Free Republic

The defense of free speech has always been a bedrock bipartisan principle. So it’s unusual to hear a veteran liberal politician excuse campus outrage squads that shout down dissent. But that’s exactly what former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee head Howard Dean did in a recent appearance.. Dean’s take on this was that there are “consequences to free speech.” He caricatured Erika Christakis’s thoughtful, sensitive letter as an ugly screed mocking “snowflake” students and defending racist costumes. He also described the protesters as well-behaved, despite their screaming and bullying. ... Dean is hardly alone...progressives on and off campus are...

In last month's column "Academic Cesspools," I wrote about "Indoctrinate U," a recently released documentary exposing egregious university indoctrination of young people at prestigious and not-so-prestigious universities (www.onthefencefilms.com/movies.html). I said the documentary only captured the tip of a disgusting iceberg. The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a frontline organization in the battle against academic suppression of free speech and thought, released information about what's going on at the University of Delaware, and probably at other universities as well, that should send chills up the spines of parents of college-age students. The following excerpts are taken from the...

Global warming lecture at CSUF stirs controversy Science weighs against philosophy on campus By: Sylvia Masuda Issue date: 10/18/07 Section: News Posted: 10/18/07 Controversy erupted in the Cal State Fullerton science community over Tuesday's global warming lecture in the Titan Theater. Research professor and climatologist Patrick Michaels presented "Reducing the Effects of Global Warming in Southern California," a presentation which explained why global warming is not an imminent problem. The Economics Association organized the event. Over the years, science organizations have criticized Michaels for exaggerating his credentials and for pushing what they feel is a political agenda. CSUF science...

The “Weekly Standard” profiled libertarian-leaning conservative and political commentator turned documentarian Evan Coyne Maloney, whose new documentary about the leftist ideological indoctrination and pervasive political correctness in the US higher education system is called “Indoctrinate U”. Saturday May 19, CSPAN ran a segment about his film on the network’s “Washington Journal”, but CSPAN posts footage of the shows online (when they have it up, I'll post it. His spot is at the two-hour mark). You can see a clip of his film on YouTube as well as the film's website, Indoctrinate-U.com. “Indoctrinate U” focuses on the pervasive trampling of free...

GLENDALE, Ariz., May 7, 2007—The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) has placed a professor on forced administrative leave and has recommended that he be terminated for e-mailing a Thanksgiving message to his colleagues last November. On the day before Thanksgiving, Professor Walter Kehowski sent out the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” and a link to the webpage where he’d found it—on Pat Buchanan’s web log. After several recipients complained of being offended by the e-mail, MCCCD found Kehowski guilty of violating the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy and technology usage standards. Kehowski then contacted...

The agents of political correctness who police the nation's college and university campuses generally use shame and scorn to beat down free expression deemed offensive by the tiniest minority. But sometimes, institutions aren't content to merely marginalize those who fail to embrace a worldview that emphasizes the rights of groups over those of individuals. Rather than engage these free spirits in open debate in a classroom setting -- isn't that what college is all about? -- administrators seek to re-educate these malefactors on the proper way to think. Michigan State University has taken the multicultural mantra of indoctrination to a...

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman is offering students an interesting lesson: Never let the law prevail over your own vanity. Just one day after Michigan voters overwhelmingly passed Proposal 2 - thereby ending racial and gender preferences in the state's public sector, Coleman said she'd do everything possible to avoid incorporating racial equality into her school's admissions policies.

PHILADELPHIA - Temple University, accused of discriminating against those with conservative viewpoints, has approved a new grievance procedure and will publicize it to students this fall. Temple's Board of Trustees voted last week to enact a uniform policy at its various schools for students with complaints about academic freedom, spokesman Raymond Betzner said. The state Legislature held a two-day public hearing on the subject at Temple last year, but school officials do not believe there is a widespread problem. During the hearing, now-retired Temple President David Adamany said he had not received a single complaint on the subject in his...

Ga. Tech defends gay-inclusive policies Lawsuit among rising tide of challenges to so-called ‘speech codes’ By DYANA BAGBY Friday, May 12, 2006 Responding this week to a federal lawsuit filed by two students against the Georgia Institute of Technology, state attorneys said the public university’s policies do not limit the free speech rights of those who oppose gay rights. Tech does not "prohibit or restrict expressive speech or activity by students or their organizations. Students, faculty and friends of Tech have the right to make statements as they please in the public areas without fear of reprisals," Assistant Attorney General...

Thursday, March 30, 2006 Study Casts Doubt on Claims That Conservative Students Face Discrimination in Classes By JENNIFER JACOBSON A study showing that conservative and liberal students do equally well in courses with politically charged content casts doubt on conservative activists' claims that liberal faculty members routinely discriminate against their conservative students. The study found no difference in the grades conservative and liberal students receive in sociology, cultural anthropology, and women's-studies courses. It also found that conservative students tend to earn higher grades than their liberal classmates in business and economics courses. Titled "What's in a Grade? Academic Success and...

Harvard Lays an Egg The triumph of the diversity faction and the fall of Larry Summers by James Piereson 03/06/2006, Volume 011, Issue 24 When the late Allan Bloom visited the Harvard campus some years ago to deliver a speech on his bestselling book The Closing of the American Mind, he began his remarks with the salutation, "Fellow Elitists," a takeoff on Franklin Roosevelt's address years earlier to the nativist Daughters of the American Revolution which he introduced with the words, "Fellow Immigrants." Bloom was having some fun at the expense of Harvard's students and faculty, all of whom had...

As soon as Mark (pseudonym) walked into his Women in Literature class, his professor handed him a note stating the following: It has come to my attention that your comments to other students sitting near you in our Women in Literature (sic) have been both critical of the class subject matter, derogatory of the ideas other students are contributing to class discussion, and crudely dismissive of issues I have raised. At first, Mark could not believe he was being described as “crudely dismissive” by his professor. After all, she talked about her private life in class and published a book...

Profs get warned of freedoms By MENSAH M. DEAN deanm@phillynews.com Words such as "McCarthyism" and "chill" buzzed through a group of Temple University professors and students who gathered on campus yesterday to discuss a state legislative committee's investigation of political diversity at state-run colleges. The "teach-in," sponsored by the Temple Association of University Professionals, drew an audience overwhelmingly convinced that the committee's very existence is a threat to academic freedom. "I think that there is a concern that people are going to start coming in and say, 'You can do this, but you can't do this.' If we are teaching...

A Closer Look at the 'Five Stooges' Investigating Ward Churchill by Jim Paine from Dictionary.com: stooge (stj)n. The partner in a comedy team who feeds lines to the other comedian; a straight man. One who allows oneself to be used for another's profit or advantage; a puppet. One would think that with all the public attention on the actions of CU's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct (SCRM) vis á vis its treatment of the Ward Churchill investigation, SCRM would approach the task of selecting the final investigating committee members with care, nay, with great fear and trembling. One would think SCRM...

College campuses can be political hotbeds. And that has some members of Congress thinking they should get involved. Some Republicans are pushing a measure through the House of Representatives meant to ensure that students hear "dissenting viewpoints" in class and are protected from retaliation because of their politics or religion. Colleges say the measure isn't needed, but with Congress providing billions of dollars to higher education, they are worried. The measure's chief promoter, Marxist-turned-conservative activist David Horowitz, says an academic bill of rights will protect students from possible political "hectoring" and discrimination by their professors.... The federal government provides loans...

A Brooklyn College professor says Ebonics is superior to the tongue of White Devils --Assistant Professor of Adolescence Education at Brooklyn College --Teaches that rap music is an effective tool for teaching English literacy to schoolchildren, and that proper English is language of white "oppressors" --Required students to view Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 Priya Parmar is an Assistant Professor of Adolescence Education at Brooklyn College's School of Education in New York, where she teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses to aspiring teachers. Of special interest to Parmar, whose doctoral dissertation is titled "KRS-One Going Against the Grain: A Critical Study...

For certain enlightened liberals on university faculties, the lesser intellectual stature of Christians and conservatives is so much taken for granted that they do not hesitate to write about them in terms dripping with condescension and contempt. An example I encountered this week is especially odious, and I am happy to bring it to the attention of a wider, non-academic audience. The authors are four political scientists at the University of Pittsburgh - Barry Ames, David Barker, Chris Bonneau and Christopher Carman. Their paper is a critique of a study, published earlier this year, examining the statistical evidence that not...

The sea is far from full, but the current still can serve. The tide, ebbing for decades, has begun to flow. It is time to seize the initiative lest we miss the moment and lose our ventures.   "After the Vietnam War, a lot of us didn't just crawl back into our literary cubicles; we stepped into academic positions. With the war over, our visibility was lost, and it seemed for a while — to the unobservant — that we had disappeared. Now we have tenure, and the work of reshaping the universities has begun in earnest."  — Jay...

Thomas Klocek, the DePaul professor who lost his job without due process after arguing with several students about the Middle East at a student activities fair, has now sued DePaul. Much of the suit focuses on claims that DePaul defamed Klocek, in part by providing the public with false and misleading information about his health. Klocek also claims breach of contract. In this case, DePaul has shamefully taken a single encounter where the facts are in dispute (the students and professor present radically different versions of the event), and has transformed it into a veritable festival of repression. First, DePaul...

Brooklyn College's School of Education has begun to base evaluations of aspiring teachers in part on their commitment to social justice, raising fears that the college is screening students for their political views. The School of Education at the CUNY campus initiated last fall a new method of judging teacher candidates based on their "dispositions," a vogue in teacher training across the country that focuses on evaluating teachers' values, apart from their classroom performance. Critics of the assessment policy warned that aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said,...