Challenging One-Sided Discourse and A Call for Academic Integrity

Annie Hirshman '24

May 15, 2024


 Last year, I took a Political Science course with a certain professor. This was not uncommon for me, as I am a Political Science major. However, for students of different majors, this particular course was required in order to obtain a liberal arts degree from Davidson College. Therefore, this class serves as a lot of students' sole exposure to the political science department. I was in the classroom with a variety of individuals, ranging from the Phi Delt jocks to the studio art majors. This classroom had everything and everyone. Since this was the first time a lot of them had taken a political science course, the dialogue and discourse was somewhat quieter. Therefore, I felt encouraged to speak up in class. I participated often, sharing my opinion on daily issues and historical events that had shaped American politics. I hoped that my voice would encourage others to participate. 

 

Sharing my opinion took a turn for the worse on a certain Wednesday morning. As the semester progressed, I noticed that the teacher was only sharing liberal skewed media sources. When they would discuss conservative matters, it had a negative connotation. They often referred to Republican politicians as a whole using derogatory terms, almost asserting that one bad apple was synonymous with the bunch. I discussed what occurred within the classroom numerous times outside, especially with my classmates that were rather conservative. They spoke of how they felt alienated in class, frightened at the outcome if they were to share their opinion. As a natural-born extrovert and rather excited by the idea of questioning the professor, I spoke up. I asked them why they chose to share only liberal-based news sources and strayed from conservative outlets in their journalistic sources. Their answer was short and sweet: because they were the only accurate sources to garner information from. I was shocked and severely taken aback by their statement. 

 

Later that day, the professor followed up with an email ‘defending’ their position. Without their intent, they confirmed that they do not “explicitly seek to include conservative outlets”. They spoke of how there was an ongoing movement to tar outlets that were not relatively conservative. They continued that accurate news sources were under attack for liberal alignment when in reality (their opinion), they were honest and true. The professor asserted that Republican politicians were guilty of executive aggrandizement for these efforts. In addition, they asserted that sources such as the New York Times and the Washington Post have been shown to have a very limited liberal bias, if any. 

 

As someone who seeks to challenge my own and other’s beliefs, I did some research to see if these statements were accurate or not. I checked multiple sources to see which sources were actually ideologically skewed. The Allsides Media Bias Chart, which collects its information based upon multi-partisan scientific analysis, including expert panels and surveys of thousands of everyday Americans, provided convincing material. It asserted that the New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post all skew left to the same extent that The Wall Street Journal skewed right. In addition, I analyzed the Ad Fontes Chart. In order to analyze their data and rate their sources, their methodology consists of multi-analyst ratings of news sources along seven categories of bias and eight of reliability. Each source is rated by an equal number of politically left-leaning, right-leaning, and centrist analysts. All analysts must hold a bachelor’s degree, while most hold a graduate degree and about one-third have obtained a doctoral degree. It argues that the Wall Street Journal is on the “skews right” section while the Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN are on the “skews left” section. 

 

The fact that Davidson supports a professor that only teaches one side is sad but not shocking. This is an ongoing issue at this college. I know for a fact that I am not the sole student who feels this way. Teachers are supposed to teach us how to think, not what to think. Through supporting professors that promote a one-sided discourse, that statement is contradicted daily. Considering that the college routinely refers to the “Davidson Experience” in a positive way, I can’t believe that this is what they have in mind. At the end of the day, solely teaching one side is indoctrination. Davidson, coming from a student who admires and cherishes you, please do better so future generations of students feel both free and encouraged to speak their mind, even if it is different than the majority.



Annie Hirshman is a 2024 Graduate of Davidson College with a degree in Political Science.

Appendix: 


The email below is from a Davidson College Professor of Political Science mentioned in the above article in response to questions about news sources brought by the author Annie Hirshman.

“Hi Annie,

 

I wanted to follow up with you about your question during class regarding why I assign a lot of content from the NYT and Washington Post (among other outlets) and don’t explicitly seek to include conservative outlets in my journalistic sources. My quick answer to you was that those two papers are the most highly regarded papers for providing factual information about American politics and have been shown to have very limited liberal bias. Since I’m all about providing evidence to back one’s claims, I wanted to send you one of the papers that confirms the non-partisan nature of these outlets http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2526461 . See, for example, the below figure, and how close the NYT and WaPo are to the center lines regarding their partisan slant (and how much more slanted some right leaning sources are – making them less appropriate to assign, in addition to – for the WSJ – much more expensive for students to access):


A broader issue is that there has been a significant effort by some politicians to tar outlets that are not explicitly right leaning (e.g., CNN, NYT, etc.) as being liberally biased. This effort has been successful, to some extent, in shifting people’s attitudes about these outlets, even though it is not actually factual. This is a pretty common technique of executives engaging in executive aggrandizement elsewhere (delegitimize media sources that might critique you so that people turn only to outlets favoring you and so that those media sources become more likely to favor you in response to your critique), and one that I think we need to be concerned about in the American case as well. It’s a real problem, because it means that students (in our case) and citizens more broadly are predisposed to see bias when presented with factual information. That undermines our ability to become accurately informed about what’s happening in American politics and government. I really really wish this was something that I could solve, but it is a much bigger problem than just our class. Nevertheless, by continuing to assign material from the two most significant papers of record in the US, I am hoping to ensure students get in the habit of reading credible, factual news and learning how to analyze the quality of what they encounter.

 

Happy to discuss this further.” 

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Written by John Craig December 10, 2025 On October 27, the Manhattan Institution’s City Journal published a major, breakthrough analysis of the performance of 100 prominent US (and one Canadian) universities and colleges, “Introducing the City Journal College Rankings,” For the first time, this new performance system includes data on measures (68 in all) like freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity tolerance, quality of instruction, investment payoff, and campus politicization that are not considered in the other major higher ed ranking systems. How did Davidson measure up in City Journal’s performance assessment? On a scale of one (bottom) to five (top) stars , Davidson is among the 63 schools that received 2 stars. Schools that, according to City Journal, have “Mostly average to below-average scores in all categories with no particularly noteworthy strengths. Significant, focused policy changes are needed at these schools.” (Full rankings available here College Rankings | Rankings ) To summarize the methodology, the City Journal team selected 100 schools that are highly touted by other ranking systems, widely known to the American public, and/or of high regional importance. The researchers gathered data on 68 variables across 21 categories covering four major aspects of on- and off-campus life. The Educational Experience categories were Faculty Ideological Pluralism, Faculty Teaching Quality, Faculty Research Quality, Faculty Speech Climate, Curricular Rigor, and Heterodox Infrastructure; the Leadership Quality categories were Commitment to Meritocracy, Support for Free Speech, and Resistance to Politicization; the Outcomes categories were Quality of Alumni Network, Value Added to Career, and Value Added to Education; and the Student Experience categories were Student Ideological Pluralism, Student Free Speech, Student Political Tolerance, Student Social Life, Student Classroom Experience, Campus ROTC, Student Community Life, and Jewish Campus Climate. No other higher ed ranking system includes as many variables. (Read more about methodology at College Rankings | Methods ) The data included publicly available information from sources such as the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the Department of Education’s College Scorecard, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s College Free Speech Rankings. The researchers also developed original measures for the project, such as the ideological balance of student political organizations and the partisan makeup of faculty campaign contributions. Each variable was coded so that higher values mean better performance and was weighted to reflect relative importance. For example, student ideological pluralism (as measured by self-reported student ideology and the left-right balance of student organizations) accounts for 5 percent of a school’s score while City Journal’s estimate of how many years it will take the typical student to recoup their educational investment to attend a given college accounts for 12.5 percent. A school’s overall score is the sum of points across the 21 categories, with the top possible score being 100. While the assessment system is for the most part hard-data-based, it has, like other ranking systems, subjective elements—like the weighing system. So methodological challenges will come and will doubtlessly lead to improvements the next time around. That said, the methodology strikes me as defensible and a marked improvement over that of other popular rating systems. I will conclude with some comments on the findings. Note that the Average score (out of 100) for the 100 institutions is 46 and the median score is 45.73—so overall, this is not a “high performance” group of institutions. No institution receives a 5-Star rating, and only two receive a 4-Star rating (University of Florida and University of Texas at Austin). Only 11 schools receive a 3-Star rating—Having “Mixed results across the four categories, showing strengths in some and weakness in others. These schools typically have several clear paths to improvement.” Because assessment scores are generally low and tightly clustered in the middle, the rankings by score are misleading: Davidson, at 51.16 with a rank of 25, looks to be in the top quartile (between Princeton and Georgetown), but in fact gets just a 2-Star assessment

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