One of the most fundamental goals in life is ensuring that our children receive a thorough and unbiased education. Countless studies have shown a direct correlation between higher education levels and success in life. In order to make smart decisions in one’s life and become a successful, well respected citizen who contributes to his or her community, getting a good education, particularly early childhood education, There has been a long-standing and troubling trend in America’s higher education system, however, that having gone unchecked for years is now permeating into K-12 classrooms. America has an education problem that is being driven by an increasingly liberal agenda while most of the country remains moderate or right leaning. It’s past time we address liberal dominance in academia.
A study conducted by American Enterprise Institute (AEI) nonresident senior fellow Samual J. Abrams and associate professor of history Amna Khalid revealed that “the data for three campus constituencies unequivocally show that liberals are considerably overrepresented on university and college campuses. And the research on campus climate reveals a decrease in openness to non-liberal viewpoints.”
The authors found that in 1989-1990, “42% of faculty identified as being on the left, 40% were moderate, and another 18% were on the right” indicating a clear lean to the left even back then. The same study in 2016-2017 showed “60% of the faculty identified as either far left or liberal compared to just 12% being conservative or far right,” a liberal to conservative ratio that has more than doubled. This overwhelming dominance has led to bias which has manifested itself in the form of harmfully untrue teaching on race, gender, and the history of America.
Abrams and Khalid then compare their findings to the average political leanings of American citizens. While the political leanings of university faculty has swung wildly to the left over the last 30 years, there was only a minor shift to the left of the average American citizen. Abrams and Khalid write that “In the fall of 1989, 26% of Americans were on the liberal side of the spectrum, 42% were moderate, and the remaining 29% described themselves as conservative. This is a normal distribution and shows a tendency to cluster toward the center.” Three decades later, the numbers show a similarly normal trend, with “31% of Americans saying they are conservative or very conservative, 43% moderate, and 24% are liberal or very liberal.”
Luckily, parents who reasonably want answers about what their children are learning are being emboldened. Due largely to COVID-19 lockdowns and remote learning, thousands of parents across the country have had a rare chance to sit in and listen to what their kids were actually being taught over the past two years. Parents are not pleased.
In fact, over the past year and half, parents have pushed back and voted out of office hundreds of incumbent Democrats from school board to Governors. Conservatives have now swept into Republican majorities in school board races in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin so far.
In the wealthy DC suburbs of northern Virginia, things got so heated at a school board meeting last year that two people were arrested as the board debated transgender bathrooms, and the teaching of sexual orientation and Critical Race Theory (CRT). This grassroots push back was on display in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election when Democrat Terry McAuliffe confessed “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” during a debate with Republican Glenn Youngkin. Youngkin prevailed, liberal school boards remained smugly defiant. Many refused to relax their masking rules for children after Youngkin unilaterally ended state mandates. At AMAC Action, we are dug in against liberal dominance in academia including the teaching of divisive Critical Race Theory. We have helped our members make thousands of contacts to Capitol Hill on the issue.
Americans, understandably so, are more attuned to their children’s education today and that is a great thing for our country. Parents with a new found courage are starting to push back against the liberal dominance in academia but the bias in schools continues to be so wildly out of whack that constant reform is needed. It’s time for major changes in the education system where liberal dominated faculties are not permitted to lie to our children about race, gender, or the founding of this great country we call home.
Bob Carlstrom is President of AMAC Action