Print
The AFT appeared before a Pennsylvania legislative committee this month to refute the charge that college faculty are injecting liberal bias and inappropriate subject matter into the classroom.
"The first thing I want to see when a student or anyone makes a claim like that is the evidence to back it up," said AFT vice president William Scheuerman. At the State University of New York, where he is president of the United University Professions, a similar accusation on the part of a trustee resulted in a survey of every campus leader in the 64-campus system. "Of 400,000 students on 64 campuses," says Scheuerman, "there were zero complaints."
This point was echoed by the president and faculty leaders of Temple University, where the Pennsylvania House Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education was holding its second of four scheduled hearings. Pennsylvania is the only state to pass a resolution, H.R. 177, demanding hearings on the contentious Academic Bill of Rights (ABoR), a piece of legislation written and promoted by conservative David Horowitz, who heads up the California-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture. The one-time academic claims that students' academic freedom rights are being trampled by a host of leftist faculty who aren't able to keep their politics out of the classroom.
Despite the testimony of Horowitz and Anne Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (an organization founded by Lynne Cheney, among others), the Jan. 9-10 hearing was a bust for those who would silence faculty. Temple president David Adamany and Robert O'Neill, a former president of three universities and founder of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, detailed the protections in place on college campuses that have long-standing policies governing expression and mechanisms for filing complaints. Temple faculty, including Temple Association of University Professionals president William Cutler, described what happens in a typical classroom.
Sensitive to repeated charges that H.R. 177 was McCarthyesque, the resolution's sponsor, Rep. Gil Armstrong, asked each witness if he or she felt the investigation was a witch hunt. Each politely responded that the topic of academic freedom was an important one, but Armstrong's colleagues were not so kind.
"This is a colossal waste of time," complained Rep. Dan Surra, who, along with several others wondered why the committee's time couldn’t be spent on more serious challenges facing higher education. [Barbara McKenna]
January 13, 2006
