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Source: David Horowitz, Frontpage

The pathetic, incompetent dishonest leftwing press and academic freedom

Sunday, September 12, 2004 9:13 AM

The big news these days about viciously partisan journalism concerns the disgraceful Dan Rather, a Democratic Party hack posing as a TV news anchor while doing his best to torpedo the candidacy of a Republican president, even if it takes forgeries to make his "news" stories work. Actually, the press at the national level is relatively honest when compared to the abysmal ethics of local news agencies. I won't rehearse the miserable performance of the Colorado media in reporting our campaign for academic freedom in Colorado last year, which I have written about before and which is available at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org (check out the left hand frame "The Battle for Academic Freedom in Colorado."

Consider the lead feature in frontpage today, which describes in a factual way the momentous victory we have won in Colorado for the academic freedom of Colorado's students. Until now, professors of law teaching property law were allowed to label all Republicans "racists" in the classrom and attack their own students and call them "Nazis" when they objected. Thanks to our efforts we have changed this. Naturally we created enemies in doing so -- in particular the professors who enjoyed bullying conservative students in their classrooms and their allies in university administrations and the Democratic Party. Some of these professors, like Dr. Oneida Meranto at Metro State are loons, as anyone familiar with her antics would know -- she invited an Indian shaman to campus to burn incense and exorcise the evil spirits of the Republicans whom she claimed were harassing her. A woman with a rich fantasy life she has also claimed that she was the target of "death threats" -- although no credible evidence was produced.

So how do the AP and CNN report this story? As a long overdue triumph for academic freedom? Hardly. They do it by putting the loon front and center, inverting victims and victimizers, and in effect concealing what actually took place. This is the lead of the AP Wire (as regurgitated on the CNN website): "A university president and a Democratic state lawmaker said rules put in place this year to protect conservative views on Colorado campuses have led to death threats against professors and a harmful effect on free speech. Republican lawmakers responded that conservative students still are being harassed and more needs to be done. A handful of college officials and students went before the Legislature's Joint Education Committee on Thursday to report on efforts to enforce the Academic Bill of Rights. All state-funded colleges adopted the policy this year under pressure from Republican lawmakers."

The account continues: "A handful of college officials and students went before the Legislature's Joint Education Committee on Thursday to report on efforts to enforce the Academic Bill of Rights." The "handful of college officials" were all the presidents of all the major public universities in the state. "Professors at Metropolitan State College in Denver are concerned that some topics may be off-limits in the classroom, interim president Ray Kieft told lawmakers. He cited discussions of stem cell research, a lightning-rod issue for some Republicans who claim it amounts to abortion." These are the loons talking. The only infringement of rights in the Academic Bill of Rights is the right of professors to abuse students because the students disagree with them. Nothing could be clearer. There is absolutely nothing in the Academic Bill of Rights that would prevent a professor from talking about or supporting stem cell research. The Bill prevents professors from referring to students who disagree with them as "Nazis" and also prevents them from giving students who disagree with them "Fs" for their dissents.

"Kieft said death threats against a Metro State political science professor have "sent a real chill across the campus." The professor, Oneida Meranto, said in March she was threatened after a student filed a complaint against her and told lawmakers he had asked to drop her class because she was biased against conservatives. Meranto responded publicly that the student was failing, prompting the student to accuse her of violating his privacy rights. School officials said the threats originated off campus and the FBI has said it was investigating." In addition to being a loon, Oneida Meranto is a proven liar. The student filed a complaint and dropped her course because Meranto threw him out of the student Political Science Association for which she is faculty adviser because he was a Republican. Meranto then violated the students' rights under federal law by telling the media that the reason he complained was that he was failing her course. This was a provable lie (he was getting a B+).

Yet the AP reporter who wrote this story (and who should be fired on the spot for gross incompetence) has taken this disreputable woman as his (or her) sole authority in reporting this story. As for death threats, I get them all the time. I don't leap to the conclusion therefore that anyone who disagrees with me or challenges me is responsible for them. Yet the President of Metro State, Raymond Kieft, who is fully aware of the character problems of Oneida Meranto, but intimated by his faculty left, is standing by her albeit only to a point (he formally censured her for violating the federal statute that forbids teachers from disclosing their students grades to the public).

To sum up. A bill of rights for students who are demonstrably being abused because of their political beliefs is adopted by Colorado universities. The AP -- one of America's premier press institutions -- reports this as a case of death threats and attempts to chill the free speech of the professors who are abusing the students. The totalitarian press in the Soviet Union and the Third Reich could not have done a better job.