Letters from the National Campus Director

David Horowitz to Testify at Pennsylvania Legislative Hearings on Academic Freedom · 06 January 2006

On Monday and Tuesday, January 9 and 10, the select committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature charged with reviewing the state of academic freedom on Pennsylvania's public college and university campuses will conduct hearings on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia.

The hearings will be held in Rooms B and C of the Temple University Student Center, which is located at the intersection of 13th Street and Montgomery Avenue. The hours on Monday, January 9 will be from 1:00pm-5:00pm and on Tuesday, January 10 from 9:00am-1:00pm. David Horowitz's testimony will take place from 11:30am-1:00pm on Tuesday, January 10.

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

Testifying will be Temple Vice Provost Stephen Zelnick, who has taught at Temple for 37 years and David Horowitz, the sponsor of Students for Academic Freedom. Anne Neal, the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni and Temple student Logan Fisher will also be testifying.

The battle over academic freedom in Pennsylvania has garnered a great deal of press attention in recent months, including a recent article in the New York Times that appeared during the Christmas holiday. Previous hearings held elsewhere in the state featured National Association of Scholars President Stephen Balch and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education President David French. Transcripts from the previous hearings can be found here.

Previewing his testimony, Horowitz commented that "Temple University has in place an academic freedom policy that prohibits professors from using their classrooms as political soap boxes. But it is not enforced by the present Temple administration and consequently the academic rights of students at Temple are widely abused. Temple has required courses like the Freshman Year Writing Program which are designed to indoctrinate students in leftwing political and social fads and are taught by instructors whose only professional expertise is in English. Most sections of this "writing course," for example, are explicitly devoted to instructing students in 'gender theory' using textbooks that are almost entirely one-sided. The instructors -- mainly graduate students -- are not trained in sociology or women's studies but in English literature. Having unqualified teachers attempt to impose an orthodoxy in the name of education is a form of consumer fraud practiced on Temple students and the taxpayers of Pennsylvania."

Also testifying will be Logan Fisher, a senior at Temple University and vice-chairman of the Temple College Republicans. Logan notes in his remarks that "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."

This will be an exciting opportunity to experience the debate over the future of academic freedom firsthand. The hearing is open to the public and we encourage all students and supporters in the Philadelphia area to attend. Students attending public colleges or universities in Pennsylvania who have experienced partisan teaching or political discrimination firsthand are invited to submit written accounts of these abuses to Sara Dogan at Sara@studentsforacademicfreedom.org which will be passed on to the legislators. Of course, we welcome all students from across the nation to write to us if they have experienced violations of their academic freedom and to submit these accounts to our online complaint center here.

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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