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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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NotJason

Orono, ME

October 2004

APR 26, 2005 12:49 PM

I can see wanting to limit teachers' political ranting in high school and lower levels, but not in college. I've had an english professor who would go on the most uninformed annoying politcal rants ever, but guess what, i'm fucking 22, i am able to sort out opinions from fact, and my sincere hope is that college students are not as impressionable as all that (in high school or lower, this would be a more valid concern). in a lot of my classes, as a sociology major, certain political bias is almost necessary at times.

FrankMask

Saint Paul, MN

June 2003

APR 26, 2005 02:55 PM

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]

No, I can honestly say I haven't. Now the professors teaching the history of communist China and Russia definately make snide remarks about the U.S. and it's current political climate, but they strike on both sides of the party line, and also go after the communists, the church, and everyone the hell else. No one is safe from the snarky wrath of the ex-Marxist Professor.

waldo

I'm lost

June 2004

APR 26, 2005 03:29 PM

slimjim said:
No, seriously, I'm a conservative guy, but I tend to pretty mellow about it. Here at CU, where Horowitz cites, many of the professors are way out of line. If it is a liberal arts course, I can see bringing politics into it. I'm tired of seeing it in other course, though. There shouldn't be anything political about math and science.

I agree with you. But teaching science includes the teaching of biology, and that includes evolution. It appears that that is a political issue in many places.

Rowan

SUICIDEGIRL

Washington, USA

APR 26, 2005 03:47 PM

When did America become so pathetic that we cannot deal with this shit on our own? We need to legislate because we are too dumb to stand up against what we think is wrong?

If you don't like a professor, complain. Or better yet complain AND don't take their courses again.

"My teacher hurt my feelings."

Okay fine. Nut up and tell them that. Don't come running to the government to write new law that limits information. If I hear one more law go into effect because people are too stupid to take care of themselves, I am going to vomit.

Anyone else find the "Caution: contents hot" note on coffee cups to be helpful?

"Gosh...thank goodness that note was there...I was about to toss the cup to Ned.

Same thing. Hopefully by the time people reach college, they have figured out some stuff. Like how to get up and walk out a door. ♥

xoxo
~Ro

abracadabra

Seattle, WA

April 2004

APR 26, 2005 04:25 PM

welcome to our true democracy which is now revealing itself to the masses..2008 can't get here fast enough

spudboy

Canton, OH

February 2003

APR 26, 2005 11:21 PM

stockula said:

spudboy said:

stockula said:

He's been attacked for speaking his mind, yes.

he's been attacked!? i hope he's doing alright. is he in stable condition?

...ooooh, you mean his points of view were criticized, sometimes unfortunately through ad hominem arguments.

sad to say, but that's often what you get when participating in democracy. people are rarely actually willing to take an issue and discuss it intelligently without resorting to name calling and other sorts of fallacious reasoning.

for example: this thread has turned into debate about horowitz and not about the actual issue of whether there IS a liberal bias in colleges and if so, how it can be fixed.

[Edited on Apr 26, 2005 3:29AM]

I suppose if it takes physical attacks to validate Horowitz's views, then I should applaud such attacks. But I dont feel that way. I have the extremist opinion he should be able to speak without his enemies disrupting his speeches. If his ideas are so idiotic and stupid on their face, why is Horowitz so vehementely attacked whenever he makes a public appearance? Why is the Left so threatened by what he has to say? He's obviously saying something they dont want the public to hear, and using ever avenue they can to silence him. Alll that does is further my interest in what he has to say, and lends him credibility.

For example, I love the fact Howard Dean is the chairman on the DNC and goes around the country mocking Republicans, calling them evil and liars. It's fantastic. More, please.

[Edited on Apr 26, 2005 by stockula]

i don't understand that logic.

how does the disdain of a large portion of the public add credibility? a lot of americans hate osama bin laden and hitler as well. does that give them credibility?

regardless, we are still not dicussing the actual topic raised by horowitz. we are merely discussing horowitz.

[Edited on Apr 27, 2005 2:23AM]

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

APR 27, 2005 12:12 AM

How about we discuss the classic conflation of "correlation" and "causation" implied by the Horowitz position?

Namely:
- that IF it is in fact true that university academics tend to lean heavily left
- that THEN this is due to a conspiracy to keep conservative viewpoints off campuses and out of classrooms.

It is not well established that the first point is true, in the first place. Most of the evidence here has been anecdotal at best. (Of the "Well at my school..." variety.)

If there IS a left-leaning academic bias, it's likely to be most pronounced in humanities departments (cultural studies, womens studies etc.). To the extent it's a product of academic fashion in the era of postmodernism and poststructuralism, then there is SOME reason to believe that the reinforcement of a leftist position in these departments is a result of the internal academic culture -- the MLA brigade hiring and promoting their own, as it were.

Now, even though I have argued elsewhere that I don't think this is a particularly healthy thing, the fact is that humanties departments are going to be -- and OUGHT TO BE -- critiquing the status quo, whatever the fuck the status quo happens to be. Hell, if critics of the status quo can't find homes in such places then where the hell can they exist?

If there's a left-leaning bias in faculties of business, science, medicine and law, it's (a) likely to be less noticeable, and (b) more likely to be a result of the kinds of people who choose academic careers, and an attraction to the underlying philosophy of critical academic inquiry, than it is of a dominant culture in which leftist views must be propounded publicly for career advancement to occur.

In my experience (which would be at least equal to or greater than most people in this thread) universities hire teaching staff based on things like, will this person do research and publish, preferably in reasonably good journals? Is this person able to teach subjects we need to have taught? Are they likely to be able to attract grant money and supervise postgrads? Will they be pleasant enough to have around as colleagues or will they be really fucking annoying?

Not, does this person toe some party line...