If you bought a car only to discover that it came with no passenger door, you might be upset, and rightfully so. You paid for a full car and got something less than that. And if you banded together with other consumers who have been ripped off the same way, you’d be hailed as a consumer hero.

Most cars cost far less than four years at college, which now averages over $100,000 for a four-year undergraduate degree. Yet, like the car that comes with a major part missing, many colleges provide educations that are unbalanced and incomplete. Sometimes, you might sign up for an English class only to find out that it is really a class on politics. (This happened to me in a freshman English class at Bucknell.)

An alumni group at UCLA, the Bruin Alumni Association, is fighting back against such consumer rip-offs by letting the public know which professors are inappropriately injecting politics into the classroom:

“We’re just trying to get people back on a professional level of things. Having been a student myself up until 2003, and then watching what other students like myself have gone through, I’m very concerned about the level of professional teaching at UCLA,” said [former UCLA student Andrew] Jones, who said he is supporting himself with a modest salary from the organization and is its only full-time employee.

Needless to say, some professors are upset that alumni and students are demanding that professors perform the job function for which they’re being paid:

“Any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism. Any decent American is going to see through this kind of right-wing propaganda. I just find it has no credibility,” [education professor Peter McLaren] said.

The [Bruin Alumni Association] website also lists history professor Ellen DuBois, saying she “is in every way the modern female academic: militant, impatient, accusatory, and radical — very radical.” In response, DuBois said: “This is a totally abhorrent invitation to students to participate in a witch hunt ... against their professors.”

But DuBois minimized the effect on campus, saying “it’s not even clear this is much other than the ill-considered action of a handful, if that, of individuals.”

Interesting spin. Merely quoting professors and warning potential students (consumers) about what they can expect in certain classrooms is considered “reactionary” “McCarthyism,” “right-wing propaganda” and an “abhorrent” “witch hunt.” I wonder if these professors feel the same way when 60 Minutes or 20/20 exposes the malfeasance of other businesses that are engaged in consumer rip-offs.

[Cross-posted at the On The Fence Films website.]