----- Forwarded message from dweiner@austin.rr.com -----
Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 09:26:01 -0600
From: david weiner <dweiner@austin.rr.com>
Reply-To: david weiner <dweiner@austin.rr.com>
Subject: Academic cleansing begins
"Jennie Mae Brown told her Pennsylvania state representative, Gibson
C. Armstrong, that she felt a physics professor's comments in the
classroom about President Bush and Iraq were inappropriate....The
encounter has blossomed into an official legislative inquiry, putting
Pennsylvania in the middle of a national debate spurred by
conservatives over whether public universities are promoting largely
liberal positions and discriminating against students who disagree
with them." Full text below.
NYTIMES
Professors' Politics Draw Lawmakers Into the Fray
While attending a Pennsylvania Republican Party picnic, Jennie Mae
Brown bumped into her state representative and started venting.
Skip to next paragraph
Bradley C. Bower for The New York Times
Jennie Mae Brown told her Pennsylvania state representative, Gibson C.
Armstrong, that she felt a physics professor's comments in the
classroom about President Bush and Iraq were inappropriate.
"How could this happen?" Ms. Brown asked Representative Gibson C.
Armstrong two summers ago, complaining about a physics professor at
the York campus of Pennsylvania State University who she said
routinely used class time to belittle President Bush and the war in
Iraq. As an Air Force veteran, Ms. Brown said she felt the teacher's
comments were inappropriate for the classroom.
The encounter has blossomed into an official legislative inquiry,
putting Pennsylvania in the middle of a national debate spurred by
conservatives over whether public universities are promoting largely
liberal positions and discriminating against students who disagree with them.
A committee held two hearings last month in Pittsburgh and has
scheduled another for Jan. 9 in Philadelphia. A final report with any
recommendations for legislative remedy is due in June.
The investigation comes at a time when David Horowitz, a conservative
commentator and president of the Center for the Study of Popular
Culture, has been lobbying more than a dozen state legislatures to
pass an "Academic Bill of Rights" that he says would encourage free
debate and protect students against discrimination for expressing
their political beliefs.
While Mr. Horowitz insists his campaign for intellectual diversity is
nonpartisan, it is fueled, in large measure, by studies that show the
number of Democratic professors is generally much larger than the
number of Republicans. A survey in 2003 by researchers at Santa Clara
University found the ratio of Democrats to Republicans on college
faculties ranged from 3 to 1 in economics to 30 to 1 in anthropology.
Mr. Horowitz said he was pushing for legislation only because schools
across the country were ignoring their own academic freedom
regulations and a founding principle of the American Association of
University Professors, which says schools are better equipped to
regulate themselves without government intervention.
"It became apparent to me that universities have a problem," he said
in an interview. "And nothing was being done about it."
Mr. Horowitz and his allies are meeting forceful resistance wherever
they go, by university officials and the professors association, which
argues that conservatives are overstating the problem and, by seeking
government action, are forcing their ideology into the classroom.
"Mechanisms exist to address these glitches and to fix them," said
Joan Wallach Scott, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in
Princeton, N.J., and former chairwoman of the professors association
committee on academic freedom, in testimony at the Pennsylvania
Legislature's first hearing. "There is no need for interference from
outside legislative or judicial agencies."
In a debate with Mr. Horowitz last summer, Russell Jacoby, a history
professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, portrayed Mr.
Horowitz's approach as heavy-handed. "It calls for committees or
prosecutors to monitor the lectures and assignments of teachers," he
said. "This is a sure-fire way to kill free inquiry and whatever
abuses come with it."
So far, the campaign has produced more debate than action. Colorado
and Ohio agreed to suspend legislative efforts to impose an academic
bill of rights in favor of pledges by their state schools to uphold
standards already in place. Georgia passed a resolution discouraging
"political or ideological indoctrination" by teachers, encouraging
them to create "an environment conducive to the civil exchange of ideas."
While comparable efforts failed in three other states, measures are
pending in 11 others. In Congress, House and Senate committees passed
a general resolution this year encouraging American colleges to
promote "a free and open exchange of ideas" in their classrooms and to
treat students "equally and fairly." It awaits floor action next year.
Mr. Horowitz's center has spawned a national group called Students for
Academic Freedom that uses its Web site to collect stories from
students who say they have been affected by political bias in the
classroom. The group says it has chapters on more than 150 campuses.
The student group has fielded concerns from people like Nathaniel
Nelson, a former student at the University of Rhode Island and a
conservative, who said a philosophy teacher he had during his junior
year referred often to his own homosexuality and made clear his
dislike for Mr. Bush.
Mr. Nelson, now a graduate student at the University of Connecticut,
said in an interview that the teacher frequently called on him to
defend his conservative values while making it clear he did not care
for Republicans.
"On the first day of class, he said, 'If you don't like me, get out of
my class,' " Mr. Nelson said. "But it was the only time that fall the
course was being offered, and I wanted to take it."
Marissa Freimanis said she encountered a similar situation in her
freshman English class at California State University, Long Beach,
last year. Ms. Freimanis said the professor's liberal bias was clear
in the class syllabus, which suggested topics for members of the class
to write about. One was, "Should Justice Sandra Day O'Connor be
impeached for her partisan political actions in the Bush v. Gore case?"
"Of course, I felt very uncomfortable," Ms. Freimanis, who is a
Republican, said in an interview.
In Pennsylvania, lawmakers are examining whether the political climate
at 18 state-run schools requires legislation to ban bias. Mr.
Armstrong said he discussed the issue in several conversations with
Mr. Horowitz "as an expert in the field" before calling for the
creation of a committee.
"But I don't know if his Academic Bill of Rights is necessary in
Pennsylvania," Mr. Armstrong said in an interview. "Before we have
legislation to change a problem, we first have to determine whether
the problem exists. If it does exist, the next question is, 'Is it
significant enough to require legislation?' "
"So the question I'm asking," he added, "is, 'Do we have a problem in
Pennsylvania?' "
For now, the answer is unclear. While Mr. Armstrong said he had
received complaints from "about 50 students" who said they were
intimidated by professors expressing strong political views,
Democratic members of the committee have called the endeavor a waste
of time, and the Republican chairman, Representative Thomas L.
Stevenson, seemed to agree.
"If our report were issued today," Mr. Stevenson said, "I'd say our
institutions of higher education are doing a fine job."