Letters from the National Campus Director

Indoctrinating Freshmen at Ball State University · 25 January 2005

Professor George Wolfe, the director of the program, gave students extra credit for attending a University-subsidized trip to Washington, DC to learn how to lobby against the war in Iraq yet refused to allow Brett to complete a class assignment using a book that allowed that the military and war itself could sometimes be instruments of peace (as when they thwart aggressors and would-be aggressors). Our research efforts culminated in the release of the booklet "Indoctrination or Education? The 'Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution' Program at Ball State University," which exposed Ball State's publicly funded Peace Studies Center as a radical, anti-military program and highlighted the stunning lack of concern on the part of BSU administrators who repeatedly refused to conduct a serious inquiry into the problem.

Students for Academic Freedom also analyzed the Peace Studies program at Purdue University and uncovered an equally disturbing contempt for the educational mission and for academic process. One-sided indoctrination and political recruitment in classrooms violates the spirit and tenets of academic freedom that have been established over the last century in American universities, and denies students the opportunity for an education.

Fortunately, Indiana legislators have responded to these reports and are introducing legislation inspired by the Academic Bill of Rights to correct these abuses. The bill has been assigned to the house education committee and we will keep you updated on the progress of this legislation.

A new report by student Brett Mock released today strengthens the case for the Academic Bill of Rights by showing that Ball State's attempts to indoctrinate its students are not limited to the realm of peace studies. Brett's report documents the ideological agendas in Ball State's "Freshman Connections Program" which requires all new students at Ball State to read an assigned book or "common reader," which for the last two years has meant a text from the radical left.

It is hard to overemphasize the influence that freshman reading programs can have on the minds and opinions of incoming students. The assigned text(s) are the first books that students will encounter in college and are presented during a time of transition when students are acclimating themselves to the college environment and feel an intense pressure to fit into the university community. Furthermore, as Brett points out in his report, these "common readers" are the only works that are assigned to students by the university as a whole, rather than by individual professors in chosen classes. The books chosen by the university clearly carry Ball State's endorsement and it is natural that incoming students would feel that it is treacherous to disagree with the messages they encapsulate.

Despite the great importance of choosing the text or texts for this program wisely, Brett's report reveals that Ball State has failed dramatically in this arena. During the past two years, the program has required students to read consecutive texts from the radical left; yet in all eight years of the program's existence, students have never been assigned to read a conservative work.

The freshman class of 2003 was assigned Nickled and Dimed by author Barbara Ehrenreich who serves as an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. Ehrenreich rails against free market economics and blames corporate America for most of the troubles of the poor. This selection was followed in the fall semester of 2004 with Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation which also attacks free-market capitalism and advocates vastly expanding intrusive government regulation in the food and farm industries.

Ball State's efforts at indoctrination do not cease with merely requiring freshmen to read these one-sided texts. As Brett documents in his report, the authors of these works are traditionally invited to come lecture on campus to an assembly of the freshman class and are paid a substantial honorarium for their services.

In the case of Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, the University's ideological program did not culminate with the author's visit to campus, but continued with a one-sided panel of like-minded speakers. As Brett writes, "All of these sources presented views, arguments, and observations consistent with Schlosser's attack on the food industry."

These additional speakers included: Chris Bedford, of the Humane Society of the United States, Rodney Walker, a disgruntled former employee at a Muncie hog farm, Dave and Sara Ring, local farmers practicing biological and/or sustainable farming, professor Mylan Engel a leftwing animal rights activist from Northern Illinois University, and Alex Jameson, a holistic health counselor, vegan chef, and the girlfriend of Morgan Spurlock, director of the movie Super-size Me, an anti-McDonald's diatribe which was also screened for university students. Not a single speaker who disagreed with Schlosser's views was invited to campus by the University.

Agriculture and farming are important industries in the state of Indiana, yet Ball State devoted the entire focus of its freshman reading program to showcasing them in a negative light. Experts who disagree with Schlosser's radical views abound, but this year's freshman class at Ball State was denied the opportunity to hear them. Ball State's Freshman Connections Program is a mockery of scholarship, and by forcing its freshmen to take part in this educational sham the University highlights the urgent necessity for Indiana to adopt an Academic Bill of Rights to ensure that intellectual diversity will be respected and encouraged and that no student, regardless of his or her political views, will suffer as a result of them. Students for Academic Freedom is sending Brett's report to legislators, university administrators, and the media all across the state of Indiana and we hope it will meet with the outrage it deserves.

If your university required you to read a one-sided text as part of a freshmen reading program or if you have suffered from partisan abuse and indoctrination in the classroom, please contact me at Sara@studentsforacademicfreedom.org or at 202-393-0123 and we can help you to fight back.

We are also currently in the process of updating our extensive chapter list and I would appreciate it if our chapter leaders and contacts from across the country could call or email me a brief update and any updated contact information. Our coordinators have been working to contact each of you individually to discuss your plans for the coming term and we welcome you to contact our Washington office as well with any questions or ideas at 202-393-0123.

Yours in Freedom,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom

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