Voting along party lines, the Republican-dominated Pennsylvania House of Representatives handed right-wing activists a victory July 5 when it passed a resolution modeled after the conservative-inspired  "Academic Bill of Rights." The resolution, which AFT-Pennsylvania and its higher education locals vigorously opposed, is known as HR 177 and it is the first legislation of its kind to pass in any state.

Sponsored by Rep. Gib Armstrong, a Republican from Lancaster County, HR 177 creates a committee to examine the academic atmosphere at state-supported colleges and universities. The committee can call hearings, take testimony and conduct investigations on the degree to which faculty and students have the opportunity to work "in an environment conducive to the pursuit of knowledge and truth." It focuses in particular on how faculty are hired and promoted, what happens in the classroom and whether students' grades are based on merit or ideology.

Academic bill of rights legislation has been introduced in more than a dozen state legislatures at the instigation of conservative activist David Horowitz. On the surface, the legislation purports to represent standards with which few in higher education would quibble. But in application, the legislation provides its supporters with a weapon it can aim at liberals, who, they maintain, are ruling the roost in higher education and creating a hostile, politicized learning environment for students.

Education committee chair Rep. Jim Roebuck, a Democrat and former college professor, was opposed to the resolution from the beginning. "The resolution was so unstructured, so nebulous in its intent. Even the sponsor was not clear on what the precise purpose was," he says. Rep. Armstrong claimed he had 50 letters from people who said they were mistreated. "He never offered those for the record. When we go into hearings, he'll have to come up with them."

Faculty groups and AFT-Pennsylvania moved quickly to head off the resolution when it first was introduced March 29, says AFT-Pennsylvania chief legislative expert Pat Halpin-Murphy. The state AFL-CIO promptly put it on its opposition list, local newsletters laid out the issue to activate members and higher education locals devoted meetings and spring conferences to it.

In a letter to members of the House Education Committee, William Cutler, president of the Temple Association of University Professors, warned that far from neutralizing the academic climate, the bill would "open the door to the kind of political presence in higher education" not seen in Pennsylvania in 50 years.

"The intellectual climate on college and university campuses will be far less open if students and professors feel that their work is being monitored by those who answer to a particular group or set of constituents," he wrote. In visits and correspondence with their local representatives, faculty pointed out that institutions like Temple University already have policies and procedures stipulating students' rights to file academic grievances. They debunked the notion that students need protection better provided by external, political monitors.

In the end, those opposed to the resolution were able to amend it to move control of the committee away from Armstrong to Democrat Lawrence Curry, chair of the Education Subcommittee on Higher Education,. "We think there will be a fair diversity of opinion," says Roebuck. Hearings will take place in three locations this fall. [Barbara McKenna]

July 14, 2005