Campus Reform: Gustavus Adolphus College

Note: Phil Cleary is a senior at Gustavus Adolphus College.

Critics of CampusReform.org often charge that the "leftist abuses and biases" that it helps students fight back against are imaginary and exist only within the spheres of right-wing extremist imaginations. 

The problem with that criticism is that there is often blatent evidence pointing to the contrary.

Take for example the Gustavus Adolphus College (GAC) Gender, Women, and Sexuality (GWS) Studies Department.

You can access Gustavus academic catalog on the Gustavus website gustavus.edu.  Click on the academics tab in the upper left and scroll down to the page for the GWS department.  When you click on the resources section for the GWS department visitors are provided with a catalog of links.

Although the section titled "what can I do with this major" is yet to be filled out (ironic at all?) below it you'll find access to various feminist organizations.

These links include:

Feminist Majority Foundation

National Organization for Women

National Abortion and Reproduction Rights Action League (NARAL)

Minnesota NARAL

That their directory links to any of these organizations at all might raise the eyebrows of a few individuals, but what should be shocking to all people is the blatant political imbalance and ideological bias of the listed groups.

• Concerned Women for America, the largest grassroots women's organization in America,  is not listed on their site.
• Neither Feminists for Life nor the Susan B. Anthony List is listed, while NARAL is a prominently featured link.  Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life is nowhere to be found, even though the MN Chapter of NARAL gets prominent coverage as well.
• While Feminist Majority is listed, a person might get the impression that student and campus groups like Network of Enlightened Women or other organizations that could be planted by the Leadership Institute's Campus Leadership Program don't even exist at all.

You'll see in the photos below too that a blog for the POL285 Sex, Power, and Politics Class includes even more links with an equally stunning political and ideological imbalance with links to organizations like the Guttmacher Institute.  

This all suggests of course that this department and its courses acts merely to transform students into activists for the causes that the professors believe in. 

The cliche criticism of academia is that too often it teaches students "what to think" instead of teaching young people "how to think."  Unfortunately, this department at Gustavus Adolphus College is merely an illustration of how that cliche is true.

Want to help break Gustavus' fortress of political orthodoxy?  Email or phone the GWS Department Chair and website manager to demand that the resources section of their course catalog be inclusive of diverse viewpoints instead of inclusive and narrow.

Peg O'Connor <poconnor@gustavus.edu> 507-933-7573.  (GWS Contact Person listed on website)

Elizabeth Baer <ebaer@gustavus.edu> 507-933-7324.  (GWS Chair listed on website)