American Association of University Professors (AAUP) president Cary Nelson is the soon-to-be-famous apologist for Academe, called upon to defend the Grove from charges that its husbandmen have been treating the ambassadors of the Kingdom rather shabbily. In a May 5th article by Washington post reporter Alan Cooperman, "Is There Disdain For Evangelicals In the Classroom?," Nelson answers to the finding in a recent survey by sociologists Neil Gross of Harvard and Solon Simmons of George Mason University that more than half the responding educators had high negative feelings toward Evangelicals. Nelson reassures us the poll results reflect not religious bias, but "political and cultural resistence" to Evangelicals. Based on precisely what about them? Two things, said Nelson -Evangelicals' "Republican Party activism" and "opposition to scientific objectivity." So thankfully, it's not about the Old Time Religion at all for the tutors of our children and the groomers of the next generation of leaders. It's just that Evangelicals tend to be active Republicans, and worse than that, they tend to be unscientific.
"The [gentleman] doth protest too much, methinks." Nelson, a English professor at the University of Illinois, surely knows the line comes from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and that it carries the Bard's gentle admonition to quit while you're behind. The devil is in the details, not the denial. Just ask Don Imus, who found himself out on the street after imperfectly executing the obligatory prostration before the Reverand Al Sharpton, declaring in frustration, "I can't get any place with you people." Like Imus, AAUP ought to pause anon to reflect upon the Bard's sage advice, stop protesting so much and start listening better.
Hat Tip to Constitutionally Correct
1 Comment:
Here here! Well said. Denials of bigotry toward evangelicals ends up confessing to bigotry toward evangelicals, AND toward students who are Republicans, AND toward (apparently) students who mention believing the universe has design (advocates of I.D.). The bigotry clearly seems to be more pervasive and spreading at least among this U of IL prof those who share his musings.
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