Students For Academic Freedom

Horowitz Challenges Campus to see Both Sides of Issues · 03 October 2003

By Erin McIntyre, The Daily Sentinel, 10/03

Institutions of higher learning shouldn't be a ring for a political slugfest with no referee, a conservative activist told more than 200 people Thursday night.

David Horowitz made Mesa State College his latest stop on tour to promote his Academic Bill of Rights, a controversial piece of proposed legislation mandating an open forum of ideas on college campuses.

Known for his involvement in the New Left movement in the 1960s, Horowitz is a former Marxist raised by Communist parents during the Cold War.

He's famous for writing books such as "Hating Whitey," about reverse-discrimination, and "Radical Son," his autobiography about his transformation to conservatism.

Horowitz's latest project is the Academic Bill of Rights.

The document, designed to encourage an atmosphere of intellectual diversity on campuses, states no person can be hired, fired or graded on their personal beliefs, religion or political affiliations.

He believes liberal campuses are indoctrinating students with liberal ideas and punishing students or faculty members who do not subscribe to liberal beliefs.

"This is about restoring integrity to the educational process," Horowitz said. "This is an anti-quota bill."

For example, he said society trusts doctors to treat everyone, regardless of moral, religious or political beliefs.

"The same thing should be of teachers, but it isn't," he said.

Horowitz's nine-point manifesto states faculty will be judged on their competence in their respective fields, and students will be graded on their reasoned answers.

It also says "faculty will not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination."

"It's about manners," Horowitz said.

Appropriate manners isn't a professor subjecting his class to some diatribe on how much he hates the president or plastering her office door with one-sided political cartoons, he said.

He doesn't want teachers to deny themselves free speech - he just wants them to let their students know there's another side.

"The university should recognize that it's not the 'Hannity and Colmes' show and it's not a political pit with no referee," Horowitz said.

He called "liberal" opponents to his bill, who hadn't read the document, examples of "know-nothing politics."

Horowitz said blind opposition to Gov. Bill Owens and Senate President John Andrews, both Republicans who have expressed interest in implementing the bill in Colorado, has led some to automatically oppose the Academic Bill of Rights.

Some are concerned about the bill's enforcement if it is adopted.

Although the actual enforcement of the bill isn't in his proposal, "it doesn't really matter," Horowitz said. He's just hoping it's a wake-up call that allows the "decent others" to overcome their fear of the "left."

"We just want to have exposure or at least an acknowledgement that alternate viewpoints exist," said Ryan Call, Horowitz's organizer in Colorado with Students for Academic Freedom, a group of students supporting the bill.

Horowitz admits he doesn't know how his bill will be codified or enforced.

"Personally, I hope it's tied to funding, somehow," he said.

Horowitz encouraged Mesa State students and faculty to urge school officials to adopt the bill.

Some said Horowitz's bill isn't a good idea and called it a "quota for conservatives."

"It's one of the poorest ideas for any conservative anywhere to latch onto," Eric Niederkruger said. "It's a quota system, plain and simple.

"I've seen no peer-reviewed evidence that there is a problem," Niederkruger said. "When I see decisive evidence that a problem exists, then it's time to take action."

Horowitz and colleagues have conducted surveys at Colorado schools and 32 colleges and universities across the country, compiling information about the political affiliations of humanities and social sciences faculty.

The unscientific survey, which compiled voter-registration records for faculty who could be located in public records, revealed "liberal" professors outnumbered "conservative" professors nine-to-one.

But that still doesn't prove students and faculty are being persecuted by leftists, some say.

"It's never been proven that there's a need for this," Michael Ervin said. "It's totally ridic- ulous."

"I would be very surprised if there were no problem (at Mesa State) because I have been on over 200 campuses it's always the same - in different degrees, but the problem is pervasive," Horowitz said.

"This is a Leftist culture - it's obvious," he said. "You have to be blind or dishonest to ignore that."

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