Conservative think tank attacks Bowdoin College as liberal

In a scathing 370-page report, a conservative advocacy organization attacked a 219-year old selective private liberal arts college for its administrator, faculty, and students’ views on subjects such as diversity, climate change, gay marriage, sex, and affirmative action.

The report, produced by the conservative National Association of Scholars (NAS), was apparently commissioned by conservative businessman and chairman of the Claremont Institute, Tom Klingenstein, following a sharp exchange of words with Bowdoin College President Barry Mills during a round of golf in 2010.

For example, the report cites freshman seminars with titles like “Beyond Pocahontas: Native American Stereotypes,” “Sexual Life of Colonialism,” and another one called “Modern Western Prostitutes,” as proof of its claims that the school is liberal.

”We produced something that I don’t think has ever been done before,” NAS President Peter Wood told The Daily Caller in an interview with columnist and video-reporter Ginni Thomas published on Sunday.

”This is a really comprehensive, integrated look at what a contemporary liberal arts education looks like,” he added. “[W]e are not trying to cherry pick we are trying to put everything in its due proper place,” he added.

Mills, meanwhile, dismissed the report as as a part of personal disagreement with Klingenstein.

“Let me be clear and direct: The report by the National Association of Scholars is mean-spirited and personal,” Mills wrote in a statement to the college and alumni, according to the Boston Globe. “It exaggerates its claims and misrepresents both what we do at Bowdoin and what we stand for.”

Read more in the The Daily Caller’s long-form editorial treatment of the issue that includes an in-depth video interview with Wood.