Traditionally, clashes over academic freedom pitted politicians or administrators against instructors who wanted to express their opinions and teach as they saw fit. But increasingly, students are invoking academic freedom, contending that biased professors violate their right to classes free from indoctrination.
it totally cracks me up.. their right to not be told the truth about stuff.. where is that written as the code of a public educational system. "you have no right to indoctrinate me with the truth"
In many ways, the trend echoes past campus conflicts — but turns them around. Once, it was liberal activists citing the importance of "diversity" in pressing their agendas for curriculum change. Now, conservatives have adopted much of the same language in calling for greater openness to their viewpoints.
i am wondering if these same conservatives would understand that those who oppose their views would want the same rights they are claiming for themselves? i don't think so...
Similarly, academic freedom guidelines have traditionally been cited to protect left-leaning students from punishment for disagreeing with teachers about such issues as U.S. neutrality before World War II and involvement in Vietnam. Now, those same guidelines are being invoked by conservative students who support the war in Iraq.
an examination of the causal reasons for going to war?? sure why not? ooh that's right, to demonstrate the inherent lies, deception, duplicity etc. of the administration's efforts to go to war would be violating the rights of those conservatives to retain their beliefs, no matter how false and erroneous they are...
To many professors, there's a new and deeply troubling aspect to this latest chapter in the debate over academic freedom: students trying to dictate what they don't want to be taught.
it is not what they don't want to be taught as much as it really is what they don't want taught or acknowledged or documented or studied by anyone... there is a pressing need to quash any efforts at honest historical study right now. it is far too dangerous to have the truth out there.
"Even the most contentious or disaffected of students in the '60s or early '70s never really pressed this kind of issue," said Robert O'Neil, former University of Virginia president and director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.
Those behind the trend call it an antidote to the liberal dominance of university faculties. But many educators, while agreeing that students should never feel bullied, worry that they just want to avoid exposure to ideas that challenge their core beliefs — an essential part of education.
challenge their core beliefs that are based on falsehoods and glaring factual errors of substance and analysis. putting many of the conservative positions under the spotlight of critical academic inquiry illuminates the philosophical bankruptcy of most of them and the hideous underlying intent of the rest of them.
indeed. where is the evidence for many of the conservative positions.. lost in the deceptive rhetoric of its neo-con straussian message machine manipulators. there are no facts or artifacts to validate them.. but they want them taught--including creationism and that the US is a christian nation..
Leading the movement is Students for Academic Freedom, with chapters on 135 campuses and close ties to David Horowitz, a onetime liberal campus activist turned conservative commentator. The group posts student complaints on its website about alleged episodes of grading bias and unbalanced, anti-American propaganda by professors — often in classes.
you have to appreciate the gaul here. complaining that what you are experiencing is anti-amerikan because you feel it is, based solely on belief values that can't be challenged or questioned. this is the essence of fascism and the end of academic freedom as we know it.
Instructors "need to make students aware of the spectrum of scholarly opinion," Horowitz said. "You can't get a good education if you're only getting half the story."
except of course, these folks refuse to acknowledge that the mainstream and cable media are all presenting that other half of the story. their goal being to push the balance way over on their side, making every effort to nullify fact and truth.
In the wider debate, both sides cite the guidelines on academic freedom first set out in 1915 by the American Assn. of University Professors.
The objecting students emphasize the portion calling on teachers to "set forth justly … the divergent opinions of other investigators." But many teachers note that the guidelines also say that instructors need not "hide [their] own opinions under a mountain of equivocal verbiage," and that their job is teaching students "to think for themselves."
divergent views of others for them means ideas not based on factual realities... thus if you argue that students might want to think for themselves when they analyze the substantive underlying beliefs of their positions, they would suggest they are free not to do so...
Horowitz believes that the American Assn. of University Professors, which opposes his bill of rights, and liberals in general are now the establishment and have abandoned their commitment to real diversity and student rights.
But critics say Horowitz is pushing a political agenda, not an academic one.
"It's often phrased in the language of academic freedom. That's what's so strange about it," said Ellen Schrecker, a Yeshiva University historian who has written about academic freedom during the McCarthy area. "What they're saying is, 'We want people to reflect our point of view.' "
even though we know our point of view is not factual, rational, nor valid.
