Question everything (but your professors)

By Lucas Draisey

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Our institutions of higher learning want us to believe that they are dedicated to the open exploration of the life of the mind. No idea is too large or too small to question, and the marketplace of ideas provides students an unlimited intellectual adventure.

But a new independent film hitting theaters this week shows a side of the university that most of us young contrarians find more realistic.

“The Genesis Code” follows Christian college student Kerry Wells, who encounters religious persecution at her university. When she raises her hand in class, the eyes of her professor roll and the rest of her classmates groan. Everyone knows that Kerry is always challenging her professor's assertions.

Any college student who has questioned the liberal orthodoxy currently in control of our higher education system can identify with Kerry's position. We do come to college to learn from our professors, and we do respect their knowledge. But that doesn't mean that we forfeit our right to question the theories they teach or the biases that they might reveal.

A 2010 survey of the beliefs of American university professors (published in Sociology of Religion) found that the proportion of professors who describe themselves as atheists or agnostics is roughly three times the national average. About 23 percent of professors doubt the existence of God, while only 7 percent of all Americans would say the same.

An instructor who views the truths of

traditional religion as irrelevant in life often believes that they are equally irrelevant in the classroom. Students who seek to synthesize their deeply held beliefs to the new information they encounter in the classroom face silent mockery at best and unfair penalties at worst.

Take the case of Emily Brooker. She was threatened with expulsion from her social-work program at Missouri State University after she refused to send a signed letter to the state legislature advocating for homosexual foster parenting and adoption.

Anyone who has ever dared to raise their hand to disagree with their instructor will be inspired by “The Genesis Code” and the unheralded discrimination to which it calls our attention.

Lucas Draisey, student at Simpson College in Indianola, is state chairman for Iowa College Republicans. Comments: lucas.draisey@gmail.com