I need to start off by pointing out that politically, I am more liberal than conservative. Nevertheless, I avoid liberal commentators. But I generally pay attention to George F. Will, even though I don’t always agree with his conservative views.

My reasons for reading Will are simple: George usually gives good reasons for his arguments. Agree or not, I can see a logic to his conclusion.

And even more than that, Will doesn’t always toe the party line. When he objects to what other Republicans are doing, he says it. That is a critical attribute for any political pundit, and even, any citizen: if everyone is thinking the same way, who’s thinking?

However, I disagree with a current topic that George has taken up. He contends that higher education is dominated by liberals, and improperly so.

First, the Pentagon absorbs the largest share of the US Budget; if you consider that VA is part of our military budget, then the military budget is even a larger behemoth than we normally consider it. Not surprisingly, the military and the industrial lobbyists that support it have tremendous sway over our government. And this highly influential military-industrial complex is overwhelmingly conservative. But Will doesn’t object to that.

Similarly, large corporations dominate much of our private life, through advertising alone, not to mention countless indirect ways. Corporations have even acquired most of our news and entertainment media over the past few decades, and not surprisingly, media have continually migrated toward the right. This corporate media is an influential, educational force equal to, or much greater than, our liberal colleges. and liberals are rare birds in the corporate boardroom today. But these do not bother Will, either.

And then there are our temples of worship. Christian Americans lean heavily to the right, and certainly the teachings of the church are a force to match higher eduction. But George isn’t so concerned about that influence.

Are George Will and the other conservative writers worried that our colleges are overly partisan? Or just that it’s someone else’s party?

Then there is the imperative to produce independent-minded citizens, as well as the imperative of God-given Free Will. If we don’t expose students to as many viewpoints as possible, how will they learn to think? How will they every make their own choices, and exercise their Free Will? Where will our young people experience liberal ideas, if NOT in college?

Consider the implications. If as I have contended, the bulk of private life is dominated by conservative corporate messages, when will young adults have the opportunity to hear other viewpoints? If we believe that our young people need to consider all viewpoints– and we do, in our deepest American and religious convictions– if our universities don’t play Devil’s Advocate, who will?

George F. Will has been a staunch defender of freedom of thought, and freedom of choice. He cannot argue now that we should deny young adults the full range of these freedoms.

It would be hard to argue that this liberal collegiate exposure has been detrimental to the conservative movement. To the contrary: despite many decades of dominance by liberal thinkers in our citadels of learning, in the past decade we elected the first unipartisan government since WW II– and it was conservative. This strongly suggests that neither the corporation nor the university dominate the mind of the citizen; her mind is her own. The citizen is exposed to diverse viewpoints, and this exposure strengthens the democracy, rather than weakens it.

Finally, if we consider what ‘conservative’ means– to conserve, to lean toward the traditional, to advocate the tried-and-true– then it is clear that our colleges absolutely must be liberal. If institutions of higher learning are, by design, our places of innovation, of theorization, and of experimentation, then it becomes clear that it is precisely the mission of the university to challenge the status quo.

And so, to be effective, our universities must be liberal.

So with all respect for George Will’s independence and incisiveness, he may wish to reconsider his stance on universities and their liberal ways. If they were otherwise, America would not be the country it is.