Calling Out a Liberal

A theology professor at Southern Methodist University recently sent out a mass email imploring faculty members from across the country to a sign an attached petition in opposition to President George W. Bush's decision to locate his presidential library complex at her school. The email read in part:

"A group of 130 faculty members at Southern Methodist University (SMU), Dallas, TX, recently signed and launched an online petition, formulated as an Open Letter, asking the President and Trustees to turn down the politically partisan institute that George W. Bush seeks to include in his presidential library complex on the SMU campus.

"A political partisan think tank located at any school, college, or university is contradictory to education as approached within free and democratic societies. The precedent set by it would put academic freedom at risk at all educational institutions, as well as SMU.

"Researchers hired by the institute to pursue the partisan agenda set by George W. Bush borrow on SMU's credibility in the Academy, while remaining completely unaccountable for their scholarly activity. . . ."

After reading the professor's email and the attached petition, I was suspicious that the petition organizers were not motivated by concerns over academic freedom and integrity; instead, I believed their efforts against the library were politically motivated. The petition and email contained coded language ("politically partisan think tank," "partisan agenda"), a favorite liberal trick to discredit conservatives. Moreover, as a teacher myself, I know that the academy is overrun by liberals who hate--yes, hate--George W. Bush. I couldn't help but have doubts

I wrote the petition organizer explaining that I chose not to sign because I believed the wording of the petition indicated it was politically driven. I also asked her why she opposed this particular "politically partisan think tank" when colleges and universities are already consumed by them. Except in this case they are called academic departments, which are overrun by effete, snobbish liberals who tolerate dissenting opinions about as well as Joseph Stalin.

The professor replied with several ranting, boiling-mad emails; I had obviously gotten her goat. She said that I imputed to her values that were simply not in the email or petition. There was no way I could deduce she was a liberal, she stated. Then she unloaded her verbal guns on me: "Perhaps you simply do not like the Perkins School of Theology of Southern Methodist University. Perhaps you don't like Southern Methodists. Plain and simple, you're predisposed to dislike me, and to see things that aren't there, and that's called stereotyping and prejudice."

This unhinged ad hominem attack left me flabbergasted, to say the least. I never attacked her personally. I merely questioned the wording of the letter and asked why she was so concerned about one conservative think tank when the academy as a whole is dominated by liberal ones.

I had obviously struck a raw nerve, which reinforced in my mind that I had been right about the petition all along. Liberals tend to lash out and sling mud when they are caught redhanded. But I had to know for sure. Could I have been wrong? Could I have read too much into the petition? Well, I did research and found an article written by the same professor about the library. The article clearly indicates, as I suspected all along, that the professor circulated the petition due to her personal animus toward Bush. Her gibberish about academic freedom was nothing more than a cloak for her true agenda--preserving the academy as a bastion of liberalism. Here are the telling passages:

"What moral justification supports SMU’s providing a haven for a legacy of environmental predation and denial of global warming, shameful exploitation of gay rights and the most critical erosion of habeas corpus in memory?

"Given the secrecy of the Bush administration and its virtual refusal to engage with those holding contrary opinions, what confidence could be had in the selection of presidential papers made available to the library? Unless the Bush library philosophy is radically different from the already proven track record of isolation, the library will be little more than a center for the preservation and protection of privileged presidential papers."

And the petition had nothing to do with politics? As a famous judge is prone to say, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.