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AFT Report Debunks Myth of Liberal Bias in Academia |
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David Horowitz and his band of censors are at it again. Horowitz, you’ll recall, is the liberal turned ultraconservative who is making a career of trying to kill free speech on the nation’s college campuses. He would muzzle college professors for fear they’ll say something he and his conservative allies don’t want students to hear.
Horowitz also is pursuing a legislative agenda. Last year, he pushed for introduction of the so-called “Academic Bill of Rights” in 24 states. If enacted, the proposal would limit the speech of college and university professors in the name of “intellectual diversity.”
This year, along with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (headed by Lynne Cheney), Horowitz & Co. have helped introduced similar bills in Arizona, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana and Virginia. The bills are supported by so-called research that backs their claims that our nation’s campuses are bastions of liberal bias.
However, the AFT released a report this week showing the research is bunk. The report, The “Faculty Bias” Studies: Science or Propaganda? finds that the most frequently cited research on alleged political bias in college faculty is severely flawed in its methodology and makes sweeping assumptions that invalidate its “findings.”
Objective research is essential, AFT President Edward McElroy says, “and clearly, that is not what we find in the studies analyzed in this report.” He adds:
It doesn’t matter if you are conservative or liberal. Bad research and inaccurate characterizations are a disservice to academia and to the students who are its central concern.
William Scheuerman, an AFT vice president who heads the union’s Higher Education program, says:
Higher education professionals teach. They don’t preach. They are committed to academic freedom and to the free exchange of ideas in the classroom.
Even conservatives who love free speech can’t buy into Horowitz’s ideas. The Roanoke
Times newspaper says the “intellectual diversity” bill introduced in Virginia by Del. Steven Landes (R) is a bad idea:
Landes…is only camouflaging himself with the language of inclusion. The Augusta County Republican’s agenda has nothing to do with diversity and a free exchange of ideas.
Landes’ proposal does not address any actual problem, and he concedes as much. Rather, it plays to a rabid base that assails the “ivory tower” and believes professors are indoctrinating students into their liberal cabal.
We hope lawmakers—Landes aside—are not so gullible and will allow universities to continue educating without ideological litmus tests.
The “Faculty Bias” Studies: Science or Propaganda? was sponsored by AFT on behalf of Free Exchange on Campus, a coalition of educational and civil liberties groups that has come together to protect free speech on campus.
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