Requiring Students to Vote

Predictions about the seismic wave of new young voters that would head to the polls in 2004 proved to be mostly just talk. But before the election, George Leef took issue with a Drew University professor who compelled her English students to vote, and did so for what she admitted were personal reasons. Published on the National Association of Scholars online forum and on the site of the Foundation for Economic Education, Leef explained that this behavior is an abuse of a professor’s power. “The job of an English professor is to teach English. That’s it,” he wrote. What’s more, there are reasons why some people don’t want to vote and it should remain their choice to be uninvolved. “With her ‘you must vote because I say so’ attitude, she has set a bad example and given a small boost to the authoritarianism she things she is combating,” Leef concluded.