Two More Indoctrinate U Screenings
We've just posted details for two more campus screenings of Indoctrinate U: one at Louisiana State University (Shreveport) and another at San Diego State University. For more information, visit the Indoctrinate U screenings page.
Posted by Stuart Browning
19 Jan 2008 @ 7:54am
Reeducation Camp
 Stanley Kurtz at the National Review has a new, in-depth review of our new feature-length film Indoctrinate U:
One of the virtues of Indoctrinate U, Evan Coyne Maloney's powerful new documentary, is that it helps us answer the "isolated anecdote" argument - both intellectually, and at a gut level.
Indoctrinate U explores the Kafkaesque nightmares that befall students and professors who run up against the P.C. behemoth: A woman with two brothers - one an adopted Guatemalan orphan - writes a letter to her school paper saying she wouldn't want to see one brother favored over the other because of skin color. A professor questions the fairness of a panel on which all seven speakers favor reparations for slavery. A representative of the College Republicans posts a flier at the campus multi-cultural center advertising a lecture by a conservative black speaker. A student writes a column complaining that the school's "issues committee" invites only left-leaning speakers to campus. A professor is accidentally revealed to be a Republican. A student from Kuwait writes an essay praising the role of the United States in world affairs. Everyone knows that such actions fly in the face of campus orthodoxy, yet few will be prepared for the enormity of the punishment these nonconformists face.
Read it all.
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 May 2007 @ 9:21am
Indoctrinate U Trailer and Website Up
Speech codes. Censorship. Sensitivity training. Political conformity and rehabilitation. Intolerance. Hostility to religion. Violations of freedom of speech and conscience. Kangaroo courts. We usually associate such things with the repressive regimes of North Korea, China, Cuba, and the former Soviet Union. But instead, this assault on free thought is taking place all over America--right now--on our nation's campuses.
Our new documentary film, Indoctrinate U, directed by Evan Coyne Maloney, reveals the ugly truths about academia that you won't see in their glossy admissions brochures.
A Few Questions for Administrators
A production of On The Fence Films with the support of the Moving Picture Institute, the film's trailer and website have just gone live. Maloney spent two and a half years investigating jaw-dropping incidents of political persecution--of students and professors alike--at over a dozen schools all over the country. From elite Ivy League campuses to the largest state universities and the tiniest community colleges, Indoctrinate U points a critical lens at every level of the academic establishment.
The film was produced by a team headed by software entrepreneur and filmmaker Stuart Browning, entertainment attorney Blaine Greenberg, and Thor Halvorssen, former CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
Go Watch the Trailer >>
Update:
Michelle Malkin has the video from last night's "Hannity's America:
Posted by site admin
18 Mar 2007 @ 7:34pm
Somebody Ought to Make a Film About This
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a recent study of university faculty:
A report released on Wednesday on the political views of faculty members accuses professors of liberal "groupthink," a stance that the report says puts them at odds with the beliefs of most Americans on national and international issues.
The report, by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, was based on an online, nationally representative survey of 1,259 professors at four-year colleges and universities in the spring of 2005. It found that, in general, professors are critical of American business and foreign policy and are skeptical of capitalism.
[...]
Professors, says the report, are at the "forefront of the political divide" over U.S. foreign policy that has developed since the 2001 terrorist attacks. Faculty members have "aligned themselves in direct opposition to the political philosophy of the conservative base voting for the prevailing political power" in America, it says. Unlike most Americans, it adds, faculty members "blame America for world problems" and regard U.S. policies as "suspect."
The report labels the faculty's overall stance as liberal "groupthink," and says it is dangerous because faculty members "are supposed to provide a broad range of ... approaches to addressing problems in American society and around the world." Professors are role models for students and frequently are called upon to act as "pundits" by the media and as experts on foreign policy, it adds.
[...]
"The fact that there are more liberals than conservatives on campus is not the key issue," Gary A. Tobin, president of the institute, said during a teleconference on Wednesday. "We argue that were the political ideology reversed -- that three of every four identified themselves as conservatives rather than liberals -- the problem would be exactly the same. The presence of a dominant ideology has the potential to interfere with unbiased, honest, and creative scholarship and teaching."
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
21 Oct 2006 @ 4:30pm
Lessons Learned at Columbia
Columbia University's Teacher's College employs "ideological litmus tests for students," according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). The civil rights group says the policies of Columbia Teacher's College conflict with the school's "written promises of free speech and academic freedom as well as with Columbia President Lee Bollinger's recent statements on the importance of free expression at Columbia University."
The university found itself embroiled in controversy last week when a student mob assaulted a speaker invited by Columbia's College Republicans club. The incident, which was caught on video, involved left-wing students storming the stage and assaulting the speaker, an act that shut down the entire event. It is apparently being investigated by Columbia University, but no punishments have been handed down.
Personally, I doubt that the students will be punished at all, or that the penalty will be so minor as to have no deterrent effect on students inclined to behave like fascist thugs in the future. I fully expect the university to assign a portion of the blame to the folks whose free speech rights were trampled by the mob; after all, the College Republicans had the temerity to express views that run counter to the campus majority.
Just how deeply embedded in Columbia's culture is the ideological monopoly? At the university's Teacher's College, students are effectively required to agree to a political loyalty oath. According to FIRE:
[The] Teachers College's Conceptual Framework, which represents the "philosophy for teacher education at Teachers College," requires students to possess a "commitment to social justice." Moreover, students are expected to recognize that "social inequalities are often produced and perpetuated through systematic discrimination and justified by societal ideology of merit, social mobility, and individual responsibility."
The term "social justice" has been adopted by the new left after recognizing that the word "socialism" isn't terribly popular these days. It's a clever term; after all, what fair-minded, kind-hearted person could oppose social justice?
But, as always, the devil is in the details. What exactly is social justice? The way the debate is rigged on campus these days, social justice means that you have to believe in specific political policies. You must support racial preferences. You must support a massive welfare state. You must believe that capitalism is inherently evil and that government is the only remedy. You must believe in redistribution of wealth.
Is that justice? How can the belief that forcibly taking wealth from someone who earned it and giving to someone who didn't be considered justice? Where I come from, it's called theft. It's grand larceny.
But at the Columbia Teacher's College, you must demonstrate a "commitment to social justice." In other words, if you want to be a teacher trained at Columbia University, you must adopt their political beliefs.
"The freedom of the mind is perhaps our most essential liberty. Sadly, Teachers College's policies include ideological requirements for future teachers," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "While social justice may sound nice, no two people define social justice in exactly the same way. This policy presents a serious problem for students who define it differently from the university."
FIRE wrote to Columbia President Lee Bollinger and Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman on September 15, urging them to abandon the "policy of assessing student commitment to controversial, politicized, and wholly personal concepts like 'social justice.'" FIRE pointed out that "the twentieth century well demonstrates that one man's idea of 'social justice' potentially is another man's idea of totalitarian tyranny," and implored Teachers College to "live up to its public promises" of freedom of thought and expression. FIRE received no response to its letter.
"According to Teachers College, students who believe that merit, social mobility, and individual responsibility are positive values rather than the hallmarks of injustice are not cut out to be teachers," Lukianoff said. "Such political litmus tests all but guarantee that students will be evaluated on their opinions rather than their abilities."
While Columbia requires students at its Teacher's College to adopt the school's preferred political views, they're supposedly investigating students who--like the school--tried to impose them on others. If Columbia believes that students can be forced to adopt the university's political dogma, is it any surprise that the school produces students who believe that they have the duty to act as the enforcers of that dogma?
Make no mistake about it: the environment at Columbia produced the thuggish behavior of that mob. If the school decides to punish those students, the students will only be punished for learning their lessons a little too well.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
13 Oct 2006 @ 7:43am
What Passes for Tolerance and Diversity
If you set foot on a college campus these days, you'll be bombarded with feel-good buzzwords intended to convince you of how caring and inclusive the environment is.
The words "tolerance" and "diversity" are drilled into students' heads from orientation on, but it doesn't take savvy students long to figure out just how empty those concepts are in academia these days.
The concept of diversity is only skin deep; everyone is welcomed regardless of color or sexual orientation--as long as they don't deviate from the narrow ideological framework that dominates many college campuses. Diversity of thought--presumably the most important type of diversity in an institution whose purpose is to enrich the mind--is not valued. And tolerance never seems to extend to those who reject the worldview that schools attempt to impose.
Case in point, Columbia University:
Students stormed the stage at Columbia University's Roone auditorium yesterday, knocking over chairs and tables and attacking Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minutemen, a group that patrols the border between America and Mexico.
Mr. Gilchrist and Marvin Stewart, another member of his group, were in the process of giving a speech at the invitation of the Columbia College Republicans. They were escorted off the stage unharmed and exited the auditorium by a back door.
[...]
The student protesters, who attended the event clad in white as a sign of dissent, booed and shouted the speakers down throughout. They interrupted Mr. Stewart, who is African-American, when he referred to the Declaration of Independence's self-evident truth that "All men are created equal," calling him a racist, a sellout, and a black white supremacist.
A student's demand that Mr. Stewart speak in Spanish elicited thundering applause and brought the protesters to their feet. The protesters remained standing, turned their backs on Mr. Stewart for the remainder of his remarks, and drowned him out by chanting, "Wrap it up, wrap it up!" Mr. Stewart appeared unfazed by their behavior. He simply smiled and bellowed, "No wonder you don't know what you're talking about."
"These are racist individuals heading a project that terrorizes immigrants on the U.S.-Mexican border," Ryan Fukumori, a Columbia junior who took part in the protest, told The New York Sun. "They have no right to be able to speak here."
As of now, the Columbia administration has taken absolutely no disciplinary action launched an investigation.
If it infuriates you to read this, then you may want to be sure you've taken your medications before watching the video.
Update: Columbia University president Lee Bollinger released a statement on the incident, which I've excerpted:
The disruption on Wednesday night that resulted in the termination of an event organized by the Columbia College Republicans in Lerner Hall represents, in my judgment, one of the most serious breaches of academic faith that can occur in a university such as ours.
Of course, the University is thoroughly investigating the incident, and it is critically important not to prejudge the outcome of that inquiry with respect to individuals. But, as we made clear in our University statements on both Wednesday night and Thursday, we must speak out to deplore a disruption that threatens the central principle to which we are institutionally dedicated, namely to respect the rights of others to express their views.
This is not complicated: Students and faculty have rights to invite speakers to the campus. Others have rights to hear them. Those who wish to protest have rights to do so. No one, however, shall have the right or the power to use the cover of protest to silence speakers. This is a sacrosanct and inviolable principle.
It is unacceptable to seek to deprive another person of his or her right of expression through actions such as taking a stage and interrupting the speech. We rightly have a visceral rejection of this behavior, because we all sense how easy it is to slide from our collective commitment to the hard work of intellectual confrontation to the easy path of physical brutishness. When the latter happens, we know instinctively we are all threatened.
These are reassuring words. And I hope Mr. Bollinger intends to stand by them and see that the principles therein are enforced at Columbia. I'll believe it when I see it, though; Columbia doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to these politically-charged investigations.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
8 Oct 2006 @ 11:40pm
Course Listing? Or Political Ad?
Bucknell University professor Alexander Riley notes that it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between academic course announcements and political advertisements.
I feel your pain, professor. Try being a student there!
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
28 Aug 2006 @ 10:42am
Jihad 101 at University of Wisconsin
At the University of Wisconsin, an instructor who has given voice to conspiracy theories about the culprits behind 9/11 will be teaching an introductory course on Islam in the fall.
Posted by Stuart Browning
11 Jul 2006 @ 8:14am
Taliban-Boy Denied Admission at Yale
Unfortunately, his academic career in the U.S. may not be over:
A student at Yale University who was once a roving ambassador for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan has been denied admission to a degree-granting program at Yale, one of the student's financial supporters said yesterday.
The student, Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, apparently can continue to take courses at the university as an untraditional student in a non-degree program, as he did during the past academic year, said Tatiana Maxwell, the president of the International Education Foundation, which was created to raise money to send Mr. Hashemi to Yale.
[...]
If he ultimately cannot pursue a degree at Yale, he will probably try to do so at another university in the United States, she said, adding that a number of alumni and others not connected to Yale had come forward to offer to help Mr. Hashemi after he became a controversial figure this spring.
"We would definitely try to help him," Mrs. Maxwell said.
Posted by Stuart Browning
6 Jul 2006 @ 10:08am
Spineless and Rude in Canada
Campus political correctness is not a phenomenon limited to the U.S. Witness this from Canada, as reported by the National Post:
Today, Ryerson University will award an honorary science doctorate to Margaret Somerville, one of Canada's most renowned and respected academics.
Whenever there is a major debate about medical or bio-ethics anywhere in the world, Somerville will almost certainly be summoned to explain the moral, legal, historical and cultural intricacies. Several networks around the globe call on her expertise. The United Nations, at the highest levels, consults her frequently. As founding director of McGill University's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law, Somerville may well be the world's foremost ethical authority.
But last week, Ryerson's awards committee -- which months ago enthusiastically asked whether she would accept an honorary degree -- did everything it could, short of rescinding it, to sully her honour.
You see, among her many, many stands on ethical issues -- abortion, cloning, reproductive choice, animal rights, euthanasia, palliative care and so on -- Somerville is opposed to same-sex marriage.
In an article entitled "Spineless and Rude," writer Lorne Gunter points out that the Dr. Somerville will still receive her award, but only because her opposition to gay marriage became known after the award was already announced:
For nearly a month, gay activists and their supporters have done all they can to get the Ryerson awards committee to uninvite Somerville.
They have, for example, circulated online petitions likening her to the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis for suggesting traditional marriage is better for children and society. Her detractors have also applied all manner of pressure -- including threats of disruption at the convocation at which Somerville will be invested -- to compel the school to relent.
One senses that Ryerson would have caved in fully if it thought it could get away with it. Last Wednesday, the awards committee decided to go ahead with the degree -- but only because "to rescind the award would raise basic issues of freedom of speech." Committee members, however, wanted it clearly known they no longer supported their original grant.
In a news release, they pointedly scoffed that "several things have become abundantly clear ... One is that the Committee was unaware of some positions for which she has advocated in the press and before Parliament -- positions that would have given Committee members serious pause before approving the award.
"There would have been no academic freedom concerns if we had initially decided not to award an honorary doctorate to Dr. Somerville," the committee added.
Let that be a notice to other Canadian academics: if you don't agree with the prevailing campus ideology, your career would be best served by keeping your mouth shut.
(Hat tip: David MacLean of Taxpayer's Federation.)
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
22 Jun 2006 @ 8:55am
Profiles in Academic Tolerance
At Johns Hopkins University, around 600 copies of The Carrollton Record, the school's conservative student paper, "went missing", reports the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Shortly thereafter, school administrators confiscated hundreds more copies of the conservative paper:
[The Carrollton Record's] May issue contained an article objecting to a recent campus appearance by pornographic film director Chi Chi LaRue. The cover photo pictured LaRue along with members of JHU's Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance (DSAGA) student group, which hosted the event. The pictured DSAGA members were apparently displeased to see their pictures on the newspaper's front page, and some have filed harassment charges against TCR staffers.
On May 14, approximately 600 copies of TCR that had been distributed to the library the previous day went missing. TCR editor Jered Ede attempted to report the theft, but told FIRE that a security officer and the Dean of Student Life both said that the missing papers did not constitute theft. Ede then learned that TCR would no longer be allowed to distribute in dorms and that administrators had confiscated 300 copies. Previously, TCR and numerous other publications--including the liberal Hopkins Donkey--had regularly been distributed in JHU dorms, some of which even have distribution racks expressly for this purpose.
TCR staffers contacted FIRE, which wrote in protest to JHU president William Brody on May 19. JHU counsel Frederick Savage defended JHU's actions by saying that student publications are subject to the posting policy, which demands that posters and fliers be approved by the Office of Residential Life before being posted in dorms. Savage wrote to FIRE, "Although it is not explicitly stated in the policy, by long standing practice the Office of Residential Life has applied the [posting] policy to student publications."
"This is a shocking and disturbing admission, if true," commented Lukianoff. "Not only would such a policy subject student newspapers to prior official review, but it appears to have been selectively enforced to silence unpopular opinions. By granting its officials the unfettered power to 'approve' newspapers, JHU is giving them the power to arbitrarily censor."
This sort of thing is all too common, unfortunately. We'll be covering more about campus newspaper thefts in our upcoming film, Indoctrinate U.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
13 Jun 2006 @ 11:32pm
Seattle Public School System Keeps Digging
In mid-April, I reported on a website operated by the Seattle public school system that defined racism in such a way that only whites can be considered racist.
According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, increasing attention to that website since then has caused the school system to address the issue:
An outpouring of criticism forced Seattle public schools on Thursday to pull a Web site that viewed planning for the future, emphasizing individualism and defining standard English as examples of cultural racism.
The message had appeared under an "equity and race relations" section of the district's Web site and was mentioned Thursday in an opinion piece by a Libertarian writer in the Seattle P-I. Criticism of the site has been building in the world of blogs for weeks.
In its place Thursday was a message that the site will be revised to "provide more context to reader around the work that Seattle public schools is doing to address institutional racism."
So, in other words, the school system pulled the website not because it defined racism as a white-only phenomenon or because it defined individualism as a form of racism, but because the website didn't describe what the school system was doing to fight those racist individualists and their institutions.
I don't think that statement resolves the situation; if anything, it proves that the critics of the school system are correct in believing that Seattle schools are pushing a political agenda.
The "explanation" offered by the Seattle public school system isn't satisfying Andrew Coulson of the CATO Institute, either. A recent critic of Seattle's educrats, Coulson commented on the new developments:
"It's a non-apology apology," said Coulson, an education history scholar and author of "Market Education: The Unknown History."
"My sense was that the definition was extremely offensive, but there was not much sympathy for those who were offended ...," he said. "The harm that can come from the Web site is the tarring of the ideal of individualism as racist, while the ideal of individualism is a central principle on which our nation was founded. Liberty is individual, not collective. So for our school district -- our official school organ of the state -- to tell children it's racist to believe in a principle on which our nation was founded -- is troubling."
Indeed.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
8 Jun 2006 @ 4:09pm
Racial Separatism in L.A. Public Schools?
I generally support the idea of charter schools. They allow educational experimentation, which is usually beneficial in an otherwise bureaucracy-strangled public school system.
The downside to the leniency is that it has a way of devolving into complete lack of oversight. Nothing else would explain how Marcos Aguilar ended up running the taxpayer-funded La Academia Semillas del Pueblo charter school in Los Angeles.
Principal Aguilar, who also founded school, seems proud of his contributions in the field of education. But as far as I can tell, he's using his position to preach the cause of racial separatism:
We don't necessarily want to go to White schools. What we want to do is teach ourselves, teach our children the way we have of teaching. We don't want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don't need a White water fountain. So the whole issue of segregation and the whole issue of the Civil Rights Movement is all within the box of White culture and White supremacy. We should not still be fighting for what they have. We are not interested in what they have because we have so much more and because the world is so much larger. And ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction. And so it isn't about an argument of joining neo liberalism, it's about us being able, as human beings, to surpass the barrier.
Self-sufficiency is admirable, but rejecting every institution that exists in your country just to prove self-sufficiency is childish. Some of our institutions have worked quite well over time: capitalism and democracy, free markets and classical liberal governments; the fact that the United States has consistently been one of the most prosperous patches of land on the planet is no accident. Students might benefit from learning such things. Understanding what leads to success might actually help kids later in life. It's too bad Principal Aguilar's students won't be learning anything like that at his school.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
6 Jun 2006 @ 3:24am
How Many Ward Churchills?
 ACTA has just published a new report titled 'How Many Ward Churchills?' surveying course offerings across the nation and giving example after nauseating example of blatant political indoctrination disguised as "education" at American universities.
Some choice excerpts:
At Vassar College, the course on "Black Marxism" builds on the premise that "the growth of global racism suggests the symmetry of the expansion of capitalism and the globalization of racial hierarchy."
[...]
... David Halperin's perennially controversial University of Michigan English course, "How to Be Gay," ... examines "the role that initiation plays in the formation of gay male identity" and "constitute[s] an experiment in the very process of initiation that it hopes to understand."
[...]
Indiana University's Labor Studies department offers "Gay Issues in the Workplace," which covers "basic workers' rights issues of anti-gay harassment and discrimination in the workplace, and how workers, unionists, and employers can go about making their workplace a harassment-free area." The course is billed as having immediate tactical benefits for gay rights activists
[...]
Indiana also offers a popular course called "Wal-Mart," which amounts to an anti-corporate white paper. "The course will analyze the corporate practices of Wal-Mart, the largest corporation in the world, as a vehicle to broadly examine labor and social issues in the U.S. and the world," the course description explains. "We will look at the efforts of communities to save their small businesses and downtowns by stopping Wal-Mart and other 'big box' retailers from locating in their towns.... We will review Wal-Mart's tactics to quash efforts by its workers to organize a union, and the obstacles to union organizing nationally. Finally, we will analyze the arguments of Wal-Mart's critics that the company thrives on selling goods made with sweat shop labor in Third World countries."
[...]
... a Yale University American Studies course, "Theater and Cultural Agency," not only teaches students "how theater and activism
shape each other in contemporary contexts of social struggle," but also requires students to undertake "internship work in theater for social change in New Haven."
[...]
An Ohio State "Introduction to Women's Studies" course requires students to complete a "women's advocacy" requirement in which they research an activist organization and then deliver a class presentation explaining the organization's work, providing contact information for the organization, and "arguing for student support of the issue(s) and activism."
[...]
A Dartmouth College course entitled "Prisons: The American Way of Punishment" treats jail as an oppressive institution-"a model of social control that extends to other social contexts"- and explores "the world of inmates and their strategies of subcultural adaptations to and resistance against incarceration."
Many more examples are documented. Highly recommended reading.
Posted by Stuart Browning
25 May 2006 @ 5:33am
When The Law Mimics Campus Speech Codes
Yesterday, the Senate voted 63-34 to adopt English as the "national language" of the United States. The move, which doesn't call for any changes in the way government business is conducted, was largely symbolic. Nevertheless, the Associated Press reports that a top Democrat threw down the race card to denounce the measure:
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada [said,] "I really believe this amendment is racist."
I've written before about the danger posed by hate speech laws. Harry Reid is yet more proof. If declaring English the national language of the United States is racist, then speaking out in favor of it could be considered hate speech.
What if the United States had a hate speech law? What if Harry Reid were the Democratic Senate Majority Leader instead of the Minority Leader? And what if someone who shared Reid's view occupied the White House? An in-power political coalition could conceivably use hate speech laws to criminally prosecute its opposition.
As far-fetched as that might sound, it's already happening on college campuses. What if this troubling aspect of campus life bled into the larger society? With the power to fine and jail citizens, speech codes in the hands of government could be catastrophic. That's why the fight against campus speech codes is anything but trivial. Campuses today are creating the political environment of tomorrow.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
19 May 2006 @ 8:08am
Beverly Hills' Day Off
Students at Beverly Hills High School are being told to skip class so they can go see Al Gore's new film pushing the view that "global warming" is about to destroy everything:
On May 24, 2006, 1,500 Beverly Hills High School students will be boarding 30 gas-guzzling buses across town to see Al Gore's new global warming film 'AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH' [...]
The film's urgent trailer warns: "Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If the vast majority of the world's scientists are right, we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever experienced."
In the interest of balance, perhaps the teachers at Beverly Hills High School should inform students that just three decades ago, scientists were "nearly unanimous" in freaking out not about global warming, but global cooling. Here are some choice quotes from a 1975 article in Newsweek entitled "The Cooling World" (emphasis added):
There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production--with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. [...]
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. [...]
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.
[...]
A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.
[...]
Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the "little ice age" conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900--years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.
Throughout the history of the planet, dramatic climate changes have been the norm. Glaciers once covered the land where I now sit, where today's high temperature will be 72 degrees. The only thing scientists from different generations seem to agree on is, we're always about 10 years away from complete annihilation.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
18 May 2006 @ 8:23am
How Seattle Schools Define Racism
Only white people can be racist, at least according to the Seattle public school system. Here's how they define racism:
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites).
By this definition, if a white person were murdered simply for being white, it could not be considered a racist act.
The school system also says that "emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology" is a form of "cultural racism." In other words, if you believe that group privileges should not be placed above the rights of individuals, you are a racist. The only way not to be a racist is to embrace a "collective ideology," which throughout history has been better known as communism or socialism.
I'm sure if you asked the teachers in Seattle whether they were indoctrinating their students, they would deny it adamantly. But all you need to do is read their definition of racism to see how they're steering students into their preferred ideology. Individualism is bad. Collectivism is good. Only whites can be racist.
I wonder what Seattle's educrats would make of this quote:
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ayn Rand
According to the definitions above, speaking in favor of capitalism or individual rights can be considered racist speech. If the Seattle teachers' union were in a position to decide what constitutes hate speech, a large part of America would be found guilty.
Now you know why I oppose hate speech laws so strongly. The result will not be to stamp out hate, but to impose thought conformity. Hate can't be eradicated by decree; it can only be eliminated by an awakening of the heart. And I don't think that teaching a generation of students that only white people can be racist is a good formula for reducing whatever number of truly racist honkies there might be in this country.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
17 May 2006 @ 6:54am
Stripping Bison
The Women's and Gender Studies Department at my alma mater finally puts on a program I might be interested in, and I find out too late to attend:
Recently, feminists at Bucknell University sponsored an event that looked more like a Duke Lacrosse party than a celebration of feminist diversity. On March 8, Bucknell's so-called Feminist Majority - along with groups like the Women's and Gender Studies Department, the Center for the Study of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity, and the Office of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Awareness - paid $1,920 for a strip show at Bucknell.
Billed as a "celebration of whore culture" the show was euphemistically titled the "Sex Workers Art Show." It featured a group of hookers, phone sex operators, smut writers, porn stars, and one woman who appeared via her 24-hour porn website.
As the article points out, what's interesting about this isn't what Bucknell is willing to sponsor, but what they're not.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
16 May 2006 @ 2:11am
Convenient Catholics at Boston College
Jonah Goldberg of National Review notices that the faculty of Boston College selectively invokes the institution's historical Catholicism when convenient for making political stands. Take, for instance, this maneuver to revoke the invitation of this year's commencement speaker, who happens to be Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
In a letter distributed by the heads of the Catholic school's theology department and signed by about 200 faculty members, we are informed that, "On the levels of both moral principle and practical moral judgment, Secretary Rice's approach to international affairs is in fundamental conflict with Boston College's commitment to the values of the Catholic and Jesuit traditions and is inconsistent with the humanistic values that inspire the university's work." The letter, titled "Condoleezza Rice Does Not Deserve a Boston College Honorary Degree," cherry-picks quotes from Pope John Paul II to argue that Rice's policies should disqualify her as a commencement speaker.
One can respect honest disagreement over the Bush administration's foreign policy. But this high-minded rhetoric is a bit hard to take considering that B.C. is fairly selective about where it will draw such lines. For example, Mary Daly was for decades a distinguished professor at Boston College, despite the fact she exceeds even the right-wing parody of a left-wing academic. She refused to teach men. Her writings include such relentlessly anti-Catholic manifestos as "The Church and the Second Sex" and "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation." (Although my favorite title is "Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage.")
Daly left the school in 1999, when she was told that she could no longer discriminatorily bar men from all of her classes. Rather than teach men, she chose to quit. But until then, Daly was free to call for the abolition of the Catholic Church and other "patriarchal religions" in favor of her own "post-Christian" feminist religion. Apparently, teaching students to reject Catholicism entirely is tolerable in a Catholic school, but Catholicism is useful in a pinch when it can be used to shun villains like Rice. "This is the only time these people have cited Pope John Paul II on anything," the Rev. Paul McNellis, an adjunct professor in the B.C. philosophy department, told the Boston Globe.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
12 May 2006 @ 3:40pm
Denson's Diversity
Southern Methodist University professor Steve Denson has branded the Young Conservatives of Texas, a student-run campus organization with a presence at a number of schools in the state, as "the Junior League of the KKK."
Why? Well, it appears that Professor Denson doesn't like YCT's stance on illegal immigration and the school's use of racial preferences to set aside seats in the student senate for some minority groups.
Interestingly, Professor Denson is also the Director of Diversity at SMU's business school. I would assume that if Denson equates opposition to his preferred political views with sympathy for the KKK, he might not be terribly interested in promoting diversity of the intellectual variety. In fact, it sounds like if he had his way, the conservatives would be banned from campus altogether. After all, who wants to share a community with a bunch of Klansmen?
Denson seems to have two primary functions in his job as diversity enforcer:
- To ensure that everybody looks different, and
- To ensure that everybody thinks the same.
In other words, Denson's job is to prevent diversity as much as it is to promote it.
He's off to a good start.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
9 May 2006 @ 12:34am
Indoctrination at Slippery Rock University
 Professor of History Alan Levy at Slippery Rock University recently testified before the Pennsylvania House Select Committee on Academic Freedom. His testimony of radical feminism, political correctness and indoctrination at Slippery Rock reads like something out of Soviet Russia:
Perusals of every major textbook in any field and of the topics at every major academic convention all yield the obvious conclusion -- that gender matters are anything but ignored. Many feminists have been unwilling to recognize this, and there is an intolerance that grows with the resistance. Many students thus report that a professor on my campus openly commences her classes with the unashamed statement that she teaches from a feminist perspective and that no other outlooks are welcome before her.
[...]
One of the "courses" in the W.S. [Women's Studies] Program is currently entitled "Feminist Perspectives in the Disciplines." In one semester, the course has purported to give insights into virtually all major fields of the curriculum. In a 15-week term, students are allegedly given "understandings" of economics, biology, chemistry, physics, sociology, history, political science, anthropology, art, music, and more. It's a mile wide and an inch deep. But, more importantly, the course simply (and "simply" is indeed the best word here) boils down to discussions about barely-understood academic fields each of which is robotically accused of downgrading and ignoring women. Opinions that women are not victims in a given academic field are not to be considered. Anyone who criticizes any points about "oppression" or "patriarchy" is attacked with McCarthyistic certainty.
[...]
In first-year College Writing classes, some students complain about the fact that the main things they learn in their classes is that it is best to agree with the political views of their teachers and that it is pointless to disagree. Things like grammar and writing style are secondary at best. Elsewhere, others have complained about professors who have openly stated "I hate white people. I am a victim of institutionalized racism, so my hatreds do not matter."
We're betting that Professor Levy has tenure.
Posted by Stuart Browning
27 Apr 2006 @ 6:29am
Intellectual Thug: Professor William Keach of Brown
 Students taking classes from Brown University Professor of English William Keach may wish to test the professor's commitment to intellectual consistency by standing during one of his upcoming lectures on Anglo-American literature, shouting slogans, displaying banners, refusing to be quiet and generally seizing control of the classroom.
Professor Keach should have no objections since he has advocated just this kind of behavior by student anti-war protesters at any forum on the campus of Brown University featuring a speaker that disagrees with him about the war in Iraq. Recently, Hillary Clinton gave a talk at Brown which was disrupted by protesters who were ultimately escorted out of the auditorium by security officers. After the Brown Daily Herald ran an editorial decrying the protester's rude behavior, Keach rose to their defense with a letter to the editor:
The only thing more predictable than The Herald's denunciation of antiwar protesters at Hillary Clinton's speech on April 8 was your editorial's ("A step backward," April 10) silence regarding the actual political substance of what the protesters were doing and saying.
Are there any circumstances in which you would support the disruption of a public appearance by a wealthy, powerful politician who acquiesced to a genocidal war based on lies and imperialist arrogance? Do you have anything at all to say about the content of the heckler's question: "Is it leadership to support the war?" Your claim that the antiwar cause was "severely diminished" simply because a group of activists were willing to interrupt the polite decorum of a campus event and speak truth to power isn't credible to me.
To those who protested last Saturday night, I say "congratulations and solidarity!"
William Keach
Professor of English
April 10
Erin O'Connor, who first wrote of this, frames the issue nicely:
Keach's shameful disregard for a basic issue of expressive freedom should give the Brown administration pause. Shouldn't the faculty at universities that claim to respect free expression--as Brown does--know what free expression is, and isn't? And isn't it the responsibility of the university to ensure that professors who display their ignorance as proudly as Keach does--and who presume on that ignorance to encourage students to become self-appointed censors--are made aware of their mistakes? Keach has been at Brown since 1986. Surely it's time he learned the basics of free speech.
 While Keach has abandoned even the pretense of respect for free speech, his willingness to subordinate his position as a teacher of literature to the demands of a hardcore leftist ideology is even more contemptible. Keach, who was active in the fringe movement to stay the execution of murderer Tookie Williams by the State of California, reportedly nominated the one time gang leader for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Tookie Williams, who killed four innocent people in cold blood, also scratched out some childrens' books from prison which won him the accolades and admiration of the morally-challenged kook left. Although a couple of his books are only 24 pages long, he still required the assistance of co-author Barbara Cottman Becnel - who, by the way, was not nominated by Professor Keach. The notion that Tookie Williams was deserving of a Nobel prize for Literature is unworthy of debate. However, it speaks volumes about the professional integrity of William Keach.
Posted by Stuart Browning
25 Apr 2006 @ 8:58am
Academia and Islam on Free Speech
 Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan on Free Speech:
In February, he told the Detroit Metro Times that the federal government should close the leading cable news channel. "I think it is outrageous that Fox Cable News is allowed to run that operation the way it runs it," he said in summarizing his view that Fox "is polluting the information environment." He went on to claim that "in the 1960s the FCC would have closed it down. It's an index of how corrupt our governmental institutions have become, that the FCC lets this go on."
 Osama Bin Laden on Free Speech:
The leader of the al-Qaeda terror network, Osama bin Laden, has said that people who ridicule the Prophet Mohammed should be killed.
[...]
He defended that freedom of expression has no base when the subject matter is Muslims, and that no apology from the Danish government, no trial for the guilty party responsible for the profane cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and no preventive measure is proof of that.
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 Apr 2006 @ 9:29am
'Excess Whiteness' At American Law Schools
 Following up on yesterday's entry concerning a glut of "whiteness" at Queen's University in Canada, we have one Professor Vernellia Randall of the University of Dayton School of Law who has compiled the 2005 Whitest Law School Report which ranks excess whiteness at American law schools.
According to Professor Randall's report, Pepperdine University suffers from a very high (61.5%) percentage of "excess whiteness" ...
... while Howard University - with an enrollment that is 84% black and 0% white - does not suffer from "excess blackness". According to Randall, it has a negative "excess whiteness" rating!
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 Apr 2006 @ 4:18am
Too Much 'Whiteness' at a Canadian University
 In Canada, where 85% of the population is Caucasian, Queen's University is confronting a harmful 'culture of whiteness':
"It can be very frustrating being part of an ethnic minority on campus - you feel as though you're absolutely invisible," said black student Rachel LaTouche, president of the African-Caribbean Students' Association, which represents 50 to 60 students.
"But it's not just a numbers game; not just a matter of getting more visible minority students on campus - Queen's needs to change its whole ideology so there is an underlying understanding of race relations," said the fourth-year sociology major.
One has to wonder if the student quoted above feels just as "invisible" off campus - given the demographic makeup of the country (blacks make up 2.2% of the Canadian population) - and - just what does this have to do with learning? Note also the racist notion that "visiblity" on campus is defined by ethnicity rather than by individuality and accomplishment.
Unfortunately, the same nonsense abounds at American universities.
Posted by Stuart Browning
23 Apr 2006 @ 7:27am
College Student: 'Kill All Republicans"
A Purdue student has been arrested after posting on a Yahoo finance board his desire to kill all republicans.
A Purdue University graduate student was arrested and charged with threatening to kill President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Vikram Buddhi allegedly posted the detailed and threatening messages on an online message board.
[...]
In the various messages posted, Buddhi urged the Web site's readers to bomb the United States and for them to rape American and British women and mutilate them, according to court documents. Other messages called for the killing of all Republicans.
[...]
Buddhi allegedly posted his messages on a Yahoo finance board dedicated to Sirius Satellite radio, a site that receives 2 million to 3 million hits a day, Martin said. A concerned citizen contacted the Secret Service office in Dallas to report that a subject was posting threatening messages about Bush, according to the criminal complaint filed in Hammond's federal court and unsealed Monday.
The Yahoo finance board? Doesn't he know that The Huffington Post is the place for the unhinged, homicidal left?
Posted by Stuart Browning
18 Apr 2006 @ 10:10am
Ohio State Clears Librarian
The Ohio State librarian brought up on harassment charges by professors last week for recommending conservative books has been cleared, Inside Higher Ed reports.
While that is a positive development, it still doesn't change the fact that the professors who filed the charges are disturbingly unaware of the principles of free thought that should extend to all corners of a college campus. Perhaps the university should spend a little time educating their employees; the filing of spurious harassment charges is not a benign event, and it is quite possible that such actions would expose the university to legal action.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
18 Apr 2006 @ 8:21am
Idealistic Students "Trying Out New Identities"
Young collectivist Ezra Klein over at his eponymous web site is labeling Michelle Malkin a hate-monger because she has covered - better than anyone else - the thuggish acts of sedition at UC Santa Cruz - and because she has published the phone numbers and email addresses of the organizers.
As this site is dedicated to the reform of the American university and because we hate to see Michelle standing alone, here's the aforementioned contact info for readers of this blog who wish to register their feelings of justifiable contempt.
Sam Aranke 714-458-2471 saranke@ucsc.edu
David Zlutnick 805-698-6228 dzlutnic@ucsc.edu
Janine Carmona 707-496-3530 jgcarmon@ucsc.edu
Oh ... and here's a photo of some of Klein's "idealistic" students "experimenting" and "trying out new identitites".
Posted by Stuart Browning
17 Apr 2006 @ 5:26pm
Librarian Charged with Conservatism
A librarian at Ohio State is being charged with harassment for recommending four conservative books:
Scott Savage, who serves as a reference librarian for the university, suggested four best-selling conservative books for freshman reading in his role as a member of OSU Mansfield's First Year Reading Experience Committee. The four books he suggested were The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, The Professors by David Horowitz, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'or, and It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. Savage made the recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy Carter and Maria Shriver.
Savage was put under "investigation" by OSU's Office of Human Resources after three professors filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment against him, saying that the book suggestions made them feel "unsafe." The complaint came after the OSU Mansfield faculty voted without dissent to file charges against Savage. The faculty later voted to allow the individual professors to file charges.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
14 Apr 2006 @ 10:30am
The Pre-Indoctrination Advantage
In todays' Wall Street Journal, an article entitled "Who Got In To College?" (subscription required), surveys the results of an unusually competitive year for university admissions.
Among stories of straight-A students rejected from multiple elite colleges, one lucky student seemed to stand out:
Adam Hoffman, a student at Parkway North High School in St. Louis, was admitted to all eight of the schools to which he applied. Among them were Stanford and Brown.
On Mr. Hoffman's application: A flawless score of 800 on the critical-reading portion of his SAT (and a near-perfect 780 on the math section) and a first-place award in the Greater St. Louis Area Science Fair, on top of awards from myriad math competitions.
But his application showed more than just a math expert. It also made clear his deep interest in animal rights. He wrote a essay about the intolerance he faced as a vegetarian at a New Mexico ranch with his Boy Scout troop. He co-founded a "vegetarian club" at his school and has volunteered with the St. Louis Animal Rights Team.
I wonder if he'll be allowed to bypass freshman orientation as he is already suitably indoctrinated in the language of victimhood.
Posted by Stuart Browning
13 Apr 2006 @ 11:20am
Environmental Extremism at University of Texas
 A professor at the University of Texas has apparently been taken out of context:
AUSTIN -- A University of Texas biology professor has been targeted by talk radio, bloggers and vitriolic e-mails _ including a death threat _ after a published report that he advocated death for most of the population as a means of saving the Earth.
But Eric Pianka said Monday his remarks about what he believes is an impending pandemic were taken out of context.
"What we really need to do is start thinking about controlling our population before it's too late," he said. "It's already too late, but we're not even thinking about it. We're just mindlessly rushing ahead breeding our brains out."
[...]
The Gazette-Enterprise quoted Pianka as saying disease "will control the scourge of humanity. We're looking forward to a huge collapse."
Pianka said he was only trying to warn his audience that disease epidemics have happened before and will happen again if the human population growth isn't contained.
He said he believes the Earth would be better off if the human population were smaller because fewer natural resources would be consumed and humans wouldn't continue to destroy animal habitats. But he said that doesn't mean he wants most humans to die.
But Mims, chairman of the academy's environmental science section, told The Associated Press there was no mistaking Pianka's disdain for humans and desire for their elimination.
"He wishes for it. He hopes for it. He laughs about it. He jokes about it," Mims said. "It's got to happen because we are the scourge of humanity."
Posted by Stuart Browning
4 Apr 2006 @ 11:13am
Ivory Tower Stonewall
Yale University continues to stonewall and hope that everyone will forget about the "interesting" new student they've admitted.
John Fund at the Wall Street Journal is not dropping the matter:
... the university, with the support of the student government, decided to divest from Sudan, whose government condones slavery and has been accused of genocide. But when it comes to harboring a former top official of the Taliban, another murderous regime whose remnants are even now killing Americans, Yale's official silence continues--and speaks volumes.
Posted by Stuart Browning
3 Apr 2006 @ 5:17am
A Yale Professor's Logic
 Over at the American Prospect, Yale professor Jim Sleeper likens conservatives - who are critical of Yale's recent decision to admit a Taliban official - to Wile E. Coyote of Warner Bros. fame:
What will it take for the conservative-movement pundits in pursuit of liberal subversion on campuses to realize they've fallen off the cliff?
Apparently, since a freelance camera man in Afghanistan who recommended the Taliban man and a career foreign service officer at Yale who subsequently defended his admission might be described as right-of-center, the conservative "bloodhounds of Western Civilization" have picked up the wrong scent and are hypocritical in their criticism of Yale.
The implication is that Yale administrators are guilty of nothing and are indeed hapless victims of "liberal baiting". One has to wonder if this non sequitur is representative of the sort of logic that Sleeper employees in his political science classes at Yale.
Posted by Stuart Browning
29 Mar 2006 @ 7:14am
A Taliban Victim Speaks Out at Yale
Malalai Joya, an Afghan parliamentarian, gave a speech Thursday evening at Yale in which she criticized American foreign policy in the Middle East and had some especially harsh words for Yale administrators as reported by the Yale Daily News:
After her lecture, Joya delivered a statement about Hashemi's enrollment. She said Hashemi was one of the Taliban's top propagandists and called his status as a student at Yale "disgusting" and an "unforgivable insult."
"Before he was a Talib, and now he is a student," Joya said, holding up two pictures of Hashemi.
After being booted off campus earlier in the day, the On The Fence Films boys returned for footage of the event and were not obstructed. Here's a frame: 
Malalai Joya at Yale
Posted by Stuart Browning
26 Mar 2006 @ 9:02am
The Michael Graham Show
Evan will be on the Michael Graham Show at 96.9 FM Talk in Boston at about 3:20 pm EST discussing the situation at Yale.
You can listen live here.
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 Mar 2006 @ 2:44pm
Stonewalling At Yale
 Yesterday, Director Evan Coyne Maloney was on the Yale campus hoping to interview administrators and allow them to give a fuller accounting of their decision to admit an ex-Taliban official with very little previous education to the hallowed halls of one of America's elite universities.
Things didn't go so well.
After getting the door literally slammed in his face in the administrative building that houses the office of Yale President Richard Levin, Evan sauntered outside where he interviewed Natalie Healy, a woman who lost her son Dan - a Navy SEAL - in Afghanistan last year. Naturally, Ms. Healy is outraged that a man who was an official of a murderous regime that killed her son has been given a place at Yale while many thousands of better qualified American kids are sent rejection letters every year.
Apparently this was too much for the Yale administrators who sent the police to give Evan and our cameraman the same message that is sent to ROTC and military recruiters every year: Get off campus!
Interview with Natalie Healy
Get Off Campus!
Dan Healy: Navy SEAL Killed in Afghanistan
Plaque Outside the President's Office
Posted by Stuart Browning
24 Mar 2006 @ 10:18am
Tuition for Terrorists (Continued)
 John Fund has an update on the Yale student with a fourth-grade education and a high school equivalency certificate whose previous gig was Taliban spokesman:
Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last month Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard; today Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi will speak by video to a conference at Columbia University that his regime is cosponsoring. (Columbia won't answer questions about how much funding it got from Libya or what implied strings were attached.) Then there's Yale, which for three weeks has refused to make any comment or defense beyond a vague 144-word statement about its decision to admit Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi--a former ambassador-at-large of the murderous Afghan Taliban--as a special student.
[...]
Never has the moat separating elite universities from the rest of America been wider than in the case of Yale's Taliban Man
 Update: Our man Evan Maloney is on the Yale campus today (with his trusty Panasonic DVX-100, of course) trying to get some answers from Yale administrators concerning Mr. Hashemi. Let's hope they roll out the red carpet for On The Fence Films just like they do for the Taliban!
Posted by Stuart Browning
23 Mar 2006 @ 8:32am
Arrogance and Treason at Yale
 Got a fourth grade education and a high-school equivalency degree? Want to go to Yale? No problem, if you've been a member of the Taliban government. This seems to be the lesson of the ongoing controversy over Yale's decision to admit former Taliban official Ramatullah Hashemi.
Yale University does not allow ROTC on campus and has so far resisted allowing military recruiters at the school. Pro-American professors are almost an extinct breed. Yet Yale, paying homage to the notion of "diversity", seeks out enemies of America as students.
So far, Yale has not seen fit to offer a convincing explanation - and, as John Fund at the Wall Street Journal shows - their arrogance prevents them from thinking that they have to:
Beyond a single vague 144-word statement (later expanded to 281 words, including a defense of Yale's not hosting a ROTC program), Yale won't let anyone comment officially, citing student privacy issues and hoping they can keep silent and last out the storm. But unofficially, some Yale administrators are privately trashing critics. One even anonymously sent scathing emails to two critics calling them "retarded" and "disgusting."
If you haven't seen Fund's article already, prepare to be outraged.
Posted by Stuart Browning
14 Mar 2006 @ 6:30am
Teaching Hatred of America in High School
A 10th grade geography teacher is on the record with a political diatribe worthy of Fidel Castro - inflicted on a captive and naive audience.
Go listen to it (courtesy of Little Green Footballs).
Posted by Stuart Browning
2 Mar 2006 @ 4:58pm
Political Correctness Run Amok
 I can't imagine a privately-run school having many pupils (customers) if they pulled a stunt like this ...
To students at Eagleswood Elementary School, she used to be Mr. McBeth. Now, after undergoing a sex change, 71-year-old Lily McBeth is ready to return to teaching as Miss McBeth.
Despite criticism from parents, the school board on Monday stood by its decision to allow McBeth to resume working as a substitute teacher.
After two hours of public debate and a private meeting with McBeth and her lawyer, the board took no action on calls by several parents to bar McBeth from returning to the school where she taught for five years before becoming a woman.
[...]
Several parents said children in the school - which consists of kindergarten through sixth grade - were not old enough to understand the concept of changing one's gender.
"I, as a parent, am appalled to have this issue brought into my child's psychology," Steve Bond said.
Vincent Mustacchio predicted "chaos" at the school when the students learned of McBeth's surgery.
Young children will be confused by the conflicting appearance of McBeth, who has a deep voice and masculine features but otherwise looks like a woman, other parents said.
"I will not allow you to put my kids in a petri dish and hope it all turns out fine," said Mark Schnepp, who had taken out an ad in a local newspaper urging parents to turn out for the meeting.
[...]
Earlier this month, the board voted 4-1 to accept her application to return to the classroom.
... however, in a public system - where parents have no choice - political correctness trumps the welfare of the children.
Posted by Stuart Browning
2 Mar 2006 @ 11:08am
Schooling the Enemy
In the Yale Daily News, Jamie Kirchick writes about Yale's "student Taliban" Rahmatullah Hashemi, Class of 2009:
In 2000, Hashemi, then 21, became a "roving ambassador" for the Taliban -- Angelina Jolie for the Islamofascist set, if you will. He toured the U.S. defending the "achievements" of the Taliban, even visiting Yale. In the months leading up to Sept. 11, Hashemi had a falling out with the Taliban; he became disillusioned with their banning of neckties, chessboards and the Internet because he "wanted something good for Afghanistan." Presumably, Taliban policy prior to its crackdowns in spring 2001, which included public torture and murder of homosexuals, veiling of women and destruction of ancient Buddhist statues, were all "good for Afghanistan." Attempting to show intellectual growth, Hashemi told the News Monday he "really support[s]" free speech, adding, "I did and do believe in women's rights. Yes, women should be able to vote."
How progressive. There is little evidence to show Hashemi's beliefs have changed much; indeed, available information indicates his views on world affairs hardly differ from ignorant conspiracy theories so common today in the Muslim world. In an article posted on the Web site of the organization sponsoring his stay in the U.S., he writes, "Seemingly, like the poor Taliban, common Americans are ignorant of the fact that their franchise state of Israel in the Middle East is serving as an American al-Qaida against the Arab world."
[...]
In a letter to the News, Eric Knibbs GRD '10 wrote, "I was not aware that ideology could disqualify a Yale applicant" ("Students' ideologies should not play role in admissions decisions," 2/28). I believe it should not. But an applicant's employment as an agent for a declared enemy of the United States that abetted a terrorist attack that took the lives of some 3,000 civilians is another matter.
The administration believes Yale is lucky to have Hashemi. According to the New York Times, Yale had "another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status." Said former Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw, "We lost him to Harvard. I don't want that to happen again." Who was the applicant? A member of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party? A protege of Robert Mugabe's?
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
2 Mar 2006 @ 2:26am
From Taliban to Yale
 One of the difficulties of being a member of a deposed terrorist regime is, what's next for your career? Well, it turns out that if you're a former spokesman for the Taliban, the brutal government that harbored al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, there's a natural place for you. From John Fund in The Wall Street Journal:
Never has an article made me blink with astonishment as much as when I read in yesterday's New York Times magazine that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is now studying at Yale on a U.S. student visa. This is taking the obsession that U.S. universities have with promoting diversity a bit too far.
Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century--the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.
"In some ways," Mr. Rahmatullah told the New York Times. "I'm the luckiest person in the world. I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale." One of the courses he has taken is called Terrorism-Past, Present and Future.
Many foreign readers of the Times will no doubt snicker at the revelation that naive Yale administrators scrambled to admit Mr. Rahmatullah. The Times reported that Yale "had another foreigner of Rahmatullah's caliber apply for special-student status." Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions, told the Times that "we lost him to Harvard," and "I didn't want that to happen again."
[...]
I don't believe Mr. Rahmatullah had direct knowledge of the 9/11 plot, and I don't think he has ever killed anyone. I can appreciate that he is trying to rebuild his life. But he willingly and cheerfully served an evil regime in a manner that would have made Goebbels proud. That he was 22 at the time is little of an excuse. There are many poor, bright students--American and foreign alike--who would jump at the opportunity to attend Yale. Why should Mr. Rahmatullah go to the line ahead of all of them? That's a question Yale alumni should ask when their alma mater comes looking for contributions.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
27 Feb 2006 @ 11:17am
Politics in Geography Class
An interesting choice in course material for a geography class:
Imagine my surprise when, as a freshman at Morehead State University in Kentucky, I walked into an Introduction to Geography course and had to sit through a video called "The Myth of the Liberal Media." One day we were talking about the earth's weather patterns and the next, that the media is really conservative. Any taxpayer should take note.
"The Myth of the Liberal Media" is produced by the Media Education Foundation, and as the title implies, sets out to "prove" that conservatives are off their heads when talking about how liberal the media has become. In the film left-wing icons, Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, and John Lewis were interviewed to explain how.
It would almost be funny if this sort of thing weren't so common.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
23 Feb 2006 @ 9:42am
Vote For Professor Baraka!
 For readers of David Horowitz's new book, 'The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America', Front Page Magazine offers an opportunity to vote for the worst professor in America. We see, by looking at the current voting results page, that one of our favorites, Professor Amiri Baraka of Rutgers and Stony Brook, is trailing badly in the polls as the 27th worst professor in America.
Readers should consider these representative quotes from Mr. Baraka's writings so as to make an informed voting choice:
"Rape the white girls. Rape their fathers. Cut the mothers' throats."
"We [blacks] must eliminate the white man before we can draw a free breath on this planet."
And this from Mr. Horowitz's book:
When a young woman asked Baraka what whites could do to help the black cause, he replied, "You can help by dying. You are a cancer. You can help the world's people with your death."
Update: It looks like the get-out-the-vote effort is helping. Professor Baraka has moved up to #15 in the polls. Here's a little more of the poetry of Amiri Baraka from his "Somebody Blew Up America":
Who do Tom Ass Clarence Work for
Who doo doo come out the Colon's mouth
Who know what kind of Skeeza is a Condoleeza
Who pay Connelly to be a wooden negro
[...]
Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed
Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day
Posted by Stuart Browning
22 Feb 2006 @ 11:17am
Un-PC Harvard President Resigns
Larry Summers, the president of Harvard University has resigned in what Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz calls "an academic coup d'etat". Mr. Summers's crime? Not being politically correct enough.
Dershowitz comments:
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which forced Summers's resignation by voting a lack of confidence in him last March and threatening to do so again on Feb. 28, is only one component of Harvard University and is hardly representative of widespread attitudes on the campus toward Summers. The graduate faculties, the students, and the alumni generally supported Summers for his many accomplishments. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences includes, in general, some of the most radical, hard-left elements within Harvard's diverse constituencies. And let there be no mistake about the origin of Summers's problem with that particular faculty: It started as a hard left-center conflict. Summers committed the cardinal sin against the academic hard left: He expressed politically incorrect views regarding gender, race, religion, sexual preference, and the military.
[...]
In the minds of at least some vocal members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, expressing such politically incorrect views is the academic equivalent of provoking Islamic extremists by depicting Prophet Mohammed in a political cartoon. Radical academics do not, of course, burn down buildings, at least not since the 1970s. Instead they introduce motions of no confidence and demand resignations of those who offend their sensibilities (while insisting on complete freedom of speech for those with whom they agree -- free speech for me but not for thee!).
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
22 Feb 2006 @ 11:10am
Vive La Revolucion!
  We're happy to announce that the web site of Professor Peter McLaren is no longer password protected and is back online in all its revolutionary glory. We encourage prospective UCLA students and their parents to pay a visit.
Along with the revolving red communist star, lots of Che Guevara-worship and some snappy new music, he's got a link to the lyrics of The Internationale and a statement of purpose in which he makes no bones about his advocacy of a totalitarian state:
This website is developed as a resource for students of critical pedagogy. The critical pedagogy which I support and practice advocates non-violent dissent, the development of a philosophy of praxis guided by a Marxist humanism, the study of revolutionary social movements and thought, and the struggle for socialist democracy. It is opposed to liberal democracy, which only serves to facilitate the reproduction of capital.
Posted by Stuart Browning
16 Feb 2006 @ 11:23am
Holocaust Denial at Northwestern
 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is finding at least one holocaust-denying ally in academia: Professor Arthur Butz of Northwestern University. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Butz, a tenured Northwestern professor since 1974, is known for denying that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II. He promotes his views through his Northwestern-affiliated Web site, including a link to his 1976 book, "The Hoax of the 20th Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry."
Butz told the Tribune last week that he e-mailed comments to the Mehr News Agency after he was approached by an Iranian journalist.
Butz wrote that the Holocaust didn't happen, that it is a "deliberately contrived falsehood" and that its promulgation was motivated by the desire to create a Jewish state in the Middle East. About Ahmadinejad, he wrote: "I congratulate him on becoming the first head of state to speak out clearly on these issues and regret only that it was not a Western head of state."
Professor Butz's comments have been getting traction in Iran:
Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency and the English-language Tehran Times have published Butz's comments, promoting the Northwestern professor as one of the world scholars who support the Iranian president. Ahmadinejad, who also has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," recently ordered the restart of uranium enrichment, raising fears that Tehran could try to build a nuclear weapon.
Butz's comments did not address the Iranian president's statements about present-day Israel or nuclear issues.
No need to comment on those sticky issues, Professor Butz. It's best to focus on the positive, like congratulating Ahmadinejad for his fine scholarship on the holocaust.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
16 Feb 2006 @ 11:20am
UNC Students Challenge Free Speech Restrictions
Students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro are protesting the fact that free speech is only allowed in two small "free speech zones." The school, which has been given a "red light" rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for its onerous restrictions on free speech, had attempted to punish the students for their protest. However, negative publicity forced the school to back off. (UNC Greensboro, being a public university, is bound by law to observe the First Amendment.)
One of the things that may have helped the students is that they shot video of their protest and captured the administration's attempt to shut them down.
Hopefully, the trend of students documenting the abuses of basic rights on campus will continue. In many cases, administrators are aware that their actions won't be viewed favorably outside the walls of their respective institutions, but they bank on the fact that the general public won't find out. Thanks to technology, though, students are able to fight back in ways they couldn't before. The balance of power is changing...
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
15 Feb 2006 @ 1:37pm
David Horowitz's New Book
 David Horowitz has just released a new book: The Professors - The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. I haven't read it yet (mine is on order) - so I can't vouch for it. However, considering some of the people that Evan Maloney and I have interviewed for our upcoming movie Indoctrinate U, the current state of academia, the rich field of far-out professors to choose from and Mr. Horowitz's past work, I expect it to be a truthful, informative and important work.
From the inside flap:
Horowitz exposes 101 academics - representative of thousands of radicals who teach our young people - who also happen to be alleged ex-terrorists, racists, murderers, sexual deviants, anti-Semites, and al-Qaeda supporters. Horowitz blows the cover on academics who: - Say they want to kill white people. - Promote the views of the Iranian mullahs. - Support Osama bin Laden. - Lament the demise of the Soviet Union. - Defend pedophilia. - Advocate the killing of ordinary Americans.
David Horowitz's riveting expose is essential reading for parents, students, college alums, taxpayers, and patriotic Americans who don't think college students should be indoctrinated by sympathizers of Joseph Stalin and Osama bin Laden.
There's already a left-wingnut-book-review-swarm over at Amazon.com by people who obviously have not read the book yet.
Update: Here's one of my favorites:
A reactionary piece of garbage, February 4, 2006
Reviewer: okiguessso "okiguessso"
A book that attempts to resurrect McCarthyism (Joe, not Gene) by making vicious attacks on progressive professors teaching at various U.S. universities. If it were possible to give this one minus 1,000 stars, I would do so. A bunch of vicious hate directed at any one who opposes the current war for empire by the Bush regime against the people of the world. Horowitz is the would-be Goebbels of the Fourth Reich.
I wonder if he got extra academic credit for writing that.
Posted by Stuart Browning
7 Feb 2006 @ 10:09am
DePaul: Wrong Political Views == Harassment
At DePaul University, if you don't hold the "correct" political views, you'd better keep that fact to yourself. Otherwise, you might find yourself facing harassment charges:
Earlier this month, DePaul University shut down an "affirmative action bake sale" protest, and is now investigating a student organizer for "harassment." DePaul's latest offense against liberty follows its 2005 dismissal of a professor for arguing with pro-Palestinian students and its censorship of students' peaceful protest of controversial professor Ward Churchill. With this incident, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is intervening at DePaul for the third time in less than a year.
"DePaul cannot seem to resist punishing its students and professors for expressing their political viewpoints," stated Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's interim president. "Fighting repression at DePaul is becoming a full-time job."
DePaul's latest foray into censorship began on January 17, when the DePaul Conservative Alliance (DCA) held an "affirmative action bake sale" at a table in the student center. Affirmative action bake sales are a widely used form of satirical protest against affirmative action. Organizers display a menu on which black and Hispanic students are charged lower prices than Asian and white students for the same items. The bake sales are intended to spark debate about affirmative action policies, not to raise revenue. At DePaul, the protest did just that, drawing a crowd of people who argued about the issue vehemently but peacefully.
Less than an hour into the sale, DePaul's dean of students ordered the DCA to shut down the protest. University spokeswoman Denise Mattson told the student newspaper that the location of the protest was inappropriate, even though the university allowed a PETA table protesting the use of fur to be set up in exactly the same place a week later. On January 20, undergraduate Michael O'Shea, who led the protest, was informed that he was under "investigation" for violating DePaul's "discriminatory harassment" policy. O'Shea met with administrative investigator Cynthia Summers on January 24. In a chilling e-mail exchange, Summers answered O'Shea's question of exactly why the bake sale was being investigated by saying, "[t]here is no 'because' for the investigation that is pre-determined."
Thankfully for the students, FIRE has a history of getting results.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
2 Feb 2006 @ 7:29pm
Campus Cut-ups
The American Spectator enumerates the Top 5 Campus Outrages of 2005. Actually, this stuff seems a little tame compared to what we've documented in our upcoming film: Indoctrinate U.
Also, check out this anonymous report of indoctrination at Portland State reported by Front Page Magazine.
Posted by Stuart Browning
30 Jan 2006 @ 2:35pm
Rise of the $100,000 Idiot
According to the Associated Press, academia isn't doing a very good job at educating:
Nearing a diploma, most college students cannot handle many complex but common tasks, from understanding credit card offers to comparing the cost per ounce of food.
Those are the sobering findings of a study of literacy on college campuses, the first to target the skills of students as they approach the start of their careers.
More than 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.
That means they could not interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school.
Gee, I wonder why students aren't learning much in college.
Still, the report cited what it called "brighter news":
Overall, the average literacy of college students is significantly higher than that of adults across the nation. Study leaders said that was encouraging but not surprising, given that the spectrum of adults includes those with much less education.
Terrific! After spending an average $100,000 for four years of education, college students can read! Time to break out the bubbly.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
23 Jan 2006 @ 4:41pm
Let the Sunshine In, Professor
He's an influential thinker in the field of 'critical pedagogy', has written numerous papers decrying the evils of 'whiteness', and as Andrew Jones at the Bruin Alumni Association writes, UCLA professor Peter McLaren has an interesting web site:
Entering the domain of Peter McLaren (or at least his webpage) is a full sensory experience. The eye is dazzled by a revolving red Communist star and noble Che Guevara iconography. The ears are delighted by the solemn strains of The Internationale, the anthem of Marxist socialism ...
So, why has the good professor now password-protected his university-sponsored and taxpayer-funded website?
This seems to me a great disservice to the parents of present and future UCLA students who want to learn more about this leading educator.
Posted by Stuart Browning
19 Jan 2006 @ 9:50am
Consumer Advocates at UCLA
If you bought a car only to discover that it came with no passenger door, you might be upset, and rightfully so. You paid for a full car and got something less than that. And if you banded together with other consumers who have been ripped off the same way, you'd be hailed as a consumer hero.
Most cars cost far less than four years at college, which now averages over $100,000 for a four-year undergraduate degree. Yet, like the car that comes with a major part missing, many colleges provide educations that are unbalanced and incomplete. Sometimes, you might sign up for an English class only to find out that it is really a class on politics. (This happened to me in a freshman English class at Bucknell.)
An alumni group at UCLA, the Bruin Alumni Association, is fighting back against such consumer rip-offs by letting the public know which professors are inappropriately injecting politics into the classroom:
"We're just trying to get people back on a professional level of things. Having been a student myself up until 2003, and then watching what other students like myself have gone through, I'm very concerned about the level of professional teaching at UCLA," said [former UCLA student Andrew] Jones, who said he is supporting himself with a modest salary from the organization and is its only full-time employee.
Needless to say, some professors are upset that alumni and students are demanding that professors perform the job function for which they're being paid:
"Any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism. Any decent American is going to see through this kind of right-wing propaganda. I just find it has no credibility," [education professor Peter McLaren] said.
The [Bruin Alumni Association] website also lists history professor Ellen DuBois, saying she "is in every way the modern female academic: militant, impatient, accusatory, and radical -- very radical." In response, DuBois said: "This is a totally abhorrent invitation to students to participate in a witch hunt ... against their professors."
But DuBois minimized the effect on campus, saying "it's not even clear this is much other than the ill-considered action of a handful, if that, of individuals."
Interesting spin. Merely quoting professors and warning potential students (consumers) about what they can expect in certain classrooms is considered "reactionary" "McCarthyism," "right-wing propaganda" and an "abhorrent" "witch hunt." I wonder if these professors feel the same way when 60 Minutes or 20/20 exposes the malfeasance of other businesses that are engaged in consumer rip-offs.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
18 Jan 2006 @ 3:16pm
Selective Principles at Harvard
Harvard University sure has interesting priorities these days:
Representatives of autocratic theocracies that finance terror, oppress women and consider homosexuality a capital crime are welcomed at Harvard and other campuses. But not the U.S. Marines.
At many of our so-called institutions of higher learning, which have become de facto liberal re-education camps, there's a crusade to ban military recruiters. These champions of diversity and human rights say the problem is the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuality, which they say violates their anti-discrimination policy.
[...]
But if opposition to repugnant views is the issue, why did Harvard, while it was justifying the ban on military recruiters, accept a $20 million gift from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and agree to set up a Middle East research center?
[...]
Talal, a member of the ruling family of a repressive, totalitarian, sexist theocracy, is the individual whose $10 million gift to 9-11 families was returned by then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after Talal said, "Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek."
Putting his money where his mouth is, the prince in 2002 participated in a Saudi-sponsored live-broadcast telethon to benefit the families of homicide bombers who killed Israelis. It eventually raised $100 million, $27 million of which was his personal donation.
In Saudi Arabia, homosexuality is a capital crime, and penalties allowed by Sharia law for such "deviant sexual behavior" range from imprisonment to flogging to death. In the past, people accused of homosexual behavior have been beheaded.
Maybe Harvard's policy on Saudi repression is "don't ask, don't tell."
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
3 Jan 2006 @ 1:35pm
High Culture at the University of Pennsylvania
 Professor Michael Dyson at the University of Pennsylvania taught Religious Studies 113 this year with a singular focus: "Searching for Black Jesus: Tupac Shakur, Black Masculinity and the Politics of Race":
From the course catalogue:
Tupac Shakur was one of the most gifted and controversial figures of this generation. Poet, hip hop artist, actor, social critic and urban griot, he was a ghetto saint who evoked adoration and attack, nearly in the same breath. This course will examine the cultural, racial and religious significance of Shakur's life and thought. We will also probe the artistic, aesthetic and rhetorical dimensions of his craft. We will use Shakur as a lens through which to explore the issues of racial identity and black masculinity in hip-hop culture and the broader black culture. We will also probe the political, spiritual and social implications of Shakur's life and art, and reflect on these issues as they relate to hip-hop culture in general. Finally, we will investigate the moral and cultural consequences of memorializing Tupac in the wake of his violent death.
Posted by Stuart Browning
28 Dec 2005 @ 11:50am
Indoctrination at Penn State
 Reports of state-sponsored political indoctrination from the New York Times (registration required) ...
While attending a Pennsylvania Republican Party picnic, Jennie Mae Brown bumped into her state representative and started venting.
"How could this happen?" Ms. Brown asked Representative Gibson C. Armstrong two summers ago, complaining about a physics professor at the York campus of Pennsylvania State University who she said routinely used class time to belittle President Bush and the war in Iraq. As an Air Force veteran, Ms. Brown said she felt the teacher's comments were inappropriate for the classroom.
The encounter has blossomed into an official legislative inquiry, putting Pennsylvania in the middle of a national debate spurred by conservatives over whether public universities are promoting largely liberal positions and discriminating against students who disagree with them.
... and the backlash that's to come.
Posted by Stuart Browning
26 Dec 2005 @ 7:52am
Don't Ask (for Saudi money), Don't Tell (you sold out)
A number of college campuses won't allow military recruiters on campus because they protest the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, saying it discriminates against homosexuals. The policy was imposed on the military by the Clinton Administration, and can only be revoked by executive order or an act of Congress. But that's beside the point to school administrators; anti-military prejudice leads them to punish the military for something the military can't control.
A recent law called the Solomon Amendment is up for review before the Supreme Court. Basically, the Solomon Amendment revokes federal funding for schools that refuse to allow military recruiters on campus. Schools have fought that, saying they should be allowed to give the finger to the federal government while still receiving federal money. (As former New York City councilman Charles Millard once said, if a terrorist attack struck Columbia University, would President Lee Bollinger stand at the gates and stop the military from setting foot on campus? It seems that universities often stand on principle, but only when it's cost-free.)
James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal website OpinionJournal.com noticed an inconsistency in application of principles by university administrators.
Georgetown's law faculty is a named plaintiff in Rumsfeld v. Forum, a case now before the Supreme Court, in which law schools claim they are entitled to your tax money despite their policy of discriminating against military recruiters. The schools object to the law that prevents the military from allowing open homosexuals to serve--even though a law called the Solomon Amendment requires federally subsidized universities to treat military recruiters the same way as other recruiters.
Why is this news? Because Georgetown, which bars military recruiters as a protest against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," recently accepted $20 million from a Saudi prince to expand programs that "study Islam and the Muslim world."
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies programs don't have very good records in criticizing the human rights abuses that occur in Middle Eastern countries. Many professors, such as the one who heads Columbia's MEALAC program, seem to reserve most of their criticism for Israel and the United States. That may or may not have anything to do with the large sums of money from Saudi Arabia that find their way into university coffers, underwriting these Middle Eastern Studies programs.
The lack of criticism of Saudi Arabia is astonishing, considering the official Saudi position on homosexuality:
[O]fficially, according to SodomyLaws.org, homosexuality is a crime punishable by beheading. Riyadh also engages in invidious discrimination against other groups, including women (not allowed to drive, or to leave the country without a male "guardian's" permission), non-Muslims (not permitted to visit Mecca or Medina) and Jews (who at one point it said were ineligible to visit the country at all).
Sounds quite a bit worse than "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," don't you think? So it's interesting that Saudi money can buy access to create permanent Islamic studies institutions--which, we can assume, won't be terribly critical of the very donors of that money--but that American money won't even buy the right for U.S. military recruiters to sit at a table for a few hours each semester.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
15 Dec 2005 @ 4:21am
Civilized Campus Debate
Can anyone recall a single instance of this happening to a controversial campus speaker from the political left?
I can't.
Posted by Stuart Browning
8 Dec 2005 @ 6:08am
The Disappearing College Male
I wonder when the diversity enforcers will start worrying about this:
In the 1990s, I taught for six years at a small liberal arts college in Spokane, Wash. In my third year, I started noticing something that was happening right in front of me. There were more young women in my classes than young men, and on average, they were getting better grades than the guys. Many of the young men stared blankly at me as I lectured. They didn't take notes as well as the young women. They didn't seem to care as much about what I taught -- literature, writing and psychology. They were bright kids, but many of their faces said, "Sitting here, listening, staring at these words -- this is not really who I am."
That was a decade ago, but just last month, I spoke with an administrator at Howard University in the District. He told me that what I observed a decade ago has become one of the "biggest agenda items" at Howard. "We are having trouble recruiting and retaining male students," he said. "We are at about a 2-to-1 ratio, women to men."
Howard is not alone. Colleges and universities across the country are grappling with the case of the mysteriously vanishing male. Where men once dominated, they now make up no more than 43 percent of students at American institutions of higher learning, according to 2003 statistics, and this downward trend shows every sign of continuing unabated. If we don't reverse it soon, we will gradually diminish the male identity, and thus the productivity and the mission, of the next generation of young men, and all the ones that follow.
The trend of females overtaking males in college was initially measured in 1978. Yet despite the well-documented disappearance of ever more young men from college campuses, we have yet to fully react to what has become a significant crisis. Largely, that is because of cultural perceptions about males and their societal role. Many times a week, a reporter or other media person will ask me: "Why should we care so much about boys when men still run everything?"
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
5 Dec 2005 @ 10:26am
Political Indoctrination in High School
Political indoctrination is obviously not limited to college campuses. We've had repeated requests to cover incidents in elementary school through high school. While that's outside the scope of our current film project Indoctrinate U, it still deserves attention.
Take, for example, the recent case involving Bret Chenkin, a teacher of English and Social Studies in Vermont's Mount Anthony Union High School. Bret realizes that being a teacher affords many opportunities to slip his political opinions in front of his students. The Associated Press reports that Bret "said he isn't shy about sharing his liberal views with students."
That might explain why he placed the following word choice problem in a recent quiz:
I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes.
Perhaps someone should contact Mr. Above-Average Mind to tell him that ensuring--not insuring--is probably the word he wanted. But who cares if the students aren't learning English from this English teacher? At least they're learning the "correct" political views.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
26 Nov 2005 @ 10:02am
U.S. Soldiers Should Kill Superiors, Professor Says
Professor John Daly of Warren Community College in New Jersey caused controversy for an e-mail to a student where he said, "Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors."
The e-mail was sent by Professor Daly to freshman student Rebecca Beach, who had been hanging flyers promoting a campus event sponsored by Young America's Foundation. The flyers highlighted the number of people killed under communist regimes. Rebecca forwarded Professor Daly's e-mail to YAF, which has posted an unedited version online:
Dear Rebecca:
I am asking my students to boycott your event. I am also going to ask others to boycott it. Your literature and signs in the entrance lobby look like fascist propaganda and is extremely offensive. Your main poster "Communism killed 100,000,000" is not only untrue, but ignores the fact that CAPITALISM has killed many more and the evidence for that can be seen in the daily news papers. The U.S. government can fly to dominate the people of Iraq in 12 hours, yet it took them five days to assist the people devastated by huricane Katrina. Racism and profits were key to their priorities. Exxon, by the way, made $9 Billion in profits this last quarter--their highest proft margin ever. Thanks to the students of WCCC and other poor and working class people who are recruited to fight and die for EXXON and other corporations who earning megaprofits from their imperialist plunders. If you want to count the number of deaths based on political systems, you can begin with the more than a million children who have died in Iraq from U.S.-imposed sanctions and war. Or the million African American people who died from lack of access to healthcare in the US over the last 10 years.
I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus. Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people's needs--such freedom fighters can be counted throughout American history and they certainly will be counted again.
Prof. John Daly
The line, "I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like your won't dare show their face on a college campus" is quite telling. Unfortunately, Professor Daly is far from the only one in academia seeking to stamp out intellectual diversity on campus.
Update: Rather than defend his actions, Professor Daly has chosen to resign.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
23 Nov 2005 @ 3:50am
Bad Words on Campus
Two words. At Bucknell University, that's all it takes to get dragged into the President's Office for a half-hour discussion of word choice. And these aren't offensive words, at least not out here in the real world. But Bucknell apparently has a different definition of what is and is not acceptable.
On August 29th, the Bucknell University Conservatives Club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing an upcoming speaker: Major John Krenson, who had been in Afghanistan "hunting terrorists." Those two words--"hunting terrorists"--resulted in three students being called to Bucknell's Office of the President by Kathy Owens, the Executive Assistant to the President.
According to the students, when they arrived at the President's Office for the meeting, Ms. Owens held up a print-out of the offending e-mail and said "we have a problem here," telling the students that the words "hunting terrorists" were offensive. For the next half-hour, the three students were given a lecture on inappropriate phrasing.
(When contacted, Ms. Owens did acknowledge that the meeting took place, but refused to answer any questions about what transpired. She did not deny the account of the students.)
Last year, while visiting Bucknell, I noticed that the campus was plastered with flyers that screamed "vagina" in large block letters. Although some people might find these flyers offensive, it is protected speech at Bucknell--as it should be--but apparently the phrase "hunting terrorists" is not.
(Perhaps someone should remind Bucknell's administrators that the American soldiers who are "hunting terrorists" are fighting the very sort of misogynistic thugs who would gladly stone a woman to death for talking about her vagina in public.)
For years, Bucknell has denied that it has a speech code, the speech-stifling regulations that many schools use to punish political speech they don't like. But if Bucknell isn't in the business of restricting free speech, then why did these students have to spend 30 minutes listening to criticisms of the phrase "hunting terrorists"?
Most students I know would prefer not to spend their time defending their speech in front of highly-placed university administrators. By taking this action, the Bucknell administration is sending a signal to students: say only those things we approve of, or we will hassle you. The long-term effect will be that students will think twice before engaging in political speech that they know will be unpopular with the administration.
As an alumnus of Bucknell, this is all very depressing. Even more so because the recent appointment of Brian C. Mitchell as the new University President was met with optimism from students who have grown tired of fighting the constant battles against campus political correctness. Let's hope this incident is just a minor misstep in a new administration, and not a sign of things to come.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
28 Sep 2005 @ 4:06pm
A Great Commencement Speech
All too often, commencement speakers use the occasion to harangue students about their political opinions. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Studios, recently gave a commencement speech at Stanford University, and his was not one of those speeches. Personal, touching and inspiring, Steve Jobs's speech was an excellent send-off for those about to enter the real world.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
6 Jul 2005 @ 2:40pm
Brooklyn College's political loyalty oath?
In The New York Sun, Jacob Gershman reports (emphasis added):
Brooklyn College's School of Education has begun to base evaluations of aspiring teachers in part on their commitment to social justice, raising fears that the college is screening students for their political views.
Critics of the assessment policy warned that aspiring teachers are being judged on how closely their political views are aligned with their instructor's. Ultimately, they said, teacher candidates could be ousted from the School of Education if they are found to have the wrong dispositions.
[...]
Critics [...] say the dangers of the assessment policy became immediately apparent in the fall semester when several students filed complaints against an instructor who they said discriminated against them because of their political beliefs and "denounced white people as the oppressors."
[...]
In 2000 the council introduced new standards for accrediting education schools. Those standards incorporated the concept of dispositions, which the agency maintains ought to be measured, to sort out teachers who are likeliest to be successful. In a glossary, the council says dispositions "are guided by beliefs and attitudes related to values such as caring, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice."
To drive home the notion that education schools ought to evaluate teacher candidates on such parameters as attitude toward social justice, the council issued a revision of its accrediting policies in 2002 in a Board of Examiners Update. It encouraged schools to tailor their assessments of dispositions to the schools' guiding principles, which are known in the field as "conceptual frameworks." The council's policies say that if an education school "has described its vision for teacher preparation as 'Teachers as agents of change' and has indicated that a commitment to social justice is one disposition it expects of teachers who can become agents of change, then it is expected that unit assessments include some measure of a candidate's commitment to social justice."
Brooklyn College's School of Education, which is the only academic unit at the college with the status of school, is among dozens of education schools across the country that incorporate the notion of "social justice" in their guiding principles. At Brooklyn, "social justice" is one of the four main principles in its conceptual framework. The school's conceptual framework states that it develops in its students "a deeper understanding of the quest for social justice." In its explanation of that mission, the school states: "We educate teacher candidates and other school personnel about issues of social injustice such as institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism."
Critics of the dispositions standard contend that the idea of "social justice," a term frequently employed in left-wing circles, is open to politicization.
"It's political correctness that has insinuated into the criteria for accreditation of teacher education institutions," a noted education theorist in New York, Diane Ravitch, said. "Once that becomes the criteria for institutions as a whole, it gives free rein to those who want to impose it in their classrooms," she said. Ms. Ravitch is the author of "The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn."
As if to underscore how politicized classrooms have become in this new environment, one Brooklyn College Professor, Priya Parmar, made Michael Moore's political film Fahrenheit 9/11 required classroom viewing right before the election:
Students also complained that Ms. Parmar dedicated a class period to the screening of an anti-Bush documentary by Michael Moore, "Fahrenheit 9/11," a week before last November's presidential election, and required students to attend the class even if they had already seen the film. Students said Ms. Parmar described "Fahrenheit 9/11" as an important film to see before they voted in the election.
"Most troubling of all," [student Evan] Goldwyn wrote, "she has insinuated that people who disagree with her views on issues such as Ebonics or Fahrenheit 911 should not become teachers."
Posted by webmaster
1 Jun 2005 @ 9:13am
College punishes student for not advocating specific political positions
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports:
Rhode Island College's (RIC's) School of Social Work is requiring a conservative master's student to publicly advocate for "progressive" social changes if he wants to continue pursuing a degree in social work policy.
[...]
RIC's campaign against [student Bill] Felkner began in Fall 2004 when social work professor Jim Ryczek suggested to Felkner in an e-mail that if he did not agree with the school's political philosophy, he should consider leaving or finding another line of work. Shortly afterwards, Felkner learned that RIC's School of Social Work not only recommended that he adopt a particular ideology but also mandated that he lobby the Rhode Island Legislature for one of several policy positions that he did not support. FIRE protested this action, and--despite an assurance from RIC President John Nazarian that "no student has been obliged to lobby for a particular cause before the General Assembly"--Felkner reports that Professor Sue Pearlmutter told him that his grade would be affected if he chose to lobby for an alternative policy position.
RIC's most recent offense against the U.S. Constitution stems from its policy internship requirements for graduate students. There are eleven general requirements that every internship must meet--and six of these require that students work towards advancing "progressive" policies such as "progressive social change." Felkner, who refused to accept an internship that would force him to promote policies he opposed, instead accepted an internship in the policy department of Republican Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri's office. Ryzcek reported Felkner's refusal to work for "progressive" policies to Lenore Olsen, the chair of the Master's of Social Work Program. Olsen subsequently informed Felkner in a letter that he could no longer pursue a master's degree in social work policy.
"RIC, as a state college, simply may not require its students to publicly advocate for social changes they don't believe in--'progressive' or otherwise," noted FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg Lukianoff. "Forcing a person to publicly state one thing when he or she privately believes something else is one of the hallmarks of a totalitarian state. It is shocking that [Rhode Island College] President [John] Nazarian would allow this."
Posted by webmaster
31 May 2005 @ 9:23am
Harvard promises $50 million for more "diversity"
Harvard University has pledged $50 million for a new diversity program:
In the wake of a firestorm over his controversial comments about the ability of women to excel in science, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers yesterday pledged $50 million over the next decade to increase diversity at the school.
Responding to Harvard task force reports calling for sweeping reforms to increase the ranks of women scientists and faculty, Summers said the proposed changes "have the power to make Harvard not only more welcoming and diverse, but a stronger and more excellent university overall."
At the center of the proposals is the creation of a new post - Senior Vice Provost for Diversity and Faculty Development - who will be tasked with overseeing faculty recruitment with an eye on increasing the ranks of women and minorities.
Once again, the academy proves adept at concocting another plan to increase diversity of appearance within its walls. No word on whether any of that money will be used to help foster diversity of thought. The biggest diversity problem in higher education today is the monolithic uniformity of thought among professors. Because students are being exposed to such a narrow range of ideas, they're not only getting indoctrinated, they're getting ripped off.
One of these years, I hope to post a story talking about a school making a similar commitment to increasing diversity of thought, but I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
18 May 2005 @ 11:20am
Racial set-asides at University of Oregon
The Oregon Daily Emerald reports that the University of Oregon is using racial set-asides for certain class enrollments:
When senior Stephanie Ramey tried to sign up online for Math 243 Calculus for Business and Social Science for spring term she was denied access and informed she would have to contact the class professor.
The professor asked her to contact the Office of Multicultural Academic Support about enrolling in his class.
A staff member at the office said she couldn't register for the class because she doesn't identify as a minority, Ramey said.
White students are not banned from the classes altogether, but unlike minority students, they must wait until the first day of class and hope that there will still be space available:
Ramey attempted to enroll in one of six University classes this term that reserve the first 10 slots in an 18-student class for minority students, while requiring others who want to get into the class to arrive on the morning of the first day of class and meet with an adviser before being allowed to register for the remaining eight slots.
[...]
Students must identify as being African-American, Asian-American/Pacific Islander, Chicano/Latino, Native American or multiracial to enroll in the first 10 slots.
Posted by webmaster
17 May 2005 @ 9:21am
Dartmouth alums elect "insurgent" trustees
The alumni of Dartmouth College have elected two write-in candidates for Trustee positions. Todd Zywicki and Peter Robinson campaigned against speech codes and for greater intellectual diversity on campus. Neither Zywicki nor Robinson were on the university-approved ballot, but instead waged an insurgent campaign that followed in the footsteps of last year's maverick alum, T.J. Rodgers, the founder of Cypress Semiconductor.
Robinson, a former speechwriter for President Reagan, is currently a Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Zywicki now serves as a Law Professor and Senior Research Fellow at George Mason.
Posted by webmaster
13 May 2005 @ 7:38pm
Dartmouth ditches speech code
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) praises Dartmouth University for ridding itself of its speech code:
"FIRE no longer considers Dartmouth to have a speech code. Moreover, Dartmouth is clearly positioning itself as a national leader in the battle for free expression on campus," remarked David French, FIRE's president. "Although the situation at Dartmouth is not perfect, by removing from its website the documents that contained speech-restrictive statements and by confirming that those statements do not represent college policy, Dartmouth has taken an enormous step forward."
[...]
"Dartmouth's speech policies, along with those of the University of Pennsylvania, now lead the Ivy League in respecting individual liberty and free expression," remarked FIRE's French. "FIRE still has concerns regarding past punishments, but we are hopeful that--going forward-- Dartmouth students will enjoy the full range of First Amendment freedoms. Dartmouth's administration should be commended for this bold and important step." Concluded French: "FIRE looks forward to the day when the entire Ivy League joins this trend and recognizes that administrators may advocate for decency without mandating that students censor, under threat of punishment, their own speech for fear of transgressing someone else's notion of the good society."
Posted by webmaster
9 May 2005 @ 6:34pm
Supreme Court to review Solomon Amendment
The Solomon Amendment, which requires schools taking federal tax dollars to grant the U.S. military the same access to on-campus recruiting opportunities that private corporations get, will be reviewed by the Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will decide whether some law schools may curb military recruiters' access to their students in protest of the U.S. armed forces' ban on openly gay members.
On its face, the case is a struggle between Congress's power of the purse and academic freedom; the court is being asked to rule on the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, a federal law that requires universities to give military recruiters equal access, or risk millions of dollars in federal funding.
[...]
Thirty-one law schools, grouped under the banner of the Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), say that the Solomon Amendment is inconsistent with their constitutional right to free speech. They say they should be free to shun a policy they consider discriminatory.
The schools are free to shun the policy, if they are willing to give up the money. It sounds like the schools that want military recruiters kept off campus are willing to take a stand only when there are no consequences; they want to take federal money and tell the federal military to get lost at the same time. If these schools were acting on principle as they claim, then they should be willing to do without the federal money.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
4 May 2005 @ 9:02am
Academia, where liberals are conservatives
For the follow-up to Brainwashing 101, we interviewed one professor who described himself as "a liberal Democrat who voted for Hillary" but was nonetheless viewed as a conservative by his colleagues simply because he taught U.S. history without the usual mantra that America is the root of all evil in the world.
Today, we noticed a similar comment from a self-described left-wing professor who laments the ideological one-sidedness in law and economics:
I really don't think there's any social conservatism left in law and economics. Maybe compared to law faculties, but not compared to Congress or the American public. I'm a left winger in real life, but a right winger on just about any law faculty. Because I believe in things like incentives and trade-offs.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
2 May 2005 @ 7:12am
I wish I'd thought of this...
...when I was a student! Don't feel like working? Go on strike!
They'd better hope Yale doesn't take a page from Ronald Reagan and go PATCO on them.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
20 Apr 2005 @ 11:29pm
Bucknell's Biased "Women's Resource Center"
At National Review Online, Allison Kasic, a current Bucknell student, discusses the political agenda of the Women's Resource Center at Bucknell:
Purportedly devoted to women's equality, the WRC is really just an example of wasted tuition dollars. It's a shaky proposition in the first place to dedicate an entire administrative office to only one gender. But the WRC has shown it can't even do that. Given its appalling record of partisanship over my four years here, it might be more appropriately called the Radical Feminist Resource Center. This office shamelessly uses its paid staff, its many programs, and Bucknell students' money to undertake such noble enterprises as encouraging the sale of vagina-shaped lollipops. It divides the women on campus by embracing a few man-hating radicals while dismissing any woman who rejects its extremist ideology.
Evan Coyne Maloney, the director of Brainwashing 101, recently wrote about Bucknell's Women's Resource Center in "The Campus Political Establishment."
Posted by webmaster
19 Apr 2005 @ 10:17am
Columbia's ROTC problem
In the New York Post, former New York City Councilman Charles Millard takes Columbia University to task for its ban on ROTC:
You might think that, at a university where virtually every student and faculty member was directly affected by 9/11, there'd be respect and gratitude for ROTC. Reserve Officer Training Corps students, after all, seek to serve and protect their country and their community. Instead, President Lee Bollinger (who's also under fire over alleged anti-Semitism in his Mideast Studies Department) has said he allows ROTC recruiters at the Law School only "with regret," and ROTC itself is banned on the Columbia campus.
[...]
Columbia banned ROTC in 1969, a few months after the height of the famous campus demonstrations against the Vietnam war and all things military. Yet that knee-jerk anti-military attitude doesn't apply to today's Columbia students: Two years ago, a student referendum to bring ROTC back to campus passed with 65 percent of the vote.
The faculty is another matter. It took a year after the referendum before the faculty-dominated University Senate would even form a task force to study the isssue. After a year of town halls, email exchanges and committee meetings, the committee is deadlocked, 5 to 5, over whether to change the existing policy. The full Senate is set to decide on May 6.
ROTC opponents claim that they're not anti-military -- that their opposition is solely related to the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. That's supposedly the one issue that has the committee deadlocked, because the policy doesn't match with Columbia's own non-discrimination policy.
One can only wonder: If (God forbid) terrorists launched an attack at Columbia, would these critics block the gates of 116th and Broadway to prevent the military from entering the campus because "Don't ask, don't tell" violates Columbia's anti-discrimination policy?
Keep in mind that ROTC students have their tuition partially paid by Uncle Sam; checks are sent directly to Columbia from the "Don't ask, don't tell" U.S. Army. Columbia has yet to send any of those checks back.
It seems the university's principles don't extend to not taking the money from the government. Keep in mind that Columbia's bias policy quite haphazardly enforced; Columbia professors can make statements like the following, and be elevated to chair entire departments:
Half a century of systematic maiming and murdering of another people has left... its deep marks on the faces of the Israeli Jews, the way they talk, walk, the way they greet each other... There is a vulgarity of character that is bone-deep and structural to the skeletal vertebrae of its culture.
Hamid Debashi
Chairman, Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) Department
September 23, 2004
Al-Ahram, an Egyptian newspaper
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
18 Apr 2005 @ 10:21am
Institutionalized bias
Brainwashing 101 director Evan Coyne Maloney has a new column describing how some schools, like his alma mater Bucknell University, have created permanent political institutions on campus that routinely recruit students to take specific positions on controversial political issues:
Unfortunately, the [Women's Resouce Center] isn't the only political office into which Bucknell pours money. The university also has an Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Awareness. In February, the LBGT office used Valentine's Day to promote "National Freedom to Marry Week." The office handed out t-shirts and buttons and sent an e-mail to all students asking them "to show their support in a very visible way [...] regarding marriage rights."
In other words, the university was asking students to take a specific political stance in support of gay marriage. Clearly, the university stepped over the line of appropriate action; this wasn't a case of one professor or administrator speaking his or her opinion at a rally, this was an official arm of the university--staffed by paid university employees--asking students to support gay marriage "in a very visible way."
Now, you don't have to oppose gay marriage to oppose what Bucknell is doing here. I personally believe that gay couples should be afforded the same legal rights as straight couples, but the question must be asked: should the university be spending precious resources to further a controversial political agenda opposed by many students, parents and alumni? And since when did such politicking become part of the university's mission? Alumni might consider these questions next time the phone rings with an eager Bucknell undergrad seeking contributions.
When asked about the appropriateness of politicking by university offices, Charlie Pollock, Bucknell's Vice President of Student Affairs, responded that "university funds sometimes help expose students to prominent holders of opposing viewpoints" by inviting speakers to campus. Still, while it is nice that the university "sometimes" gives a platform to other viewpoints, the occasional speaker is still a far cry from having a staffed office--essentially a permanent fixture on campus--routinely putting out political messages that bear the official stamp of the university.
Posted by webmaster
13 Apr 2005 @ 12:58pm
Columbia's whitewash
Campus Report has more information on the recent Columbia report in which the university absolved itself of charges of classroom bias in their Middle East Languages and Cultures program:
"Of the five members of the committee, two were members of MEALAC [Columbia's controversial Department of Middle East Languages and Culture] and a third was the dissertation advisor of an accused professor," CU alumnus Ron Lewenberg writes in an article on FrontPage.com. "A fourth, Mark Mazower has blamed Israel for post-war anti-Semitism and fathered the theory that a cabal of Zionists and neocons [neoconservatives] controls the U. S."
In other words, 80% of the people Columbia selected to investigate leftist and anti-Israeli bias in MEALAC either had ties with MEALAC or had demonstrated similar bias themselves in the past.
Posted by webmaster
13 Apr 2005 @ 8:57am
Documented bias in academia
Several recent studies over the past few years have documented the profound slant among the professorship in higher education. In the Boston Globe, Cathy Young discusses some of these (emphasis ours):
YET ANOTHER study has come out documenting what most conservatives consider to be blindingly obvious: the leftward tilt of the American professoriate. The latest report, by political scientist Stanley Rothman of Smith College, communications professor S. Robert Lichter of George Mason University, and Canadian polling expert Neil Nevitte, published in the online journal Forum, paints a stark picture of a politically skewed academy. Nearly three quarters of the professors in a 1999 survey of college faculty identified themselves as left/liberal, only 15 percent as right/conservative; 50 percent were Democrats and 11 percent Republicans.
[...]
Some academic liberals earnestly explain that conservatives are scarce in the universities because -- well, they're just not good enough. George P. Lakoff, professor of linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley, has told The New York Times that liberals go into the academy because, ''unlike conservatives, they believe in working for the public good and social justice, as well as knowledge and art for their own sake." Another variation on this theme is that liberals are better suited to academic life because, unlike those closed-minded, intolerant conservatives, they are open-minded and willing to allow the free expression of ideas they find disagreeable.
Sure. Unless, of course, the upsetting idea is that racial preferences in college admissions are a bad policy (Ward Connerly, the African-American businessman who espouses this heresy, has been repeatedly shouted down when appearing on college campuses). Or that the shortage of women among top scientists may be partly due to innate differences between the sexes (just ask Harvard President Lawrence Summers about liberal tolerance on this issue).
[...]
[T]here is on many campuses a climate in which a "normal" person is presumed to be liberal. A young woman who is a graduate student at a Midwestern university and a liberal Democrat told me in a recent e-mail exchange that after the 2004 election, the unanimous opinion among the professors was that Americans who voted for Bush were "either too stupid to know they 'should' vote for Kerry, or a bunch of right-wing bigots." She was open-minded enough to read some pro-Bush Internet sites and find a lot of Bush voters who bore no resemblance to this caricature. But she is convinced that if she were to share her observations with anyone in her department, the consequence would be social and professional ostracism.
Some conservatives want a political solution: legislation that would not only protect the rights of dissenting students but penalize professors who use the classroom to push a political agenda. Many professors are appalled, understandably, by the idea of legislative intervention in the classroom. The best way to avoid such intervention is for the academy to make a good-faith effort to recognize and correct its intellectual diversity problem.
Posted by webmaster
12 Apr 2005 @ 10:56pm
Academia Making Itself Irrelevant?
In the Washington Post, Steven Roy Goodman, a consultant who advises high school students and their parents on college admissions, has noticed an alarming trend in the perception of academia among the clients he serves. To an increasing number of people, higher education is seen more frivolous and less relevant to society at large. This, he argues, is the result of a hyper-political atmosphere on college campuses:
Colleges have long been hotbeds of political agitation, of course. But where it was once students who did the acting out, as they spread their intellectual and philosophical wings, now the professors and administrators are more likely to be playing politics -- and more and more Americans with college-age kids are getting fed up with it. In 18 years of in-the-trenches experience counseling kids on their college choices, I've never seen the unhappiness as widespread as it is today. If colleges don't tone down the politics, and figure out how to control ballooning costs, they run the risk of turning off enough American consumers that many campuses could marginalize themselves right out of existence.
Colleges are having an ever-harder time making what they do comprehensible to the families footing the bills. I counsel families of all political stripes -- liberal, conservative and in-between -- and varied income levels, but they all agree on one thing: the overly politicized atmosphere on campuses is distracting colleges from providing a solid education to our young people.
[...]
Over-the-top professors and enthusiastic development officers with insatiable appetites for more funds will probably always be with us. But the sheer number of outlandish political controversies at universities across the country, coupled with escalating fees, is alienating parents from the very institutions they have been supporting through tax and tuition dollars.
[...]
Even loyal alumni are pushing back -- in part, I believe, because of recent professor-led campus political battles. The national percentage of alumni donating to their alma maters has declined for three years in a row and is now below 13 percent.
[...]
Maybe we can learn from recent campus incidents. Maybe we can ask ourselves what we would like our universities to actually do. Maybe university communities can engage in real soul-searching to figure out how they can benefit both their students and the country in ways that the broader public can support.
If they don't at least try, the university as an institution may have seen the heyday of its influence.
Posted by webmaster
11 Apr 2005 @ 9:44pm
Columbia conveniently clears self
As Columbia University demonstrates, the nice benefit of investigating yourself is that nobody can overrule you when you declare yourself innocent:
The faculty committee appointed by Columbia's president, Lee Bollinger, to investigate a series of student allegations against professors in the Middle Eastern studies department issued a report yesterday largely clearing the accused scholars of blame.
[...]
Columbia's top administrators released statements applauding the report
[...]
In an effort to manage favorable coverage of its investigation into the complaints, the university disclosed a summary of the committee's report only to the Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper, and the New York Times. Those newspapers, sources indicated to The New York Sun last night, made an agreement with the central administration that they would not speak to the students who made the complaints against the professors.
[...]
The committee's report - four months in the making and the product of dozens of interviews with students and faculty members - represents a significant victory for Columbia's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.
[...]
On the issue of anti-Semitism, the committee concluded: "We found no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic. Professor Massad, for one, has been categorical in his classes concerning the unacceptability of anti-semitic views."
The committee made no mention of an article that an Iranian professor at Columbia, Hamid Dabashi wrote for an Egyptian newspaper, Al-Ahram, last fall in which he wrote that Israelis suffer from "a vulgarity of character that is bone-deep and structural to the skeletal vertebrae of its culture."
[...]
The panel also essentially cleared the professors who on April 17, 2002, canceled classes on the day of an anti-Israel rally on campus and encouraged students to attend the demonstration.
In an editorial, The New York Sun asks:
President Bollinger of Columbia University seems pleased as punch with the report from the faculty committee investigating professors in Middle East studies who have been criticized by students. "The Committee's work and report help sustain our trust in the absolutely critical norm of peer review," Mr. Bollinger said. By "peer review," Mr. Bollinger means that the faculty should be left to police itself. The whole point about the controversy at Columbia, however, is that such an approach is not credible. At least two of the five "peers" on the Columbia committee had called on Columbia to divest from companies selling arms to Israel, a position that Mr. Bollinger himself once termed "grotesque" and that the president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, has called anti-Semitic in effect if not intent.
In our view, the text of Columbia's report tends to undermine the concept of peer review rather than support it. The faculty members criticize "outside organizations," "outside bodies," and "outside advocacy groups." Inside bodies, however, totally flubbed earlier investigations of the scandal in Middle East studies, and only because of outside bodies has any action been achieved at all. The only such groups the faculty committee carps about, moreover, are the pro-Israel ones, Campus Watch and the David Project. The "peer review" completely ignores the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Aramco, two outside bodies hostile to Israel that have, between them, poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into backing a certain Columbia professor and his center.
Nor did the committee deal with questions of bias and inaccurate information, which constituted the majority of complaints made by students. The committee said such questions should be left for "peer review of teaching" and "departments." But the committee lashed out at one unnamed pro-Israel professor, saying, "We find it deeply disturbing that faculty were apparently prepared to encourage students to report to them on a fellow-professor's classroom statements." How are the faculty supposed to review each other if they can't ask students about their colleagues' classes?
Good question. It seems obvious that Columbia is more interested in sweeping this under the rug than in fully investigating it. After all, why would the university initially release the report to only one outside news outlet (The New York Times) and then do so only on the condition that the Times didn't speak to any of the students making the complaints? That's shameful behavior, not only on the part of Columbia, but on the part of The New York Times as well.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
4 Apr 2005 @ 10:22am
Faculty identify selves as "liberal," by a wide margin
Howard Kurtz reports in The Washington Post:
College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says.
By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans.
The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative.
"What's most striking is how few conservatives there are in any field," said Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University and a co-author of the study. "There was no field we studied in which there were more conservatives than liberals or more Republicans than Democrats. It's a very homogenous environment, not just in the places you'd expect to be dominated by liberals."
[...]
"In general," says Lichter, who also heads the nonprofit Center for Media and Public Affairs, "even broad-minded people gravitate toward other people like themselves. That's why you need diversity, not just of race and gender but also, maybe especially, of ideas and perspective."
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
29 Mar 2005 @ 6:51pm
Columbia's president speaks out
In a speech on Wednesday night, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger discussed academic freedom and classroom indoctrination. The speech contained some reassuring words; it remains to be seen whether the words will lead to any action.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
25 Mar 2005 @ 5:55pm
Lots-o-cops
For the last few weeks, we've been traveling around the country extensively while we gather the remaining footage for the feature-length follow-up to Brainwashing 101. This has made it difficult to keep up with e-mail and postings to this site, but the good news is that we've been capturing some tremendously compelling stories. We've also had more than our share of run-ins with the police at various campuses. Asking certain questions of university administrators makes them very uncomfortable; they don't seem to want certain dirty laundry to be aired. Who knew?
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
25 Mar 2005 @ 4:26pm
Harvard faculty vote "No Confidence" on Summers
The Arts and Sciences faculty of Harvard University passed a no confidence referendum on university president Larry Summers. The vote was seen as a rebuke of Summers' controversial remarks on women in science.
It is odd that the faculty--which presumably has an interest in seeing academic freedom remain intact--would try to shove Larry Summers out the door over controversial remarks. Right now, faculty from all over the country are defending Ward Churchill on the grounds that his dismissal would erode academic freedom. But if comparing the September 11th dead to Nazis is defended in academia, why aren't academics also coming to the defense of Summers?
We defended Churchill's academic freedom here on this site, not because we agree with him, but because we understand the danger that occurs when freedom of speech and thought are not respected. While it is true that a university president is in a slightly different position than a tenured faculty member, we would like to think that academic freedom protects everyone in academia, not just those who've managed to get through the tenure process. It is a dangerous precedent to set when a community creates a privileged class that enjoys rights not afforded to anyone else. Faculty who argue for their own academic freedom do themselves a disservice when they undermine the same freedoms for everyone else in academia.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
15 Mar 2005 @ 10:43pm
Columbia accepting Saudi financing
As University of North Carolina faculty members petition the school to reject funding from what they describe as "a conservative philanthropic foundation," The New York Sun reports that Columbia University isn't quite as picky about where its funding comes from. The school has been quietly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from interests in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Aramco, the state-run oil company of Saudi Arabia:
In the past two years, Columbia has come under greater public pressure to disclose its foreign donations, especially from governments suspected of supporting Islamic terrorism.
The New York Sun reported last year that Columbia had failed for years to disclose to the federal Department of Education the foreign gifts it received.
[...]
Among the 22 foreign gifts of $250,000 or more that Columbia disclosed having received in 2003 was a contribution of $250,000 from an unnamed Saudi individual for "social science research."
Among the donors of the $2.1 million Edward Said chair, Columbia reported, were the United Arab Emirates, which gave $200,000, and the Olayan Charitable Trust, a charity associated with a Saudi-based multinational corporation, the Olayan Group.
Saudi Aramco, which the Saudi government purchased from American oil companies in 1980, gives grant money to a number of other Middle Eastern programs at American universities.
In 2003, the oil company's in-house journal, Saudi Aramco World, ran a 6,000-word article on the importance of Middle East centers in helping policy-makers understand the region after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The article did not mention criticism that Middle Eastern studies has received from lawmakers and some scholars, who argue that the academic field has been corrupted by scholars who oppose America's foreign policy, particularly its friendly terms with Israel, and who gloss over Islamic terrorism.
A research associate at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, Martin Kramer, who has been a vocal critic of Middle Eastern studies in America, said the Saudi kingdom is a logical benefactor of the institute.
"If you're a Saudi, it's very convenient for Rashid Khalidi to claim that the source of America's problems in the region is not their special relationship with Saudi Arabia, but their special relationship with Israel," Mr. Kramer said. "All he has to do is say it's Palestine, stupid."
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
11 Mar 2005 @ 9:01pm
UNC faculty members oppose additional funding
71 members of the University of North Carolina's faculty are opposing a plan that would funnel between "$600,000 to $700,000 a year range over several years" to the university for a new "Studies in Western Cultures" program. The reason? The faculty members don't like the source of the money: "a conservative philanthropic foundation."
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
10 Mar 2005 @ 12:40pm
Terrorists welcomed at University of Illinois
Two former members of the Weather Underground, a domestic terrorist organization responsible for a string of bombings around the U.S. in the 1970s, are now lecturing at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). The Weather Underground sought to overthrow the government of the United States, landing at least one member, Bernardine Dohrn, on the FBI's "10 Most Wanted" list. Dohrn and husband Bill Ayers, who was also a Weather Underground member, were invited to the University of Illinois to participate in the school's guest-in-residence program.
Posted by webmaster
2 Mar 2005 @ 9:53pm
Student flunked for not supporting specific legislation
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports that student Bill Felkner was required as part of his coursework to lobby the Rhode Island legislature on specific policy proposals with which he disagreed:
In class, [Professor James] Ryczek assigned students to form groups to lobby the Rhode Island legislature for social welfare programs from an approved list. If a student could not find a suitable social welfare topic on the list, he or she could also lobby for gay marriage. Felkner did not support any of these programs or issues and asked Ryczek if he could instead lobby against one of them or for the Academic Bill of Rights. This request was refused. Felkner then joined with and participated in a group, but wrote an individually graded paper that argued against his group's position on the issue. Ryczek failed this paper, writing, "Regardless of the content, application of theory, and critical analysis, you did not write from the perspective you were required to use in this academic exercise. Therefore, the paper is must [sic] receive a failing grade."
[...]
"While professors may require students to work from a certain perspective as an academic exercise, RIC has required Felkner to do work that is intended to be used to lobby the legislature for policies he thinks are wrong," noted FIRE's [Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg] Lukianoff. "No educational institutionespecially if it is publicly supportedshould force its students to lobby for policies with which they disagree."
FIRE's [President David] French added, "RIC has repeatedly placed Bill Felkner in situations where he faces punishment for not sharing the officially imposed views of the School of Social Work. This is unacceptable. A misguided desire for uniformity of opinion must never take precedence over freedom of conscience."
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
28 Feb 2005 @ 10:14am
Money well spent
Word on the street is that University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill gets paid $96,000 per year. Only in the United States could someone be paid so handsomely for raving about how evil the United States is.
Maybe I'm in the wrong business...
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
18 Feb 2005 @ 1:48am
FIRE defends LeMoyne student expelled over class paper
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has come to the defense of Scott McConnell, the former LeMoyne College student who was expelled for advocating corporal punishment in a class assignment:
"Le Moyne College says it respects academic freedom, yet it has dismissed a student purely for expressing personal beliefs that are different from those espoused by administrators," stated David French, president of FIRE. "This shows a profound lack of respect for the opinions of its students. Le Moyne must not promise freedom and then allow extensive and arbitrary censorship on an administrator's whim."
In November 2004, McConnell submitted as part of an assignment a paper expressing his personal views on classroom management, including various ideas for attaining a classroom environment that is "based upon strong discipline and hard work" and that allows "corporal punishment." The paper received an "A-," with his professor noting that his ideas were "interesting" and that she had shared the paper with the department chair, Cathy Leogrande. McConnell ultimately received an "A" as his final grade in the course.
Yet in January 2005, with no prior warning, Leogrande dismissed McConnell from Le Moyne. In the dismissal letter, Leogrande stated that she had reviewed McConnell's grades for courses he took during the summer and fall semesters and had "discussed" his work with his professors. Leogrande wrote, "I have grave concerns regarding the mismatch between your personal beliefs regarding teaching and learning and the Le Moyne College program goals. Based on this data, I do not believe that you should continue in the Le Moyne [Master of Science for Teachers] Program." At the time he was dismissed, McConnell had achieved a grade-point average of 3.78 for the fall semester and had received an "excellent" evaluation for his work in an actual classroom.
"Scott McConnell is being kicked out of school for an 'A-' paper," noted FIRE's French. "It appears that at Le Moyne, ideological uniformity trumps any other ideal."
[...]
On February 8, Le Moyne responded to FIRE, stating that "the College does not believe it is appropriate to enter a public debate with your organization concerning the College's admission decision concerning any particular student."
"The fight for the academic freedom of Scott McConnell and for all Le Moyne students will not end just because administrators don't feel like addressing the issue," remarked Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy. "Le Moyne College administrators must learn that the freedom to dissent is everyone's business."
Posted by webmaster
16 Feb 2005 @ 4:10pm
An e-mail from a professor
Alfred Joseph claims to be an associate professor at the Miami University (of Ohio). We recently received this e-mail from him, which we believe illustrates quite well the environment that we're trying to document:
From: alfred joseph
Subject: a farce
Date: 10 February 2005 12:31:59 PM EST
1. George W. Bush was re-elected during a failed imperialist adventure.
2. He is dismantling what is left of social welfare programs.
3. Bible thumpers are making policy ( and leading the executive branch).
4. more imperialist adventures are on the horizon.
5. turning back affirmative action is a given
6. in a country with thousands of nuclear weapons he has some of the population convinced that countries with no or few nuclear warheads are a threat to the survival of the United States
7. many Americans get their information from nitwits on Fox TV.
8. Ann "the bitch" Coulter is a (self proclaimed) popular author. I used the term bitch intentionally to demonstrate that I can be a "politically incorrect" as the next guy.
Given the above, what the fuck are you assholes complaining about? Have you actually been in an American classroom lately?
-- ********************************************************************************
When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor were hungry, they called me a communist.
--Dom Helda Camara, Brazilian Bishop
********************************************************************************
Alfred Joseph, PhD
Associate Professor
Dept. of Family Studies and Social Work
110 D McGuffey Hall
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
phone 513 529 4902
fax 513 529 6468
********************************************************************************
Admittedly, we haven't been in your classroom, Alfred. But somehow I suspect if we were, we might not get a fair shake from you.
Thanks for writing and helping us demonstrate the problem.
Posted by webmaster
10 Feb 2005 @ 1:14pm
Professor may be fired for controversial remarks
The Associated Press reports that the University of Colorado may be preparing to fire Ward Churchill, the controversial professor who compared those killed on September 11th to Nazis and said that they were not innocent victims.
We find these comments reprehensible. But we also believe that the best way to combat Professor Churchill is by opposing him with more speech. Creating an environment where tenured professors can be fired for controversial remarks is a dangerous precedent to set. Academic freedom provides a wide berth, and that's by design. Sometimes, controversy is merely the result of childish, mean-spirited remarks, but it's also true that many of mankind's most brilliant thinkers aroused controversy in their day. If they'd been silenced because others were upset by what they had to say, then we'd all be poorer for it. To ensure that professors can safely pursue the most innovative thinking, academic freedom should be respected.
Shoddy scholarship--not a knack for generating controversy--is the primary reason Professor Churchill shouldn't be holding his professor position. Still, the University of Colorado should have noticed that and acted when Churchill initially came up for tenure. Instead, low standards on the part of the university allowed him to gain tenure and even to chair a department. By giving Churchill tenure, the university made a tacit promise to stand behind him in the face of controversy. The university should respect that promise and protect his job.
We suspect the University of Colorado is acting not out of principle but a desire to quell a public relations disaster. If the university wants to make amends, hire a professor to do battle with Professor Churchill's ideas. That is the way towards truth, not silencing voices we find disturbing.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
4 Feb 2005 @ 12:31am
School caves over Passion ban
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) announced its victory over a school that had previously banned a showing of The Passion of the Christ:
In a statement issued yesterday evening, Florida's Indian River Community College (IRCC) overturned its prohibition on a student-organized screening of The Passion of the Christ. IRCC made the decision after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) took the case of the Christian Student Fellowship (CSF), which wanted to show the film, to the national media. IRCC's statement confirmed that the college had not enforced its policies on public expression consistently and according to constitutional guidelines. Late last week, CSF also reported that IRCC has rescinded its authoritarian requirement that a faculty advisor monitor all student organization meetings.
"We appreciate IRCC's acknowledgement of its mistakes and its recognition of its duty to allow constitutionally protected expression on campus," remarked FIRE President David French. "While the students never should have been put through this experience, FIRE is very pleased that IRCC ultimately decided to reject oppression and embrace liberty--not just for the Christian Student Fellowship, but for all of its students."
Last fall, IRCC prohibited CSF from hosting a screening of The Passion of the Christ on campus, justifying its actions by claiming to have banned all R-rated movies. Soon afterwards, it enacted a new policy requiring a faculty advisor's presence at all student group events. This Orwellian policy effectively prevented CSF from meeting because its demands on the time of CSF's faculty advisor forced him to resign. When CSF's efforts to resolve the situation proved unsuccessful, the group contacted FIRE for help.
FIRE intervened and quickly discovered and publicized a profound double standard: IRCC had recently allowed the performance of a skit called "F**king for Jesus" and a viewing of the R-rated documentary film Welcome to Sarajevo, but it would not allow the showing of The Passion of the Christ. Under intense media pressure, IRCC conducted a legal review of its policies, leading to yesterday's decision to permit the screening and last week's decision to lift the requirement that a college official attend all student group meetings.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
2 Feb 2005 @ 5:44pm
Student expelled over class assignment?
A student at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY says that he was expelled for advocating corporal punishment in a class paper:
LeMoyne College expelled Scott McConnell, a student from its Masters of Education program, for writing a paper in which he advocated the use of corporal punishment in schools, he said.
The paper, written for a class on classroom management, originally earned McConnell an A-. However, when he attempted to enroll in classes for the spring semester, he found he couldn't.
"LeMoyne doesn't believe students should be able to express their own views," McConnell said. "If you differ from our philosophical ideal you will be expelled from our college."
[...]
It would set a bad precedent if students could be expelled for their beliefs, said Joe McManus, a junior engineering major.
"I think you should be able to say whatever you want, so long as he doesn't touch anyone," McManus said. "Whether or not corporal punishment is OK depends on where you grew up. You should not be penalized for thinking something."
"I wanted to go to school and LeMoyne has taken that chance from me," McConnell said. He is currently in the process of applying to programs at other schools in New York.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
2 Feb 2005 @ 10:28am
Controversial speaker cancelled at Hamilton College
Ward Churchill, a professor at the University of Colorado (Boulder), has some rather extreme views on the September 11th attacks:
The [Pentagon] and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center: Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire--the 'mighty engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved--and they did so both willingly and knowingly. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it."
Recently, Professor Churchill was thrust into the limelight after he was invited to give a speech at Hamilton College. The resulting controversy caused Hamilton to rescind the invitation to Professor Churchill.
That's too bad. While we might have had a problem with the amount of money that Professor Churchill would have received from his appearance--$3,500--we also believe he has a right to speak his views, however vile we may find them. After all, in academia, Professor Churchill is apparently not considered a controversial figure. His remarks on the September 11th attacks are over three years old, and they generated no uproar until his scheduled talk at Hamilton. Professor Churchill's talk would have been a nice opportunity to document exactly what sort of thinkers can rise to the level of department chair at the University of Colorado.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
1 Feb 2005 @ 8:10pm
"Support our Troops" stickers ordered removed
At the University of Oregon, a worker was recently ordered by school officials to remove a magnetic "Support Our Troops" sticker from a university-owned maintenance vehicle.
The university's official stance is that the sticker violates state regulations prohibiting political materials from being displayed on state property. One wonders whether a similar standard will soon be applied to university professors' doors, which are often covered in political cartoons and bumper stickers.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
29 Jan 2005 @ 10:52am
Columbia Unbecoming
Over the last few months, Columbia University has attempted to contain a public relations disaster stemming from the film Columbia Unbecoming. The film presents a number of students who tell of bias in the classrooms of several Middle East Studies professors.
One Israeli student, for example, tells of a professor who repeatedly asked him in class, "How many Palestinians have you killed?" After the student objected, the professor refused to allow the student to speak in class.
Columbia Unbecoming, which has been getting lots of press in New York City, now has its own website.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
25 Jan 2005 @ 11:08am
Harvard head in hot water
Former Clinton Administration official and current Harvard President Larry Summers is feeling the heat after making some impolitic comments regarding scientific research of gender differences. From the Associated Press:
Lawrence Summers' bluntness has earned him both enemies and admirers in several top Treasury Department jobs and now as president of Harvard.
He's rarely been one to apologize for his directness -- until this week. Summers has spent much of the last few days saying sorry following a tumult over comments he made at a conference on women in science that he thought were off the record.
Summers insists his remarks about possible biological differences in scientific ability between men and women have been misrepresented -- that he wasn't endorsing a position, just stating there is research that suggests such a difference may exist. But his words have sparked wide discussion on Harvard's campus and a string of angry calls and e-mails.
In a letter to the Harvard community posted late Wednesday on the university Web site, Summers wrote: "I deeply regret the impact of my comments and apologize for not having weighed them more carefully."
"I was wrong to have spoken in a way that was an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women," he added in what was his third statement expressing contrition since the conference last Friday.
Summers, an economist by training, said in a telephone interview that he hopes he'll be able to participate in academic discussions in the future. "But particularly on sensitive topics, I will speak in much less spontaneous ways and in ways that are much more mindful of my position as president," he said.
Some academics think that's too bad. They say it's important for college presidents to be engaged in debating important issues, and worry this episode will discourage them.
Read more...
Posted by webmaster
20 Jan 2005 @ 11:23pm
School bans Passion of the Christ
Indian River Community College in Fort Pierce, Florida recently censored a Christian student group that wanted to show The Passion of the Christ. According to the Christian Student Fellowship, school administrator Lori LaCivita said the reason for banning the film was because of its "R" rating. But the same school hosted a play called "Fucking for Jesus" in which a character masturbates to images of Christ. Apparently, the college felt no need to censor that.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
14 Jan 2005 @ 3:54pm
Psychotherapy for Pro-US Muslim Student?
Like many 17-year-olds, Ahmad Al-Qloushi is adjusting to life on campus. As an Arab Muslim, the Foothill College freshman is undoubtedly a minority. He's also finding that his status as a minority brings with it a unique set of challenges. But it isn't Ahmad's ethnicity or his religion that are the source of tension on campus, it's his views about the United States. You see, Ahmad is a Kuwaiti. And although he was only three years old when the U.S. liberated his country from the claws of Saddam Hussein, his admiration for our country is something he inherited from his parents' generation:
My parents still remember what it was like for us during the invasion. Waiting for long hours in line for a few pieces of bread. We had darkness 24 hours a day from the burning oil wells. My two uncles are still traumatized from being kidnapped and tortured in Iraqi prisons. Most of all we remember our one-week-old baby cousin who died while the Iraqi invaders were stealing incubators from hospitals to sell them for profit. The Americans by contrast came in to liberate us and asked for nothing in return. I love this country for the freedom it provides and for rescuing Kuwait's liberty in the first Gulf War.
It is his love for our country that's the source of Ahmad's troubles at Foothill College. Since the late 1960s, admiration for the United States has fallen out of fashion on American campuses. Foothill is no different:
Week after week, I encountered a lack of intellectual and political diversity that I would have more commonly expected to have heard on the streets of pre-liberation Iraq. In this particular class I heard only one consistent refrain: America is bad.
When Ahmad disagreed with that prevailing sentiment, political science professor Joseph Woolcock suggested that Ahmad needed psychological help:
[Professor Woolcock] told me, "Your views are irrational." He called me naive for believing in the greatness of this country, and told me "America is not God's gift to the world." Then he upped the stakes and said "You need regular psychotherapy." Apparently, if you are an Arab Muslim who loves America you must be deranged. Professor Woolcock went as far as to threaten me by stating that he would visit the Dean of International Admissions (who has the power to take away student visas) to make sure I received regular psychological treatment.
This is what passes for an education these days.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
11 Jan 2005 @ 10:06pm
Campus life, fully exposed
U.S. News and World Report columnist John Leo discusses his daughter's experience at Wesleyan:
In the fall of 2000, I promised my daughter the freshman that I wouldn't write about Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.) until she graduated. As a result, you readers learned nothing from me about the naked dorm, the transgender dorm, the queer prom, the pornography-for-credit course, the obscene sidewalk chalking, the campus club named crudely for a woman's private part, or the appearance on campus of a traveling anti-Semitic roadshow, loosely described as a pro-Palestinian conference.
Posted by Evan Coyne Maloney
11 Jan 2005 @ 8:29pm
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