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States Considering Legislation to Counter Perceived Liberalism on College CampusesBy Elizabeth DeForest Associated Press Writer Published: Feb 12, 2005 WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) - College sophomore Charis Bridgman tends to keep quiet in class if she thinks her professor might disagree with her Christian-influenced ideas. The 19-year-old says schools such as her Otterbein College in suburban Columbus should be a place for open discussion, but she feels some professors make students afraid to speak up. "They might chastise me, or not even listen to my opinion or give me a chance to explain," she said. Professors would have to include diverse...

A proposed bill of rights aimed at protecting college students from political indoctrination in the classroom is being actively debated in more than 20 states, including New York. The "Academic Bill of Rights" calls for students to be graded based on their reasoning and not their political beliefs. The measure also requires that professors offer diverse reading lists and "not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination." The proposal, which was drafted by a conservative author and activist from California, David Horowitz, also seeks to upend ideological conformity on campuses by insisting that decisions...

Throughout 2003 and into 2004, a surge of protests roiled American campuses. You probably think the kids were agitating against war in Iraq, right? Well, no. Students at the University of California-Los Angeles, Michigan and many other schools were sponsoring bake sales to protest ... affirmative action. For white students and faculty, a cookie cost (depending on the school) $1; blacks and Latinos could buy one for a lot less. The principle, the protesters observed, was the same one governing university admission practices: treating people differently based on race. The protests shocked the mainstream media, but to close observers of...

(The reader is cautioned that not every quote or reference to what David Horowitz said is accurate in this account. E.g. he did not say that the United for Peace and Justice was "led by 60 Stalinists" but by "a Sixties' Stalinist;" he reviewed America's record on slavery and race and said America is a country you can be proud of but leftwing academics are teaching students to be embarrassed by America, and warned "if you're not proud of your country, you cannot defend yourself." He said that Stanford was civilized relative to some universities not because the Hoover Institution...

Legislation that would restrict what university professors could say in their classrooms was introduced yesterday in Ohio. Judging from reactions in other states where similar bills have been considered, controversy won’t be far behind. Marion Sen. Larry A. Mumper’s "academic bill of rights for higher education" would prohibit instructors at public or private universities from "persistently" discussing controversial issues in class or from using their classes to push political, ideological, religious or anti-religious views. Senate Bill 24 also would prohibit professors from discriminating against students based on their beliefs and keep universities from hiring, firing, promoting or giving tenure to...

At the University of North Carolina, three incoming freshmen sue over a reading assignment they say offends their Christian beliefs. In Colorado and Indiana, a national conservative group publicizes student allegations of left-wing bias by professors. Faculty get hate mail and are pictured in mock "wanted" posters; at least one college says a teacher received a death threat. And at Columbia University in New York, a documentary film alleging that teachers intimidate students who support Israel draws the attention of administrators. The three episodes differ in important ways, but all touch on an issue of growing prominence on college campuses....

AP) — At the University of North Carolina, three incoming freshmen sue over a reading assignment they say offends their Christian beliefs. In Colorado and Indiana, a national conservative group publicizes student allegations of left-wing bias by professors. Faculty get hate mail and are pictured in mock "wanted" posters; at least one college says a teacher received a death threat. And at Columbia University in New York, a documentary film alleging that teachers intimidate students who support Israel draws the attention of administrators. The three episodes differ in important ways, but all touch on an issue of growing prominence on...

Victory! By David HorowitzFrontPageMagazine.com | September 13, 2004In the early summer of 2003, we launched a campaign for academic freedom in the state of Colorado. We met with the President of Colorado University, the governor and a dozen state legislators to discuss the problem of intellectual intolerance on Colorado’s public university campuses. We were concerned about the treatment of conservative students as second class citizens and the abuse of the classroom by faculty who used their positions of authority as educators to pursue political agendas. We were concerned about the absence of intellectual diversity in the collegiate curriculum and...

When Ruth Malhotra told her college professor she planned to miss a class to attend a conservative political conference, the professor wasn't happy. You're just going to fail my class," she said the instructor told her. Malhotra, a student at Georgia Institute of Technology, ultimately filed a grievance with the school, saying the professor used her public policy class to push her outspokenly liberal viewpoints on students. "We're there to learn the foundations of policy, not the professors' personal platforms," said Malhotra, 20, Atlanta. Georgia Tech spokesman Bob Harty said school policy barred him from disclosing how Malhotra's grievance was...

As members of the House of Representatives return to their home districts during summer recess, Congressmen Walter Jones (R.-N.C.) and Jack Kingston (R.-Ga.) are praying for the success of HConRes 318. Kingston, Jones, and 38 other members of the House co-sponsored this resolution in 2003 based on the Academic Bill of Rights from David Horowitz and his group, Students for Academic Freedom. HConRes 318 is designed to "secure the intellectual independence of faculty members and students and to protect the principle of intellectual diversity" in America's higher education system, according to the language of the bill. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.)...

printable version Academic Bill of Rights I. The Mission of the University. The central purposes of a University are the pursuit of truth, the discovery of new knowledge through scholarship and research, the study and reasoned criticism of intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general development of students to help them become creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the transmission of knowledge and learning to a society at large. Free inquiry and free speech within the academic community are indispensable to the achievement of these goals. The freedom to teach and to learn depend upon...

After banning the press from videotaping its weekly meeting, the Cornell University Student Assembly (SA) rejected the Academic Bill of Rights. Citing the document’s objectives as “redundant,” “irrelevant,” “insulting,” and “objectionable,” the SA determined that academic freedom was unimportant to the Ivy League campus. The Resolution on Academic Freedom — based on David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights — was introduced by a bipartisan coalition of Cornell students, including the editor-in-chief of The Cornell Daily Sun. The resolution stated that the “SA affirms [the] principles of academic freedom and intellectual diversity” and went on to cite six principles: (1) Students...

In the latest front on the war against academic bias in our colleges and universities, the Georgia Association of College Republicans is dismayed to report that the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology is formally engaged in distributing a propaganda flyer opposing the Academic Bill of Rights. The flyer is a reprint of an article attacking the Academic Bill of Rights that was published by the Revolutionary Worker (www.rwor.org), a self-identified communist organization. It is being distributed through the school’s Public Policy Office and had been posted throughout the building on professor’s personal boards and office...

(AgapePress) - Conservatism, once believed to be quashed in the land of academia, has been steadily making a comeback on college campuses across the United States. But not without a fight. The most recent evidence is a poll conducted by the Education Research Institute showing that among college freshmen, 21 percent refer to themselves as conservative, while 24 percent hold liberal views. The vast majority of students prefer to sit in the middle of the political road. While the number of liberal students is still greater than conservatives, consider this: According to the poll, the percentage of students holding strict...

An article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 24 says it all: "She expected a lively discussion on government spending . . . but she didn't expect to be rebuked." As a result, a complaint has been filed against a Georgia Tech professor, students are dropping a class they were failing anyway, and Tech's School of Public Policy has been thrown into an awkward position. The school is stuck between a competent and fair professor and political pressure from people such as David Horowitz and State Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah). Horowitz wrote the national "Academic Bill of...

Academic Bill of Rights Sweeps Georgia Senate, 41-5 By Sara Dogan Students for Academic Freedom March 24, 2004 Atlanta, GA – The Academic Bill of Rights Resolution, introduced by Senator Eric Johnson, sailed through the Georgia Senate today with a sweeping 41-5 vote. The resolution calls for colleges and universities to voluntarily end discrimination in hiring practices based on political or religious beliefs and to promote intellectual diversity and academic freedom on campus. Prior to the vote by the full senate, the bill was considered by the Senate Education Committee which approved the resolution on March 9 with a unanimous...

Legislators in the House of Representatives are currently considering an "Academic Bill of Rights" that would encourage universities to develop an environment of intellectual diversity by adopting ideologically neutral hiring practices and academic policies. The bill was introduced in Congress by Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., and is supported by conservative lobbyist David Horowitz and his California-based Center for Study of Popular Culture. According to Horowitz, the bill was a response to trends of the last 30 years, in which liberal professors have increasingly outnumbered conservative ones in a more politicized university setting. "In the [university] typical faculty, Democrats outnumber Republicans...

Marching Through GeorgiaBy David HorowitzFrontPageMagazine.com | February 27, 2004 Last week I went to Atlanta to testify at hearings before the Higher Education Committee in the Georgia legislature on Senate Majority Leader Eric Johnson’s legislation to pass the Academic Bill of Rights. (Text of the bill at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org) A final hearing will be held this week. In Colorado the Education Committee of the House just passed academic freedom legislation based on the Academic Bill of Rights. A professor attempted to intimidate one of the students testifying at the hearing and thus proved the case. Academic bullies of the left do...

When is the word “diversity” not tolerated on campus? When someone tries to put the word “intellectual” in front of it. The debate over David Horowitz’s campaign for intellectual diversity has been raging in Colorado for five months. By spring or fall, the debate may come to an intellectually not-very-diverse university near you. Horowitz, the veteran conservative activist, is promoting an “Academic Bill of Rights” to protect students and professors from the aggressive leftist mono-culture that dominates campuses today. Though clearly taking aim at the left, Horowitz scrupulously framed the bill in language that would protect everyone on campus, left...

Patrolling Professors' Politics Conservative activists and students press campaigns against perceived bias on campuses By SARA HEBEL Gerald Wilson, a history professor at Duke University, says a student's question on the first day of class last semester caught him off guard: "Do you have any prejudices?" Unsure what the young man meant, Mr. Wilson decided to reply with a joke. "Yeah, Republicans," he recalls saying. (He found out later that the student was asking about writing styles.) "Everybody laughed," the professor says. Well, not quite everybody. Matt Bettis, a senior in the class, thought the comment among others was inappropriate...