Response to Cox News Service Article · 01 March 2005
Elizabeth Schuett's recent article for the Cox News Service misses the mark entirely in its criticisms of Ohio Senate Bill 24, which is based on our Academic Bill of Rights (Mumper's 'academic bill of rights' should get an 'F,' 02/21/05).
Schuett states that "education is the imparting of knowledge" and that it "provides our young not with the ability to parrot someone else's dearly held indoctrination, but with the ability to reason and to think for themselves." Senate Bill 24 was based on a philosophy of academic freedom that holds precisely to these principles, and would reaffirm them in our institutions of higher learning.
So it is baffling that Schuett somehow concludes that this legislation would prevent the teaching of evolution or serve to reinforce scientifically disproven views such as those of the "Flat Earth Society."
Clearly Schuett hasn't read the text of the bill, for if she had, she would realize that far from encouraging indoctrination, it explicitly promotes intellectual diversity and critical discussion in the classroom. "Faculty and instructors shall be free to pursue and discuss their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, but they shall make their students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than their own through classroom discussion or dissemination of written materials, and they shall encourage intellectual honesty, civil debate, and the critical analysis of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge and truth." How could this statement be clearer?
Regarding the teaching of controversial matter in the classroom, the bill permits the vast majority of controversial class discussion, only asking that instructors avoid "persistently introducing controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to their subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose" (emphasis added).
While Schuett mocks Senator Mumper for his statement that 80% of professors are on the political left, several national studies including one released just this past fall have shown that among college faculty in the humanities, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a ratio of 7-1 nationally and by as much as 30-1 in certain departments. Students are regularly abused for their political or religious views in the classroom and are intimidated into silence by fear of academic reprisals. By ensuring that students are given the opportunity to hear multiple scholarly perspectives in the classroom and explicitly prohibiting the grading of students based on their political or religious views, Senate Bill 24 will stimulate intellectual discussion and critical thought in Ohio's universities.
Sincerely,
Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom
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