David Horowitz wants Liberal Professors gone

[ck4829]

"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," Horowitz's official organ FrontPageMag quoted him as saying during a meeting with a group of students.

Horowitz complained that reforms in the country's universities were difficult to accomplish and that the educational system had been affected by secularism for the last 40 years. But, he added: "Such a change has begun."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20060906/cm_huffpost/028795

[NewInNewJ.]

1. Just like the President of Iran

[Supersedeas]

21. Islamo-fascists = no good; Christo-fascists = godly

[katsy]

2. WOW OH WOW

Isn't that exactly what Amhajadine (sorry about the spelling) wants also? The purging of liberal professors?

David Whorowitz (not mispelled) is a fool.

[John Gauger]

19. Ahmedinejad

What religion does he want to force them to teach? Becase I know a lot of people, fellow conservatives, who would flip out if he tried to teach Judaism.

[SteppingRazor]

3. What Horowitz fails to see (or admit) is that...

There's a direct corrolation between liberalism and higher education -- at least in my experience. So, when you get to the level of a college professor, who has at least one PhD and possibly more degrees beyond that, the chances that they're liberal are pretty good. It's the nature of the beast.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Studies Have Been Done To Corrborrate That

There was one posted here at DU about a year ago. It linked educational level to political preference and was based upon a huge sample. I don't remember the details here. If you're interested, you should be able to search the archives.
The Professor

[slampoet]

24. When you get ANY education to that level

When you get ANY education to that level and have no huge increase in salary the result is by their very nature a left leaning person.

Every person i know with more than 8 years of secondary education that isn't a trade (like MD) is at least slighty left.

And this goes for a lot of trade people too.

[rodeodance]

4. crap--this crazy dude is still around shooting off hate.

[mike_c]

5. oh dear-- folks should at least GLANCE at the original article...

...before jumping to conclusions....

:rofl:

[ProfessorGAC]

9. You Sure That Wasn't Sarcasm

I did "glance" at the article. I think the writer might be making a correlative point.
The Professor

[EstimatedProphet]

10. You're right! That's funny!

[SteppingRazor]

11. Ha! Guilty as charged...

it really does speak to Horowtiz's nuttiness, though, that people took this at face value

[izzybeans]

17. I found it hilarious but also sobering, because the intended message

is absolutely correct. They are the same pattern cut from different cloths.

[Viking12]

26. Nutty RWers have killed satire.

Given DHo's past, it isn't a big leap to beleive he actually said these things.

[EstimatedProphet]

7. And we all want David Horowitz gone too - it's a tie!

[leveymg]

8. Is David Horowitz really Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Iran's Ahmadinejad Urges Purge of Liberal, Secular Academics
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aVa...

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his government plans to purge liberal and secular faculty members from Iran's universities in a bid to revive the ideals of the Islamic Republic's heyday in the 1980s.

``Our academic system has been influenced for 150 years by secularism,'' the official Islamic Republic News Agency cited Ahmadinejad as telling a group of students today. ``We have started to make change happen but we need special support for it,'' he said. ``Students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities,'' the president said.

ON EDIT: Oh, this is just a Max Blumenthal satire.

[izzybeans]

12. Another from Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/technology/feeds/ap/2006/09/05/ap2994931.html

[leveymg]

13. Send Forbes.com to Tehran - Pop up them to death

Geez, that's an annoying site. I see they picked that up off the wire two days ago. too.

[izzybeans]

15. Yep. and there will be a deafening silence as to the similar

rightwing movements in this country.

[mmonk]

14. Fascism has always taken this approach.

[EC]

16. I read a while back that Lieberman was a part of this

too...?

[plcdude]

18. Academic Freedom

Freedom of speech let's see what other right could we cite? Come and get me David.

[ComerPerro]

20. they have been wanting to purge liberals from University for a long time

[Generic Other]

22. Because academia still operates under a merit system

There is no light in a closed mind.

[CollegeDUer]

23. A former radical lefty himself, though

I wonder if he doesn't follow the line of reasoning that maybe some students will be radicals at the age he was and change later.

[aikoaiko]

25. As a prof I use to worry about Horowitz, not anymore. he's harmless

Even the so called Academic Bill of Rights, with the exception of one part, isn't very anti-liberal.

Sure, he's had some impact, but its small. Plus its empowered right leaning students to speak up more in courses and this promotes dilaogue. So, he's harmless and probably becoming more extreme only because people stopped notcing him.


eta:

Academic Bill of Rights

I. The Mission of the University.

The central purposes of a University are the pursuit of truth, the discovery of new knowledge through scholarship and research, the study and reasoned criticism of intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general development of students to help them become creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the transmission of knowledge and learning to a society at large. Free inquiry and free speech within the academic community are indispensable to the achievement of these goals. The freedom to teach and to learn depend upon the creation of appropriate conditions and opportunities on the campus as a whole as well as in the classrooms and lecture halls. These purposes reflect the values -- pluralism, diversity, opportunity, critical intelligence, openness and fairness -- that are the cornerstones of American society.

II. Academic Freedom

1. The Concept . Academic freedom and intellectual diversity are values indispensable to the American university. From its first formulation in the General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, the concept of academic freedom has been premised on the idea that human knowledge is a never-ending pursuit of the truth, that there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge, and that no party or intellectual faction has a monopoly on wisdom. Therefore, academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech. In the words of the General Report, it is vital to protect “as the first condition of progress, complete and unlimited freedom to pursue inquiry and publish its results.”

Because free inquiry and its fruits are crucial to the democratic enterprise itself, academic freedom is a national value as well. In a historic 1967 decision ( Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York ) the Supreme Court of the United States overturned a New York State loyalty provision for teachers with these words: “Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned.” In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, (1957) the Court observed that the “essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities almost self-evident.”

2. The Practice . Academic freedom consists in protecting the intellectual independence of professors, researchers and students in the pursuit of knowledge and the expression of ideas from interference by legislators or authorities within the institution itself. This means that no political, ideological or religious orthodoxy will be imposed on professors and researchers through the hiring or tenure or termination process, or through any other administrative means by the academic institution. Nor shall legislatures impose any such orthodoxy through their control of the university budget.

This protection includes students. From the first statement on academic freedom, it has been recognized that intellectual independence means the protection of students – as well as faculty – from the imposition of any orthodoxy of a political, religious or ideological nature. The 1915 General Report admonished faculty to avoid “taking unfair advantage of the student’s immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher’s own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own.” In 1967, the AAUP’s Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students reinforced and amplified this injunction by affirming the inseparability of “the freedom to teach and freedom to learn.” In the words of the report, “Students should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion.”

Therefore, to secure the intellectual independence of faculty and students and to protect the principle of intellectual diversity, the following principles and procedures shall be observed.

These principles fully apply only to public universities and to private universities that present themselves as bound by the canons of academic freedom. Private institutions choosing to restrict academic freedom on the basis of creed have an obligation to be as explicit as is possible about the scope and nature of these restrictions.

1. All faculty shall be hired, fired, promoted and granted tenure on the basis of their competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of their expertise and, in the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts, with a view toward fostering a plurality of methodologies and perspectives. No faculty shall be hired or fired or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of his or her political or religious beliefs.

2. No faculty member will be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees on the basis of their political or religious beliefs.

3. Students will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs.

4. Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate. While teachers are and should be free to pursue their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, they should consider and make their students aware of other viewpoints. Academic disciplines should welcome a diversity of approaches to unsettled questions.

5. Exposing students to the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints on the subjects examined in their courses is a major responsibility of faculty. Faculty will not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination.

6. Selection of speakers, allocation of funds for speakers programs and other student activities will observe the principles of academic freedom and promote intellectual pluralism.

7. An environment conducive to the civil exchange of ideas being an essential component of a free university, the obstruction of invited campus speakers, destruction of campus literature or other effort to obstruct this exchange will not be tolerated.

8. Knowledge advances when individual scholars are left free to reach their own conclusions about which methods, facts, and theories have been validated by research. Academic institutions and professional societies formed to advance knowledge within an area of research, maintain the integrity of the research process, and organize the professional lives of related researchers serve as indispensable venues within which scholars circulate research findings and debate their interpretation. To perform these functions adequately, academic institutions and professional societies should maintain a posture of organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive disagreements that divide researchers on questions within, or outside, their fields of inquiry.