About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

22 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 517 (1996)
Myths and Facts: How Real Is Political Correctness

handle is hein.journals/wmitch22 and id is 531 raw text is: MYTHS AND FACTS: HOW REAL IS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS? John K. Wilsont I. INTRODUCTION Political correctness, it seems, is a movement without followers. For something thought to dominate college campuses, it is strange that almost no one is willing to stand up and declare themselves politically correct or attack others for their political incorrectness. The debate over political correctness is not about whether it is a good or a bad thing. After all, who can be in favor of leftist totalitarianism or the PC thought police? In my mind, being asked Are you in favor of political correctness? is akin to being asked Are you in favor of the conspiracy ofJewish bankers who run the world? I am wholeheartedly opposed to conspira- cies of Jewish bankers ruling the planet, but at the same time I strongly doubt that any of them exist, and I wonder about the motives of those who claim they do. Thus, the question about political correctness must be an empirical one: does it exist, and to what extent does it threaten academic freedom? And this question must also be asked in context, since it would be biased to examine (as most critics of political correctness have done) only the left-wing threats to intellectual freedom. Do other forms of intolerance and censorship (which one might call conservative correctness) exist, and to what extent do they threaten academic freedom? Unfortunately, the empirical answers are not easy to get. There has been no reliable survey of faculty or students done to establish the extent of threats to academic freedom, as the Thielens and Lazarsfeld study provided of McCarthyism's effect t John K. Wilson is the Editor of Democratic Culture, a newsletter of Teachers for a Democratic Culture. Mr. Wilson has recently authored the book The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attach on Higher Education, published by Duke University Press.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most