Letter to the Editor:
Clay Carter's column lacks evidence
Published Feb. 23, 2010
In Clay Carter's latest column, he makes a great point: every issue has two sides, and both sides should be presented in order for people to make a rational and well-informed decision. As an education major, I can confidently say one of the most difficult aspects of teaching is presenting information that is completely unbiased by your own beliefs and affiliations.
I also think that Carter is right when he says that "college classes are historically known for having a liberal bias." However much I agree with Carter, his argument lost it's credibility in a few crucial areas. The first of these areas was that he lacked any sort of examples or specific facts. Throughout his article, Carter tries to appeal to the emotions of college students' self-determinism without ever mentioning so much as a personal experience in which a more conservative view was ignored in order to bring light to the more liberal view. This means he suffers from a clear lack of factual evidence.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Carter's article is that he turns an argument about being able to think freely and show both sides of an issue into an argument about socialized health care. In this way, it seems he is trying to appeal to a wide college-aged audience's emotions in order to press his conservative agenda.
Even if I did believe Carter's argument without a single shred of evidence and that he is truly concerned for the ability of the student body to think for itself, I would not be willing to follow his "slippery-slope" logic. Carter believes that since professors seem to be liberally bias, Americans will inevitably lose its ability to have a check on the government. He seems to have no faith in the American people as a whole to rise up against a tyrannical government. Regardless of my political affiliations, I cannot accept this argument.
Carter makes a good point when he states that presenting a counterargument on important issues enhances learning. Seeing things as one-sided is not conducive to growth. However, based on the reasoning Carter presents, I refuse to believe that this argument adds any strength to his political agenda. He attempts to appeal to the student body without any evidence backing him up and he likens the biases of college students and professors to a nationwide epidemic. It seems that Carter brought up a good point only to follow it with a confusing and poorly drawn conclusion. This is because he took something that many college students could relate to and tried to use it unsuccessfully to add credibility to his political ideals.