prisoners in federal prisons in having less rights than normal Americans. Speech codes are a perfect example.

Q: Such as West Virginia University telling students they should use "lover" or "partner" instead of words like "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"?

A: Sure. Sure. West Virginia's example is somewhat humorous. Some people will simply chortle at that. But on so many campuses whatever is deemed offensive is immediately considered harassment and thus is considered illegal. So a student putting up a poster advertising a speaker coming to campus can be the subject of months and months of a legal process because that poster offended some students. That's one of the cases in the film.

Or the fact that some students wished to protest what they see as racial discrimination through affirmative action and so they choose to have an "affirmative action bake sale;" they choose to use parody -- a longtime American tradition of political communication, parody and satire -- and that becomes the object of judicial action. That's what I'm talking about and that is what is so remarkable about what's going on on American campuses.

Not only do you have inconceivable double standards when it comes to free speech, you have campuses like Columbia where Ahmadinejad can be invited as a guest to speak to the campus but the very same week the head of the Minutemen is not allowed to speak on campus. What kind of message does that send? That's one example from among hundreds. It does not mean that students are not allowed to protest. That's exactly what universities are about -- vigorous exchange of ideas. It's that students are only getting one tendentious idea, one tendentious view and this affects the university at all levels -- from student life to the administration to the faculty to what is available course-wise.

The general diagnosis is a poor one and something needs to be done about this. We believe that this film can communicate this to a mainstream audience, in as much as the film is entertaining, in as much as the film really grabs you. It's also very well done. Evan Maloney is a star ....

Q: He's the director -- the Michael Moore character, if you will?

A: Think Michael Moore. Put him on a huge diet. And have his documentaries be based on fact, not fiction, and you have "Indoctrinate U."

Q: What's the Moving Picture Institute and what's its mission?

A: The Moving Picture Institute was founded to nurture filmmakers like Evan Maloney, to nurture and inspire filmmakers who care about the issues of American freedom and individual rights. It exists both to produce and distribute films of this sort and to find the talent and nurture them -- provide them fellowships and internships and things like that.

The institute has offices at the Tribeca Film Center in New York and it has offices in Hollywood. Its funding comes from individual donors. It has a budget that is just over $1 million and it has so far produced several feature-length films. Two of them have appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival: "Freedom's Fury," a film about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and a water polo game that captured the imagination when it came to the struggle against communism; another one is "Hammer & Tickle," which goes into the power of humor in the struggle against Soviet communism; the "Singing Revolution," a film about the Estonian revolution of 1997 and how Estonia got its freedom back and independence from the Soviet Union by singing; "Indoctrinate U," which has the tagline "Our Education, Their Politics"; "Mine Your Own Business," a film about the dark side of environmentalism; and right now in production, "Do as I Say," a film about the hypocrisy of so many of this nation's leaders who say "live this way" but they themselves live a different way.

Q: How do you define your politics?

A: The Moving Picture Institute doesn't have politics per se. We're interested in films and we work with filmmakers across the political and ideological spectrum. The Moving Picture Institute has filmmakers who have very differing views from each other many times. What we are interested in is the product -- the quality of their films and the message of their films. In that sense, we are very, very open. I personally consider myself a classical liberal in the European tradition. But we have all sorts of people who are involved with us, from conservatives to liberals. We're just interested in films that we don't think are getting attention.

Q: Why have you become sort of a freedom fighter on U.S. campuses?

A: I myself was involved previously in an organization which was conceived in my living room called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, which is based in Philadelphia. I was its CEO from its founding until 2004. In some ways, "Indoctrinate U" is my swan song to higher education. I did that work for a while, and why not make a film about the subject?

The kind of work that I am able to do is only possible because there are Americans who understand that this country is different and that this country lives because of certain ideas and is devoted to those principles. This country has a remarkable set of philanthropists who want to ensure that this culture of freedom survives. It is because of that that FIRE was possible; it's because of that that the Moving Picture Institute is possible. And it's because of that my human rights work focusing on the Americas is possible. That's my day job.

As someone who is not from this country, I have come to appreciate what it is, and to love it, because of what it represents worldwide and what it allows people living within its borders to be able to do if they are willing to work hard enough.

Q: You're only 31, but you've been fighting against this culture of political correctness and leftist political environment for almost 10 years.

A: How I got into this fight is that I was myself a target of intolerance when I was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. I remember how shocked I was that universities, which are supposed to be all about the critical mind and the discovery of new ideas and no boundaries, was quite the opposite. I found a stilted environment that was very closed. I revived a newspaper that had been dormant for a while. Our funding was not permitted. Our offices were trashed. We were evicted from our offices and so I then decided to attack the university for having done this. I got some attorneys and threatened to sue and the university college settled out of court and thus that was my wake-up call to what was going on. I became an adviser to the judicial system at Penn and I got to see the kind of charges that are brought against students. From there I went to work on helping students on other campuses revive their newspapers or supercharge them. From there, FIRE came along and then the film world came along.

Q: Are you getting anywhere in your mission?

A: Well, we've got six films produced and we've got a whole bunch of new ones coming up the pipeline. I think there's a lot of interest and a lot of people want to see these films. As the sold-out Kennedy Center shows, there are some people who are even willing to pay for this.

It's very satisfying. We're all basically at the same time very, very encouraged and excited -- and terrified because the film has never screened publicly. I guess we're really anticipating whether they will clap or not. The film is really quite excellent and I think it is going to do very, very well. It will be available on DVD in a few weeks. "Indoctrinate-U.com is where people can sign up. If enough people sign up, we will bring the film to that area.

Via Instapundit, here's Stanley Kurtz's review of the Indoctrinate U premiere:

Last Friday I attended the world premiere of Evan Coyne Maloney’s film, Indoctrinate U, before a packed house of 500 at the Kennedy Center. There were many students, and a number of professors as well. I’d seen the film a couple of times at press screenings, but was totally unprepared for the raucous audience reception.

The press screenings were quiet, with the main response being horror at the nightmarish incidents of political correctness chronicled by Maloney. This time, however, the audience roared with laughter through the first two-thirds of the film–to the point where lines were drowned out by the audience roar. The laughter abated toward the end, from sheer exhaustion. The latter part of the film brought a major applause line–when the topic turned to bans on military recruitment and the Supreme Court Solomon Amendment case. One line about half-way through the film–about what really motivates professors who indoctrinate their students–brought the house down.

Yes, this movie tells a series of heart-breaking tales. But the political correctness on display is ludicrous and laughable–and I can assure you that laugh is exactly what this audience did.

Inconveniently for Al Gore and other radical environmentalists, An Inconvenient Truth presents a partial and tendentious perspective on global warming and, more generally, on the environmental movement. And, even more inconveniently, that information is spreading -- and people are fighting back against the doctrinaire presentation of Gore's truth as the only truth.

A lorry driver from Kent has forced the Government to rewrite guidance for schools that want to show Al Gore’s climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth.

Stewart Dimmock, a father of two, brought a High Court action against the screening of the documentary in schools, claiming that it was “politically partisan” and “sentimental”.

His lawyers argued that the film contained serious scientific inaccuracies. They accused the Government of backing the film, by the former US Vice-President, as a way of “brainwashing” pupils on global warming.

Mr Dimmock, a school governor with children aged 11 and 14, said at the outset of the hearing: “I wish my children to have the best education possible, free from bias and political spin, and Mr Gore’s film falls far short of the standard required.”

Yesterday the High Court judge Mr Justice Burton said that the film did promote “partisan political views”.

In an indication of his ruling, he said that schools should follow the new guidance, which calls for balance when showing the film, which has been sent to more than 3,500 schools and is aimed at 11 to 14-year-olds. He said that he intended to give his full ruling next week.

John Day, Mr Dimmock’s lawyer, described the move as “a U-turn” but said it did not go far enough.

The Government’s counsel, Martin Chamberlain, said the original guidance notes for schools, warning against political indoctrination, would ensure that the documentary was presented in a balanced way.

Although teachers could present the film in any way they wished, they were under a duty to provide balance – for instance, by explaining to pupils that some of the views expressed in the documentary were political and asking, “What do you think about it?”

Indoctrinate U's September 28 premiere at Washington's Kennedy Center was a spectacular success--and drew lots of commentary from media and bloggers, all enormously positive, all showing enormous appreciation for the value of the film.

Excerpts:

Wizbang blog: "You'll laugh, you'll cheer, but most of all you'll despair for our nations youth as you see graphic evidence of how intolerant our supposedly enlightened institutions of higher education have become. ... here's a short interview segment in the film that literally brought the packed house down. Evan and producer Thor Halvorssen probably knew they had some cinema magic here, but even they were a bit surprised at the raucous reaction of the sold-out premiere. ... It's not to be missed."

Conprotantor: "There were too many funny moments in this documentary to tell. ... The entire documentary paints a rather funny but depressing portrait of political correctness run amok on our campuses."

Adrienne Royer (who appears in the film):"It’s a really great documentary .... The level of entrenched liberal groupthink at our universities is staggering. It’s so shocking that we don’t even realize that something is wrong until we see this film."

The Conservative Revolution: "The film is the first of its kind, and exposes school administrators and professors who have attempted to impose political correctness on students and faculty that happen to have dissenting views. It is a brilliant piece of work, that should be seen by every student and faculty member in the country."

The Smoking Room: "It's a film that grows on you the deeper into the narrative you get, alternately making you belly-laugh and shake your head at the insanity that activists get away with against their ideological opponents - and sometimes their insufficiently zealous sympathizers - while campus administrators bury their heads in the sand."

VDARE: "There’s a hilarious sequence the movie where Maloney sets out to find the 'men’s center' by talking to the sour-faced feminists at campus women’s centers. Appearances by K.C. Johnson, Glenn Reynolds (aka Instapundit) and John McWhorter give the film a boost. ... Maloney’s effort is fast-paced and funny .... Maloney is the first to bring the phenomenon to the screen, and it’s definitely worth seeing."

Maloney's work was also featured in the New York Sun, on Fox News Channel's Your World with Neil Cavuto, on CNN's Glenn Beck Show, and on CNN's Headline News.

The Indiana Daily Student reflects on Indoctrinate U, IU, and the importance of getting a screening of IU at IU:

Anecdotes about university bias are as abundant as they are outrageous, such as how Bucknell University wouldn’t allow Republican Pat Toomey to speak on campus, but paid far-left activist and presidential candidate Ralph Nader $13,000 to deliver the commencement address. Conservative speakers Ann Coulter, William Kristol, Pat Buchanan and David Horowitz have all had food thrown at them onstage at enlightened, tolerant, open-minded, liberal universities. Even here at our beloved Indiana Daily Student, we have a few columnists to the ideological right of Vladimir Lenin, but true conservatives are few and far between.

Consider how much we’re bombarded by “diversity” campaigns daily, from Freshman Orientation until graduation. Racial diversity. Religious diversity. Sexual orientation. Gender. Cultural background. One would think the primary purpose of college isn’t education or career preparation, but diversity training.

But a 2005 survey found that 72 percent of university instructors describe themselves as liberal, while only 15 percent label themselves conservative. Since 1999, professors have donated $26.4 million to Democrats but only $2.4 million to Republicans.

Maybe while we’re emphasizing diversity we should focus a little on diversity of thought.

Liberals account for this one-sidedness by alleging conservative stupidity. According to the head of the Duke philosophy department, “If ... stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire.” Contrast this with former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, who had to resign after stating that there might be more men than women in science and engineering due to “issues of intrinsic aptitude.” Conservative-bashing is expected. But raise the possibility that men and women’s minds work differently, and you’re out of a job.

In “Indoctrinate U,” Maloney travels to universities nationwide investigating bias. His Web site features a video of him asking Columbia students, “Who said of Israeli Jews, ‘The way they talk, walk, the way they greet each other, there is a vulgarity of character that is bone deep and structural to the skeletal vertebrae of its culture:’ Was it Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden or a Columbia professor?”

You’ll have to watch the clip yourself to learn the stunning answer.

“Indoctrinate U” is for everyone who’s had to sit through anti-American rhetoric in foreign language classes, Bush-bashing in English classes and political propaganda in science classes. Visit www.indoctrinateu.com to watch the trailer and to ask that the film come to Bloomington. If 500 of us submit an online request, they’ll give us a local screening. In the meantime, where exactly is the IU White Culture Center?

Indoctrinate U's September 28 D.C. premiere was part of the annual American Film Renaissance Film Festival, profiled here by Sonny Bunch of the Weekly Standard:

"Our mission, really, is to bring Hollywood back in touch with the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the American people," says Jim Hubbard, who, along with his wife Ellen, heads the American Film Renaissance (AFR), a small outfit looking to make a big impact on the world of film. AFR has been hosting film festivals across the country since 2004, but the Hubbards hope to set up permanent shop in Washington and push the festival into the mainstream. Jim Hubbard says he wants the name recognition of a Sundance or a Cannes while maintaining the political sensibility of Middle America.

His philosophy is pretty simple. "First and foremost, you've got to entertain. You've got to be a skilled artist. And if you don't do that, you're going to hurt the side that you profess to want to help." The 2007 American Film Renaissance kicked off at Washington's E Street Cinema to a standing-room-only crowd with a short documentary on eminent domain starring Drew Carey. The main attraction, though, was a feature made by the Acton Institute, The Call of the Entrepreneur. The movie is essentially an hour-long infomercial for capitalism, but it fits Hubbard's prescription to a T. Shot in pristine high definition, The Call of the Entrepreneur was alternately funny, moving, and educational.

Acton--described to great laughs by spokeswoman Michelle Muccio before the screening as "Like Cato [the libertarian think tank], but slightly more virtuous"--made this film because it believes that business has received short shrift from Hollywood for many years. "Hollywood demonizes entrepreneurship and business ventures," Muccio told me before the show, pointing to examples like the evil Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life and the conniving Gordon Gekko from Wall Street. It's not often that you see a businessman doing much good in a Hollywood film.

One of Hubbard's goals for AFR is "to give a place at the table to those groups in the country that traditionally feel alienated--at least for the last forty years anyway--have felt alienated from the entertainment industry. That's our mission, in part: to give people who feel marginalized a place at the table."

Consider Indoctrinate U, a documentary focused on the left-wing bias pervasive on college campuses today. Earlier this year, one of the producers complained to me about the reception the film had received from festival programmers across the country. The Hubbards offered Indoctrinate U top billing, and it played to a raucous sold-out audience at the Kennedy Center. The film's director, Evan Coyne Maloney, was thrilled by the enthusiastic reception. "Having spent four years working on this film, it was easy for me to forget how much of an emotional impact these stories have when you first hear them. The crowd got it; they were boisterous, enthusiastic, outraged at times and laughing hysterically at others. And to be rewarded at the end with a standing ovation made it a night I'll never forget," he said.

Indoctrinate U producer Thor Halvorssen got his first taste of campus politics--and his start as a crusader for individual rights on campus--as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania. Now the Daily Pennsylvanian is taking notice of the film and his role in it:

Students tend to think of themselves as a catalyzing force in society, bastions of freedom and righteousness in an unjust world.

But they're not treated that way, says Thor Halvorssen, whose experiences as a student at Penn led him to devote his career to defending human and free-speech rights, particularly on college campuses.

"Students are treated not as the adults that they are - free-thinking adults capable of critical thinking - but rather, they are treated like the ignorant progeny of society that need to be told what to think," Halvorssen said.

Now the president of the Human Rights Foundation, Halvorssen is back in the news with his new documentary, Indoctrinate-U.

Produced by Halvorssen's film company, the film deals with the lack of diversity of opinion and the obsession with political correctness on college campuses nationwide.

Indoctrinate-U "is an exhilarating, fun and entertaining look at a trend that is commonplace at colleges and universities across the country," Halvorssen said.

The film, which has generated considerable buzz since its premiere last month, has been noted for its in-your-face style and libertarian bent, sparking comparisons between the film's director, Evan Maloney, and his liberal counterpart, Michael Moore.

[...]

"This film is not a film by conservatives," he said. "It is a film by people who care about a true liberal education."

A native Venezuelan whose lineage traces to the country's first two presidents, Halvorssen's association with Indoctrinate-U comes in part from free speech controversies during his years at Penn.

In 1995, Halvorssen became embroiled in a scandal involving the controversial conservative newspaper The Red and Blue, of which he was the editor-in-chief at the time.

After publishing an article on Haiti that many people found offensive, The Red and Blue was denied funding by the Student Activities Council, sparking a widely publicized debate on free speech.

Penn has also been involved in a series of other free-speech controversies, most notably the "water buffalo" incident involving then-Penn President Sheldon Hackney.

The University has since changed its policies to be more inclusive of divergent opinions, both Halvorssen and other free-speech advocates agreed.

More good words for Indoctrinate U, this time from academic pundit and New York Times blogger Stanley Fish:

Academics often bridle at the picture of their activities presented by Maloney and other conservative critics, and accuse them of grossly caricaturing and exaggerating what goes on in the classroom. Maybe so, but so long as there are those who confuse advocacy with teaching, and so long as faculty colleagues and university administrators look the other way, the academy invites the criticism it receives in this documentary. In 1915, the American Association of University Professors warned that if we didn’t clean up our own shop, external constituencies, with motives more political than educational, would step in and do it for us. Now they’re doing it in the movies and it’s our own fault.

Fish does get a bit picky with Maloney in places, and offers an extraordinarily specious rationale for why speech codes are nothing to be worried about. But Maloney handles him effortlessly at his own blog.

Indoctrinate U is hitting the midwest this Friday, premiering in Minneapolis and screening every day for a week at the Oak Street Cinema. The folks in the Twin Cities are psyched about the film. They are doing radio, and are scheduling a host of complementary events. There are lectures and discussions, one of them featuring National Association of Scholars executive director Peter Wood. And as part of the opening night, there will be a gala dinner, which IU director Evan Coyne Maloney and MPI founder and IU producer Thor Halvorssen will attend along with local officials and higher education leaders.

The folks at Power Line are thrilled--and plan to be there.

A grassroots movement is springing up around Indoctrinate U, as thousands of people across the country sign up to see the film if it comes to their area. As signups increase, the film is beginning its tour of U.S. cities -- premiering in D.C. in September, in the Twin Cities this week, and next month screening in Cleveland. As more and more folks declare their interest in the film, the chances of a distributor picking it up for national theatrical release increase. And as the momentum around the film builds, the odds of that happening grow ever better. All told, what MPI is doing is carving out a way to bring films that challenge mainstream assumptions before a public that is really hungry for them; bypassing the gatekeepers to give the people a chance to build a mandate around this film improves the odds that the gates will eventually open.

NRO columnist Stanley Kurtz is calling the promotional efforts surrounding Indoctrinate U "revolutionary." And Glenn Reynolds agrees.

Make sure you sign up now if you haven't already.

See Evan Coyne Maloney's recent interview with Fox News Channel's Your World with Neil Cavuto here.

While you are waiting for the page to load, take note of recent praise for Maloney's film. Ivygate calls Indoctrinate U a "soon to be conservative cult classic." Dartblog calls it "the premier film on the pallid state of higher education." Charmaine and Jack Yoest call it "an explosive discourse on the absence of free speech and radical censorship on our nation's college campuses" and rate it a "must see."

In September, MPI fellow Stuart Browning travelled to Golden, Colorado, to present his short films at the Independence Institute. From the press release:

The premiere will be on Wednesday, September 19, at the Shwayder in the Mizel Center for Culture and Arts at 350 S. Dahlia Street in Denver. The movies and Browning’s commentary will begin at 7 p.m. and will be followed by coffee and dessert. The event is free and open to the public but seating is limited so reservations are requested. Please contact Kay at 303-279-6536 or kay@i2i.org.

“Anyone who is even remotely concerned about the direction in which medical care in Colorado is headed must see Free Market Cure,” said President Jon Caldara.

Caldara issued a personal invitation to all of Colorado’s 208 commission members. “I understand that members were invited to hear Donna Smith who was featured in Sicko. I invite all of them to hear another perspective.” he added.

Hot Air is currently featuring Browning's short film, The Lemon.

Critics are rightly hounding the makers of Elizabeth: The Golden Age for being a bit casual about its history. Set in 1585, the film compresses several eras in Elizabeth's reign, and also toys with relative time. Though Elizabeth was in her 50s then, Cate Blanchett necessarily plays her as a late thirty-something. The Raleigh relationship is distorted--he and Elizabeth are too close in age, and his liaison with Elizabeth Throckmorton happens years too early. And that's mapped onto the Armada bits in problematic ways.

But films will do that with history, and it's just not nice to descend into mockery in the manner of critics who, for example, have compared Blanchett's Elizabeth to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.

What gets lost in all the historical quibbling--which is surprisingly mean-spirited for an era as historically unplugged as ours--is that this film is a remarkable testimonial for freedom. Set aside the question of how realistic it is, and for a moment simply consider the fact that Elizabeth is a strikingly charismatic and cinematically exceptional voice for freedom. When Philip of Spain--backed by the Catholic Church--moves against Elizabeth and guns for the enthronement of the Catholic Mary Stuart, Elizabeth resists her advisors' advice to round up and jail the Catholics in England, declaring that she has no intention of punishing her subjects for their beliefs. Later, when she leads England into war with Spain, she explicitly connects the defense of comparatively modern, tolerant Protestant England to the defense of liberty and freedom of conscience.

When it comes to liberty, one could reasonably say that Elizabeth rules.

The folks in Minneapolis-St. Paul premiered Indoctrinate U last Friday, and are screening the film at the Oak Street Cinema throughout this week. And they are really doing it right.

Leading up to the premiere, the Star-Tribune did a little investigative reporting into the local campus climate. The results were intriguing indeed:

Over the years, Prof. Ken Doyle has seen a stream of students enter his office with a crestfallen look. The young undergraduates typically begin by saying they're worried about one of their professors. Doyle, who directs the communication research division at the University of Minnesota's School of Journalism and Mass Communications, has a good idea how the story will end.
The particulars differ, but the complaint is usually the same. "Some students tell of being mocked for holding views that differ from their professors'," Doyle says. "Some fear they are endangering their grades. Many say, 'I've figured out what the professor wants to hear and I just parrot back his ideology.'"

It's become a common complaint that U.S. campuses are home to a stifling liberal orthodoxy where contrary beliefs are persecuted. Doyle says it's no illusion.

A new film, "Indoctrinate U," documenting that atmosphere, opens near campus tomorrow.

Bethany Dorobiala, a senior political science major at the U of M, knows just what Doyle is talking about. Dorobiala was one of the few students who agreed to speak on the record about the problem.

In many courses, Dorobiala says, professors load up reading lists with books that reflect their ideological agenda. "If you speak up in class and present an alternative view, you may risk being ridiculed by a professor twice your age with a PhD.," she said. "Students who agree with the professor's politics are regularly praised and encouraged."

Dorobiala has encountered this disregard for intellectual diversity in classes outside of political science. "In geology class, I had a teacher who made side comments bashing President Bush," she said. A rigid orthodoxy prevails on issues as disparate as the death penalty and global warming, she says, and some professors regularly pontificate on topics outside their discipline.

"I definitely know of students whose grades have suffered because they became identified as a conservative in class," said Dorobiala. If this happens, it's "very difficult to defend yourself. The authorities -- your adviser, department chairs -- think you're complaining because you didn't do your work."

The university rarely receives official complaints about ideologically motivated grading and follows a regular investigative process when it does, says Jan Morse of the U's Student Conflict Resolution Center.

Dorobiala's only solace is her work with College Republicans, where she can trade war stories without having to look over her shoulder.

Norman Fruman, an eminent professor of English at the U, now retired, believes that political correctness has gained a stranglehold in the humanities and social sciences.

"In recent decades, we've seen a relentless assault on American and Western history and values as the primary source of wickedness in the world," he said. "Literature no longer explores universal human experience, but instead has become a branch of politics, with a focus on often-second rate works about the victimhood of favored groups."Contempt and insults are regularly leveled at one group: white, heterosexual males," he added.

Doyle and Fruman see this rigid orthodoxy as self-perpetuating. "Birds of a feather hire together," quipped Doyle. Politically correct ideology is quasi-religious in nature, he explains. "You're not going to hire someone who seems like an infidel."

The theater was also packed with a responsive crowd last night, a large part of which stuck around after the screening to hear from Evan and film producer Thor Halvorssen. I haven't seen such a big crowd in that theater since "Putney Swope" opened there in 1969.

Several University of Minnesota students were in the audience and testified to the accuracy of the film's depiction of university life.

[...]

Evan generates the emotional immediacy peculiar to the film medium. By contrast with Michael Moore, however, Evan generates the emotion with true stories. Particularly in this respect, "Maloney is the un-Michael Moore." This is a funny, humane, and powerful film. If there is any justice in the world, with Evan Maloney's screen debut a star is born.