Cornell Rejects Academic Freedom

FPM ^ | May 7, 2004 | Joe Sabia

[Unam Sanctam]

I'd never actually read this Academic Bill of Rights. The principles seem so eminently reasonable, I don't see how anyone could possibly find them objectionable.

[Republicus2001]

Is Cornell state-sponsored terrorism or is it a private school? I forget.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - education (?) -universities - academic freedom (and the stiffling thereof)

[swilhelm73]

Here is a link to it;

http://studentsforacademicfreedom.org/abor.html

[FormerACLUmember]

Liberals and democrat party members are the sworn enemies of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom.

This represents an amazing historical evolution, at least in the case of liberals. Over the last 100 years, liberals have adapted the complete diametrically opposed opposite of their original philosophy and positions.

It is really amazing to watch, especially in such a 21st Century toilet like Cornell.

[Clemenza]

Ithaca is the City of Evil Ping!

[ggordon22]

I agree that university liberal arts departments tend to have an anti-conservative slant (as a liberal arts student myself). This is often translates into intolerance for dissenting points of view. But I diagree that David Horowitz would do very many things that were genuinely nonpartisan.

Academic freedom is vital to a university's intellectual culture. When it comes from a genuinely nonpartisan source, then there can be a healthy discussion.

[VeniVidiVici]

This represents an amazing historical evolution, at least in the case of liberals. Over the last 100 years, liberals have adapted the complete diametrically opposed opposite of their original philosophy and positions.

It's even funnier that they don't realize it.

[Bob]

But I diagree that David Horowitz would do very many things that were genuinely nonpartisan.

Which points on the list do you see as being anything other then "genuinely nonpartisan"?

[thoughtomator]

Yeah, seriously! In the absence of the existing thought-control regimes on university campuses, no honest person in the world could find anything to object to in this list.

[samadams2000]

Animal Farm

[weegee]

Media Schadenfreude and Media Shenanigans/City Of Evil PING

[weegee]

Academic freedom is vital to a university's intellectual culture. When it comes from a genuinely nonpartisan source, then there can be a healthy discussion.

(1) Students should be graded on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the disciplines they study.

If a student's grade may be reduced for a difference of political ideology there is no academic freedom.

[ggordon22]

(2) Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should provide students with dissenting viewpoints where appropriate.

The language is that of deceptive neutrality and is obviously disingenuous. I have never been in a university course where dissenting viewpoints were not discussed. When you take a class on Freud, you hear from Freud's critics. When you take a class on existential philosophy, you hear from the critics of that philosophy. What is meant here, if I can read between the lines, is politically or ideologically dissenting viewpoints. As in, viewpoints that espouse a non-Marxist, non-postmodernist, non-liberal point of view. Which is a healthy thing, I think. But I prefer language that says what it means.

And beside that, what about the sciences, engineering, business schools? Academic freedom is easily as threatened, if not more, in those disciplines.

(3) Faculty should not use their courses for the purposes of political, ideological, religious, or anti-religious indoctrination.

Agreed. But the language again is highly politicized. The focus is on faculty and the influence they wield in the classroom. Only certain threats to academic freedom are mentioned -- some of the most pernicious, including government interference in curriculum, and the potential conflict between corporate and academic research interest aren't even mentioned. The focus is exclusively on socio-political considerations, and the sciences are hardly mentioned. There is much more to academic freedom.

There is nothing nonpartisan about it. That being said, there are many good points in it. I just think they would be more credible coming from someone other than Horowitz. I've never liked that guy.

[dennisw]

Get real! Either academia hires conservatives too for liberal arts departments or it's one big fraud. Universities were never so unbalanced in favor of commies and leftists. Many departments are virtually recruitment and hiring centers for the most disgusting feminazis and neo Marxists. Where they hire ONLY THEIR OWN KIND!

[DeFault User]

Far above Cayuga’s waters,

there’s an awful smell.

Could it be Cayuga’s waters?

No it must be Cornell."

[ontos-on]

Private. Though it was one of what were called the land grant colleges, in the the 19th century, I believe.

[ontos-on]

You are foolish to claim that the "source" of these principles is what should determine the response to it. This is precisely why such principles are needed. When neutral principles of freedom are rejected for the "source", you are really dealing with a totalitarian place where one's identity prevents one from getting a fair hearing for what one proposes.

In fact, the content of the principles is what doomed them. The close vote was a sham engineered to look like there is a chance of reasoned debate in the institution. The lack of reasoned debate and insistence that there be no record proves that. The event shows that the left at academic campi throughout America have been captured by totalitarians where freedom, diversity and academic freedom to voice dissenting views, are anathama to the commisars in charge.

[Clint Williams]

The principles seem so eminently reasonable, I don't see how anyone could possibly find them objectionable.

Think like a totalitarian.