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No Need to Fear, David Horowitz is Here

MONDAY APRIL 25 2005 11:17 AM

Submitted by JekyllAndHyde. Edited By legionnaire.

Apparently not content with a Republican president and a majority in both the House and the Senate, conservatives are now setting their sights on what is perhaps the greatest threat to the future of America that doesn't include the word "terrorists": our nation's universities. It seems as though dastardly liberals have pervaded the college world and are currently engaged in a diabolical scheme to warp the easily-convinced minds of our fledgling academics.

But intrepid conservatives should fear not, for salvation has arrived in the form of David Horowitz. His draft outline for an Academic Bill of Rights is slowly making its way across state governments even as we speak. From Horowitz's website:

Two reports recently released by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture reveal that 93.6% of the faculty at Colorado University (Boulder) and 98% of the faculty at Denver University who registered in political primaries were Democrats, a distribution that clearly suggest a bias in the system of training and hiring academic faculty. A previous report by the Center showed that the average ratio of Democrats to Republicans on 32 elite colleges was 10 to 1 and in some schools was as high as 30-1.

Horowitz aims to limit the practice of professors giving any form of political opinion in the classroom.

Perhaps the test results Horowitz cited simply mean that the most accomplished academics in our country have proven to be those of the liberal persuasion? And what would happen if a student received a failing grade on a biology test because he refused to answer any questions relating to evolution on the grounds that he firmly believes in Creationism? Would this student then be able to skip an entire section of a required class by claiming his professor is in violation of the Academic Bill of Rights?

At this point, Republicans have more power in Congress and in the White House than they have had in decades, and yet many are still acting like victims. And now they're afraid of professors who might have a critical mind of their own which they will use to indoctrinate their students. Because apparently nobody who has made it to any form of higher education has the mental capacity to formulate thoughts on their own, and they base all of their beliefs on what one simple professor might remark offhand in a lecture.

127 Comments

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troglodyte

Victoria, BC

May 2003

APR 25, 2005 04:26 PM

thrash242 said:
If you don't realize how biased Universities (and even grade schools) are in general, then you're blinded by your own liberalism. I have had and heard of many professors ranting against Bush, guns, capitalism, etc. I've heard of professors requiring students to attend protests.

I don't care what people's politics are, but they don't need to be brought up in class, especially when they are so one-sided. It's no wonder so many brainwashed hordes are coming out of colleges.

On the other hand, some of us have actually attended univeristy and heven't "heard" of any of this.

nonbillable

New York, NY

September 2004

APR 25, 2005 04:31 PM

kagemusha said:

stockula said:
Offhand remark? Anyone else victim of the ranting professor who starts talking politics even though you're not in a political science class? One of my brother's teachers devoted an entire class to Noam Chomsky, even though it was an English class on research writing.

I may be way off here, but students dont pay tuition to serve as captive audiences or indulge the politics of university staff.

Horowitz is drawing attention to the notorious intellectual inequality manifest in American academia. The professors are shrieking about their right to speak being curtailed, I dont think it dawned on them for a second how any right-wing or Republican political speech has been institutionally squashed in most American universities.

[Edited on Apr 25, 2005 by stockula]

[Edited on Apr 25, 2005 by stockula]

If students don't like what they are being taught they are free to, like, take their goddamned tuition elsewhere. It's a free market, isn't it?

Exactly. And if you know a professor is prone to discussing political views you disagree with, here's a radical suggestion: take someone else's class.

[Edited on Apr 25, 2005 by nonbillable]

kagemusha

I'm lost

April 2005

APR 25, 2005 04:31 PM

dead_ringer said:
Sure Horowitz has a point. I attend a public university and I can concede that (a) the vast majority of my professors are left-leaning, and that (b) more than half of my classmates fall along the same lines. However, what the man is advocating is what I like to call "intellectual welfare." Effectively it is an excuse for a minority of students to effect the hiring policies of universities, and the and curricula deemed important by qualified professors. Also, if students can not discriminate among ideas, facts, and theories, what place do they have in institutions of higher learning?

Horowitz advocates introducing religious material into classrooms as a counter to "secular" ideas which are still "controversial." It's absurd to suggest that a professor should assign religious reading when discussing the right to contraceptives, family planning, privacy, etc. If the crybabies don't like the decision in Lawrence v. Texas, then fucking refute it. Don't require the professor to subsidize your view point just because you don't have the capacity to make an argument.

Pull youself up by your intellectual bootstraps and let your ideas compete in the marketplace.

Conservatives are whining about being a minority on many college campuses and having to sit through classes taught by professors who espouse views contrary to their own, yet their pussies don't hurt as much over the fact that state and federal policy is fucking dictated ever increasingly by the extreme right - which is the minority in this country. They don't cry about economics programs; business programs; sports programs; or engeineering programs being prodominantly conservative. I've seen this in my program lately. But instead of researching a legal issue and making a compelling argument to refute an assertion they disagree with, they bitch and moan about liberal bias on campus.

Basically, if one can't argue a point in law school with out crying "bias!" then that person is either a pussy or he doesn't belong in law school.

It's unfortunate because there are plenty of students who disagree with liberal politics who CAN make a complling argument to back themselves up and they don't cry about it.

Preach brotha.

This sort of thing will never take root in elite private and public universities, private colleges or public universities on the west coast, upper midwest, or the northeast (i.e. the blue states). I hope the rest of the country's weak-ass, inferior educational institutions adopt this shit so that the dominance of my institutions will be guaranteed for all time. Enjoy Florida International University, Ole Miss, Bob Jones University, and their kin, you red-state fuckwits.

Dead_Ringer

I'm lost

September 2004

APR 25, 2005 04:33 PM

kagemusha said:

If students don't like what they are being taught they are free to, like, take their goddamned tuition elsewhere. It's a free market, isn't it?

Kage, free market principles only apply when we're talking about exploiting the resources of developing states, raping the environment, propping up the likes of Pinochet, and protecting the property interests of multi-national corporations.

kagemusha

I'm lost

April 2005

APR 25, 2005 04:34 PM

dead_ringer said:

kagemusha said:

If students don't like what they are being taught they are free to, like, take their goddamned tuition elsewhere. It's a free market, isn't it?

Fuck, that's right. I forgot. The republicons are for free markets when they dominate those markets.

nonbillable

New York, NY

September 2004

APR 25, 2005 04:38 PM

kagemusha said:

dead_ringer said:

kagemusha said:

If students don't like what they are being taught they are free to, like, take their goddamned tuition elsewhere. It's a free market, isn't it?

Fuck, that's right. I forgot. The republicons are for free markets when they dominate those markets.

And even then, a little corporate welfare never hurt anyone.