Be Careful What You Say on Campus - H.R. 3077

[reprehensor]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/167348_academic02.html

...House Resolution 3077 passed last fall. It included a provision to establish an advisory board to monitor campus international studies centers in order to ensure that they advance the national interest. While the law would apply to all federally funded institutes with an international focus, the target is clearly the nation's 17 centers for Middle East studies. The driving force behind this provision is the same group of conservative ideologues who have long promoted the war on Iraq and who support the extreme right-wing politics of the Sharon government in Israel. Their aim is to defend the foreign policy of this administration by stifling critical and informed discussion on U.S. campuses.

The Senate vote comes at a time in which conservative activists walk the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. They include Education Secretary Rod Paige, who in a moment of failed but revealing levity, recently described the National Education Association, with 2.7 million member teachers, as a terrorist organization.

For professors like me, entrusted with teaching facts as well as critical thinking and the ability to analyze all sides of an issue, the pending legislation must be viewed against the backdrop of other recent and chilling developments.

Be careful what books you buy or check out from the library. You could be monitored under the terms of the U.S. Patriot Act. A further provision of that law threatens criminal prosecution of anyone alerting you to government inspection of your selections...

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This is not good.

[kalian]

1. Holy shit....

This is NOT good at all. :wtf: is going on here?! Why aren't people
up in arms about this? This is pure authoritarian tactics...silence
ANY and ALL dissenters before they create a ruckus.
The same shit happened in Nazi Germany and then in Soviet Russia. So,
is the US going down the same path...? I guess it is, isn't it?

[ixion]

2. Yep, we look more like China everyday

BushCo deploys many of the same tactics I was brought up to believe only took place in 'Red' countries.

Hmmmm...

GOP == Red;

Communists == Reds;

Coincidence? I'm beginning to wonder.

[khashka]

3. There was some discussion of it on TV

but what I saw mostly devolved into "how can you possibly oppose something that promotes the national interest?" rather than a serious discussion about academic freedom, popaganda, and the purposes of institutes of higher learning.

Just watching the coverage of this had me thinking of Senator McCarthy: are you now teaching or have you ever taught a course in Mid-East studies? Have you ever disagreed with government policy in front of your students? Are you not aware that that is treason?

How long before they start investigating "unamerican activities" again? Oh wait, that's exactly what this law is!

It's all bad, boys and girls, and it's getting worse.

Khash.

[RainDog]

7. How can it possibly be in the "national interest"

to make it impossible to guarantee the free flow of information?

I live in a college town and there was an advertisement in the student newspaper telling students that their professors do not have the right to talk about the war in Iraq, for instance, if the class is not specifically about that war.

There was a phone number and email address for students to contact if they wanted to report a professor who was making anti-war comments in, say, an English class which was discussing Orwell, to use a beyond ironic example.

It is amazing to me that so many students want to remain willfully unchalleged about their beliefs...but then again, considering the numbers of fundamentalist Christians in this country, it doesn't surprise me at all.

So far no one is talking about making females wear burkas, thankfully.

[sjgman9]

5. This is a joke

:wtf: OK, look, you go to college to BROADEN YOUR MINDS! If you cant debate and think of ideas you might not disagree with, then you dont belong in college. If students dont take your class because of your ideas, make way for those that want to.


Damn conservatives are crybabies. Grow up and expand your mind!

[Xtal]

4. very scary stuff...

the free-thinking, free-speaking environment of campuses is the main reason I appreciate being in college

[LSK]

6. why do I keep thinking..

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany Nazi Germany



Are we to learn anything from history?