September 04, 2013 10:18 AM UTC

Even More Pity For Oppressed CU Conservatives

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Boulder Daily Camera's Brittany Anas reports–didn't the "conservative affirmative action" professorship do enough to make the University of Colorado a safe zone for academically oppressed students of a rightward persuasion? Apparently not:

The University of Colorado Board of Regents later this month will decide whether to expand the school's nondiscrimination policy to include political affiliation — a proposal born out of some regents' concern that there's a pervasive liberal bias, especially on the Boulder campus.

A subcommittee of regents on the laws and policies committee on Tuesday gave approval to the resolution that will go before the full board at its meeting Sept. 16-17 in Boulder.

A few months ago, we noted the University of Colorado's selection of a new "visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy," Dr. Steven Hayward, formerly of the American Enterprise Institute and Ohio's Ashland University. Notwithstanding the amusement of this act of "conservative affirmative action," Dr. Hayward actually does bring significant academic qualifications to the job. We haven't heard anything to suggest that Dr. Hayward is a regrettable choice of a scholar, however one might feel about the underlying "concerns" of Republican CU Regents and CU President Bruce Benson regarding oppression of conservatives on campus.

But apparently "conservative affirmative action" is not enough. Now it's time for political affiliation to be enshrined with race and gender as a protected minority!

Now folks, if we really believed that there was any sort of legitimate discrimination on campus against College Republicans–or for that matter, the Green Party, Libertarians, or LaRouchies–we would be the first to call for a remedy. What we think is going on here has more to do with certain students, perhaps trending conservative but whatever their particular worldview, running up against something we call "reality." This might feel a little like discrimination at first, but in our experience what higher education "discriminates" against more than anything is…well, you know, ignorance.

Hopefully we got our point across here without hurting anyone's feelings.