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| Colorado State Senator Attacks University Bias |
| 2004-01-19 |
| A well-known conservative is reaching out to state lawmakers to beat back what he claims is rampant political bias against students and faculty who do not agree with a pervasive liberal orthodoxy in state schools across the country. As a result, leaders in several states are reportedly working on anti-bias legislation, including Colorado state Sen. John Andrews. Andrews told Foxnews.com that lawmakers in the state General Assembly plan to introduce a bill in coming weeks that would require state college and university officials to educate students and faculty better about their rights against political and ideological bias by other professors and administrators. "We want every student to be well advised that if they experience this kind of discrimination, the university wants to provide for them a remedy," he said. Andrews, a Republican, pursued the legislation after months of investigating complaints from students, surveying school policies and holding hearings at the state Capitol. At those December hearings, students accused liberal professors of discrimination, intimidation and refusing to fund conservative speakers on campus. Reports that Andrews had conferred with conservative activist David Horowitz, and that the proposed legislation might be patterned after Horowitzâs "Academic Bill of Rights," sparked a media firestorm last fall. Lies! All Lies! "It was one of the most egregious dog and pony shows Iâve seen in years," he said. "There are a lot more important issues, specifically, how are we going to be able to keep Colorado colleges and universities from going bankrupt.â By tightening the belt and cutting pet Joel Tagert, a sophomore at Metropolitan State College of Denver, said he believed the complaints had arisen from a well-organized group of college conservatives, and called the proposed measures at the state level "a sort of witch-hunt for liberals, creating a climate of fear on campus." And we all know only liberals are allowed to conduct witch-hunts. Officials for Colorado University said they were not aware of any pattern of bias, and pointed to internal processes that already exist to assist the aggrieved. They are not in favor of the Legislature getting involved. Obviously the internal process are not working. Wasnât there a posting awhile back about a person being physically threatened by latinos for having anti-ILLEGAL immigration viewpoints? Andrews said his legislation is not as ambitious as Horowitzâs Academic Bill of Rights, and does not call for "snitching," or a hiring quota for conservative professors. It simply asks administrators to be more forthright about educating everyone about grievance procedures. "The howls of pain have come from the academic establishment, the academic left, which suggests to me that they are terrified of having their cozy little monopoly broken up by the winds of competing ideas," he said. Translation: The left is Seething again... Meanwhile, Horowitz told Foxnews.com that he is working with lawmakers in 10 states to pursue legislation along the lines of his Academic Bill of Rights. In part, the bill is meant to ensure that professors do not use the classroom to indoctrinate students to their particular viewpoint, that an intellectual array of speakers are invited to campus-sponsored events and that hired faculty, curricula and reading lists reflect all viewpoints of a given discipline. In short the professors should do their farking jobs. A concurrent resolution with similar tenets was introduced in the U.S. Congress by Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., in October and was referred to the Committee on Education and the Workforce. Horowitz would not name the states hammering out legislation because he said due to the "violence of the reaction" in Colorado, lawmakers have gotten skittish and prefer to nail down their plans before announcing them publicly. He said he has personally visited 250 campuses, and is disgusted with the examples of abuse he has heard. "These teachers have forgotten their professional obligations," he said. He pointed to well-publicized complaints in recent years of professors haranguing students over their pro-war stance, including Rosalyn Kahn, a California professor who was placed on administrative leave in 2003 for forcing her students to write letters to President Bush protesting the war in Iraq. "I taught at the University of Maryland when I was a Marxist revolutionary and I would have never abused the classroom in that way," said Horowitz, a former leftist radical-turned-conservative activist. Sara Dogan, a 2000 Yale University graduate who runs Students for Academic Freedom, said hundreds of students on at least 105 campuses are starting their own chapters, many with the goal of pursuing an Academic Bill of Rights. The American Association of University Professors has come out against Horowitzâs doctrine, claiming that it "undermines the very academic freedom it claims to support." By exposing students to non-left viewpoints? AAUP spokesman Jonathan Knight said while there might be isolated examples of abusive behavior on the part of liberal professors, "we have seen nothing to suggest that the very foundations of the higher education system are close to being in jeopardy." Obviously hasnât been to a SF University Central Connecticut State University history professor Jay Bergman would beg to differ. He said he has long been the target of hostility because of his public position against race-based hiring practices and his call for intellectual diversity in the state university system. In May, two fellow professors suggested he was a racist because he questioned why a CCSU-sponsored conference on slave reparations hadnât included any speakers who dissented from the pro-reparations point of view. Professors C. Charles Mate-Kole and Evelyn Phillips said in a statement that anyone who protested reparations "stood on the same platform that produced apartheid, Hitler and the KKK." Standard Liberal technique. Instead of rasional discussion resort to name calling. Bergman said hostility from within the school system has driven proponents of intellectual diversity to the state legislatures. "Since most administrations are reluctant to favor real intellectual diversity, sometimes external pressure has to be exerted and the Academic Bill of Rights is one pressure." |
| Posted by:CrazyFool |
| #8 This is from a Curmudgeonly posting on 1/15 about Chapel Hill (It's not France but it could be) and frogistan (which is a read itself): "This doesn't surprise me at all. I almost got thrown out of my Anthropology class last semester for calling "bullshit" on the instructor when she started lauding Chomsky and Charlie Rose(!) as pillars of modern thinking. Academia is rife with these folks, and they are ceaseless and shameless in their pursuit of the liberal agenda. Side note: I just started a Contemporary Lit class the other day, and the instructor gave a quiz: 1) What it the only country who has ever exploded an atomic weapon in anger? 2) Which country possesses the most WMDs? 3) Does Islam recognize the Christian God? 4) When is the last time the US declared war? There were six more, along the same lines, but I was so effing pissed off I can't remember them. This kind of shit in a LITERATURE class!" Steve |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-1-19 11:29:23 PM |
| #7 Revoking tenure is one option. Having school Vouchers for public K-12 schools is another. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-1-19 9:53:02 PM |
| #6 Eventually the market will begin to provide conservative alternatives to the annoyingly liberal indoctrinators. Students will begin to vote with their feet. Sucessful capitalist alumni will begin to withhold donations. Most of the successful administrators keep a wetted finger in the air and will begin to leash the real kooks once ballot initiatives begin to appear. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-19 9:37:33 PM |
| #5 "There are a lot more important issues, specifically, how are we going to be able to keep Colorado colleges and universities from going bankrupt.â By revoking tenure. Market-based solutions at their finest! |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-1-19 8:22:08 PM |
| #4 CF: Your comment regarding someone being physically threatened sounds just like a case at a local high school. The president of a conservative student group must be escorted to every class as a result of physical threats. A high school fer cryin' out loud. Police have been called to break up some serious disturbances as a result. I thought the Libs were all about "inclusiveness", "free speech" and let's not forget ..."tolerence". Did I miss a memo somewhere? |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2004-1-19 8:00:53 PM |
| #3 Hey all. I go to a college that is thought of as very liberal, in a politically liberal city (Boston). While I am a democrat, I am a moderate to conservative one, and found that I have gotten more conservative during my time here on many issues. I have also at one point or another debated with many professors on political topics where they were much further to the left than I was (the war in Iraq for example, which I supported). Sometimes these debates happened in class, and I never once thought that my views put me in any danger of not doing well in a certain class. While most of my Professors tend to be more liberal, they dont push their views on you, and have always been open to healthy debate on said views. Maybe this isn't widespread, but I think as a whole Professors arent going to be overly aggressive with their views. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2004-1-19 7:32:46 PM |
| #2 I teach at a community college and am probably one of only a handful of conservative teachers. I'm constantly having debates with other liberal instructors about liberal vs. conservative viewpoints and they often resort to yelling at me and namecalling. I've finally given up even having a political discussion with them. In the classroom urge my students to look at both sides of any issue and often point out discrepancies in what they have heard. In some classes they have to do a project about a social issue and MUST point out both sides of the issue. We had a faculty member fired last year because she wasn't doing her job (she was on probation). Instead she was using the classroom to indoctrinate her students especially against the war. Many students complained especially as it had nothing to do with the course topic. She's now suing for wrongful termination. My son is in high school and he often tells me of a teacher who tries to teach liberal ideas as fact in the classroom. He's lucky in that when he tells me what has been said I tell him the other viewpoint and often the facts. He's also lucky in that he has had some teachers that have been quite honest that the books they have to use are biased and sometimes downright wrong. Unfortunately, many students (I see them every day at school) have not had parents who teach them otherwise or have only had the broadcast news as their sole basis of news. I'm lucky in that I'm at an institution that doesn't hold it against me that I'm a conservative. I do my job and that's all that matters. But if I were elsewhere I doubt I'd have this much liberty. Students are beginning to wise up though. That's why we seeing things like in Colorado happen. |
| Posted by: AF Lady 2004-1-19 6:53:37 PM |
| #1 In part, the bill is meant to ensure that professors do not use the classroom to indoctrinate students to their particular viewpoint, that an intellectual array of speakers are invited to campus-sponsored events and that hired faculty, curricula and reading lists reflect all viewpoints of a given discipline. They'll just start the indoctrination at an earlier point. My ex-roomate's kid (age 10) told me that the teacher in his class was talking about Global Warming&trade. Yeah, like that's going to seriously be on the mind of a 10 year old. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-1-19 6:17:53 PM |