Beware academic bill

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Beware academic bill				January 24, 2007

There is something bizarre about the psyches of those who, once they’ve been awarded a smidgeon of power, believe almost lustfully that the telos of their lives is to transmogrify completely those societal norms that once governed the human condition.

Who would have thought that in the allegedly enlightened early years of the 21^st century some xenophobic legislator would dare to propose that any priest, rabbi, pastor, doctor, attorney or social worker who assists or counsels an undocumented alien should be guilty of a felony? Or that anyone who brings the spouse or children of an undocumented immigrant into their homes should likewise be considered a felon? Yet that is the effect of House Bill 2622, and there are no few delegates who are taking it seriously.

But when some equally demented lawmaker decides that it’s time for another assault on the academic independence of state universities such as the University of Virginia and William & Mary, it’s time to bring down the curtain on these faux artistes and their degenerative little plays.

Evidently Del. Steven Landes (R-25^th) is determined to revivify an old political warhorse and introduce legislation that would ensure the existence of conservative viewpoints on college campuses throughout the state. Under Landes’ bill, all four-year state universities would be forced to file annual reports with the State Council of Higher Education to indicate the measures they’ve taken to “ensure intellectual diversity” and a “free exchange of ideas.”

What he wants to ensure, says Landes, is that “all sides of an argument or debate are represented. What we are looking for is balance.” In addition, Landes’ bill would require universities to establish policies against heckling or threatening speakers, presumably of a conservative bent.

The old saw that Landes is resurrecting is the so-called Academic Bill of Rights that David Horowitz concocted in 2004. Horowitz, who founded the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in 1988 and the Students for Academic Freedom in 2003, believes that the nation’s public universities are riddled with left-leaning professors and administrators who are inscribing their tree-hugging, socialist philosophies onto the tabula rasa that is the mind of many a mentally indigent student. His latest writings include an eight part series of studies dealing with “indoctrination in the curricula of American universities.”

So successful was Horowitz, that he got Republican-run legislatures in Colorado, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to pass bills forcing state universities to set up procedures whereby complaints about alleged bias in the classroom could result in sanctions against professors. In addition, universities had to certify that they were promoting intellectual diversity in their classrooms.

The result of all this was to activate conservative students to tape lectures or discussions in classrooms across the nation, including those at William & Mary.

Biology professors who argued the validity of evolution over creationism were taken to task by conservatives for refusing to present the two theories on an equal basis. Philosophy professors teaching existentialism might be held accountable because their reading lists included no works rebutting the depressive sobriety of Sartre or Camus.

As a professor of classical studies at William & Mary, I came a-cropper of no small number of students on the right for not discussing Christian ethics in courses in Plato or Aristotle. One student became extremely exercised when I delivered a failing grade to him because the paper he submitted, which was supposed to be a critique of one of the Enneads of the Neo-Platonist Plotinus, dealt solely with the superiority of Christian doctrine to Greek philosophy in general.

The fact is that what Horowitz and Landes propose is not diversity – for that can well be achieved by a careful choice of courses – but an insidious and intrusive insinuation into every classroom for the sake, not of academic excellence, but political purity. In so doing, they open up what should be the freedom of every professor to present his material as he sees fit to a mockery of the academic process and an invitation to utter silliness.

As one Virginia Military Institute professor wrote to the Staunton News Leader in response to Landes’ proposal, “At a school whose mission statement includes the promotion of American democracy, would each of us now always have to show the advantages of monarchy, anarchy, theocracy, fascism and communism?” If Landes has his way, the answer is probably yes.

Let’s be clear. There is no room in any classroom for an instructor who mocks or grades students on the basis of their religious or political beliefs. Nor should there be a limit on debate or discussion as long as it pertains to the subject being taught.

On the other hand, to leave charges of political or religious bias solely in the hands of politically motivated students is foolishly absurd.

While on its surface the proposal of Landes sounds reasonable, there is a subliminal political and religious agenda at work here that is abhorrent to anyone who believes in academic freedom. But what makes it totally unacceptable is the fact that the bill is based on an unproved, fallacious assumption believed by no one but right wing political zealots.