Free Exchange on Campus (FEOC), a coalition of student, faculty and civil liberty groups that includes the AFT, has condemned a new book that attacks individual professors for their personal political beliefs. The book is The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, by David Horowitz, who is also the author of the so-called Academic Bill of Rights legislation making its way throughout the states. The book is essentially a blacklist of academics, says FEOC, and is based on inaccurate and misleading information.

"The authors of this book and the ABOR [Academic Bill of Rights] legislation paint a pretty scary picture," said  AFT vice president William Scheuerman, a professor of political science at the State University of New York, in a press release issued by FEOC. "To hear them tell it, left-wing indoctrinators control universities without regard for teaching," but the authors' evidence has been "either thin or completely fictitious."

Over the last month, Horowitz has been forced to retract various claims against faculty and has backed away from stories alleging "liberal" intimidation. Also, many of his stories refer to activities by professors that took place outside the classroom.

One academic under attack is award-winning University of Illinois communications professor Robert McChesney, whose students have selected him as an outstanding instructor.  His attackers "used two quotations from my two decade-long career as a teacher as evidence that I somehow use the classroom as a bully pulpit to push liberal causes," said McChesney. "It's dishonest."

The Free Exchange on Campus is a coalition of organizations opposing attempts to limit academic freedom and free speech on campuses. They include:

[Lindsay Albert]

February 13, 2006