Free Speech Threats and Litigation Nightmares Proposed by College of DuPage

The College of DuPage Board of Trustees is set to pass two policies on Thursday, November 19 (PDF of board packet) which present a danger to free speech on campus. These are virtually the same policies which were passed this spring and then rescinded by the board.

In policy 15-10, the problematic provision declares, “The College will protect an individual’s right to express their viewpoint or opinion, so long as it does not violate State or Federal law and is not detrimental to the College.” This policy is better than the original wording proposed last month, “The College will not tolerate discrimination and harassment based on an individual’s viewpoint or opinion.” However, it's still deeply flawed and likely to make the College of DuPage subject to endless litigation. The problem with limiting “viewpoint” discrimination is that a university is all about making distinctions based on opinions. For example, the hiring of a science professor requires discrimination against anti-science viewpoints. A college hires an astronomer and refuses to hire an astrologer based on opinion discrimination.

Remember that several years ago, David Horowitz's Individual Rights Foundation sued the University of California at Berkeley because it did not hire notorious radio talk show bigot Michael Savage as the head of its journalism school. Fortunately, the lawsuit went nowhere. But an “opinion” discrimination provision like this would open up a college to many more lawsuits. There are well-established legal precedents about race or sex discrimination, but the area of “opinion” discrimination is completely new territory where any lawyer could wage a reign of terror by lawsuit against any faculty who, for example, grade Holocaust denial “opinions” lower than historically accurate analysis.

The provision “not detrimental to the College” is not a solution to the problem because it's so vague. After all, banning a controversial viewpoint might actually be regarded as helping the College. The standards should be academic merit and freedom of speech, not what is detrimental to the College. It would be far better if the College of DuPage expressed its commitment to open expression in other policies, rather than making it part of the anti-discrimination provision where litigation is a common response.

Ironically, while ostensibly claiming to protect expression of opinion in this policy, the College of DuPage board is planning to pass another policy on Nov. 19 which will give the president of the College total authority to ban assemblages where people express their opinions.

Policy 10-110 declares, “The President and/or his authorized representative reserves the right to invite, acknowledge, or deny requests for assemblage as well as the right to control the time, place and manner of the assemblages.”

As the Illinois AAUP noted in its March 16, 2009 letter to the College of DuPage about this exact wording, “Under the Supreme Court rulings about the First Amendment, there can be reasonable regulations of time, place, and manner. But this does not mean a public college has total arbitrary power over the time, place, and manner of assemblies. Nor can the President be given complete authority to deny requests for assemblies. Only in very rare cases, where public safety is immediately endangered, can a public college prohibit an assembly or protest.”

FIRE (which criticized the original College of DuPage proposal) recently issued a new guide on campus speech policies which notes, “time, place, and manner restrictions must be narrowly tailored to achieve a significant governmental interest, and the burden on speech they cause may not be 'substantially broader than necessary to achieve the government's interest.'"

No one at a college should be given total power to deny requests for assemblages. (In fact, there should normally be no need to request permission to assemble.) This policy is so broad, it applies not only to protests, but also to meetings, classes, lectures, or any other events on campus. The First Amendment explicitly protects “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Exactly why do the College of DuPage trustees think that they have the power to overturn the First Amendment?

Even if this tyrannical power was exercised by a wise and just president, the policy is so clearly contrary to the Constitution that it could not withstand legal scrutiny. I can't figure out why the College of DuPage is so anxious to pass bad policies like these two proposals that will almost certainly increase lawsuits against the college. But these are the kind of badly-written policies that result when the faculty are cut out of the process completely. The policy on assemblages alone would make the College of DuPage one of the worst public colleges in the country when it comes to restrictive speech codes.

What Is Academic Freedom For?


Minding the Campus invited several people, including myself, to respond to a speech by the president of the University of Chicago, Robert J. Zimmer, at Columbia University on October 21st on the topic, "What Is Academic Freedom For?"

Here's what I wrote:

Robert Zimmer quotes an admirable 1899 statement on academic freedom by professor Albion Small. But there's a problem: Small made the statement to defend his role in firing instructor Edward Bemis. The historical record makes clear that Small was lying, and Bemis was fired for his liberal views criticizing the railroad industry. Zimmer also praises president William Rainey Harper without mentioning how Harper wrote to Bemis: "Your speech . . . has caused me a great deal of annoyance. It is hardly safe for me to venture into any of the Chicago clubs." Harper proposed "that during the remainder of your connection with the University you exercise very great care in public utterance about questions that are agitating the minds of the people."

There's a similar disconnect between theory and reality in the 1967 Kalven Report. The report was a failed attempt to bring peace on campus by trying to declare politics off limits. Of course, the report didn't stop repression of left-wing opinion at all. Historian Jesse Lemisch had been fired in 1966 for being too radical.

Because of his left-wing activism, sociology professor Richard Flacks was permanently disabled and almost murdered in his office in May 1969. Radical professor Marlene Dixon was fired in 1969, prompting student protests that led to the biggest mass expulsions of any college in the 1960s. The University regularly employs lobbyists to advocate funding from the government for itself. This happens even though many conservative University of Chicago economists (and myself) can be lined up to oppose this public policy. The University would never follow the Kalven Report when it impedes its revenue stream. The Kalven Report is simply wielded against liberal activists, to excuse the refusal to divest from South Africa or Sudan. In the late 1990s, when I was a student there, activists tried to convince the University of Chicago administration to join the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), which monitors labor practices to help ensure that workers making campus apparel were treated fairly. The administration claimed that the Kalven Report prohibited them from joining, because the WRC advocated a stand on public policy by opposing sweatshops.

Some aspects of the report are intellectually shoddy. Take, for example, this bizarre notion that an individual's academic freedom is violated if the institution takes a public policy stand. Nonsense. One of the university's greatest presidents, Robert Maynard Hutchins, was legendary for speaking out on public policy. Sadly, the presidents of our era, such as Zimmer, are scared to speak out lest it offend powerful donors and use the Kalven Report to defend their timidity.

The real danger to academic freedom comes from presidents who seek to silence speech about public affairs. It was the quietly conservative presidents who damaged academic freedom and academic quality at the University of Chicago, not the outspoken liberals like Hutchins.The Kalven Report may make it safer for President Zimmer to venture into the clubs where rich people give him money, but it hasn't made academic freedom safer.

------------------------------------------
John K. Wilson is the founder of collegefreedom.org, the author of "Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies" and the author of "Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest"

College of DuPage Passes Flawed Policies, May Resurrect Academic Bill of Rights

At the College of DuPage Board of Trustees meeting last night, two of the flawed policies under consideration were passed unanimously without any changes, despite the criticisms made of them and the process used to formulate them. The third policy, 15-335, was passed with some changes. But there are warning signs ahead that the president of the College of DuPage plans to push Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights in the future.

The video is available here.

Nancy Stanko, President of the COD faculty association (30:30 minutes into the video) and Lisa Higgins, Vice President of the faculty association, (33:30) both spoke out against the proposal. Beverly Pearlson (47 min) supported the Academic Bill of Rights. Kory Atkinson (49:30 min) brought giant checks along for show and tell. Mark Thompson (52:45) supported the Academic Bill of Rights and hates Bill Ayers and imagined a vast conspiracy of the AERA to bring “socialist subversion of education.”

Information items for next meeting begin at 1:14:30 in the video. Policy 15-25 is considered at 1:17:45, and passed unanimously with minimal discussion. Policy 15-170 is considered at 1:20:45 and passed unanimously without discussion. Policy 15-335 begins at 1:22:00 and is eventually passed unanimously with revised language. The update wording can be found in the policy manual, (pdf, page 174).

The student trustee expressed her support for student academic rights, and another trustee was concerned about taking out the statement of student academic freedom. President Robert Breuder noted, “We'll deal with that when the big one comes in, the big one being the Academic Bill of Rights” (1:24:00)

So it seems clear that the Academic Bill of Rights is coming back to the College of DuPage, and a fight is needed to stop it.

Academic Freedom Still Imperiled by College of DuPage Board of Trustees

UPDATE: The College of DuPage had slightly changed the language in some of their policies (which are now available online in pdf, starting on page 123), and I was using an earlier version, so I have updated my objections.


It’s like one of those bad horror movies where you think the monster is dead, only to see it rise up again to try to finish its rampage. The College of DuPage Board of Trustees is back once again to consider many of the same disastrous policies endangering academic freedom that it had rescinded in May.

On the agenda for Thursday, October 15 are three policies that were overturned this spring in the wake of new board members being elected to replace David Horowitz’s right-wing flunkies. These three policies use almost the exact same language that the AAUP, FIRE, and numerous other groups objected to.

Here are the three policies that go before the Board for a vote on October 15:

15-25, Employee Code of Ethics Policy, which declares in part,
“3. No volunteer, officer or employee shall engage in dishonest, unethical, or unprofessional behavior in the workplace.”

Unethical and unprofessional behavior is a vague standard that gives the administration broad power to punish employees.

The “dishonest” ban is also troubling because it’s a vague standard. A professor who tells a colleague that the Obama health care plan has “death panels” is certainly being dishonest, but no one should be punished for holding such a view.


15-170, Causes for Termination of College Personnel Policy
“College personnel may be terminated whenever cause exists. Cause for termination includes, but is not limited to:…5. failure to perform in a professional manner."

As the Illinois AAUP noted this spring, “Among the list of reasons for termination is the vague category of ‘unprofessional conduct.’ This term is vague and not defined.” The updated language, "failure to perform in a professional manner," may be slightly broader (and therefore worse) than "unprofessional conduct."

Policy 15-170 also says "cause for termination includes, but is not limited to" this list. So the list doesn't actually matter, they can technically terminate someone for any reason under the policyt.


15-335, Academic Freedom / Instructional Material – Full-Time Faculty Policy
“Faculty members will be free to present instructional materials which are pertinent to the subject and level taught. Faculty members have a duty to present controversial issues in an unbiased manner which respects their students’ rights to academic freedom to determine for themselves the proper resolution of such issues.
In the execution of a faculty member’s duties and responsibilities and in matters related to the College, each faculty member will make every effort to:
1. Be accurate;
2. Exercise appropriate restraint;
3. Show respect for the opinions of others, including their students; and
4. Indicate in the expression of the faculty member’s opinions that the faculty member is not speaking for or on behalf of the College.”

Most of these rules are deeply disturbing. “Exercise appropriate restraint” is extraordinarily vague. Restraint of what? Should faculty members restrain themselves from speaking the truth? Or is this a claim that faculty must restrain themselves when critiquing the administration? There is no reason for this rule, nor any trustworthy way to define and enforce it. As for indicating that the faculty member is not speaking for the College, this is both unnecessary and often impossible (how many newspapers will agree to add such a caveat whenever quoting a faculty member?). No one should believe that a faculty member speaks for the entire College unless they make some false indication claiming this to be the case.

The demand that teachers must be “unbiased” is a vague and dangerous standard to impose, especially because an unbiased viewpoint is almost impossible. Evolution is a “controversial issue” in our society. Will it be deemed “biased” to teach scientific theories of evolution in a science class? Should faculty members be forced to allow anti-scientific theories of creationism to be graded as “true” on tests about evolution in a science class? Will history teachers be forced to assign Holocaust deniers to avoid being biased on the question of mass murder by the Nazis?

As the Illinois AAUP observed in March, “Faculty members should be evaluated on the basis of competence and professional and disciplinary standards. Many of the revered books of our civilization are ‘biased’; the great thinkers all had a point of view.”

The previous College of DuPage Board of Trustees disgraced itself by becoming the first college to enact David Horowitz's “Academic Bill of Rights” (and then rescind it when a new board was elected). The current Board should be wary of making the same mistakes that the previous board did, since it will do nothing to improve the education of students, but instead will lead to national ridicule and condemnation of what’s happening at the College of DuPage.

As the AAUP and the National Council for Higher Education noted in a letter last May, these policies were “developed with no meaningful faculty involvement and contrary to the college’s well-established and board-endorsed collaborative processes of shared governance.” The College of DuPage Board of Trustees should stand up for academic freedom and shared governance, shelve these flawed proposals, and work with faculty and others on campus to create better policies.

AAUP Annual Conference Call for Proposals

The AAUP's Annual Conference on Higher Education will be held next summer in DC, and the deadline for proposals is October 31, 2009.

Annual Conference on the State of Higher Education

When: June 9-12, 2010
Where: Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Among the questions the conference intends to explore are:

* The role of faculty in institutional decision making
* Challenges to academic freedom in the United States and abroad
* The exploitation of contingent labor in colleges and universities
* The conflict between institutional rankings and educational priorities
* Strategic approaches to furloughs, cutbacks and salary freezes
* Funding and defunding public education
* Increasing access to tenure
* On-line education: the pros and cons
* Assessment and accountability
* The corporatization of teaching and research
* Race, gender, and sexual orientation
* Discrimination in hiring, promotion and tenure
* The 21st century curriculum

Presenters are invited to propose a wide range of issues related to academic freedom, governance, faculty work life, rights and responsibilities. The goal of the conference is to provide a faculty perspective on critical issues in higher education presented in a format accessible to the general public.
The conference will include special AAUP-sponsored workshops on:

* Protecting an Independent Faculty Voice at Public Institutions: the Legal Landscape
* Winning Anti-Discrimination Policies and Domestic Partner Benefits: Case Studies of Campus Successes
* The Ratcheting Up of Expectations for Tenure: Are Faculty Their Own Worst Enemy?

The AAUP conference receives extensive coverage in the educational press, often including coverage of individual papers at sessions of interest to the press; selected papers from the conference will be published in the AAUP Journal of Academic Freedom, a new online journal distributed to 400,000 faculty members.

Deadline for submission of proposals: October 31, 2009.

Individual presentations are limited to 30 minutes. Team presentations (3 or more panelists) are limited to 90 minutes. Individual presentations will be grouped thematically into 90-minute panels.

Submit a proposal.

Registration will open on December 1, 2009. All presenters must register for the conference by April 1, 2010. The registration fee will be $250.00 for presenters. Presenters and attendees are responsible for their own travel and hotel arrangements.

Repression at St. Louis University

UPDATE: Inside Higher Ed reports on the case, Cary Nelson, president of the AAUP, issues a statement, and the university makes an implausible statement (see below with a response from the students) claiming that it didn't ban the speech.

David Horowitz and I rarely agree on anything. But we are in complete harmony on one point: it's absolutely wrong for St. Louis University (SLU) officials to ban him from speaking on campus.

SLU College Republicans and the Young America's Foundation were planning to bring David Horowitz to speak on October 13. However, the Administration has banned the speech from taking place. SLU officials, including Dean of Students Scott Smith, has not responded to any of my requests for comment.

According to the College Republicans, Smith told them he would not allow the speech because Horowitz might "insinuate…that all people of the Islamic faith are fascists." Horowitz wrote to the SLU officials, “The claim that I insinuate that all people of Islamic faith are fascists is a malicious falsehood.” Certainly, Horowitz doesn't say that about all Muslims, just a lot of them. But the question of what Horowitz thinks is irrelevant to the issue of allowing him to speak. Insulting religious beliefs is part of an open debate of ideas. Imagine a speaker who maligned all Muslims by saying they are all banned from Heaven. This would be a nasty thing to say to Muslims, but it's also orthodox Catholic doctrine.

St. Louis University may have the worst policy in the country about guest speakers. According to SLU, “Student organizations are permitted to invite speakers to campus with the approval of their organizational advisor and as long as they are consistent with the mission of Saint Louis University. Controversial speakers may be permitted with the approvals of the Department of Student Life and Campus Ministry. Speakers seeking election to a political office must receive the approval of Student Life and the University General Counsel.”

Just about everything is wrong with this policy. First of all, an advisor should be just an advisor, and not granted veto power. Second, not every speaker should be required to match the mission of the university. Third, “controversial speakers” are given a particular restraint and required to receive approval from both the ministry and student life. What, exactly, is SLU afraid to let students hear?

In 1967, a joint statement on student rights by the American Association of University Professors, the United States National Student Association (now the United States Student Association), the Association of American Colleges (now the Association of American Colleges and Universities), the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors declared: “Students should be allowed to invite and to hear any person of their own choosing....The institutional control of campus facilities should not be used as a device of censorship.”

St. Louis University is in direct violation of this excellent standard. It's also in violation of its own Mission Statement, which declares that it “creates an academic environment that values and promotes free, active and original intellectual inquiry among its faculty and students.” You can't promote free intellectual inquiry if you ban speakers with ideas you don't like.

But SLU's repressive policies on speakers go far beyond the ridiculous ridiculous listed online. According to Smith in a letter to the College Republicans, “the speaker's policy includes a signature from the speaker not to engage in a speech that is inconsistent with or otherwise contradictory to the mission, beliefs, or ideals of the Catholic Church, the Jesuit Order, or Saint Louis University.” This is a stunning level of repression. For any speaker to promise in advance that they will not contradict any of the beliefs of the Catholic Church is appalling, especially since most good Catholics contradict at least a few of the beliefs of the Church. To require a speaker to promise not contradict any of the beliefs of Saint Louis University is particularly alarming.

Nor should religion be a viable excuse for censorship. It's an insult to religious believers to treat them like children who must be protected from hearing offensive ideas. Too often, the Bible is just cover for power-hungry administrators who want to stifle controversy at every turn.

St. Louis University is no liberal institution. In 2007, SLU officials imposed greater controls over the student newspaper, including veto power over section editors, and forced out the advisor. Since 2007, the Vagina Monologues has been banned from being performed on campus. In 2008, efforts to perform another Eve Ensler play, A Memory, A Monologue, a Rant, and a Prayer, were also banned a week before the scheduled performance.

One might argue that by banning conservative speech as well as liberal speech, this Catholic university university has become more catholic in its approach to censorship. But the problem with censorship isn't that it's unbalanced; the problem is that censorship exists at all.

One of the fundamental tenets of free speech is that it applies to everyone, including those who want to limit free speech. It's certainly ironic that after asking universities last year for “the defunding of MSA [Muslim Student Association] chapters” because he doesn't like their viewpoint, David Horowitz now finds himself banned by a conservative college for his viewpoint. But Horowitz's call for repression on college campuses is absolutely no excuse for any attempt to suppress his speeches.

If the administration at SLU disagrees with Horowitz (and I hope they do), then they are free to express their opposition. They are free to attend Horowitz's lecture and criticize him. They are free to boycott Horowitz's lecture and denounce him. They are free to invite a speaker every day of the week to come to campus and refute what Horowitz says (I'll volunteer to be first in line). But they are not free, in any university worthy of the name, to suppress a speaker because he is offensive and wrong.

UPDATE: Here's the SLU statement via Inside Higher Ed:

University officials expressed concern that the program in its current form could be viewed as attacking another faith and seeking to cause derision on campus. Believing that this was not their intent, University officials offered the students several suggestions to modify their program in a way that could achieve their aims while remaining true to the university's Catholic, Jesuit mission and values. Among the suggestions was that the students engage scholars with expertise on historical and theological aspects of Islam to help prepare their program.

Here's the response from SLU College Republicans:

The University's Press Release cleverly omits any sort of factual information, substituting it with either old, incorrect or refuted information and ignoring the key issues altogether. Highlighting the use of the word ban is laughable, the administration may not have used the word 'ban' but neither did the Saint Louis University College Republicans in any of their statements. The word 'ban' aside, the University did say 'no'. It is intellectually dishonest for them to state that the title of the program intended to be "An Evening with David Horowitz: Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights". That may be originally true, but after discussions with Dean Smith, SLU College Republicans agreed to call it "An Evening with David Horowitz: Terrorism Awareness" which Dean Smith seemingly was much more content with. Almost every modification presented to the program involved David Horowitz not coming. The idea to 'engage scholars with expertise on historical and theological aspects of Islam to help prepare their program' was presented, but the SLU College Republicans found it preposterous that they would be told to grovel to random departments to being a speaker for their club. To imply that only scholars speak on campus is once again intellectually dishonest. SLU invites many non-scholars to speak on campus.

Writing Wars

Stanley Fish argues that composition classes need to teach only writing, not subject matter. It's odd that Fish understands the danger of a narrow-minded approach to defining the teaching of literature (his primary field) and then demands a narrow-minded approach to defining the teaching of writing. All writing is about something; good writing doesn't come from diagramming sentences and learning what a gerund is. Good writing requires a subject matter, and that's why writing in the disciplines and similar ideas are valuable.

Now, it's possible that some teachers focus too much on the subject matter and too little on improving the writing about it. If so (and we have no evidence of it, certainly not from the ACTA report), then we should encourage greater focus on writing, not ban subject matter from writing classes.

As I've noted in my books, especially The Myth of Political Correctness (which Fish was responsible for having published by Duke University Press), one of the major attacks on academic freedom comes from right-wingers who think politics should be banned in composition classes. Sadly, Fish is giving ammunition to this attack on academic freedom simply because he shares their old-fashioned opposition to the new trends in composition.

I happen to think that Fish's approach to teaching composition sounds boring and stupid (without taking the class, however, I can't really judge it for myself). However, it seems to work for some students, and I have no doubt of his abilities.

We need a pluralistic approach to writing, as we have to other fields, allowing teachers the freedom to experiment with different ways of teaching composition. And we need better ways to advertise the differences in classes, so that students with certain weaknesses can choose the best kind of composition classes. Perhaps the best approach is to have campus-wide writing contests, where students in composition classes can have their writing graded and the best students (and the best teachers) can be recognized and rewarded for their work and then encourage to train other teachers in their techniques.

Tariq Ramadan Victory

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Tariq Ramadan is entitled to contest his exclusion from the United States. As I detail in my book, Patriotic Correctness, Ramadan was banned from entering the country to teach at Notre Dame's Joan Kroc Center for International Peace Studies. Various right-wingers lobbied the Bush Administration to ban him from the country because he's an influential moderate Muslim in Europe. Later, the Bush Administration gave the excuse that a Swiss Palestinian charity Ramadan gave money to was later designated a supporter of terrorism by the Bush Administration (it's still legal in Switzerland), and Ramadan should have used his psychic powers to predict this.

I was upset that the Obama Administration hadn't overturned the Bushies on day one, but the court ruling shows this was a wise decision. In 2006, the ACLU, the AAUP, and other groups sued. Under this ruling, the government must now, in order to deny a visa, give a reason, confront the individual with that reason, and give them an opportunity to refute it. An appalling restriction on foreign scholars and academic freedom from the Bush Era has now been lifted.

Commencement Lies

The Young America's Foundation is out with its annual report claiming liberal domination of commencement speakers, and the distortions are common. YAF claims, "in the rare instances when conservatives were invited—and we do mean rare—liberal students and administrators went berserk," citing the "fact" that at the University of Vermont, Ben "Stein’s invitation was eventually rescinded." In reality, Stein himself decided to withdraw after his anti-science views caused controversy. Oddly, YAF ignores the fact that President Obama's speech at Notre Dame drew the greatest controversy and calls for censorship in the country.

YAF also claims that only "Five recognizable to barely-recognizable conservatives at the nation’s leading universities" gave commencement addresses among the top 250 universities. This is plainly false. A quick glimpse at YAF's list of speakers shows many more Republicans and conservatives speaking. At Stanford University, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee and moderate conservative, spoke. At USC, Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spoke. At the University of Washington, it was Robert Gates, who YAF lists simply as "Obama’s Defense Secretary" omitting the fact that he is a Republican who was also Bush's Defense Secretary. Carl Schramm, President of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation & conservative writer, spoke at the University of Illinois. At Virginia Tech, Gen. Lance L. Smith (Retired United States Air Force) spoke and according to one report "was quite conservative." Florida State University's speaker was Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, who was part of the Bush Administration's efforts in Iraq. And there's many, many more military people, corporate CEOs, and other conservatives who spoke at commencements. It may be the case that there were more liberal speakers this year as the conservative movement falls into a sharp decline in both intellectual power and popular support, but YAF certainly hasn't proved anything.

YAF calls it "another dose of leftist indoctrination." In fact, no one is compelled to agree with any commencement speaker, and the vast majority of commencement speakers are centrists and celebrities saying little of importance.

Horowitz Victory Short Lived

A few moments ago, the new College of DuPage Board of Trustees voted 4-3 to reverse the previous board's passage of David Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights. It was a victory for academic freedom, and a decisive defeat for Horowitz and his friends, such as outgoing trustee Kory Atkinson, founder and president of the Intellectual Diversity Foundation, who paid for Horowitz to speak at a private event on campus and pushed his agenda. He attended the Board meeting while wearing a T-shirt that read, “Stop Faculty Pay to Play,” an apparent reference to the fact that the faculty union had donated money to help elect trustees who support academic freedom. (Classy exit, Kory!)

The real defeat for the Academic Bill of Rights had come at a polling booth last month. On April 7, voters completely rejected the old board and its right-wing ideologues. Nancy Svoboda led with 46,654 votes, more than twice the number of outgoing chair Michael McKinnon, who finished fifth with only 21,756 votes.

In response, the conservatives on the Board decided to make their legacy a fit of ideological pique. On April 16, against the urging of three upcoming board members who had been elected, the outgoing board voted 6-0 to impose the new Board Policy Manual on the College of DuPage, including suddenly reimposing the original Academic Bill of Rights that they had previously watered down.

This attack on academic freedom has been criticized by groups across the spectrum, including the Illinois AAUP and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

At the May 4 meeting, the new Board was forced to confront the issue because of a motion to accept the previous board policy. They voted 4-3 to rescind the controversial policies objected to earlier, including the Academic Bill of Rights (and tabled the discussion of the remaining policies).

Earlier today, the national AAUP and the National Education Association's National Council for Higher Education sent a letter to the College of DuPage trustees, urging them to overturn this terrible mistake. Fortunately, the will of the people and the voice of reason triumphed over the efforts of right-wing Republicans to silence free speech on campus.

Illinois AAUP Calls for New College of DuPage Board to Rescind Policies

The Illinois AAUP has sent a letter to the members of the College of DuPage Board of Trustees, which will be meeting on Monday, May 4 and may reconsider its decision at the last meeting to impose the Academic Bill of Rights and other unconstitutional policies on the college. Several of the existing board members were badly defeated in the election last month, and there's a hope that the new board will re-examine the policies.

Here is the full text of the Illinois AAUP letter:

To the Trustees of the College of DuPage

The Executive Committee of the Illinois Conference of the American Association of University Professors is deeply disappointed by the action taken by the outgoing Board of Trustees at the College of DuPage on April 16 to adopt a new policy manual containing several provisions that threaten the quality of education at the College. In our letter of March 16 we noted in particular detail how certain proposed provisions interfered with academic freedom. At the subsequent Board meeting the challenged provisions were tabled for further review. As we understand it, no further discussion took place with any persons or organizations that had raised questions about the policies. This despite the fact that the AAUP and others had indicated that the policies raised serious constitutional concerns, in addition to concerns about the impact of these changes on the quality of the education available to the students. Then, with minimum notice and no further discussion the flawed proposals were approved by the “lame duck” Board. Should this decision stand the College would be the first and only college or university in the country to have adopted these very controversial policies.

As our initial letter pointed out the American Association of University Professors has strongly opposed the Academic Bill of Rights, and in 2003 the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure issued a statement calling it “improper and dangerous” and noting that the principles in the Academic Bill of Rights “contradict academic freedom.”(http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/abor.htm)

AAUP’s commitment to excellence in higher education and its experience in matters of academic freedom and governance lead us to join in support of the faculty, students, and staff who oppose these policy changes. Further, the lack of respect for the principles of shared governance in changing these policies over the past year is a serious violation of academic norms as emphasized in the march 18 letter of the AAUP National Office, and contrary to the College of DuPage’s obligations to the faculty union. It is also obviously, contrary to the maintenance of a good working relationship with the faculty, staff, and students, and with the local community.

We strongly encourage the new Board of Trustees to vote on May 6 to overturn the provisions in the “Academic Bill of Rights,” and the other policies which threaten academic freedom. We also urge that the Board overturn all of the policy changes enacted by the previous Board without adequate input from campus constituencies and begin a new process in accordance with the principles of shared governance we have commended to your attention.

Respectfully submitted
Illinois Council AAUP
By Walter J. Kendall lll
President

Conservative Stupidity While Googling

Sometimes you have to admire the idiocy of people who despise Barack Obama and universities so much that they imagine a vast conspiracy out there. Such is the case with Mal Kline of Accuracy in Academia who declared:

Google the phrase “college and university courses in community organizing” and you get 9,990,000 entries, at least as of today.

Candace de Russy of National Review's Phi Beta Cons blog proclaims:

Quite a few people on campuses seem to taking to heart President Obama's agenda, according to Mal Kline. To wit:
Google the phrase “college and university courses in community organizing” and you get 9,990,000 entries.

Here's a little lesson in technology for de Russy and Kline. When you Google "college and university courses in community organizing" without quotation marks you get 23 million results, including a handful of actual courses. Most of the 23 million responses include every reference to a college, a university, courses, community, or organizing anywhere on the internet.

If you actually Google “college and university courses in community organizing” utilizing quotation marks you get two responses. One is to Kline's statement, and the other is to de Russy's comment on it (there are also 30 duplicate references on Free Republic to their claims).

The most disappointing thing to me about this Google search is that there isn't a vast conspiracy out there in higher education to teach people the kind of skills that most Americans desired to have in a president. A New York Times article reports a growing interest in the subject among students. Although colleges routinely have entire majors devoted to vapid fields such as public relations that serve corporate America, you'll look in vain for any majors in community organizing. After all, there aren't a lot of wealthy community organizers out there to fund these programs.

That's what really needs to change. We need colleges to meet this demand for community organizing, and give it the serious academic attention it deserves.

When that happens, de Russy and Kline can cry out with pride that they discovered the problem before it ever existed.

Crossposted on Daily Kos and ObamaPolitics.

Indiana AAUP Statement on Obama and Notre Dame

Here's a statement by the Indiana AAUP on efforts to ban President Obama from speaking at Notre Dame's commencement:

The Academic Freedom Controversy at Notre Dame

The Indiana Conference of the American Association of University Professors expresses its support for University of Notre Dame President the Rev. John Jenkins in standing by the university's decision to invite President Barack Obama to speak at its May 17 commencement. We are concerned by the efforts of external groups to prevent President Obama or any other invited guest from speaking on campus.

For almost a hundred years, the AAUP has defined for colleges and universities the meaning of academic freedom through its policy statements and procedural guidelines. We hold that the freedom of faculty and other members of the campus community to conduct research, publish, and exchange ideas, especially highly controversial ones, without outside interference or censorship is the lifeblood of the university and is essential to the production and dissemination of knowledge. The fact that American universities have such an enviable world-wide reputation is in no small part due to our practice of academic freedom.

While the AAUP recognizes that religious colleges and universities have the right to propagate their special faith, these institutions must also protect and model free inquiry and open dialogue. Notre Dame's embodiment of these values has helped earn it a reputation as one of the premier
Catholic universities in the United States. In 1967, Notre Dame President the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh and other leaders of Catholic colleges and universities proclaimed in the Land O'Lakes statement that "the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself. To say this is simply to assert that institutional autonomy and academic freedom are essential conditions of life and growth and indeed of survival for Catholic universities as for all universities."

But does this freedom apply to outside speakers? According to the AAUP's 2007 statement on the subject: "As part of their educational mission, colleges and universities provide a forum for a wide variety of speakers. There can be no more appropriate site for the discussion of controversial ideas and issues than a college or university campus....Invitations made to outside speakers by students or faculty do not imply approval or endorsement by the institution of the views expressed by the speaker." Notre Dame has a worthy tradition of inviting new presidents to speak at commencement even though none agree with all aspects of Catholic dogma. To disinvite a commencement speaker over public policy disagreements is an anathema to open discourse.

AAUP affirms the right of those who disagree with a speaker to protest.

But prohibiting or censoring a controversial speaker is a violation of the free exchange of ideas. For that reason we support Notre Dame's defense of academic freedom.

Richard Schneirov
President, Indiana Conference of the AAUP

Cary Nelson
President, AAUP

Repressive Policies Approved at College of DuPage

David Horowitz has emerged victorious at the College of DuPage, but only thanks to underhanded actions by a group of right-wing trustees in their last meeting as lame ducks after they were thrown out of office by the voters. The College of DuPage Board last night not only passed the destructive 10 policies (pdf, pp. 203-221) that the Illinois AAUP had objected to, they approved the original Academic Bill of Rights after having earlier watered down its provisions. Let's hope that the new Board at the May meeting will immediately repudiate these unethical provisions and avoid legal action against the College of DuPage.

Three Academic Freedom Events

1) Free Speech Forum, NEIU, Chicago, Thurs. April 16, 5-6pm, where I'll be speaking.
2) IL AAUP Annual Meeting featuring AAUP head Gary Rhoades, Sat. April 18, 1:30pm in downtown Chicago
3) Reworking the U conference, Minneapolis, April 24-26 (I'll be speaking on 4/24)

Here are the details:

1)
Coalition United for Free Speech presents:
Free Speech Forum

Speakers Scheduled to Attend:
NEIU President, Dr. Sharon K. Hahs
NEIU Professor, Dr. Brett Stockdill
Air Force Veteran and student, Cassandra Cantú
Founder of College Freedom blog John K. Wilson
More To Be Announced

Q&A immediately following

Thursday April 16th, 2009; 5pm - 6pm
Northeastern Illinois University Cafeteria - SU003
5500 N St. Louis Ave, Chicago IL

2)
Illinois AAUP Annual Meeting
Saturday, April 18, 2009
1:30PM
Roosevelt University
Gage Building, 3rd Floor Commons Room, 18 S. Michigan Ave., downtown Chicago

Featured Speaker:
Gary Rhoades
General Secretary, AAUP

Followed by a panel discussion on transparency. Free and open to the public. The annual meeting concludes with the Illinois AAUP business meeting


3)
Rethinking the U conference, University of Minnesota, April 24-26
free and open to all
I'll be speaking about "Academic Freedom and the Military on Campus" on April 24.

Which Side Is Censored More?

John Leo argues, “Most of the speakers disinvited by colleges and universities are on the right, given the politics of our campuses.” I wonder where his evidence is for that claim. It seems clear that the two most frequently disinvited speakers in recent years are Ward Churchill and Bill Ayers. The category of college most likely to disinvite or ban a speaker clearly seems to be the religious college.

It is true that speakers who are heckled, shouted down, or pied are heavily on the right, but certainly heckling is far less repressive than being disinvited. Leo complains that the Minutemen were stopped from speaking at Columbia “all without a peep of protest from the left.” In fact, I have noted that Columbia “has to its eternal shame failed to bring the Minutemen back to campus to speak their views.”(http://collegefreedom.blogspot.com/2007/10/downs-on-aaup-donald-downs-wrote-essay.html)

But cases like this seem to be rarer than the onslaught of disinvited speakers, including the recent efforts to ban Barack Obama from Notre Dame University. It's good to see John Leo defend the free speech rights of liberal speakers, but he ought to provide some evidence before claiming that conservatives face great censorship.

Bill Ayers Banned Again

UPDATE: Boston College has banned Ayers from speaking even via satellite. This is an outrageous attack on academic freedom and free expression on campus, and a direct violation of Boston College's own STATEMENT OF RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES which proclaims that students have:
"The right to be free of any action that unduly interferes with a student's rights and/or learning environment."
"The right to express opinion, which includes the right to state agreement or disagreement with the opinions of others and the right to an appropriate forum for the expression of opinion."
"The right to have access to a process through which to resolve deprivations of rights..."
I can't see how banning a speaker due to "emotional scars" is in any way compatible with Boston College's rules.

Bill Ayers is being banned from speaking again, this time by the administration at Boston College. But the “reasoning” given is particularly odd: "As a university, we pride ourselves on the free expression of ideas and on the prestige that Boston College holds as a destination of choice among prominent speakers. But we are also aware of the obligation we hold to be respectful of our host community. The emotional scars of the murder of Boston Police Sergeant Walter Schroeder, allegedly at the hands of the Weather Underground, which left nine children fatherless in the shadows of this campus, was an issue that we could not ignore."

As InsideHigherEd reports, Ayers had nothing to do with Schroeder’s murder in 1970, so this makes the ban particularly odd. This kind of repression of free speech should appall everyone. The “obligation” to the “emotional scars” of a “host community” could justify banning every speaker. Suppose there is a Vietnamese person in Boston who lost a relative in the Vietnam War: Would anyone who supported the war (or who supported the Vietcong) be banned from speaking? If an Iraqi lives in Boston, would anyone who supported the war in Iraq be banned from speaking? If a Palestinian (or an Israeli) lives in Boston, should anyone who has taken one side in that dispute be banned?

There is one difference between all of these examples and Bill Ayers: Ayers had absolutely nothing to do with the killing of this police officer. So now we’re dealing purely with three degrees of guilt by association: because Ayers was involved in the Weather Underground, and someone else involved in the Weather Underground was involved in a bank robbery where someone killed a police officer, therefore Ayers should be banned from speaking in Boston. If somebody involved in the Republican or Democratic Party committed a murder (and obviously they have), would that mean all Republicans and Democrats should be banned from giving speeches?

The absurdity of Boston College’s stance is so obvious, it should embarrass anyone associated with the institution.

Of course, Bill Ayers does have free speech elsewhere, and he will be speaking via satellite off-campus tonight.

The real victims here are the faculty, staff, and students of Boston College, who are being told by their university that if they have ever held unpopular views, they can be silenced by the administration.

"SCANDAL: Obama to Deliver Notre Dame Commencement"

That's the headline in an email today from the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), announcing their opposition to having President Obama give the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame on May 17. They've even created a website to “Help Stop the Scandal at Our Lady's University.” The website urges right-wing Catholics to 1) sign a petition; 2) invite friends to sign the petition; 3) “Contact Fr. Jenkins: Call him at 574.631.5000, fax him at 574.631.2770, write a personal email president@nd.edu”; and 4) “Pray for Our Lady's intercession that Notre Dame, who is named after our Lady, will stay true to their Catholic heritage and identity.”

According to the letter, “It is an outrage and a scandal that 'Our Lady’s University,' one of the premier Catholic universities in the United States, would bestow such an honor on President Obama given his clear support for policies and laws that directly contradict fundamental Catholic teachings on life and marriage.”

As I note in my book, Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, the Cardinal Newman Society is a right-wing Catholic group (actually, it's a guy named Patrick Reilly and a few of his right-wing friends) that, often successfully, lobbies Catholic colleges to censor liberal views (needless to say, it's never called for banning conservative supporters of the death penalty from speaking on campuses, even though they violate Catholic doctrine).

The group even attacks conservatives. Quincy University commencement speaker (and well-known conservative radio legend) Paul Harvey withdrew in 2003 after the group’s criticism of his pro-choice beliefs. Reilly called upon Catholic University of America in 2006 to ban politician Bob Casey from speaking on campus. Although Casey is a Catholic who opposes abortion rights, Reilly proclaimed that “Bob Casey has no business delivering a lecture on public morality” because Casey does not want to ban contraceptives.

The Cardinal Newman Society demands that all Catholic colleges impose an unprecedented regime of censorship; in 2005, the Society presented a list of 18 professors at Catholic Colleges that the group believes should be fired because these professors took a position on the Terri Schiavo case contrary to that of the Vatican. These attacks have had a strong influence on Catholic Colleges, and administrators fear being the next target of the group.

Perhaps the most dramatic case of the Cardinal Newman Society’s attack on academic freedom came at the University of St. Francis in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, in spring 2004. Dr. Nancy Snyderman was dis-invited from giving the commencement address four days before graduation after a campaign against her by the Cardinal Newman Society. A surgeon, author and former ABC medical correspondent (she's now featured on NBC Nightly News), Snyderman, who is personally opposed to abortion, had mentioned in a medical report on ABC's “Good Morning America” on Oct. 30, 1997 that some doctors recommend “selective reduction” via abortion for a woman pregnant with septuplets because of the high risk in having seven babies. A letter to Snyderman from the university read, “The university recently received information … containing comments by you on the topic of abortion, and these comments appear to be contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church. As a Catholic university, we have no choice but to rescind our invitation." When a journalist and doctor is banned from a campus for accurate reporting on abortion issues, it indicates how far the repression of freedom at Catholic colleges has gone.

In 2005 the St. Elizabeth College of Nursing in New York invited Rep. Sherwood Boehert as commencement speaker. But under pressure from local bishop James Moynihan and the Cardinal Newman Society, St. Elizabeth’s president, Sister Marianne Monahan, banned Boehert from speaking.

Another form of retaliation used by the Cardinal Newman Society is to remove institutions from official designation as Catholic colleges, hurting their recruiting and fundraising. In 2003, the Cardinal Newman Society was able to pressure to have Marist College removed from the list after Eliot Spitzer was allowed to speak at its graduation. In 2005, Marymount Manhattan College was similarly de-recognized after it allowed Hillary Clinton to speak. This kind of intimidation forces colleges that wish to remain Catholic to censor the speakers allowed on their campus on the orders of a right-wing splinter faction.

But the group, although adept at getting publicity, is far outside the Catholic mainstream. The Association of Catholic College and Universities denounced the Cardinal Newman Society for making accusations that are “distorted, inaccurate and in some cases simply untrue.”

Thanks to Reilly, Eve Ensler's “The Vagina Monologues” is the most frequently banned play in America. The Cardinal Newman Society has taken credit for “a marked decline in planned performances of the Monologues” at Catholic colleges. In recent years, the play has been banned at the University of Portland, Iona College, the College of New Rochelle, Loras College, Rivier College, Xavier University (Ohio), Catholic University of America, Providence College, Loyola University of New Orleans, Emmanuel College, St. Ambrose University, St. John’s University, St. Joseph’s College (Indiana), Wheeling Jesuit University, Alverno College, College of Saint Mary (Nebraska), Edgewood College, Fontbonne University, Loyola Marymount University, Marquette University, the University of St. Francis in Illinois, and several other institutions. Censorship has discouraged students from trying to organize performances at many other colleges.

It's time for Catholics and anyone concerned about academic freedom and free speech in this country to speak up and say that the Cardinal Newman Society is wrong. There shouldn't be repression of different views at Catholic colleges. And Notre Dame should be proud that Barack Obama has chosen to honor its campus by giving the commencement address.

Crossposted at ObamaPolitics and Daily Kos.

Distortions about the AAUP and the College of DuPage

Peter Schmidt at the Chronicle of Higher Education reports on last night's College of DuPage board meeting.

Sara Dogan, National Campus Director of Students for Academic Freedom, also writes a response today. After erroneously referring to Illinois AAUP president “Robert Kendall” (it's Walter Kendall), Dogan writes, “Ironically, while both Kendall and Westman urge the DuPage Board of Trustees to use AAUP statements as models for the policy manual at DuPage, they both vilify the Academic Bill of Rights, which is explicitly drawn from these same AAUP statements.” that's not true. The Academic Bill of Rights is not drawn from the current AAUP standards. Some of its language is similar to historical documents that are no longer in force with the AAUP, but it does not meet AAUP standards at all.

According to Dogan,

Consider the AAUP’s claims about policy 15-335, which states that “Faculty members have a duty to present controversial issues in an unbiased manner which respects their students’ rights to academic freedom to determine for themselves the proper resolution of such issues.” ...
Returning to policy 15-335, the Illinois AAUP claims with extreme pretention that “Many of the revered books of our civilization are ‘biased’; the great thinkers all had a point of view. This policy, if taken as written, would have prevented Jefferson from teaching our Declaration of Independence at the College….it would appear that under this policy, a creationist student could assert the right to disagree with the scientific reality of evolution in a biology class.”
Reading this passage, one would conclude that the Academic Bill of Rights is opposed to “biased” books. But the word “biased” appears nowhere in the Academic Bill of Rights, nor does it appear in the original version of the policy proposal at DuPage. When the school policy refers to an “unbiased manner,” this is clearly defined as one “which respects their students’ rights to academic freedom to determine for themselves the proper resolution of such issues.” Note that this clause applies not to every issue, but only to the presentation of “controversial issues” in the classroom. Since the theory of evolution is no longer considered a controversial issue in the realm of biological scholarship, this policy would not allow for creationist students asserting their right to disagree with an instructor over the theory of evolution, which is supported in scientific scholarship by overwhelming evidence.

However, Dogan is wrong. The policy says nothing about limiting the rule to what is controversial within an academic discipline. It refers to all “controversial issues,” and no one would deny that evolution is controversial in America. Even if the policy were limited to controversies within a discipline, it still would present a dangerous power. Any professor who failed to include a view espoused by any scholar in a field might be subject to an investigation or even a lawsuit. The result would be a chilling effect designed to silence faculty from raising controversial issues in the classroom. The fact that the ABR doesn't mentioned “unbiased” is hardly relevant to the debate about this policy, which does.

It is notable that even Dogan admits to serious flaws in the DuPage proposal: “The AAUP may be correct that the wording is confusingly vague, but the overall point remains that a protection should be put into place guaranteeing students the right to disagree with professors on matters of opinion –as opposed to issues of settled fact – in the classroom.” However, the policy says nothing about “settled fact”--any potential disagreement, if deemed political, could be regarded as a form of discrimination, and put professors in legal trouble if they fail to obey student demands.

Dogan complains, “There has never been an effort to make the Academic Bill of Rights statutory law. While versions of the Academic Bill of Rights have been introduced by state legislators, each of these has taken the form of a non-binding resolution, not a statute.” This is an outright lie that she and David Horowitz repeatedly assert. As I have previously noted, the Ohio and Tennessee proposals were both statutes, and her own Students for Academic Freedom Handbook states, “The passage of a state statute, however, creates a new law, usually proscribing or requiring certain behavior, and imposing penalties for non-compliance. Both are approaches that many state legislators could pursue, and you and your SAF organization need to be ready to support and assist legislators in their efforts.”(page 41)

It's difficult to take seriously someone who engages in this kind of distortion. But Dogan's analysis is notable for several reasons. First, she refuses to defend most of the policies critiqued by the Illinois AAUP. Second, the few areas relating to the Academic Bill of Rights are only half-heartedly defended by her, and even called "confusingly vague." FIRE called the proposal "far from constitutional and far from ready for approval." FIRE is right, and the College of DuPage needs to abandon these unconstitutional and badly worded restrictions on intellectual liberty.

College of DuPage Policies Delayed and Enacted

I'm told that at last night's Board of Trustees meeting at the College of DuPage, 230 or so new policies were enacted without discussion, against the opposition of Trustee Kathy Wessel. 10 of the policies identified by the Illinois AAUP as problematic were tabled until the April meeting while the campus lawyer examines them (rumors are that the College has already spent $50,000 on legal expenses dealing with this unnecessary policy change). This is very troubling. The Illinois AAUP's letter wasn't meant to be a comprehensive evaluation of all possible problems with the College of DuPage policies. In fact, the letter noted the concern that with so many new policies, poorly written policies may slip by unnoticed. Nor is it likely that the Board will listen to reason next month, especially if their only concern with the policies is whether they are unconstitutional, as opposed to unwise.

Paranoia, Lies, and David Horowitz


David Horowitz has a blog entry where he calls me a “paranoid professor” and then admits his title is inaccurate: “He is not himself a professor but he is an academic,” whatever that means. Horowitz also makes the common error of stating that Illinois Academe is “a publication of the American Association of University Professors.” Illinois Academe, which I edit, is published by the Illinois AAUP, not the separate national AAUP organization.

But my key complaint about Horowitz is not these small inaccuracies or his insults against me: “I'm attributing paranoid tendencies to Wilson because in person he's a civilized individual and I don't like to call him a liar.” I would like to thank David Horowitz for displaying the kindness of calling me insane rather than a liar. Being called paranoid by David Horowitz is like being called an asshole by Dick Cheney.

What bothers me is Horowitz's denial of everything he's stood for. Horowitz complains, “no matter how many times I say that I do not advocate and would be adamantly opposed to governance of the university by legislatures or any other outside agency, people like you refuse to believe me.” There's a reason why I refuse to believe Horowitz. It's because he's lying. Can the man who formulated the Academic Bill of Rights and tried to have it passed by state legislatures seriously claim that he is “adamantly opposed to governance of the university by legislatures”?

Recall that Horowitz tried to get the Academic Bill of Rights enacted by legislators around the country after seeking to have trustees at only one institution enact it: the State University of New York. Is Horowitz now repudiating his past activities and urging legislators to oppose imposing the Academic Bill of Rights on universities? If he is, that's major news. But somehow I suspect that Horowitz is just engaging in more deception.

It's undoubtedly true that Horowitz would prefer to have faculty themselves engage in political repression. That's probably because he has failed miserably to convince trustees and legislators to enact his reforms. In his interview with me, Horowitz claims that he wants “faculty peers” to ban the courses he dislikes. But in his new book, and in everything he has said in the past, Horowitz has a very different answer.

In his chapter on Columbia University (which he calls “Uptown Madrassa”), Horowitz writes, “faculty activists have had to violate (and administrators have had to ignore) explicit Columbia regulations that obligate professors to observe an academic discipline in the classroom.”(63) Repeatedly, over and over again, Horowitz declares that these courses violate the university’s policies on academic freedom and demands that administrators and faculty step in to stop them: “It is disturbing that the university has allowed them to proceed for so long.”(231) He writes about “the abdication of university authorities and the shirking of their legal obligations to students and the public.”(253) He concludes, “Most disturbing of all is the unwillingness of administrators and trustees to defend their institutions and enforce the professional standards of a modern research university.”(278)

If Horowitz relies solely on “faculty peers” and doesn't want administrators and trustees to intervene and suppress “political” courses, why does he repeatedly denounce administrators and trustees for failing to intervene and "enforce" Horowitz's delusions about professional standards?

As I note in my book, Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, this is not the first time Horowitz has deceived people about his repressive goals. Horowitz proclaimed in 2004, “There is no enforcement proposed in the Academic Bill of Rights. This would be up to the institutions that adopt it. Horowitz even declared, “My Academic Bill of Rights explicitly excludes private institutions,” despite the laws proposed in Ohio, Tennessee, and other states imposing it (and requiring grievance procedures) on private colleges that were enthusiastically supported by Horowitz.

If Horowitz is now opposed to legislative interference, why does his Students for Academic Freedom website continue to promote the legislation imposing it on colleges?

If Horowitz is opposed to legislative interference, then it's strange that his website promotes the Students for Academic Freedom Handbook which states, “The passage of a state statute, however, creates a new law, usually proscribing or requiring certain behavior, and imposing penalties for non-compliance. Both are approaches that many state legislators could pursue, and you and your SAF organization need to be ready to support and assist legislators in their efforts.”(page 41) Does that sound like someone who is “adamantly opposed to governance of the university by legislatures”?

I am happy to debate Horowitz anytime, anywhere, in any forum. I would certainly like to hear him explain his contradictory statements and why anyone should believe what he says.

"A Defender of Classroom Indoctrination" Replies

Imagine my surprise this morning on the front page of FrontPage Magazine where I read that “AAUP spokesman John Wilson attempts to justify the political corruption of the academic curriculum.” I am not a spokesman for the AAUP. I do not work for the AAUP. I am the editor of Illinois Academe, which is published by the Illinois AAUP, which is a distinct 501(c)4 and a separate entity from the AAUP. (I am also not a spokesperson for the Illinois AAUP, just the editor of its newsletter with my own views).

This is only the beginning of the errors in Jacob Laksin’s retort to my review of the book he and Horowitz wrote. Ironically, Laksin calls my review “dishonest or just plain careless” while his attacks are both dishonest and careless. For example, Laksin accuses me of “ad hominem invective” against Horowitz (no examples are given, perhaps because Laksin doesn’t understand what an ad hominem argument is).

Laksin claims, “It is Wilson who is apparently unaware that this corruption of the profession of academic geography is precisely our point.” No, I’m perfectly aware of the point. I simply dismiss the archaic notion that geography professors can only teach about maps without teaching about the social connections of people to land. Laksin and Horowitz want the dumbing down of an entire profession in order to banish interdisciplinary teaching.

Laksin repeats the belief that classes in “Global Feminisms” and how revolutions are organized should not be allowed in higher education. Here again, we disagree. I am troubled by some, but not very many, of the courses in Laksin and Horowitz’s book, just as I am troubled by the way some business and economics and agriculture and other classes may be taught in a doctrinaire, pro-corporate way. But I don’t believe that the solution to a flawed class is to impose a repressive system aimed at banning any class deemed “one-sided” by a critic in its reading list or course description.

According to Laksin, “We have never called for the banning of left-wing speech; we do not call for the imposition of any apparatus, let alone a repressive one; and far from attacking academic speech, we seek to restore it. Our aim in One-Party Classroom is to hold schools accountable to the very standards by which they professedly abide.” Exactly how do you hold schools accountable to standards with imposing “any apparatus”? One may argue that an apparatus is a good thing, but please don’t accuse me of a “fertile imagination” when you’re confirming exactly what I say.

My objection to Laksin and Horowitz is not that they criticize these classes, however inane and anti-intellectual their opposition often seems. My complaint is that they repeatedly in the book demand action to be taken to get rid of such classes they dislike, action which they say should be taken by faculty, administrators, trustees, and even accrediting agencies. Then, when I point out the danger of this approach, Laksin first denies it and then immediately re-affirms that this is exactly what they want.

Illinois AAUP Letter to the College of DuPage Trustees

The following letter was sent by the AAUP-American Association of University Professors Illinois Council to the Board of Trustees of the College of DuPage. As you know they are considering the adoption of what the controversial polemicist David Horowitz calls an academic bill of rights. Rather it is in our opinion an attack on academic freedom, teaching, and scholarship. Its adoption will put COD outside the mainstream of education in Illinois and the US. More importantly it will diminish the quality of education available to the students at COD. We the Illinois Council of the AAUP hope you will editorialize against the proposed policy changes being considered on the 19th by the Board of Trustees.

Respectfully,
Walter J. Kendall
President AAUP Illinois Council


Dear College of DuPage trustees:

The state council of the Illinois conference of the American Association of University Professors wishes to express our deep concern about the proposed policy changes reflected in the new Policy Manual for the Board of Trustees. We believe it represents an extraordinary attack on academic freedom, shared governance, and intellectual liberty on campus. We believe that the changes would put the College of DuPage outside the mainstream of colleges and universities in the state and in the country.

We recognize that the proposed policy manual makes some improvements over the original proposal in areas such as student publications and educational philosophy. However, there are still many serious threats to academic freedom contained in these policies.

The most disturbing proposals give the administration extraordinary power to ban speakers and protests, ban any discrimination based on “viewpoint or opinion,” and prohibit “demeaning” behavior. These policies will most certainly create a litigation nightmare for the College of DuPage as censored speakers or disgruntled students and applicants sue for “opinion discrimination.”

The sheer number of proposed policies that fail to meet AAUP - recommended standards relating to intellectual freedom is a matter of deep concern to us. The Board of Trustees should drop this effort at wholesale, and unfortunately unwarranted, revision of the campus policies in this manner, and instead begin a process of working with campus constituencies, particularly the faculty to revise individual policies. We also encourage the Board to utilize AAUP statements (available at www.aaup.org) as models for these policies.

Below we list in detail some of the objectionable proposed policies and why we believe that they are flawed. We encourage members of the Board of Trustees to contact us if you have any further questions about this issue, and we would be happy to open a dialogue about the College of DuPage Policy Manual.

Sincerely,
Illinois AAUP State Council
by Walter J. Kendall III, President

Specific analysis of College of DuPage proposed policies by the Illinois AAUP:

5-30
“Board members and employees of the College are required at all times to perform their duties in such a manner that they present a proper and ethical image to the community and avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”


Requiring employees to meet an undefined standard of “a proper and ethical image” could easily be abused to punish employees based on “image” alone.

5-30
A. 1.
“No Board of Trustee member or employee shall use or permit to be used College equipment, materials, services, or other property for personal convenience, benefit, or profit.”

This policy is far too restrictive, and needs to be brought in line with modified policy 15-25 by adding “while working” and removing “convenience.”

5-30
A.3.
“No Board of Trustee member or employee shall practice dishonest or demeaning behavior.”

This policy is too vague in banning all “demeaning” behavior without defining the term. Certainly, it is not intended to ban satire and humor, even though it can have a bite, so to speak.

10-110
“The rights of free speech and lawful assembly do not confer upon those who exercise these rights a license to limit, interfere with, or infringe upon the equal rights of others.”

This confusing and unnecessary policy is extremely vague, and should be eliminated.

10-110
“The President and/or his authorized representative reserves the right to invite, acknowledge, or deny requests for assemblage as well as the right to control the time, place and manner of the assemblages.”

Under the Supreme Court rulings about the First Amendment, there can be reasonable regulations of time, place, and manner. But this does not mean a public college has total arbitrary power over the time, place, and manner of assemblies. Nor can the President be given complete authority to deny requests for assemblies. Only in very rare cases, where public safety is immediately endangered, can a public college prohibit an assembly or protest.

10-115
“The President and/or his authorized representative reserves the right to invite, acknowledge or deny requests for outside speakers or programs as well as the right to control the time, place, and manner of the speaker or the program to be presented.”

This repeats the same flawed policy that gave the administration absolute power to ban protests.

10-115
“No person shall be required to listen to a speaker or participate in a program that he/she finds objectionable.”

This policy in effect is the antithesis of education. Education is about the wisdom and skills of the ages, and challenging the students to grow and develop in their mastery thereof. See the further comment in 15-10 below. Certainly, faculty members may require members of a class to listen to a particular speaker, just as they can require students to read a particular book, even if a student finds the views objectionable.

10-115
“The President may deny a particular speaker or program on campus if it reasonably appears that such speaker or program would advocate:” followed by a long list of reasons, including “violation of any federal, state or local laws.”

Any rule imposing censorship based on guesses about what a speaker might say is a threat to both academic freedom and the First Amendment. The list of historical figures who could be banned under this rule includes all of the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. It could be used to justify enormous censorship. For example, because waterboarding is a form of torture and therefore illegal, any member of the Bush Administration who defended waterboarding could be banned under this rule. If someone breaks the law in a campus speech, legal authorities can deal with that speaker. But preemptive, speculative censorship is never acceptable.

10-115
“Any expense incurred as the result of scheduling a speaker or program on campus will be the responsibility of the sponsoring individual/group.”

This is vague and troublesome in that at other campuses, controversial speakers have effectively been banned by imposing extreme security costs on sponsors. Colleges should not charge student groups for the security required to protect controversial speakers.

10-125
“Posting and display of materials on campus shall be governed by the procedures and regulations established by the Office of Student Activities and published in the Student Handbook.”

This rule does not establish the First Amendment rights of the campus community to post and display materials.

15-10
“The College will not tolerate discrimination and harassment based on an individual’s viewpoint or opinion.”

The essence of education is discriminating between truth and falsity. Policy 25-135 declares that a central mission of the College is “the pursuit of truth.” But under policy 15-10, a Holocaust denier could sue the College for not being hired as a history professor, and a creationist could sue for not being hired to teach evolutionary theory. A student with the “opinion” that 1+1=3 could sue if a math professor gave that student a failing grade. No college has ever imposed such a doctrine of total relativism.

15-25
“No volunteer, officer or employee shall engage in dishonest or demeaning behavior in the workplace.”

This policy is too vague in banning all “demeaning” behavior without defining the term.


15-170
Among the list of reasons for termination is the vague category of "unprofessional conduct." This term is vague and not defined.

15-335
“Faculty members have a duty to present controversial issues in an unbiased manner which respects their students’ rights to academic freedom to determine for themselves the proper resolution of such issues.”

Faculty members should be evaluated on the basis of competence and professional and disciplinary standards. Many of the revered books of our civilization are “biased”; the great thinkers all had a point of view. This policy, if taken as written, would have prevented Jefferson from teaching our Declaration of Independence at the College. As we all know, in James Madison’s word we are not “angels” and thus, it is almost impossible to be “unbiased.” Further, it would appear that under this policy, a creationist student could assert the right to disagree with the scientific reality of evolution in a biology class. This academic freedom policy also omits several important provisions of the AAUP standards for academic freedom, such as the protection of extramural speech.

20-5
“The College will also prohibit discrimination based on an individual’s viewpoint or opinion.”

The danger of adding “viewpoint or opinion” to the list of prohibited acts is that quite obviously there are correct and incorrect opinions about reality. Certainly the Professor’s job is to discriminate between them. Students are in school to learn how to discriminate between them. If they fail to do so, of course they will be “discriminated” against – questioned in class; or get a poor grade, for instance.

25-135
“Academic Freedom -The Concept - Academic freedom and intellectual diversity are values indispensable to the American college.”

The inclusion of the term “intellectual diversity” into the discussion of the philosophical, conceptual, and contractual meaning of “academic freedom” is to either add a vague and thus potentially confusing redundancy, as the word “diversity” is used in other places in the document; or to attempt to change the settled meaning and understanding of the term. Neither is warranted, and the words “and intellectual diversity” should be deleted from this policy.

My Response to Bauerlein on Horowitz

Mark Bauerlein has an essay defending Horowitz on Minding the Campus. You can read my reply to his essay.

One-Party Analysis: Reviewing David Horowitz

Reviewed by John K. Wilson
Illinois Academe, Spring 2009

David Horowitz’s new book, One-Party Classroom, represents a dramatic expansion of his war on academic freedom. In his earlier book, The Professors, Horowitz sought to banish left-wing speech he disagreed with that was irrelevant to course material. Now, Horowitz wants to go a step further and ban academic speech itself and entire courses, programs, and fields of study that he deems to be too left-wing, particularly the field of women’s studies.

Horowitz (with the help of his employee Jacob Laksin) has written a disturbing attack on politics in academia. He examines course syllabi at a dozen major university, and reports in excruciating and repetitive detail what he thinks about the course description and books being assigned. Horowitz never bothers to talk to any students (and in many cases, obviously hasn’t even read some of the books he attacks) or attend any classes, yet he evinces a magnificent psychic power to determine precisely that a long list of abuses are certain to occur.

It may be tempting to ignore Horowitz and hope that the vast repressive apparatus he proposes will never be enacted, that we will not have administrators and trustees scrutinizing reading lists and ordering professors to ban the books deemed to be too liberal. But Horowitz has tremendous political influence on the far right, and his attacks, even when unsuccessful, create an atmosphere of fear to raise political issues.

Horowitz’s definition of illegitimate, political stands by professors is breathtaking. Horowitz objects to geography classes dealing with social issues, apparently unaware that geography professors have gone beyond merely studying maps for many decades. He objects to women’s studies dealing with the “unproven” claim that gender is “socially constructed,” apparently unaware that this merely the uncontroversial fact that biology is not the sole determinant of gender differences. One-Party Classroom is a perfect example of why uneducated outsiders such as Horowitz and his allies on Boards of Trustees and legislative bodies should not be able to decide what courses qualify as academic.

Horowitz even objects to a conference entitled, “Africana Studies Against Criminal Injustice: Research-Education-Action” and writes, “an open academic inquiry would not be ‘for’ or ‘against’ anything.”(80) In Horowitz’s view, it is improper for any professor to be against the wrongful conviction of innocent people, and to hold a conference that seeks action against it. This is an ideal of “objectivity” taken to the absurd extremes of relativism.

Horowitz condemns a professor for assigning a textbook that argues whites are “dominant” in America, a claim that Horowitz disputes.(105) It may seem strange that anyone could look at a meeting of CEOs or the U.S. Senate and conclude that whites are not dominant in America, but it’s downright bizarre to write that a professor should ban a book from a class because it makes this obviously true assertion.
Horowitz complains in one case: “Professor Okonkwo, however, is not a historian, let alone a historian of colonialism. He brings no observable academic expertise to bear on the subject.”(226) This is a course on “The Colonial Encounter in African Fiction.” Horowitz is arguing that English professors should ignore the history of colonialism in teaching African novels about colonialism. It’s difficult to imagine a more mouth-dropping display of anti-intellectual sentiment. Horowitz would rather have students remain ignorant about the historical context of a novel than allow an English professor to mention a word about a topic beyond Horowitz’s narrow vision of academic specialization.

Horowitz similarly objects to an English professor teaching Studies in Gender: “This is another professor teaching her ignorance in the fields of sociology (‘race’), political science (‘nationalism’ and ‘militarism’), and economics and geopolitics (‘globalization’).”(235) By Horowitz’s logic, English professors should be banned from teaching anything about race, nationalism, militarism, and globalization—which would make it rather difficult to teach a number of great novels that focus on these topics.

Horowitz also is clear about his target: Left-wing professors. Horowitz reprints an exchange of letters with a Penn State dean who pointed out that business classes are biased toward capitalism, and Horowitz wrote: “The Business School is a professional school whose purpose is to train students in accepted business practices so they can pursue careers in the business world. Students enroll in business courses to learn these practices, not to examine the philosophical or sociological foundations of the business system....The purpose of a professional school is to train graduate students for a career in their chosen profession.”(111) But business is an undergraduate major (one of the biggest in the country, in fact), and not just a graduate specialization. Moreover, Horowitz’s view that balance or academic freedom applies only to the liberal arts is distinctly strange. Neither the AAUP nor any campus academic freedom provisions nor any major organization makes such an odd division. The problem for Horowitz is that a genuine commitment to his espoused ideals would require a similar intervention in business classes to ensure that the anti-capitalist viewpoint is fully presented.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Horowitz’s book is how little in the book is appalling. There are no stories of students punished for disagreeing with their professors, no stories of censorship at all. That’s because Horowitz knows that actual violations of student rights in the classroom are rare and grievance mechanisms are typically effective. Horowitz has a much more radical goal: He wants to revolutionize the idea of academic freedom and declare that students have a right to be free from “biased” comments or readings in class, and even a right to be free from “biased” departments such as Women’s Studies, and that professors have an enforceable obligation to be silent about “political issues,” which can encompass almost anything.

Even if we accepted Horowitz’s argument that these 150 courses (out of more than one million faculty teaching millions of college courses every year) are the “worst” in America (and many of these classes seem intellectually exciting and valuable), why should we believe that a regime restricting academic freedom and banning “politicized” classes would be any better? Freedom is an imperfect system. It allows some professors to occasionally teach goofy courses with goofy books from a goofy perspective. But academic freedom is far better than some kind of centralized “Big Professor” who will tell faculty what books are allowed and banish alleged “bias” from the classroom.

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s legislators or trustees or administrators or other faculty who do the job of banning books that are too “left-wing” and imposing balance in the classroom. No matter who does it, it’s a form of censorship, and it’s destructive to the entire enterprise of education.

Horowitz, like many conservatives, relies on selectively using a paragraph about indoctrination from the 1915 AAUP Statement of Principles, and claims: “This statement, issued in 1915, has provided the template for the academic freedom policies of most American universities ever since.”(7) This is not true. The 1915 AAUP Statement was not the foundation of university policies. That’s why the AAUP issued its 1940 Statement, which goes unmentioned by Horowitz because it removes the flawed section on indoctrination. That 1940 AAUP Statement, unlike the 1915 one, really is the foundation of university policies.

Horowitz’s love for the 1915 AAUP Statement is highly selective. For example, he ignores a provision of it that says the classroom should be regarded as a private space and what happens there should be confidential. So Horowitz’s entire book is a massive violation of the 1915 AAUP principles that he thinks should be imposed.
Of course, the 1915 statement was flawed, both in its attempts to limit undefined “indoctrination” and its efforts to keep the classroom private. The AAUP’s later staements helped to create the modern conception of academic freedom, while Horowitz wants to drag academia back into an ugly past of political repression.

If anyone has ever believed Horowitz’s occasional claims that he is not calling for administrators and trustees to step in and infringe academic freedom, this book makes the facts crystal clear. In his chapter on Columbia University (which he calls “Uptown Madrassa”), Horowitz writes, “faculty activists have had to violate (and administrators have had to ignore) explicit Columbia regulations that obligate professors to observe an academic discipline in the classroom.”(63)

Repeatedly, over and over again, Horowitz declares that these courses violate the university’s policies on academic freedom and demands that administrators and faculty step in to stop them: “It is disturbing that the university has allowed them to proceed for so long.”(231) He writes about “the abdication of university authorities and the shirking of their legal obligations to students and the public.”(253)

He concludes, “Most disturbing of all is the unwillingness of administrators and trustees to defend their institutions and enforce the professional standards of a modern research university.”(278)

Even though Horowitz would love to see faculty impose the kind of censorship he wants, it’s explicit that he wants administrators and trustees to step in if the faculty fail to act. And it’s clear that he wants legislators to step in with his “Academic Bill of Rights” legislation if administrators and trustees fail to suppress the kind of academic speech and courses he dislikes.

By almost any standard, One-Party Classroom is the worst book David Horowitz has ever written. Not only does it have the usual intellectual dishonesty and superficial analysis, but it commits the most appalling crime of all: It’s boring. Wading through a twisted set of course descriptions, watching Horowitz condemn the social construction of gender twenty times without ever getting a clue, reading about the books Horowitz doesn’t like–all of it is mind-numbing in its dullness. The only thing exciting about this book is waiting for some classic Horowitzian expression of academic ignorance and knowing that behind this rambling, pathetic, anti-intellectual tirade is a vast political crusade to crush academic freedom. Horowitz proves with this book only the tedium of totalitarian ideologies.