The documentary titled “Indoctrinate U,” by Thor Halvorseen and Evan Coyne, done in a Michael Moore-esque fashion, seeks to investigate the growing trend of conservative thought discouraged or even punished on college campuses.

While this documentary is shot from a conservative view, it forces us to ask several questions that apply to all students, regardless of political opinion. Do some professors go too far when professing their opinions?

The answer of course is yes. By simple law of probabilities, there are those few professors who step across the line. However, when those professors who are willing to use their classrooms as soapboxes start to comprise a large amount of faculty members, problems begin to arise.

Many students have had to experience the professor who believes that their duty is to make their students believe what they themselves do, that it is their duty to recreate the world in their own image. Many students have had to deal with the frustration of feeling forced to agree with a professor’s viewpoint to avoid an unsatisfactory grade.

How many times has an underclassman been told by their older counterparts to simply keep their heads down and agree?

When students raise questions about the accepted academic wisdom about welfare, American foreign policy, race relations, social stratification or feminist viewpoints, the professor steps in to argue with that student, pushing the argument to the point where the student either gives up or the professor disregards the student’s opinion as wrong.

Many professors are vocal about their political opinions in class. The result, either intended or not, is to deter students from opposing the professor’s opinions.

While many professors hold their academic freedom most dear, perhaps we should be questioning what such “freedom” accomplishes in practice.

Faculty members hold a place of authority. They have some control over a student’s future. Whether or not a professor actually intends to force students to be sympathetic to the professor’s viewpoint, the simple authority inherent in the position of educator lends itself as coercive.

This is not a hypothetical. These experiences have occurred in Elon classes. It is likely that a student reading this column will have a particular professor in mind, either through experience or association. Elon University is not immune to professors willing to insert their own views into class.

This trend would be bearable, if only professors would offer an alternative viewpoint to their own. Too many times students hear the professor’s opinion without the professor fulfilling their duty of presenting all viewpoints.

A university education is meant to present students with an assortment of viewpoints to experience, evaluate and either adopt or disregard. A student should not expect to be unchallenged.

However, more often than not, students are force fed one opinion, while the others are neglected.

When a discussion about this very subject was held in a course about First Amendment rights, a professor asked why teachers should not be allowed to express their viewpoints in class, exercising their freedom of speech and academic freedom. A teacher’s duty is to educate their students in the subject of the class, not to insert their own opinion.

A professor’s extracurricular activities such as acting as a faculty adviser to student organizations or demonstrations is at their own discretion, they are, and should be allowed to continue to influence opinions in that setting. However, the classroom is a different matter.

The danger that is risked is simple; students give up. They grow tired of always defending themselves against professors and risking poor grades. The result, as mentioned by Thomas Cheplick of the Washington Examiner, is that “think tanks” are beginning to replace universities as bastions of creative thought.

This is a tragedy. A college education should expose students to an abundance of different viewpoints rather than forcing them to espouse a single viewpoint.

While not all Elon professors, and it is hoped most, engage in the methods mentioned above, an alarmingly many do, and their offenses are jarring.

We are often told to enter the classroom with an open mind, however, it would be a courtesy if our professors would do the same.

Staff: - 10/24/07