And. . . weirdness continues. I just saw a commercial for my university on MSNBC. Although it would surely be nice to have a bit of political diversity on our uniformly Fox-Newsified campus, the likelihood that prospective students or their families are watching MSNBC is negligible.
But yes, the idea that the new generation of students would include at least a few people from families that watch Sex and the City and MSNBC is very attractive. You have no idea how hard it is to foment discussions in a classroom where everybody is exactly the same ideologically, politically and culturally.
It’s also frustrating that everybody keeps pretending that uniformly conservative campuses like ours do not exist. “Academia is in the hands of Liberals” is a ridiculous myth created by people who have no experience of the actual US academia. The only myth that is more bizarre is “Ivy League schools are in the hands of Liberal administrators.”
The very expression “Liberal college administrators” makes no sense whatsoever. Probably people confuse administrators with support staff (all those bureaucratic grunts who sit in Diversity and Multiculturalism offices, issuing endless memos.) But those people don’t really have political opinions. Their only motivation is to create as much paperwork as possible so that their jobs are not made redundant. The day when I meet an actual Liberal administrator will be a day to remember because they are more rare than unicorns.
Clarissa's Blog 
I think few disagree that conservative STUDENT bodies do exist.. but the complaint is that professors are liberal.
Shows about 3-4x more liberal professors by self-identification. The article tries to explain some.. but hard to say that isn’t pretty good evidence. You are fine to argue that being liberal is better or should be for professors etc.. but to say in general they are not is pretty straining on the creduility front.
http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/09/professors-moved-left-but-country-did-not/
And my aunt is one liberal administrator for you.. if you want anecdotes on top of data 🙂
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Who cares what our political beliefs are? We are so bullied by administrators, bureaucrats, state authorities, parents and students that we can’t make a peep. I’m afraid to show a movie with divorced characters in class, for Pete’s sake. Saying aloud that I don’t disapprove of divorced people is a complete impossibility.
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Speaking of diversity this article from the Guardian has some great Soviet propaganda posters regarding “racial harmony” in the USSR.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2016/jan/24/racial-harmony-in-a-marxist-utopia-how-the-soviet-union-capitalised-on-us-discrimination-in-pictures?CMP=fb_gu
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Cute posters. Of course, Soviet racism was always extraordinarily high, and things haven’t changed in any way. For Soviet people, the inferiority of black people was not even remotely in question. It will take some time until the post-Soviet space develops at least some questioning of this paradigm.
Lovely posters, though.
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Having lived in East Germany, even after they had let a handful of Vietnamese “guest workers” in and had a few african university students there to program into the cause, I’m still struck by how completely isolated and homogeneous the society was. Any understanding or respect they had for anyone not German (or eastern European) was little more than a rhetorical impulse that they never got a chance to practice.
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Absolutely. In the USSR, we heard a lot anti-racist talk but it was nothing but talk. The degree of racism expressed by people in casual conversations was extremely high.
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Sex and the City?
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Oh the television show.
I thought that was called’ “Sex In The City”?
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Oooops. It is “Sex and the City” I’ve never seen it, only heard of it – and incorrectly it would seem.
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