There's tons of news sites on the internet, but if you're looking for something with a political focus, try realclearpolitics.com. They collect columns daily from writers from both sides of the political spectrum and link to them. They also have video clips of relevant interviews from the major networks, as well as election polls.

I have tons of liberal, socialist, and communist horror stories about my professors and peers in undergrad and grad school myself. All too common, but it became even more common for me because I happened to be attending college during the election controversy in 2000, and grad school in 2004 when everyone at the college wanted Dubya to be gone emphatically. I'm sure they're were beside themselves in glee in 2008.

I just never had an openly conservative professor in undergrad or grad school, while I had professors who admitted to being socialists and communists, and consistently insulted conservatives and our viewpoint, with an attitude where it was understood that we were idiots for having the political opinions we had. Hell, even one of my peers in grad school called me a fascist when he discovered I supported the Iraq war.

The topic became a discussion of liberal bias in academics, so I added that I experienced it too. I simply did not feel at that time like going into detail, and in fact described a website that links articles to both conservative and liberal interpretations of US current events. But, I guess I'll mention a few of my "horror stories" now:

During the 2000 election debacle, I had a lecture for my Modern Germany class. A fellow student asked the professor at the start of class his opinion on what was happening. The professor, then spent almost the entire 50 minute class describing how the Supreme Court got it wrong and was overreaching their power. Everyone else was nodding along to his diatribe, while I sank down in my chair, biting my lip, fearful of negative repercussions to my grade in the class if I spoke up. Good use of my Dad's money there, advocating a liberal interpretation of current US political events instead of teaching us about Nazi Germany.

Early in that election, before the voting, my economics professor would have a question on every test that was designed to show that Dubya's economic proposals would not work. Finally, a student braver than I complained privately. So, on the final exam, after numerous anti-Dubya questions, the professor finally put in a question attempting to disprove a Gore economic proposal (immediately after another anti-Dubya question).

In grad school the professors went from being openly liberal and/or advocating socialist policies, to being openly socialist and communist. For example, my US social and cultural history class professor stated he was a communist, and proceeded numerous times to deride conservative opinions, while my fellow students would nod along and state things like how they loved Soviet gender policies. I spoke enough to the point where the professor knew my political leanings, but usually I kept my mouth shut so I wouldn't get into a 15 to 1 argument with all my classmates teaming up with the professor. Meanwhile, most of my other professors there admitted to being socialist, and operated from the assumption that all the students agreed with those policies. After all, we were all history grad students, so social democracy had to be the style of politics we believed in...

Also during grad school, several of the students started using the history department listserv to organize protests against a Dubya nominee to the Supreme Court. I complained and had to face stiff resistance before they finally stated that students could no longer use the university's history listserv for biased political activism, because it was supposed to be a tool to help us as students, not wings of the democratic party. The conversation between different administrators was very interesting and illuminating as they grasped for excuses.

Then, for my Master's Essay, I argued for a pro-capitalism, pro-reform, and pro-alternating power between political parties interpretation of recent Italian political policies, as opposed to support of the Italian's version of the social democrats' labor policies that make it difficult for employers to fire poor-performing employees, and the one party rule that has dominated Italian politics for decades, but especially during the Cold War. The professor said my conservative interpretation of events was wrong. So, I proceeded to only change my conclusions in each paragraph, adding some more research I found, and called the right-leaning prime minister a fascist. The core of the paper didn't change, just the conclusions now had an anti-capitalist spin - and I even called that prime minister's policies a new type of "hyper-capitalism" in the title for the paper. The professor immediately changed his opinion of the paper, and it then became acceptable.

Academics is no place for political bias. It needs to be a safe place of intellectual discourse. Most professors happen to be liberal, and unfortunately let their political opinions bleed into their teaching. I don't care what the political opinions of my professors are, as long as they don't allow it to influence their teaching, creating an atmosphere of fear among those who think differently. Having most professors subscribe to one party or one side of the political spectrum unfortunately creates this side effect, and it's bad no matter what bias it is - especially because grades are at stake.

No problem Alo. I try not to let our political differences bother me anymore, and instead concentrate on our similarities - like a fascination with the weirdness of the Walking Dead.

While the professors didn't implicitly say I was an idiot, it was heavily implied, and that was what I inferred. Basically, the professors operated from a mentality that it was understood that conservative ideology was wrong, assumed everyone in the classroom agreed with them, and proceeded to insult conservatives for actually believing a bunch of tripe. That communist professor, and many others, when they figured out I was conservative, began acting condescending toward me, as if I had a mental handicap.

I won't get into the whole political and religious comments, as we just see things differently and aren't going to convince each other otherwise at this point.

However, I will say that yes, there are certainly issues with the American education system with the liberal bias in academia, and not enough stress on the under-performance in math and science, leading many to major in less practical things that don't lend themselves to most of the job openings nationally (like my history major, it gave me great writing, research, and analytical skills, but is overlooked by recruiters - God I hope I get that government job, or else I'll have to try to teach high school or something, where there isn't many openings: it took my wife about two years to find a full time job as a school librarian; and there's no way I'm going to law school. I did well in math and science in high school, but history is my passion). But, I would not tie these issues to religion. Most people go to state schools, e.g. University of Illinois, University of Michigan, etc. These are completely secular. Many private universities have religious origins, but for the most part their religious nature is vestigial at this point. Brigham Young University, mentioned above, is probably an exception with their Mormonism.

For example, I got my Bachelor's from a private university, Northwestern. They were founded in 1851 by Methodists, but that is ancient history as far as the university is concerned. There's no religious requirements or influence on the curriculum. Furthermore, I got my Master's from another private university: Loyola in Chicago. While it was founded as a Jesuit university, has a Catholic church on campus, and a heavy Jesuit presence, as a grad student it had no impact on me. There might have been a crucifix in every classroom, but the professors freely disparaged the influence of religion on society. However, Loyola does have religious class requirements for their undergrad students.

So, public universities here are completely secular, while private universities often have religious origins, but in many (but not all) cases, that influence has waned in the last century or so.

Cool, cool, I think we’re on the same page Alo. Yes, students should be exposed to all possible interpretations, so that they can make up their own mind and learn the subject better. My problem comes in when a professor holds up one as correct, and all other as incorrect, or takes time out of class or uses the class to influence students into interpreting current events according to their political bias and possibly get them to vote with a certain party.

For example, in history (using this because it was my major), there is also a Marxist school of interpretation. It isn’t necessarily communist, it just looks at history from the perspective of class, because this school of thought views class as the most important part of a person’s identity. These Marxist interpretations of history need to be taught in universities, along with all others, so that students can learn the subject better and see what view they agree with. Too often though, teachers hold up the Marxist view as right, and all others wrong.

It goes beyond this though, because there’s also the projection of current political parties’ views onto the past. Conservatives and liberals in America obviously view past historical events differently. Professors here often view history with a liberal, socialist, or communist lense and disregard the conservative view as wrong, and use their class to make comments on currents events according to their biased view of things. Both interpretations should be presented, and current events shouldn't be brought up unless there's a direct correlation to the class subject. In history and poli sci, current events discussion is understandable, but it happens too often in economics and math classes, for example.

I just went on and on about the whole secular vs. religious university thing to describe how I don’t think religion currently has any impact on the current situation of American education because it has become almost a non-factor in the college curriculum.