I go to college and our class is being represented by a Senator who is proposing a "Student's Bill of Rights"
http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.orghttp://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/essays/sbor.htmlAs you can see, this is nothing more than a smokescreen to stifle liberal viewpoints in universities across America, and I need your help to beat this back. Anything anybody knows about the Students for Academic Freedom, David Horowitz, or anything that can help me argue against this ridiculous set of guidelines.
Facts and numbers would be appreciated. I am trying to research this as much as possible, but the opposition is gaining support among the kneejerk Republicans of the college and I need your help!
Keep this topic bumped, even if you can't help out. This may not be a national issue right now, but if this gets implemented, how long do you think it will be until universities throughout the nation implement this farce?
Here is the letter I sent to him,
Dear Joe,
I was saddened and infuriated to read your column regarding
the Student's Bill of Rights. This new creation of yours is
not only misguided and restrictive, it also was completely
misrepresented during your candidacy.
I voted for you because you told me, during your speech at
Yates, that you would introduce a bill to protect a student's
freedom of speech and prevent discrimination based on a
student's views or expressed opinions. I agreed with the need
for such a bill. What you didn't mention was that your bill
was the same one used by the laughable partisan farce that is
Students for Academic Freedom, nor did you mention that your
bill would restrict the freedom of professors to teach their
own curriculum.
Your proposed bill is faulty on several levels. First of all,
the notion that students everywhere are being persecuted for
their beliefs has yet to be supported by any statistical
evidence; indeed, further digging into most of these alleged
abuses of authority reveal that a student who was merely
unsatisfied with his or her grade cried political wolf in
order to attempt to get a better grade.
Second, requiring curricula in a classroom to include all
various viewpoints looks good on paper but is faulty in
practice for two reasons; one, you are allowing bureaucrats to
decide what can be taught in a course as opposed to the
professor, and two, you assume that all points of views in all
issues are equally valid, when that is simply not the case.
My Comparative Politics class, for example, argues that
Democracy is superior to Authoritarianism because the evidence
overwhelmingly shows that to be the case. Under your
misguided bill, we would not be allowed to express those
opinions in the classroom.
Third, your statement that "professors ought not to use the
classroom as a personal soapbox" is both absurd and degrading
to both professors and students. Perhaps in Middle School or
High School teachers need to be careful of what they say
around imprssionable young minds, but we are in college here,
and your statement suggests that students are incapable of
forming their pwn opinions and defending them even when a
professor has a contrary opinion. You also seem to believe
that professors have little self-restraint when it comes to
personal opinions. Odd how it seems like all of my professors
do a pretty good job of keeping personal and subjective
politics seperate from cold, hard facts.
Fourth, you claim that the university must not take sides in
issues of great debate, which is patently absurd. Is the
university not allowed to argue that becoming a Charter School
will be beneficial to everyone involved? The University is
hardly going around endorsing presidential candidates or some
such, so I think that this stigma just adds shackles to the
administration where they are not needed, thereby limiting
efficiency and adding bureaucratic red tape to the system.
Finally, the evidence you use to back all of these claims up
is suspect, to say the least. The Academic Bill of Rights in
Colorado is incredible divisive by most polls, and yet you
seem to indicate that Coloradans are joined hand-in-hand to
sing the praises of this bill. And your assertion that the
majority of faculty donate to the Democratic party, in
addition to being a gigantic, irrelevant strawman argument
(are you saying that faculty members are incapable of
seperating their politics from their work?), reveals the true
nature of this "Student Bill of Rights"; a partisan attempt to
publish professors for having views that disagree with your
own views and the views of the SAF.
Most importantly, however, is the fact that you misled me and
all of the other freshmen when you stood up that day and
painted a rosy picture of a bill that supported freedom of
speech, rather than denied it. You should be ashamed of your
bait-and-switch techniques, just as I am ashamed of the fact
that I voted for you. Be assured that I will not make the
same mistake again.
Yours Truly,
Nick Shea
Here is the letter he sent back:
I figured the best way to answer you questions and respond to
your concerns would be to go line-by-line and be as specific
as I can... you get this advantage being the first person to
respond to this.
>I voted for you because you told me, during your speech at
>Yates, that you would introduce a bill to protect a student's
>freedom of speech and prevent discrimination based on a
>student's views or expressed opinions.
This is one part of the Student Bill of Rights.
Unfortunately, in a 30-second speech, it is hard to cover all
aspects of the SBoR while also trying to introduce myself and
to put together a closing. I don't recall if I had it at
Yates being that it was the first nite and I was, admittedly,
not very well prepared, but I did have a copy of the entire
Bill of Rights on other nites that some students glanced
through. I have additional copies if you want to look more
in depth to it as well.
> What you didn't mention was that your bill
>was the same one used by the laughable partisan farce that is
>Students for Academic Freedom, nor did you mention that your
>bill would restrict the freedom of professors to teach their
>own curriculum.
I take particular defense to these statements. Students for
Academic Freedom does not take a specific political stance.
This is a misguided perception of SAF due to the fact that
most abuses are committed against conservatives, and
therefore, the majority of the issues deal with conservative
discrimination. The second charge I will address through
your other examples...
>Your proposed bill is faulty on several levels. First of
all,
>the notion that students everywhere are being persecuted for
>their beliefs has yet to be supported by any statistical
>evidence; indeed, further digging into most of these alleged
>abuses of authority reveal that a student who was merely
>unsatisfied with his or her grade cried political wolf in
>order to attempt to get a better grade.
If you are looking for just numbers, you're right; you're not
going to find a database on this issue, because the movement
is fairly young. Stats are not the way that this is proven.
Instead, what SAF has done, as I plan to do, is to compile
complaints from both sides of the aisle in order to asses the
situation at William and Mary.
As for the second half of this, I'm not sure where you are
getting that from-- and it is also amusing after you accuse
me of not having enough evidence on my side. The only
incident that I am aware of its one in Colorado which was
promptly thrown out once it was discovered to be a farce.
There are failsafes here. I also urge you to take a look on
the SAF website www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org and to
look over some of these charges and you will find that most
are not just crying wolf, as you irresponsibly claim.
>Second, requiring curricula in a classroom to include all
>various viewpoints looks good on paper but is faulty in
>practice for two reasons; one, you are allowing bureaucrats
to
>decide what can be taught in a course as opposed to the
>professor,
I don't believe that I ever advocated such a plan in which
bureaucrats would decide curriculum. I would expect that the
department would determine what is appropriate and fair.
and two, you assume that all points of views in all
>issues are equally valid, when that is simply not the case.
>My Comparative Politics class, for example, argues that
>Democracy is superior to Authoritarianism because the
evidence
>overwhelmingly shows that to be the case. Under your
>misguided bill, we would not be allowed to express those
>opinions in the classroom.
Actually, what you are saying is the Bill of Rights at work.
You are misguided in thinking that I am saying all POVs
are "equally valid." What I am saying is that reasonable
POVs should be presented. The point IS that you SHOULD be
able to see a democracy and an authoritarian government and
realize the pros and cons of each. Let’s say that the
professor refused to bring up authoritarian governments; this
would be a violation of the SBoR. Authoritarian rule would
be considered a valid POV because it has been used many times
in history, which is the nature of the course. However, in
no way would the SBoR force the idea as equal. The
discussion that you speak of is the ultimate goal of the
SBoR; the encouragement of academic freedom and intellectual
diversity.
>Third, your statement that "professors ought not to use the
>classroom as a personal soapbox" is both absurd and degrading
>to both professors and students. Perhaps in Middle School or
>High School teachers need to be careful of what they say
>around imprssionable young minds, but we are in college here,
>and your statement suggests that students are incapable of
>forming their pwn opinions and defending them even when a
>professor has a contrary opinion. You also seem to believe
>that professors have little self-restraint when it comes to
>personal opinions. Odd how it seems like all of my
professors
>do a pretty good job of keeping personal and subjective
>politics seperate from cold, hard facts.
I am glad that your professors so far have separated fact
from opinion, but I have already collected complaints from
students in which this is not the case. I also do not see
how you could disagree with the statement that “professors
ought not to use the classroom as a personal soapbox”: Is
that what you want? Personally, I would like to be educated,
not indoctrinated. If I want to hear a professor’s personal
opinion, I’ll ask for it outside of the classroom setting. A
professor’s job is to teach what is fact, not spew their own
partisan ideas. This clause refers to incidents in which
professors have gone on tangents on subjects in which they
are not teaching (English teachers berating Bush on Iraq).
What the SBoR does is also protect students who have raised
opposition to ranting and have found only disdain and anger
coming in return. This, once again, discourages open
debate. SAF documents several incidents in which Republicans
were told to drop the class.
>Fourth, you claim that the university must not take sides in
>issues of great debate, which is patently absurd. Is the
>university not allowed to argue that becoming a Charter
School
>will be beneficial to everyone involved? The University is
>hardly going around endorsing presidential candidates or some
>such, so I think that this stigma just adds shackles to the
>administration where they are not needed, thereby limiting
>efficiency and adding bureaucratic red tape to the system.
This has nothing to do with this; I’m glad I can clarify
here. It does not refer to these types of issues. It has to
do with academic debates and would therefore affect what is
taught. The Charter School initiative does not fall under
this umbrella.
>Finally, the evidence you use to back all of these claims up
>is suspect, to say the least. The Academic Bill of Rights in
>Colorado is incredible divisive by most polls, and yet you
>seem to indicate that Coloradans are joined hand-in-hand to
>sing the praises of this bill.
I’ve had some trouble finding the polls you are referring to,
so if you can link them up to me it would be appreciated, as
I would like to know how the situation is in Colorado from as
many sources as possible. I have not seen any such poll in
my searching
And your assertion that the
>majority of faculty donate to the Democratic party, in
>addition to being a gigantic, irrelevant strawman argument
>(are you saying that faculty members are incapable of
>seperating their politics from their work?), reveals the true
>nature of this "Student Bill of Rights"; a partisan attempt
to
>publish professors for having views that disagree with your
>own views and the views of the SAF.
>
Unfortunately, word counts also restricted me here regarding
the 99% stat: in my other piece I say the following: ““The
New York Times reported that “All but 1 percent of the
campaign donations made by employees of William & Mary
College went to Democrats.” This does not necessarily mean
that the professors will be biased, but it becomes notable
when essentially the entire staff is left of center.” So you
are right to call me on that in this particular piece, but I
am aware that many keep politics out.
As for what you see as the goal of this (assuming you
meant “punish” and not “publish”): You are right, I want to
punish those who disagree with SAF, because SAF stands for
intellectual diversity and academic freedom. I think you do
too, but we are disagreeing on the implementation. There
will certainly be a big discussion on this in the coming
months, and I hope you participate in it. For that is the
entire purpose of the SBoR in the first place; intellectual
debate and flow of different ideas to come up with the best
answer and best solution.
>Most importantly, however, is the fact that you misled me and
>all of the other freshmen when you stood up that day and
>painted a rosy picture of a bill that supported freedom of
>speech, rather than denied it. You should be ashamed of your
>bait-and-switch techniques, just as I am ashamed of the fact
>that I voted for you. Be assured that I will not make the
>same mistake again.
Well, I don’t know if this will get my vote back, but I think
it is unfair for you to accuse me of stifling free speech
when you do not understand what I stand for. That is
something that YOU ought to be ashamed of. Perhaps YOU are
the one that doesn’t mind conservatives being trampled on in
academia since they don’t agree with YOU. Maybe YOU lack
proper evidence to make such claims to your argument.
Consider that when you make the accusations against me.
Please help me out!!
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