When I attended college, the highlight of my educational experience was encountering a professor who encouraged "uncomfortable learning". "We learn best", he said "when we encounter the new, the different, the unfamiliar." I find myself today wondering about student exposure to points of view that are "uncomfortably" different than their own. What is the state of civil debate and diversity of thought on the college campus? After all, what is the true benefit of racial and other forms of non-academic diversity, if academic and political thought tilts invariably to the left?

 This has been a tough year for liberals. The nation is on the brink of war under a relatively popular and conservative president. Several books have emerged detailing liberal bias in the media and mainstream culture. In my opinion, liberals could have done themselves good by admitting the problem of bias and trying to do better. Instead, many have further eroded their credibility by claiming the criticisms are "silly" and protesting their objectivity in reporting. While carrying around a copy of Bernard Goldberg's book Bias under my arm, a security guard at the Museum of Science in Boston remarked to me "You don't really think the media distorts the news, do you?" Then he laughed as if anyone with a lick of sense already knew this.

 The mainstream television and print news media has simply a too narrow range of relationships, contacts and sources to do their job well. After failing to predict the recent sweep of the house and senate by Republicans in 2002, one reporter acknowledged, "if you predict Republicans or conservatives to do well in elections, you take a lot of heat in the office." When you combine this pressure with the narrow worldview you are exposed to in places like Columbia School of Journalism, the result is too often bias and distortion. If the New York Times is defending itself, as it did this week, you know the accusation must be on target. The truth is, most liberals do not even know the conservative question to ask, much less the conservative points to be advanced.

 Which brings me to the college campus. How are most campuses doing in presenting a range of opinion? The most optimistic response is probably "needs improvement." A more realistic assessment is "have no idea where to begin." And even more honest answer might be "what other opinion is there?"

 Liberal bias on the campus troubled me deeply as an undergraduate in the early 1970's at a leading liberal arts institution. After taking several religion courses, two students and I asked for a conference with three members of the religion faculty. Our awkward question was, "Could the religion department hire someone who taught religion differently?" Answer: "How would they teach it differently? The subject is what it is." But there is the rub. It can be taught differently. Religion 101 at that time dealt with the critics of theism, Feurbach, Freud and Marx. Having marshalled the case against belief, did the department think that most students already knew the case for it? I doubt one person in the class could have made it. Would it not have been more "diverse" to have read C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, or some similar work, and then let the class argue it out? Or was it the purpose of the class to inculcate skepticism, a particular result, rather than debate. I hope not. Interestingly, Harvard professor Armand Nicoli now offers a class in C.S. Lewis. Perhaps things are changing.

 My point is this. Our presuppositions have everything to do with curriculum, subject matter and speakers invited to campus. I do not object to liberal learning. It is why I chose to attend the institution I did. But if campuses are to be vital hotbeds of civilized debate, then we must all work to produce a better marketplace of ideas. I have heard rumors that some campuses are becoming more attentive to this issue. I hope that is the case. The stakes are high.

 Students will learn soon enough that the outside world does not easily embrace campus worldviews. For most people, life turns them into conservatives of some stripe. Winston Churchill said, "If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 40, you have no head." But while students have the time and inclination to entertain worldviews of all sorts, lets give them the full range. No student should have to leave campus to encounter a vigorous prosecution of conservative, Judeo-Christian ideas.

 John Pendleton