Letters from the National Campus Director

David Horowitz Makes the Case for Academic Freedom in Historic Pennsylvania Hearings · 17 January 2006

The select committee was formed as a result of the passage of HR 177, an academic freedom resolution introduced by Representative Gibson Armstrong.

"Temple University has an Academic Freedom Policy. It is regularly disregarded," stated Horowitz. "There are no readily available or effective means for members of the Temple community to address the violations of academic freedom that occur regularly in Temple classrooms and are integral to entire Temple courses like the Required Summer Reading Program, the Freshman Year Writing Program and the Intellectual Heritage Department….Courses at Temple are permitted to violate the canons of professional conduct by allowing instructors to teach subjects that are not part of their academic expertise."

In his testimony, Horowitz quoted from numerous complaints submitted to Students for Academic Freedom from Pennsylvania students who have experienced political proselytizing and violations of academic freedom in the classroom.

"I'm taking a Women Studies class because I thought it'd be a good class to take. Yesterday I was in class and people were giving presentations about women's issues and one group decided to do abortion. The next thing I know, we're spending the whole period learning about how abortion should be completely legal and that it's a good thing for society to abort babies and that people need to learn how to say the word "abortion" because women should be proud of the fact that they've had one," read one student's account.

"This professor always had something negative to say not only about the Bush Administration, but about conservatives in general. She stated on one occasion that it is impossible to be a moral capitalist. She stated that the US does not have the right to say anything about the Taliban's record of oppressing women because the US oppresses women too," stated another account from a student enrolled in an English class at Temple University.

Horowitz also lambasted critics of the hearings who have argued that they are a waste of time. "In his testimony, David French described a free speech case at Shippensburg University which he successfully litigated and in which the court found that Shippensburg administrators had indeed violated the Constitution with their speech code. The identical speech code - word for word - is incorporated in the administrative regulations of other Pennsylvania institutions of higher learning for which this legislative body is responsible. In other words, not only have the administrators of Pennsylvania universities violated the law in the first place, but they have continued to do so even when the courts have ruled against them on the issue….It is not a waste of time for legislators to be concerned when Pennsylvania institutions of higher learning consciously restrict the rights of more than a hundred thousand Pennsylvania students and violate their constitutional guarantees," he testified.

Additional testimony was provided by Temple Vice-Provost Stephen Zelnick, who has taught at Temple for 37 years, Anne Neal, the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and Temple student Logan Fisher, among others.

"I have sat in on more than a hundred different teachers' classes and seen excellent, indifferent, and miserable teaching and done what I could to encourage the good and to repair the bad. In these visits, I rarely heard a kind word for the United States, for the riches of our marketplace, for the vast economic and creative opportunities made available for energetic and creative people (that is, for our students); for family life, for marriage, for love, or for religion," commented Vice-Provost Zelnick in his testimony . "I did hear a great deal about the importance of diversity and tolerance, about the evils of imperialism; about the need to be skeptical of all institutions and traditional values; and about the stupidity and mendacity of prominent politicians."

"My testimony today will not only contain my personal experiences, but that of many students who are afraid to testify, for fear of repercussions to their academic careers. As a vice-chairman of the Temple College Republicans and Vice-President of the Temple Chapter of Students for Academic Freedom, I experienced first hand the apprehension students had to testify today, as they expressed to me concerns of retaliation by professors and fear of being singled out in their classes in the future," testified Temple student Logan Fisher, who also read accounts from a half-dozen students who were too concerned about possible repercussions to take the stand themselves.

"A strong case was made that Pennsylvania universities are violating their own policies on academic freedom," commented Horowitz, summing up the experience of the hearings. "Moreover, it is clear from the testimony of Temple President David Adamany, among others, that students at Temple are completely unaware of their rights because university administrators make few efforts to inform them. This needs to change."

The committee will hold two more hearings in the state of Pennsylvania before they present their findings in November.

For more information on starting an SAF chapter or bringing the academic freedom movement to your campus, please contact the national campus director Sara Dogan at 202-393-0123 or at Sara@studentsforacademicfreedom.org.

Yours in Freedom,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom

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