Students For Academic Freedom

Picked On By Their Profs · 09 November 2005

Picked On By Their Profs
Some conservative students are complaining that liberal professors push their political agendas in class

By Sharon Schuman--The Oregonian--10/30/05

Ward Churchill fit the stereotype. Long-haired, jean-clad and outspoken, he became the poster boy for professors straying too far left. Churchill infamously called 9/11 victims "little Eichmanns . . . too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones. . . ." The furor over his remarks got him uninvited to speak at the University of Oregon in February.

Churchill, a University of Colorado professor, wound up speaking at Reed College in April, with organizers touting his visit as a show of academic freedom.

Even though Churchill's offensive 9/11 comments happened outside class, they drew national attention. For conservative students, the furor fueled growing anger that some professors are just too political -- that what they call teaching is really indoctrination.

Legislators in 20 states have decided to do something about this. They've introduced measures aimed at protecting a student's academic freedom. These bills call for grading students at public universities on merit, not political or religious beliefs; hiring and promoting professors based on expertise, not ideology; and establishing reading lists with dissenting viewpoints. Who knows, a similar measure could surface in the 2007 Oregon Legislature.

These measures incorporate language from the Students for Academic Freedom's "Bill of Rights." The organization, founded by David Horowitz of the Study for Popular Culture in Los Angeles, has members on more than 100 U.S. campuses. Horowitz is a lefty turned conservative, a self-proclaimed liberal nemesis touted as a "fighter for freedom" by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Instead of racial minorities, women and gays, the legislative measures promoted by Horowitz are aimed at protecting a new minority -- conservatives. Whether you feel reassured or terrified by this prospect depends on your view of the culture wars.

Last month Jonathan Cole, a former Columbia University administrator, complained that "a rising tide of anti-intellectualism and intolerance of university research and teaching that offends ideologues . . . is putting academic freedom -- one of the core values of the university -- under more sustained and subtle attack than at any time since the dark days of McCarthyism."

Students who feel they're marginalized in class, even graded down, for not embracing a professor's political views, don't agree.

Consider:

Marissa Freimanis, a junior at Cal State Long Beach, says she lost her perfect GPA when her conservative views infuriated her English professor, who flunked her paper on "Fahrenheit 9/11" because she "missed the point of the film."

Three incoming freshmen at the University of North Carolina sued over a reading assignment they said offended their Christian beliefs. They lost their legal case, but the university removed the word "required" from the reading.

Gerald Wilson, a history professor at Duke University, wound up having to apologize for his answer to a student's question in class, "Do you have any prejudices?" He'd joked: "Republicans."

University of Oregon senior Anthony Warren says, "Professors nowadays are too liberal and cross the line from teaching to political preaching in the classroom." He was one of about 50 students responding to an informal questionnaire I e-mailed to UO, Stanford University, Washington State University, Willamette University, Northwest Christian College, Humboldt State and the University of Minnesota.

Most college students seem quite satisfied with their education, but a vocal minority is not. Says one University of Oregon student, "Being conservative has turned into a dirty word." Tilting to the left

Several recent studies indicate there are far more Democrats teaching at many universities than Republicans.

In March the online journal "The Forum" published an article that re-examined data from a 1999 survey of 1,643 faculty from a cross section of colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada.

The authors found that "liberals and Democrats outnumber conservatives and Republicans by large margins" at most institutions. This study was funded by the Randolph Foundation, which also supports Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture.

Two other studies discuss the political leanings of professors at the University of California at Berkeley, and Stanford. The first deals with voter registration, concluding that in 2003 Democrats outnumbered Republicans 10-to-1 at Berkeley and almost 8-to-1 at Stanford. It's easy to quibble with these results, when nearly half the Berkeley and Stanford faculties couldn't be classified as Republican or Democrat.

The second study shows that in social sciences and the humanities, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 7-to-1 at both institutions. Yet the response rate was a low 31 percent.

The absence of any data to the contrary makes me wonder if conservatives on campus are in fact an endangered species. But must we have an even ratio of Republicans to Democrats for a student to learn math or literature?

Recruitment is part of the problem. Maurice Holland, a former UO Law School dean, laments, "We hardly ever see a candidate who is politically conservative, even moderately so." A confidential process

Many students don't mind some politics in the classroom. But just where do we draw the line between a professor's academic freedom and a student's rights?

Universities have faculty handbooks that do just that. The Oregon University System specifies that professors "are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing subjects . . ." It goes on, "in the exercise of this freedom of expression, faculty should manifest appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others."

A UO student who thinks a professor has violated these guidelines can deal with the problem informally or file a grievance. Sanctions on faculty can include termination. This process is confidential, so we won't know if any complaints have been filed unless students speak to the press.

Right now there's an uneasy standoff between 1,800 colleges and universities -- which released a "Statement on Academic Rights and Responsibilities" in June -- and those who would regulate them. This statement didn't stop the Pennsylvania House from passing House Resolution 177 in July.

The resolution establishes a subcommittee to determine whether public university "students are graded based on academic merit, without regard for ideological views." The subcommittee will hold hearings, giving faculty who choose to appear 48 hours to prepare for meeting their accusers. All ideas aren't equal

Ultimately, this debate centers on what we mean by "liberal"? And exactly what is "too liberal"? Who gets to decide? Just asking the question, "Are professors too liberal?" lets conservative critics prejudice the answer with a loaded word that's become an insult.

Most professors wish this conversation would just go away. I don't think it will, though, as long as the national movement is going strong. So what's the solution? We don't need a war, which only produces entrenched enemies who demonize each other in a fight to the death. And we don't need legislation, which brings Big Brother into the classroom.

What we do need is for all professors to take seriously the 1940 American Association of University Professors Statement of Principles that cautions them "not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject" and to "remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances."

We also need students to realize that all ideas aren't equal. Without evidence and an incisive argument it's hard to be taken seriously -- whether you come from the left or the right.

Read SAF response.

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