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 premiere itself made good on the hype. Here's Scott, from Powerline:
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.
Evan did a follow-up radio interview with the Powerline folks, too, the day after the screening.