With a relatively small student population of 12,000, the University of Northern Colorado in Greely, about an hour’s drive from Denver, features “Wisdom is Eternal” as its motto. But that lofty idea is in sharp contrast to the words used by sociology professor Kyle Nelson last week.

In an email to students enrolled in Nelson’s “Social Problems” class, she wrote, “Happy 4th of July on Wednesday — despite all the social problems we are facing and despite a ton of ugliness in our nation’s past and present, I hope each of us can find something to celebrate or honor or at least reflect on over the holiday.”

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One student was reportedly concerned about that email and sent it to Campus Reform, which reported the story. (See the video below, which shows young people trying to explain why we celebrate the Fourth of July.)

Apparently this educator — who is paid by taxpayers — has forgotten how very much the holiday means to veterans, active service members, and millions of families around the country that use the holiday to reflect on the birth of our nation. The holiday’s significance, of course, extends well beyond just one mere day of the year.

Nelson’s sensibilities as a social justice warrior are not surprising; they align with the disparate 12:1 ratio of liberal professors to conservatives on college campuses across our nation, as revealed by 2016’s Klein study, published in Econ Journal Watch. It investigated the voting registration rolls of more than 7,200 college professors at 40 of the top U.S. universities.

It found that history departments are the most left-leaning — by a ratio of 33.5 to one — while the ratio in economic departments is somewhat more balanced, at 4.5 to one.

Sociology was not one of the five departments included in the study, but in all likelihood the liberal-to-conservative ratio would also skew far to the Left, given all the course offerings on the causes and consequences of social inequality and disability; on gender; on religion; and on socio-economic inequality.

LifeZette reached out to Kyle Nelson to clarify her comments, but did not hear back by time of publication.

“Nelson implies there is little to nothing but ‘ugliness in our nation’s past and present,’ which raises the questions: Why do so many immigrants long to come here, and why would progressives want the suffering masses to come to this land of ugliness?” Laurie Higgins, a writer for the Illinois Family Institute (IFI) in Tinley Park, Illinois, told LifeZette.

“If progressives truly care about the plight of the impoverished and oppressed, why would they want them to come to a country in which there is nothing to celebrate?” she added. 

“Honest people with unclouded sight know why so many foreign-born seek refuge in America. They haven’t been indoctrinated with leftist ideology. They haven’t been taught by teachers who attend ‘white privilege’ conferences every year.”

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She added: “There has never existed a country in the history of the world that has provided more freedom, more opportunity to rise out of poverty, more racial, ethnic, and religious tolerance and integration, and more generosity than America. If Nelson can’t see this, it’s because she views the world through the distorted lens of leftist ideology.”

Case in point: Nelson’s Twitter posts speak volumes. Here’s one tweet:

Higgins added that many college students likely “have been indoctrinated throughout their childhood. They come to wrongly view the United States as a place of oppression and division. This robs minority students of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their lives.”

Related: Old Glory Is Deemed Not Inclusive Enough at This College

“And it fosters the ‘tribal warfare’ we see today,” she continued. “It’s no coincidence that a generation of kids having been propagandized by leftist political theory would become the oppressors we see today — young, arrogant people who don’t respect the Constitution, don’t demonstrate civility, and can’t see the beauty of America.”

Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor. Follow her on Twitter.