Editor,
In the classic "Lost in Space" television series, the robot would frequently shout, "Warning, Will Robinson - danger, danger!"
Perhaps we need him at UNM to warn the incoming 2006 freshman class about our faculty and staff's lunatic rants.
With a history of nutty professors like Richard Berthold and kooky staffers like Joachim Oberst, David Horowitz should have mentioned the University of New Mexico by name in his new book, "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America."
The lunatic ranting of our faculty and staff is not only publicly embarrassing, it is dangerous to impressionable young minds.
Although Oberst's recent letter to the editor specifically targets President Bush, Horowitz rightly states in his book that university faculty and staff spew violent anti-Americanism, preach anti-Semitism and cheer on the killing of American soldiers and civilians - all the while collecting tax dollars and tuition fees to indoctrinate our children.
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It is no mystery that at UNM, leftist kooks have colonized a significant part of our University system and transformed it to serve their political ends. Their dangerous actions lie in the fact that they have abandoned a liberal philosophy of education, where the professional responsibility of educators is to elevate students' ability to think, not hand them the correct opinions.
Oberst presents his narrow, one-sided political agenda and makes unsubstantiated attacks on American foreign policy, the American military, America's self-image and the country's national identity. After reading his letter in the Opinion section, I'm sure Oberst would have no problem backing the rants of Ward Churchill regarding the justification of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and his argument that the victims were akin to little Nazi Eichmanns.
Horowitz rightly reveals four troublesome patterns in modern institutions of higher education that also exist at UNM.
First, faculty members are promoted far beyond their level of academic achievement on the basis of politically correct scholarship. These professors engage in political propaganda while teaching subjects outside their areas of professional or experiential qualification. Professors are also permitted to make racist and ethnically insulting remarks publicly without any substantial response from administrators, so long as those remarks target unprotected groups like Armenians, whites, Christians and Jews. Finally, academic discipline and agenda-neutral scholarly inquiry are subordinated to indoctrination efforts by professors with overtly political agendas.
Oberst tips the hand of his errant agenda in the first sentence when he describes "President Bush's illegitimate presidency" - implying that he never got over the fact that Bush beat Gore in his first run, and then was re-elected by a large majority in his second term.
In this day of retro being popular again, where is that faithful robot of Will Robinson's, shouting "Danger, danger?" It would seem like we need him here at UNM now more than ever.
Cali Garcia
UNM alumnus
