Free Republic

I must admit that I left the Millersville hearings on academic freedom angry, because I had the nagging feeling that the Pennsylvania House Select Committee was missing the point. I felt like I’d been had. It has been my responsibility to report on the hearings at Temple University and Millersville University for The Campus Report, and I will be attending the final hearings on May 31 and June 1, as well as reading the committee’s report when it comes out. When I learned of the committee several months ago, I had high hopes for Pennsylvania students that the investigation by...

Unlike the state assemblymen tasked with investigating the controversy, I personally know that there is a problem with academic freedom in the Keystone state and around the country and a lack of student testifiers is not proof otherwise. While running a booth at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, I met students, parents and grandparents all concerned with the unchecked liberal bias on their campuses. I met a young man who wrote a final paper from a perspective he finds revolting just because he knew it was the only way to get an A. He said writing it literally made his stomach...

Dear Ms. Seymour, I recently caught your article, “Professor Condemns Committee” (May 19, 2006). I believe that we spoke at the Millersville hearings, directly following my testimony, though I spoke to so many that day, it is difficult to keep the names and faces together. If it isn’t too forward of me, I would like to address a few items included in your article. You say, “Smith did not mention that Horowitz has said that the idea for ABOR is taken from the 1940 statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the AAUP…” You imply, I think, that I was...

Millersville University’s History Department chair, Francis J. Bremer, testified before the state House Select Committee on Academic Freedom saying that schools have grievance procedures in place and these are sufficient for students’ protection. Bremer shared his belief that university education has the goal of “creating young men and women who are self-reflective and critically engaged with all aspects of the world in which they live.” He stated that faculty and students express themselves openly on controversial issues and that sometimes a professor’s view may anger or surprise students, but this is good because challenges help critical thinking and leads to...

Professor Mark Bauerlein of Emory University traveled from Atlanta, Georgia to Millersville, Pennsylvania for hearings on academic freedom in late April to share his thoughts on how bias in academia becomes institutionalized. “If we get too much uniformity, too much agreement on debatable issues, too little dissent, then the group slides into complacency, insularity, and groupthink. Within the group, attitudes harden. As the years pass and the members reinforce each others’ opinions, those opinions start to look like more than just opinions. They become the truth. To agree with them is simply to be rational and ethical. Anybody who disagrees...

Arriving at the Bolger Conference Center on Millersville University’s campus to listen to Pennsylvania state House committee hearings on academic freedom, I spotted yellow papers on windshields across the parking lot. When I picked one up it read, “Stop the Academic Bill of Restrictions. Free Exchange on Campus. Do you want free speech? Make sure the legislature hears your opposition to the Academic Bill of Restrictions.” During the hearings, Free Exchange on Campus had a couple of people lined up to testify as well as several people to speak during the public comment portion. My question however was, “what is...