Students For Academic Freedom

Conservatives Seek New State Laws to Restrain 'Liberal Bias' on Campuses · 03 January 2005

A student group plans to solicit legislators in 20 states in 2005

From The Associated Press, Reprinted in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, 12/22/04

BLOOMINGTON - Conservatives want to enlist legislators in their battle against what they say is liberal bias at state universities.

Students for Academic Freedom will ask lawmakers to pass legislation during the 2005 session to protect students from what it sees as harassment or discrimination based on political beliefs, said the group's founder, conservative intellectual David Horowitz.

The group plans to push its "academic bill of rights" in about 20 states in the coming year, Horowitz told The Herald Times.

The document, which Horowitz wrote, espouses intellectual diversity and independent thought. Horowitz said it was needed to protect conservative students from discrimination by leftist professors and to ensure that differing views were respected.

"It's not like we're objecting there's a leftist on the faculty, or 10," he said. "We're objecting there's no other point of view."

Democratic state Rep. Matt Pierce of Bloomington said he believes most university faculty welcome debate in their classrooms.

"I don't buy into this idea that there's some kind of liberal elite brainwashing students all across America," Pierce said.

Critics contend that the proposal opens the door to political meddling in higher education rather than closing it.

"I think when you try to legislate or regulate thought, any measures like that we're going to be concerned with," said J T. Forbes, director of state relations at Indiana University.

Students for Academic Freedom has targeted colleges in the state before.

Early this year, IU modified the content of a course dealing with workplace safety and terrorism after the group accused the instructor of presenting a biased view of Middle East history and politics.

Just last month, Horowitz wrote an article in an online journal accusing the head of the Ball State University's center for peace and conflict studies of supporting terrorism.

Horowitz's criticism came after student Brett Mock complained to the group that professor George Wolfe used the course to advocate for nonviolent activism and did not fairly acknowledge military force as an alternative.

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