Film Update
 We've received alot of email inquiring about our upcoming film "Indoctrinate U". "What's taking so long?" - you say.
Well, we just want to get it right - and we're very close to completion. Still no release date - however a trailer will be up in this space hopefully in the next 6 weeks.
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Posted by Stuart Browning
26 Oct 2006 @ 7:28am
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
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