Free Exchange on Campus, a broad coalition of student, faculty and civil liberty groups that includes the AFT, has launched its first campaign for free speech and described its activities at an audio news conference on March 16.

Free Exchange outlined its plan to protect academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas on college campuses and to expose the "Academic Bill of Rights" (ABOR) and related initiatives as measures that would restrict, not expand, academic rights.

The bill, promoted by anti-free speech activist David Horowitz, "is a politically motivated attempt to curb learning on campus by forcing an ideological agenda and curbing the free exchange of ideas," said Megan Fitzgerald, director of the Center for Campus Speech, one of the 10 organizations comprising the coalition. She and others who oppose ABOR note that despite a barrage of assertions, Horowitz and his supporters have failed to produce evidence of a problem.

Twenty-five states have introduced ABOR legislation that would limit speech by faculty members on a wide range of topics. In most of these states, the bill has failed, yet Horowitz continues to find conservative legislators to promote the bill.

Last month, Horowitz, cast a further pall on the campus climate with the publication of The Professors, a book on what he labels "the 101 most dangerous academics in America." Free Exchange has denounced this book as a blacklist. Its profiles are cobbled together with partial quotes, mischaracterizations and ill-formed judgments about professors' free expression outside the classroom.

One of the professors singled out, Lawrence Estrada, associate professor of ethnic studies at Western Washington University, spoke at the conference about the "distortions, damaging inferences and out-and-out fabrications" that riddled the book and his profile, in which he is described as a "radical ethnic separatist."

His service as a marine during the Vietnam era and election to public office in two states "speaks to how preposterous these charges are," Estrada said. Nationwide, the chilling effect of Horowitz's blacklist has left junior faculty members named in the book vulnerable, isolated and "feeling that their careers are now in jeopardy," he added. Some have received threatening notes and e-mail.

Elena Cross, a student at Pennsylvania State University, said that her university had been unable to document a bias problem. At the recent request of a state legislator, Penn State president Graham Spanier turned over five years' worth of records of student complaints of bias. The total came to 13, reported Cross, and all were resolved with investigations that uncovered no improper bias. Since it covered 177,457 courses, 8,000 faculty, and 80,000 students at all of the Penn State campuses, "this is a significant finding," she said.

Rutgers AAUP/AFT chapter president Lisa Klein, a fully tenured professor of material sciences and engineering, noted that "there is no liberal scientific method or conservative scientific method, but we have already seen challenges to academic freedom in the sciences."  She opposes ABOR, she added, because "any attack on academic freedom, either perceived or real, means that students will not be exposed to ideas that are new or contentious or unconventional.  This to me seems truly unfortunate and a disservice to students."

Fitzgerald outlined steps Free Exchange will take to stand up for free speech—including organizing students and faculty to testify in states where legislatures are considering ABOR, disseminating information via the Internet and a blog, writing op-eds and quickly countering misinformation promulgated by enemies of academic freedom.

More information is available at http://www.freeexchangeoncampus.org. Organizations in the Free Exchange of Campus coalition include:

• American Association of University Professors
• American Civil Liberties Union
• American Federation of Teachers
• Campus Progress/Center for American Progress
• Center for Campus Free Speech
• National Association of State PIRGs
• National Education Association/NEA Student Program
• People For the American Way /Young People For Action
• Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood
• United States Student Association

[Lindsay Albert, Barbara McKenna]

March 16, 2006