RUSH: This Michelle in Atlanta. Great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: It’s really great to be here. Thank you so much for taking my call.
RUSH: Oh, you bet.
CALLER: I called you for advice, actually. I’ve been listening to you last week, and I kind of wondered if I’m living up to my responsibility. I’m a conservative professor, but most of my students don’t know that because I have not made my classroom political.
RUSH: How old are your students?
CALLER: They’re college students.
RUSH: College students. Okay. And they don’t know you’re conservative?
CALLER: They don’t know I’m conservative because I’ve really tried not to make my classroom political. I thought that my job was to teach, you know, writing, ’cause I’m a writing professor. Unfortunately, my leftist colleagues don’t play by the same rules. So my question is this: Should I let my students know I’m a conservative and make my classroom political, or should I just keep teaching without letting my students know and keep my classroom apolitical?
RUSH: Wait. That’s not your — wait a minute. There’s another choice.
CALLER: Oh?
RUSH: You’ve got three options here, not two.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: The option I would choose is to, for lack of a better word, I’m gonna use your word, politicize your course without announcing that’s what you’re doing.
CALLER: Ahhh.
RUSH: Don’t sit there and say, “Okay, kids. I gotta come clean with you. I’ve been hiding it from you. I am a conservative.” Don’t do that! Don’t do it! Don’t label yourself.
CALLER: I shouldn’t wear my MAGA hat?
RUSH: Don’t wear a badge. Just start teaching conservative ideas and principles melded with however you’re teaching creative writing or English comp, whatever your course is.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Use examples of conservative belief, which is just common sense. I mean, you can use stories of the Founding Fathers that I guarantee you your kids don’t know because they haven’t been taught. You can use any number of ways to expose the conservative mind-set without labeling it
CALLER: That’s a good idea.
RUSH: Yeah. Just teach what you believe. But don’t label it as “I’m politicizing this, I’m doing this in response to my leftist colleagues.” Just incorporate it.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Just be who you are and let that example shine through and use whatever examples of writing that you want to show the students as really great writing. Choose conservative writers. But don’t say that they’re conservative writers. Don’t identify them as Republican or conservative or anything. Just expose them to the actual thoughts, ideas, principles themselves without any labels attached to it.
Because if you label it, the odds are one student’s gonna go to the administration and complain that you have politicized the class and that you are creating a hostile environment. Don’t do any of that. Just be who you are and teach what you believe with the examples — they’re abundant that you can find that show great writing, great skill, great technique, however you teach it, and incorporate your own value base, your own value system into what you teach and how you’re teaching it and let that be what connects with them.
CALLER: Well, that’s good advice. Thank you so much. I’m so glad I asked.
RUSH: Yeah. If I were in your shoes and had the same question, that’s what I would do. I would be unable to do it because if I walked in I’d be recognized as, quote, unquote, a conservative. But since you haven’t labeled yourself that way yet, you can. And, by the way, for those of you out there, I’m not suggesting we can’t be proud of it. I’m saying we’re already targets even before they know who we are. Just don’t make yourself a bigger target.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: You know what you’re gonna find? You’re gonna find that a lot of these kids are gonna respond wonderfully to what you’re teaching them. They’re gonna react, “Oh, this is cool.” The minute you tell them it’s conservative, they have been conditioned to think it’s racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and they’re gonna reject it. So don’t label it.
CALLER: That’s very true. Yeah. There’s a lot of us out there that are conservative professors, but we’re not willing to stick our necks out and let anyone know, so —
RUSH: Understandably! Understandably! I mean, a liberal professor at a school in Ohio is in trouble because he will not call a guy who wants to be a woman “ma’am.”
CALLER: I saw that. And I was listening to you, and I thought about what he said, what if I just call you by your name. But I’ve had transgender students in my classroom and their names have not been changed on the roster.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: So they still have their birth name, which is not necessarily lined up with their transgender identity.
RUSH: Right. So if you have Richard, if you have Dick in the class who wants to be Susan, and he thinks —
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: — he’s Susan but you call him Dick, you’re in trouble?
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: So that was something that wasn’t written into the story.
RUSH: Yeah. See, that’s just another example — I’m not saying hide it. I’m not saying act embarrassed. Just don’t make yourself a target going in because that will get in the way of what the real intent here is to inculcate conservatism. By the way, I’ll tell you something else here, Michelle. You asked me if you think you should politicize. I don’t think this is politicization. You’re simply instructing people.
You’re using a personal code of values and a belief system that you’re gonna incorporate here with your curriculum, with your course of study. And your purpose is to teach. You’re trying to teach them to write well, and you’re gonna use certain examples here that you hope will influence them to do that. That’s not politicizing. You’re trying to do your job the best you can.
The politicization is when the course is corrupted by the politicization of the left where those kids are being turned into not good writers, but rather leftist activists and so forth. You’re not trying to do that. You’re doing the right thing. So don’t think you’re politicizing things.