our mission

During the second weekend of 2004.09, a group of conservative filmmakers came together at the American Film Renaissance Festival in Texas. Realizing that Michael Moore had successfully used the documentary format in films such as Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 to expose moviegoers to liberal ideas typically misunderstood in American society, conservatives began producing their own documentaries in an attempt to move their own ideologies into this format. Among the most pressworthy of the films at the American Film Renaissance Festival was Brainwashing 101, a forty-five minute "preview" of a larger documentary set to be released in 2005. Brainwashing 101, produced by On the Fence Films LLC with Evan Coyne Maloney (the film's director) placing himself in the Michael Moore antagonist role on-camera, argues that our nation's universities force radical liberal ideologies onto their students and actively censor expressions of conservative values.

That such a climate is pervasive in America's colleges is not a new argument; conservative talking heads have been rendering this charge for several years now, most notably Dinesh D'Souza in his book Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, which led to the term "political correctness" (P.C.) entering America's vocabulary. Then as is now, the arguments offered by the conservatives are illogical, misleading, or just plain false:

• Occurrences of right-wing speech being censored on college campuses are treated as the norm, when they are not. Likewise, occurrences of left-wing speech being censored are ignored or treated as lies, when they are very much real.
• Conservative tenets such as "the United States can do no wrong" and "big business knows what's best for our lives" are put on a pedestal, and are considered beyond debate. Anyone who challenges these assumptions is branded a socialist and an America-hater.
• The notion that there are groups of people who have been discriminated against and underrepresented in academic canon -- women, people of non-European descent, non-heterosexuals -- is considered a blasphemy. Programmes such as women's/gender studies, African-American studies and queer studies are assailed for an alleged lack of practical (capitalistic) value.
• Subsequently, any attempts to adjust existing programmes to present a wider diversity of cultures and opinions, whether adding Toni Morrison's books to a class on American Literature or a History of Jazz class in a Department of Music, are derided. The ideal educational experience to conservatives is considered to be buried in the past and unchangeable over time, consisting nearly entirely of the thoughts of dead white European Christian males.
• Most importantly, conservatives attack our college campuses today for allegedly having a liberal bias, for being institutes of political indoctrination instead of education, and not allowing conservative ideas to be expressed on campus. All the while, the people making these arguments have an obvious conservative bias, would use our colleges to press their ideology on students, and actively work to suppress existing expressions of liberal ideas on our campuses today.

D'Souza's work in this area in the 1990s was largely ineffectual, only succeeding in bringing phrases such as "the differently abled" and "people of size" into our common lexicon. However, the climate in America is much different now than it was when D'Souza first made his arguments about academia. Conservative control the White House and Congress, and are increasing their majorities in courts throughout the country, from the local and state levels all the way up to the Supreme Court. Big business' power over ordinary Americans has increased substantially, and conservative politicians continue to make it easier for these companies to increase that power and advance their misanthropic ideologies on the general public. A coordinated network of right-wing ideologues, from politicians to religious leaders to talk radio hosts to national news networks, make use of our media-dependent culture by broadcasting a unified message through all available channels of communication with alarming synchronicity.

Combined with other right-wing tactics (fear-mongering following the September 11th attacks, altering the national debate into one of style over substance), conservatives have a near-stranglehold on the American consciousness and soul. It is likely that when the full documentary on the alleged liberal bias in academia is released, conservatives will force the film into the national spotlight and trumpet the film's assertions as indisputable fact, leading to a misguided reexamination of our universities.

As free-thinking and active liberals, we cannot allow this to happen. Therefore, mere weeks after Brainwashing 101 was first screened, maloneysbaloney.org was launched. (The site takes its name from Brainwashing 101 director Maloney.) This site exists to be a running rebuttal to both Brainwashing 101 and the full-length documentary planned for release by On the Fence Films LLC in 2005. In addition, this Website will also debunk claims about liberal bias in academia from other sources, and shed light on the censorship of liberal ideas in colleges throughout the country. Through rhetorical analysis, fact-checking, and presenting the side of this story conservatives don't want you to hear, maloneysbaloney.org will expose the conservative attack on academia for what it is: a thinly-veiled attempt to turn our higher education system into an institution for conservative indoctrination.

We hope you enjoy your visits to maloneysbaloney.org and find the content within thought-provoking.

- Sean Shannon, 2004.10.25