PROFILES IN SUPERFICIALITY
Moron from GMU edition

From the UCSB Daily Nexus:

A national group of young conservatives says a class on clean air is dirty with liberal bias, but the UCSB professors in charge of the course say that's just hot air.

UCSB's Geography 135, a course that holds a mock environmental summit, was #7 in this year's Young America's Foundation list of the "dirty dozen" - a list of "the 12 most outlandish and politically biased courses on today's campuses."

George Mason University student Rick Parsons created YAF's "dirty dozen" list. Parsons made his selections by looking through the titles and course descriptions of all courses offered at major universities around the country and released his findings at the end of August. (full story)

That's a real scientific process this Parsons fellow has going, branding a course "outlandish and politically biased" just by looking at the course description. Perhaps he is the kind of fellow who reviews movies based on the previews. I'm waiting for him to tell us that Signs is "all about aliens and crop circles, nothing but, and that's it!"

But just for kicks, let's look at Geography 135's course description, the basis for Parsons' branding. The Nexus is nice enough to provide it in their piece:

The course description for Geography 135 reads, "A mock summit in which students act as representatives of different countries participating in environmental treaty negotiations. Students work in teams of four or five to prepare a presentation and discussion of environmental issues of concern to the world (e.g. energy, greenhouse gasses, etc.)"

What could possibly be wrong with that, mister Parsons? A mock summitt, with points of view spanning various nations around the world? Sorry Rick, but I hear there's plenty of space over in Unilateral Denial 122 at GMU.

The real reason for the YAF's attempted red flag is this: god forbid the words "environment" and "greenhouse gas" ever show up in a course description. Those traitors! Don't they know there's a war on?

Needless to say, UCSB Geography Chair Keith Clark defends the class as being anything but biased, and rightfully so.

YAF and Parsons add a number of other SB classes to their hit lists for this school year, including English 129, Queer Textuality, not to mention Film Studies 163, Women and Film: Feminist Perspectives. Again, sorry guys, but this disqualifies you from having any sort of credibility in this debate. The world is much, much more than dead white men.

Finally, I took a stroll through the YAF website earlier today. I must say, I was intrigued by their holiday present reccomendations. ("Aww, Why the Left Hates America! You shouldn't have! What a thoughtful gift!")