By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Bates College freshman Nathaniel Walton is a conservative student at a liberal school.

The atmosphere sometimes makes him uncomfortable. Especially in class, with certain professors.

“I’ve seen firsthand how college campuses in Maine and across the country sometimes lean to the left. So instead of classes it’s indoctrination,” said Walton, 19.

He hopes a new Academic Bill of Rights will change that.

The nonbinding resolution seeks to prevent discrimination against conservative people and ideas at the private college.

“Hopefully, the symbolic nature of it will make some people think twice about their actions,” said Walton, who sponsored the resolution.

Approved two weeks ago by a student government group, the four-page resolution calls for officials to ignore political and religious beliefs when grading students or hiring, firing and promoting faculty.

It asks professors to provide dissenting viewpoints in class and not to press their own beliefs on students.

The resolution also asks the school to offer speakers and programs that appeal to various political and religious groups and not to tolerate people who try to prevent others from exchanging ideas.

The Representative Assembly at the 1,700-student college voted unanimously for the bill of rights. Although assembly has more than 60 members, college officials said only about 14 were at the meeting to vote.

Because it was a nonbinding resolution, officials do not have to comply with the document.

In an e-mailed statement, Bates spokesman Bryan McNulty said the Representative Assembly passed the resolution a week before school ended, so most students and faculty are likely unaware of it.

Because the school already has similar policies, practices and philosophies in place, he expects people will want to debate the resolution when classes resume in the fall

Needed?

Walton, president of the Bates College Republicans, said he got the idea for the bill of rights from a national group, Students for Academic Freedom, which seeks to “end the political abuse of the university,” according to its Web site.

Walton believes Bates accepts conservative students and clubs more readily than other liberal schools, but he still feels that faculty and staff allow personal political beliefs to get in the way of academics.

In one incident that made headlines last year, a Bates administrator referred to the College Republicans as a “bunch of thugs” in an e-mail that was inadvertently sent to the Republican group.

Other incidents are less dramatic, Walton said, but still unsettling.

“A lot of times it’s about professors giving only one side of the story,” he said.

For example, a history professor earlier this year presented a totally negative profile of former President Ronald Reagan, he said.

He hopes that sort of thing will change with the Academic Bill of Rights.

“I think some of them will brush this off, but some will take a second look,” he said.

Other students aren’t so sure the resolution is needed.

Ryan Nabulsi, 21, was at the Representative Assembly meeting two weeks ago but could not vote because he is Student Government president.

Nabulsi, a political science and philosophy major who considers himself a political independent, said he sees no discrimination. He called the resolution “a nice gesture” but unwarranted at Bates.

“None of the classes I’ve ever been in have ever given just one point of view,” he said.

Bates is one of the first colleges in Maine to pass the Academic Bill of Rights. A Rockport representative submitted a similar bill to the state Legislature on behalf of Maine’s public colleges, but it died in committee last month.