Academia: Zone of No Tolerance
By Marilyn M. Brannan, Associate Editor
Unravelling The New World Order
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The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses.... The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind..”
— Benno Schmidt, former president of Yale University(1991)
Such a statement evokes a big question for thousands of parents who have invested hard-earned funds for the purpose of sending their offspring off to college: Why would conservative Americans—and especially, Orthodox Jews and Christians—spend good money to send their kids to schools that will fill their heads with left-wing propaganda and work actively to undermine the principles and ideals on which our nation was founded—especially, the Judeo-Christian ethic that under girds our system of laws and government?
Well over a decade ago (1991), retiring Harvard president Derek Bok said, “What universities can and must resist are deliberate, overt attempts to impose orthodoxy and suppress dissent. . . In recent years, the threat of orthodoxy has come primarily from within rather than from outside the university” [emphasis added] (1991).
In just the past few months, University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill stirred up a national furor by his overtly expressed sympathy for the 9/11 terrorists and his contempt for 9/11 victims whom he publicly labeled “little Eichmanns”; Columbia University was inundated with complaints of anti-Israel bias; and a Florida community college was condemned for banning Christian students from showing The Passion of the Christ. Conservatives are understandably furious over what they see as a steamroller attempt to obliterate political and religious freedoms on campuses all over the country.
Growing political/religious intolerance and abuse of academic freedom on campuses has been widely documented by various groups. Among them is the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). In their report entitled “Academic Freedom” (published at www.goacta.org), they reveal deliberate attempts to impose orthodoxy and suppress dissent. Among other things, they noted:
-- Students report feeling intimidated by professors and fellow students if they question politically correct ideas. In some cases, students have been subject to official sanctions for speaking their minds in class.
-- The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center finds that hundreds of colleges have adopted speech codes or sensitivity requirements that threaten free speech and academic freedom.
-- American historians cited “political correctness” and “overspecialization” most frequently when asked to name weaknesses in their profession by an Organization of American Historians survey.
--The Student Press Law Center reports over 100 instances of campus newspaper theft, with little or no punishment for the perpetrators.
-- Professors have been removed and punished, in some cases illegally, for violating the norms of political correctness.
Hostile Environment for Conservatives
Another report issued by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni revealed that polling showed 49% of students at the top 50 schools said their professors “use the classroom to present their personal political views.” Roughly 20% complained about instructors who create a classroom environment hostile to certain political, social, and religious views.
The ACTA survey showed that 48% of students report that presentations of political issues on campus are “totally one-sided.” According to the testimony of the students, the “one-sided” presentation includes cutting off students who present conservative viewpoints in class but allowing students with socialist and communist leanings unfettered opportunities to speak.
It also includes mid-term exams featuring topics like “Explain why George Bush is a war criminal,” as happened at a university in Colorado. It includes professors such as the professor of law at the University of Colorado who told his class that the “R” in Republicans stands for “racist,” and dismissed a student who objected by saying, “We have too many Nazis like you on campus.” ( It's Time for Fairness and Inclusion in Our Universities,” FrontPageMagazine.com, Dec. 14, 2004 )
Lopsided Academia
A study conducted in 2002 by the American Enterprise Magazine at the request of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture showed that of 394 faculty members whose party registrations could be identified at four University of California campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego and Santa Barbara), 371 were registered Democrats or Greens, as compared to only 23 Republicans or Libertarians. This was true not only for sociology, a traditionally left-wing field, but political science where 94% of party registrations were also on the left.
Commenting on that study, David Horowitz, nationally known author and lifelong civil rights activist, observed that in a nation as evenly divided between liberals and conservatives as this nation is, such a distribution would not be statistically possible if there were no bias in the hiring process on university and college campuses.
Another study, by economics professor Daniel Klein of Santa Clara University , establishes what Klein identifies as “a relentless bias in the hiring of faculty.”
In the Fall of 2004 Klein released a survey of 1,000 professors, which found that those identifying as Democrats outnumbered their Republican counterparts by at least 8 to 1 in the humanities and social sciences—more than double the ratio of the early 1970s. Unreleased data show that Democrats were more likely to hold the same ideological positions—in favor of laws restricting gun ownership, for example. Republicans, on the other hand, often diverged from their party's line. In a survey of junior faculty at Stanford and Berkeley, Professor Klein found that the ratio of “liberals” to conservatives on college campuses is 30-1.
“This is more than just some evidence that there's this tremendous lopsidedness in academia—this is conclusive proof,” says Klein. (“Professors & Politics,” published by U.S. News & World Report at www.U.S.News.com, March 7, 2005 )
No Campus Forum for Conservatives
Another widespread abuse is the near-universal boycott of conservative speakers by many of our universities and colleges. Left-wingers such as Spike Lee and Cornell West get as much as $30,000 from student funds to come to universities to rant against President Bush and the war in Iraq , while conservatives often must raise their own funds from private sources.
Left-wing speakers seem to get a free pass—regardless of their message. One glaring example is the event at Emory University last year when Elaine Brown, a former leader of the Black Panthers, was invited to speak during Martin Luther King Week. This was an outrageous insult to the memory of Martin Luther King because the Panthers historically have preached violence, and frequently referred to Dr. King as “Martin Luther Coon.” (Source: David Horowitz, “Democratic Abuse of the Academy,” FrontPageMagazine.com, April 19, 2004 )
Commencement speakers at Emory have included UN official Mary Robinson, who was one of the organizers of the infamous 2001 hate-fest against Jews and the United States held in Durban , South Africa , 10 days before 9/11. The platform for that event was so overtly bigoted that the official U.S. delegation walked out of the event. And yet, one of the “architects” of such subversion was considered worthy to deliver the commencement address to some of our sons and daughters—and to their parents who, in many cases, had made significant sacrifices in order to experience that signal moment in the lives of their offspring.
What Can We Do?
The effect of the current one-party system on college campuses is enormously destructive to our national fabric, the quality of which is dependent on the free and unfettered exchange of ideas. Even if you’re a liberal, you can’t get a good education if your professors are telling you only half the story. The widespread censorship of conservative views—both political and religious—diminishes the educational experience for everyone, whether liberal or conservative.
To remedy this situation and restore civility to the arena of intellectual exchange on college and university campuses, David Horowitz has drawn up an “Academic Bill of Rights,” which is presently being considered for legislation in twenty states. (To see the document and to support this remedial action, go to either of the following websites:
www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org or www.frontpagemagazine.org. |
The American system of free exchange of ideas under the First Amendment can tolerate the presence of an extremist like Churchill on a university faculty—provided they are convinced that the university is a true and open forum for ideas, and that such perverse views will be answered—and balanced—by his peers.
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