Students For Academic Freedom

Academic Freedom Victory at Brooklyn College · 05 May 2005

SAF Quickly Becoming Most-Talked-About Student Organization

By Yehuda Katz--BC Excelsior--05/02/05

Last week's Student Government victory for the Students for Academic Freedom is only the latest for an organization that only burst onto the scene a little more than a year ago.

The Student Government voted, by a seven to four margin with three abstentions, to approve the so-called Defense of Academic Freedom Act, which says that all students deserve a right to an unbiased education.

The movement, which was started by conservative David Horowitz, but which operates independently from Horowitz on many campuses including Brooklyn College, has its detractors.

They argue that the movement really seeks to promote conservative ideology on campus, and that Horowitz has been using unsuspecting students to promote his ideology.

"If the conservative agenda entails ensuring that students have a solid foundation in traditional subjects such as American History, in lieu of Puerto Rican Studies," then the movement is related to the conservative agenda, said Diana Esposito, a former editor in chief of the Kingsman.

Eldad Yaron, the President and founder of Students for Academic Freedom, responded to attacks on his organizations as too related to Horowitz. "SAF is indeed founded by former Communist-turned-Conservative David Horowitz. Had I received any money from SAF for running the Brooklyn College chapter, I wouldn't have fought so hard for getting a budget from the Student Government, nor would I have bothered to even register the club officially to become a recognized BC group."

While Yaron's group officially bears the SAF moniker, it is more closely affiliated with The FIRE, an individual rights group that promotes individual rights in education.

In an ongoing program he calls "The Redistribution of Freedom," the organization has distributed more than 80 guidebooks produced by FIRE to educate students about their rights on a public campus.

And while the recent Student Government victory is symbolic-the legislation was tabled last year when the administration shut down the Student Government for several weeks-it is by no means the group's only victory.

Last year, the college added a question to its teacher evaluation survey about whether teachers were open to the viewpoints of students, a question Yaron has said will enable students to determine how biased a professor is, and which may figure into tenure decisions.

The movement probably got its first sputtering start during the tenure controversy of Robert David "KC" Johnson. After the college first denied Johnson tenure, he argued that the denial was the result of his objection to a one-sided teach-in after 9/11 and his opposition to certain hiring practices.

The CUNY Board of Trustees overturned the college's decision and granted Johnson tenure. He is a visiting professor this semester at Harvard. Like the current Academic Freedom debate on campus, Johnson's tenure dispute involved the Student Government Assembly, which passed a resolution calling for the college's President to grant him tenure.

"The Assembly has worked hard for the last three years to promote educational quality at Brooklyn, so I'm not surprised it passed this bill. Our provost has written that 'teaching is a political act.'" Johnson said.

"We've recently established a new program in 'global studies,' whose annual conference demanded opposing the 2004 Republican ticket and restoring open admissions and remediation at Brooklyn. So I'm glad to see that the Assembly, at least, has stood up for educational values and against using the classroom for political propaganda," he said.

Thanks at least in part to Yaron's organization, the discussion about differing conceptions of academic freedom has become a seminal issue on our campus. According to professors who oppose SAF's thinking, Academic Freedom means the right of professors to speak their minds in the classroom.

Professors should not be denied the right to express their deeply held beliefs in the classroom any more than newspapers should be subject to censorship, they argue.

The Students for Academic Freedom define the term differently. According to their definition, both students and faculty have an equal right to "academic freedom" in the classroom.

"We all come to college to learn from our professors, not to be indoctrinated by them. Professors have a captive audience and do hold much influence over their students," said Adam Welikson, a member of SAF.

According to the Academic Bill of Rights advanced by the organization, "Academic freedom consists in protecting the intellectual independence of professors, researchers and students in the pursuit of knowledge and the expression of ideas from interference by legislators or authorities within the institution itself."

In an example of starkly divergent viewpoints about the nature of academic freedom, the CUNY Faculty Senate chastised the CUNY Board of Trustees for speaking out against a one-sided teach-in after the September 11 attacks. While proponents of Yaron's viewpoint, like the Board of Trustees, argued that such events deprive students of the right to multiple viewpoints, opponents raise "academic freedom" as well.

The Trustees capitulated "to scandal-mongering in the press when they failed to defend academic freedom in forums about the September 11 attacks," an award issued by the Faculty Senate says.

And with the college working to modify the Core curriculum, some members of SAF have set their sights on Core 3.

"Core 3 is a neo-Marxist class, taught exclusively by leftist professors that very often send their students off at the end of the semester with a message that summarizes everything of the political left. It's absurd," Yaron said.

Those feelings were echoed by SG President-elect Daniel Tauber in this year's campaign, when he repeatedly said he would vigorously defend students' academic freedom, and support reforming Core 3, which he also called a Marxist class. Tauber wrote the Defense of Academic Freedom Act that recently passed in the Assembly.

In town hall meetings about reforming the Core, professors who teach the course asked panelists not to reduce it from four credits to three. It is currently the only Core course bearing four credits. In the new curriculum, all Core courses will bear three credits.

At the Assembly meeting, Javier Genao, an outspoken representative, spoke out against the bill, calling it a tool of the right-wing and David Horowitz.

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