Stephen Colbert features CSUEB history professor on 'The Colbert Report'

• April 9, 2012 5:00am

In an interview originally done by CBS 5 News in San Francisco, Cal State East Bay History Department Chair Nancy Thompson refutes charges by Presidential candidate Rick Santorum that "... the California universities.... don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught.”

Comedian Stephen Colbert replayed Thompson's interview for his national The Colbert Report audience on the Comedy Central cable network. "That is an outrage. American history should be one of the cornerstones of college education," Colbert said with feigned indignance. "The only thing that would be more outrageous is if this were true."

As it turns out, all the California state universities and all but one UC school offer American history courses; the only one that doesn't, UC San Francisco, is a medical school. Thompson explained, "I think he just kind of pulled it out... I don’t know where he pulled it out of."

Watch The Colbert Report video (CSUEB appears at 1:39)

Read Late Night: Colbert rips Santorum's false claims about California schools

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