There’s a growing argument that college campuses overwhelmingly espouse liberal ideologies over more conservative ones. Forbes quoted a Quora opinion piece expressing that since the 1980s that liberalism has become more and more pronounced among University professorship.
A YouGov poll conducted in May of 2022 surveyed some 22,000 people, and their data discovered that most college graduates have said that they believe college has either made them or people that they know more liberal.
It’s easy to argue that there are tons of factors that play into what being “liberal” refers to in the context of this particular survey. Those who said they’ve become more liberal could be speaking in relation to their own way of thinking prior to moving out of their childhood home/town and growing up around other people entering into adulthood. Someone who came from a super strict religious upbringing where men and women didn’t socialize without parental supervision, for instance, might consider themselves more “liberal” after going to college and attending mixed gender parties.
Regardless of whether or not some “secret Liberal agenda” presiding over universities is true or not, there are probably many college students who will attest to the efficacy of using resources like ratemyprofessors.com in order to help provide the paths of least resistance to students on their way to graduating with their degree as painlessly as possible.
Sometimes, users on the platform urge fellow students to just parrot the ideologies of their professors in order to not “rock the boat”—something that one TikToker claims he did in order pass all of his college classes.
@tymetrius7 #stitch #fyp #react #conservative #liberal #college #democrat #republican #politics #trumpsupporters ♬ original sound – tymetrius
The above clip begins with a student mouthing some lines from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with a text overlay that reads: “pretending to be a liberal on all my assignments to pass all my college classes.” He tosses his glasses on the table after lip-syncing: “Incredible. One of the worst performances of my career and they never doubted it for a second.”
The video was stitched by another creator, user @tymetrius7, who says, “You want to know how I know this is false? And that anybody who ever says they experienced this is lying? This is me in 2016 and parts of 2017.”
The TikToker then cuts to a clip of him wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.
“I wore this damn hat every single day to class,” he says. “I was taking a class called peace and social justice studies. As the name implies it was about peace and social justice. The teacher was a former German citizen and was more anti-Fascist than Antifa. Basically I submitted a Fox News version of a research paper about reverse racism. Because, you know, I was part of a cult. Somehow believed that was a thing.”
He says that, despite being the “Carlson Tucker” of his university, the professor still gave him a good grade because he properly completed the assignment.
“But anyway I submitted this paper and he said while he disagrees with me, I completed every criteria of the paper and therefore I got full credit,” he says. “So please, don’t tell me you experienced this, so that you somehow have to lie. Because then I will call you a liar. Y’all are just looking for something to cry about.”
Many folks were impressed with the TikToker’s anecdote, stating that they were happy he “broke out of” being a conservative Trump supporter and no longer believed in conservative talking points like “reverse racism.”
“Hey im glad you broke out if it man,” one viewer said.
“Damn bro good to see you left the dark side,” another added.
“So there is hope to regain lost souls,” a third wrote.
However there were others who mentioned that although @tymetrius7 ended up having a great professor who put their own personal biases aside, the TikToker’s singular experience doesn’t necessarily mean it was a universal one.
“You just had a great professor, I’ve had many where I actually did have to pretend to be liberal lol… even in public school at points,” one viewer wrote.
“Um not telling you you’re wrong, but your singular experience does not dictate fact for every university in America neither does that guy…” a second argued.
“So you disprove an anecdote with another anecdote. Nice work!” another user commented.
Then there were those who mentioned that they never once experienced faculty bias during their time in school, with some folks who claimed to be professors who similarly graded on the rubric, not ideology.
“Did the same as a professor. Well written argument? You get the grade,” one said.
“So few professors even discuss politics. It’s almost like said ppl who whine just aren’t critical thinkers so get low grades,” another added.
“Plus the professors can tell when you’re pretending to think something because it comes off as artificial and surface level,” one user claimed.
“They just like to victimize themselves. Never had a teacher who cared what your politics were nor did they ask,” a fourth viewer argued.
The Hechinger Report covered faculty bias in a 2019 story, stating that “ideology has only a tiny relationship to college grades, researchers say.”
Robert Maranto, a professor at the University of Arkansas was quoted in the article, saying, “To the degree that ideological biases exist, they have very modest impacts. Even if some students are the victims of unconscious bias in grading, our results suggest that academic readiness is a far more important predictor of success than students’ political views.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @tymetrius7 on his TikTok post for further comment.
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