Free Republic

The left-leaning faction that dominates American higher education doesn't take kindly to strangers -- particularly those who challenge the prevailing academic orthodoxies. Just ask Harvard's Larry Summers. Or consider the escalating governance controversy at Dartmouth College. A few reformers have achieved a bit of influence, and now the New Hampshire school's insular establishment is doing everything it can to run them out of Hanover. Since 1891, Dartmouth has been among the handful of colleges and universities that allows alumni to elect leaders directly... In practice, the Trustees have been largely ornamental overseers, rubber-stamping the management decisions of the "progressive" college...

The U.S. interstate highway system was built to give military tanks easy access to the inner cities in order to put down the expected revolution by black militants. The technocrats who died in the Twin Towers were the equivalent of little Adolph Eichmans. The United States government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks for its own benefit. The above three statements were all theories proffered by college professors: the first at Chicago State University in 1969, and the second by professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado in 2001. The third and most recent is by professor Kenneth Barrett at the...

Not too long ago I wrote an article entitled Women’s MisStudies about a debate between Professor Mike Adams of University of North Carolina-Wilmington and Dean Gay L. Gullickson of University of Maryland College Park. The debate was over Women’s Studies programs and Women’s Resource Centers. Included in my article was this passage: “I was able to ask Gullickson how she can say that women’s studies is good for research when, as Carrie Lukas points out in her new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism, these texts have misinformation and missing information that women need to make...

Polls that show public confidence in college professors as well as in grade and high-school classroom teachers are not inconsistent with other survey findings that show bias on the part of pedagogues everywhere. “In addition to doctors and teachers, those rounding out the top five of generally trusted occupations and professions are scientists (77%), police officers (76%) and professors (75%),” the results of a Harris poll released on August 8th show. “Conversely, the five occupations that are least trusted to be truthful include actors (26%), lawyers (27%), stockbrokers (29%), trade union leaders (30%) and opinion pollsters (34%),” Harris interactive goes...

Dissident Arab Gets the Treatment by Ahmad Al-Qloushi What Ahmad Al Qloushi says: * "The Borders of [Israel] should be from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River" * "America and Israel are great democracies" * "I could never believe how Jews were portrayed in my school in Kuwait" * "When I met a Jewish person in America for the first time my initial beliefs were confirmed" * "Walid Shoebat is a brave man and incredible human being and has done more for the Arab world in a short time than all Arab leaders put together" I am a 17-year-old Kuwaiti...

I really appreciate the question. I personally think it is very important to address current politics and wars in our classes. Unfortunately, given the many attacks on academic freedom over the last few years, this has become more important and more difficult. --snip-- On another note, a colleague recently e-mailed me that she is trying to get the American Studies Association to include an emergency panel at the 2006 meeting addressing the current war in Lebanon but has not made much headway. She contacted me because the roundtable I co-organized for ASA will be on issues related to the U.S...

Grove City College publishes an excellent newsletter titled "Visions and Values." Its July 2006 edition features an interview with Dr. Richard Pipes, acclaimed Russian historian and Harvard University professor of Sovietology. The interview was conducted by Grove City College professor of political science Dr. Paul Kengor. Dr. Pipes, who served on the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, explained that there are actually only a few communists among academics. At first glance, that's a puzzling observation, given the leftist bias at most college campuses. Drs. Pipes and Kengor explain the puzzle in a way that makes perfect sense. While...

Hired by the University of Wisconsin to teach “Islam: Religion and Culture,” this fall at the Madison campus, Kevin Barrett believes that the 9/11 attacks on America were planned and executed by the U.S. government and not the work of terrorists. Barrett co-founded Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth. Barrett’s views have caused a divide in Wisconsin. Barrett and university officials have stated that Barrett’s personal views will not be discussed or taught in the class. Supporters of Barrett argue that he has the right to academic freedom. Some state legislatures called for the university to fire Barrett immediately. So which...

"'I can't imagine that CU is going to suddenly decide the First Amendment deserves some respect,' Lane said. He said Churchill would sue if the firing is upheld.'...'Ward Churchill compared WTC victims to Holocaust Nazi'"-CNN article, Tuesday, June 27, 2006 Leave it to the leftist media to distort the truth. Churchill was NOT fired for his atrocious comments about the victims of 911 as they imply. He was fired for academic misconduct. Only down near the end of the CNN article do they add: "The school's committee on research misconduct said Churchill 'has committed serious, repeated, and deliberate research misconduct.'"...

How dare American occupiers conduct an air raid against peace activist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi! ....

Three-time New York Times bestselling author David Horowitz discusses and signs his book "The Professors: The 100 Most Dangerous Academics in America," at the Nixon Library, Monday, May 15 (10:30a.m.)

"I mean, this is a person who, not too many years from now, we may be seeing in front of a war crimes tribunal."Juliet Schor is a professor of sociology at Boston College. She has written a number of books analyzing the American labor market. What I have quoted is an obvious acknowledgement by an extensively trained, well executed professional of academe, providing her insight on the future of Saddam Hussein or Usama bin Laden. However, I would be lying. The person Ms. Schor refers to is United States Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice. Madamn Secretary is slated to receive...

IF his presidency ended now, US President George W. Bush would go down in history as a failure, according to a majority of US college history and political science professors surveyed across America. And, 67 per cent of the 744 professors responding to the survey conducted by Siena College's Research Institute said they doubted Mr Bush "has a realistic chance of improving his rating" during his remaining time in office. The results of the survey were made public by the Albany-area research institute. "While time is needed to fairly and accurately gauge how well any president ranks with his predecessors,...

PoliticsInTheClassroom.com is a new site dedicated to helping students put politically biased professors on record. Visit the Site: Politics in the ClassroomIt seems like almost every other week the antics of politically biased teachers and administrators make national headlines. Teachers need to stop indoctrinating and get back to educating. This site seems like a good idea, at least in the sense that it might deter biased teachers from imposing their political views on students.

A University of Chicago professor has ignited an intellectual firestorm in halls of ivy and corridors of power with an essay in a highbrow British journal. Writing in the London Review of Books, John Mearsheimer, a U. of C. political scientist, and his academic partner, Harvard University professor Stephen Walt, offered a simple diagnosis for what ails U.S. foreign policy. How did we get involved in a seemingly endless Iraq war? Why are we reviled in Muslim countries and targeted by terrorists? "Why," they asked, "has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to...

One of the most egregious manifestations of academic arrogance has been the effort to ban the military from campus – specifically military recruiters and the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). So many colleges and universities participated in this action that, in 1994, a law was finally passed by the Congress mandating that if a university wants to continue to receive federal funds then they have to permit the military to recruit. This law was challenged in court by several law schools. The "Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR)," a group of law schools and professors, sued the Secretary of...

But back to the Hope lingering there in the box. In some versions of the myth, it’s not a foolish hope but a rational one... I want to think optimistically and so postulate a scenario such as this: Iraq does fall into civil war. The surrounding countries all become involved. The U.S. does go ahead with its Iran attack plans. . . the U.S. [further] curtails basic rights. The “Shiite Crescent” erupts . . . the Islamic world recoils in horror at U.S. behavior . . . European public opinion turns . . . against the U.S. and the NATO...

THE MOST leftist-dominated institution in American life today is our system of higher education. Studies have shown that liberal faculty members outnumber conservatives in some disciplines by 30 to 1. At colleges and universities all over the country, the watchwords are "tolerance" and "diversity" - which, in the university world, means a community where everyone looks different but thinks alike. By now, the evidence of leftist dominance is so overwhelming that no one can credibly dispute it. But does that dominance really present a problem? Not to the left (of course). They would argue that their universities are havens of...

While the anti-war movement of the 1960s was led by students, today’s campus demonstrations are just as likely to be orchestrated by professors; and the funny thing is, they are the same people. “The generation that came of age in the 1960s is now approaching retirement in the universities and their children and grandchildren are very different in the way they think about the world,” historian David Hackett Fischer said in an interview with The American Enterprise (TAE) magazine. “The excesses of these movements always build in their own contradictions.” Some observers who survey the college scene might argue that...

Nine of the "101 Most Dangerous Academics in America" teach at Columbia University, according to a new book by conservative activist David Horowitz. The book, "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America," published by Regnery, profiles 101 professors from campuses across the country. "Columbia is a national scandal," Mr. Horowitz told The New York Sun in a telephone interview. "That a serious, top-tier university ... is an ideological fortress is an emblem of the utter debasement of the academic endeavor." His book lists several professors from the university's department of Middle East and Asian languages and cultures, including...