And then they came for the Professors…
Ideology and the Academic Bill of Rights

Ron Becker
Northeastern State University

"It is an act of virtue to deceive and lie, when by such means the interest of the church might be promoted."
Attributed to Bishop Eusebius 264-340 AD

    In 2003, conservative ideologue David Horowitz devised the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) as a remedy for the reputed left-wing bias in American universities. Consistent with the teaching of Bishop Eusebius, the Academic Bill of Rights promotes of a set of principles ostensibly designed to advance the cause of ideological neutrality and “intellectual pluralism” in higher education. (1)  To replace the supposed left-wing indoctrination with ideological balance in the classroom and “intellectual diversity” across the campus, ABOR proponents are attempting to enact the principles into law. By 2007, conservatives in twenty-nine state legislatures and the U.S. Congress had introduced bills based upon the Academic Bill of Rights. In 2007 alone, eleven states introduced ABOR related legislation. (2)  Already in 2008, eleven more ABOR bills have been introduced. (3)  No ABOR bill has thus far become law; nevertheless, the danger of the misguided ABOR movement needs to be exposed and resisted. Academic institutions and associations should speak out against the ABOR threat, before it is too late.
     In general, there are three very strong reasons to oppose Academic Bill of Rights legislation. First, ABOR legislation is a dangerous, ideologically motivated, attack on academic freedom because the effect would be to impose requirements or restrictions on how certain subjects are taught. The 2007 Arizona ABOR bill, for example, makes it a violation of the law for a professor to take a position on a partisan political, social or cultural issue. (4)  It is a terrible idea to have legislatures and the courts regulate our classrooms. Second, ABOR legislation is a decree for poor pedagogy that will impair teaching because any attempt at legislating ideological neutrality, or diversity, or balance in classrooms wrongly assumes that all theories and positions on a given topic are equally sound or equally uncertain. The ABOR “on the one hand and on the other hand” teaching model elevates the weakest theories and perspectives to the same standing as the strongest. Again, it is not the proper business of the government to intrude into course content. Third, ABOR legislation is truly an unnecessary cure in search of a disease. Incidents of a professor improperly teaching or otherwise mistreating students are uncommon, and colleges are best equipped to deal with these exceptional cases. In sum, ABOR legislation is purely political, not educational; and it is never an act of virtue to deceive in order to promote a cause which could otherwise not prevail.

ABOR Legislation Violates the Principle of Academic Freedom

     ABOR legislation is dangerous because the effect would be to curtail academic freedom by imposing restrictions or requirements on how a subject may be taught and what can or cannot be taught. The basic thrust of ABOR legislation is that professors must avoid “indoctrination” by teaching all sides of the issues without taking a position or coming to a conclusion. According to the 2007 Arizona ABOR bill (SB 1542) it would be a violation of the law for any college teacher at a state college to “advocate one side of a social, political or cultural issue that is a matter of partisan controversy.” After prosecution by the district attorney, the professor found guilty of advocacy in the classroom is to be fined ($500 per violation) and/or fired. This anti-advocacy law would violate academic freedom, and this law would be unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has found advocacy by teachers a protected form of speech. (5)  Proponents of ABOR legislation ought to make an honest effort to understand to the philosophical basis for freedom of thought and expression in the United States.  
     Like ABOR legislation in general, the Arizona bill takes us back to 1951 and Dennis v. U.S., wherein the conservative Vinson Court sided with the right-wing by ruling that teaching (defined as describing and explaining) a subject like revolutionary communism was permissible, as long as the teacher did not go so far as to advocate (agree with) the teaching. (6) However, the Dennis ruling was soon overturned, or at least reinterpreted, by the liberal Warren Court’s ruling in Yates (1957) as the era of McCarthyism, "loyalty review boards" and the House Un-American Activities Committee subsided. In Yates, the Court ruled that it is wrong to “prohibit advocacy and teaching of forcible overthrow of the Government as an abstract principle, divorced from any effort to instigate action to that end.” Therefore, unless it is “an incitement to lawless action,” advocacy in the classroom may not be outlawed. The Court found that advocacy of abstract doctrine, even advocacy of the doctrine of forcible overthrow, was constitutionally protected, while advocacy of action to that end was not protected. The opinion for the Court clarifies the distinction between advocacy of action as opposed to advocacy of doctrine or belief. And again, in Noto v. United States (1961) the Warren Court said, “We held in Yates, and we reiterate now, that the mere abstract teaching of Communist theory, including the teaching of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action.” Likewise, in the Brandenburg decision, the Court found a state law against the mere advocacy of violence unconstitutional on the grounds that freedoms of speech and press do not permit a state to forbid advocacy except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. (7)

     The underlying basis for the protection of advocacy is found in Dennis, Justice Black dissenting:
Undoubtedly, a governmental policy of unfettered communication of ideas does entail dangers. To the Founders of this Nation, however, the benefits derived from free expression were worth the risk. They embodied this philosophy in the First Amendment's command that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press . . . ." I have always believed that the First Amendment is the keystone of our Government, that the freedoms it guarantees provide the best insurance against destruction of all freedom.

Punishing professors for professing their beliefs on the controversial issues and questions in their disciplines is an egregious form of suppression and serious threat to our freedom. With regard to teacher advocacy, the words of Mr. Justice Black in Yates need to be read by all ABORists:

 I fear that the present type of prosecutions are more in line with the philosophy of authoritarian government than with that expressed by our First Amendment. Doubtlessly, dictators have to stamp out causes and beliefs which they deem subversive to their evil regimes. But governmental suppression of causes and beliefs seems to me to be the very antithesis of what our Constitution stands for. The choice expressed in the First Amendment in favor of free expression was made against a turbulent background by men such as Jefferson, Madison, and Mason--men who believed that loyalty to the provisions of this Amendment was the best way to assure a long life for this new nation and its Government. Unless there is complete freedom for expression of all ideas, whether we like them or not, concerning the way government should be run and who shall run it, I doubt if any views in the long run can be secured against the censor. The First Amendment provides the only kind of security system that can preserve a free government--one that leaves the way wide open for people to favor, discuss, advocate, or incite causes and doctrines however obnoxious and antagonistic such views may be to the rest of us.

 Mr. Justice Harlan in Yates also makes it clear that there could be no conviction for "advocacy in the realm of ideas." It would be most puzzling to think that all American citizens enjoy freedom of speech except for college professors.  A professor has the right to profess. It is a matter of fact that the Supreme Court has explicitly recognized a professor’s right to freedom of expression: "A university, then, is a kind of continuing Socratic conversation on the highest level for the very best people you can think of, you can bring together, about the most important questions, and the thing that you must do to the uttermost possible limits is to guarantee those men the freedom to think and to express themselves.”  (8)
     Opponents of the ABOR movement have objected that ABOR legislation would have a chilling effect on the classroom by making faculty members vulnerable to sanctions when they say something controversial. An article by David T. Beito, Ralph E. Luker and Robert K.C. Johnson in the Perspectives journal of the American Historical Association rightly warns that the ABOR "could snuff out all controversial discussion in the classroom. A campus governed by the ABOR would present professors with an impossible dilemma: either play it safe or risk administrative censure by saying something that might offend an overly sensitive student." (9) In response, ABOR proponents claim that liberals are hypocritical to oppose ABOR and at the same time fail to speak out against campus speech codes. This is a surprising argument for ABOR proponents to make since ABOR legislation is clearly the rightwing version of a campus speech code. Conservatives cannot logically support ABOR legislation to prevent liberal professors from advocating liberal positions while opposing speech codes. The conservatives’ hypocrisy is shameless. Conservative opponents of speech codes will defend a white male shouting the words, "Shut up, you water buffalo," out his dorm window to a gathering of mostly black females, but conservative opponents of speech codes will not tolerate a professor concluding a lecture in international law with the words “therefore, the U.S. invasion of Iraq is illegal.” (10)  Are not the liberals also guilty of shameless hypocrisy by allowing the latter speech act and opposing the former? Perhaps, although there is an important difference between these two types of cases. In the first, the offense is personally directed toward an individual, the second case is not a direct personnel attack. The Supreme Court made this distinction clear in the fighting words doctrine from the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942):

There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fighting words’ those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. 

     Thus in Cohen v. California (1971), the Supreme Court ruled that the fact that Cohen had been arrested for wearing a jacket that said "fuck the draft" did not constitute uttering fighting words since there had been no "personally abusive epithets." This difference between speech in the realm of ideas and personally abusive epithets is significant. ABOR conservatives truly have this issue upside down. There is no First Amendment right for one student to insult another; there is a First Amendment right for a professor to profess in the realm of ideas. 
     In any case, ABOR legislation does impose restrictions or requirements on professors in the classroom. The call for "intellectual diversity" in ABOR requires that a professor “expose students to a variety of political, ideological, religious, and other perspectives, when such perspectives relate to the subject matter being taught or issues being discussed.”  Stanley Fish correctly points out that ABOR legislation’s characteristic call for intellectual diversity or balance “… can be achieved only by monitoring the political affiliations of professors and the political content of the materials they assign.” (11) The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) reaches the same conclusion:

Creating legislative oversight of curriculum threatens to open the learning process to partisan battles that have no place in the classroom. Typically such bills literally mandate that there will be a yearly scrutiny over the classroom. Rather than protecting students from unnecessary politicization, such oversight would insert politics into every classroom. (12) 

In the old Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China the government monitors and regulates what professors teach. In the United States of America the government does not monitor and regulate what professors teach. Clearly, ABOR legislation “threatens to impose legislative oversight on the professional judgment of faculty and to deprive academic institutions of their authority from making decisions that are central to their academic purpose. It would substitute a political body for academic ones.” (13) This is far too mild. To have the government monitor and regulate classroom speech is Stalinism and Maoism. ABOR is a plan to institute the thought police. 
     In 2005, conservatives in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed an ABOR resolution creating a special committee charged with investigating public colleges in the state. How are faculty members hired and promoted? Are students fairly evaluated? Do students have the right to express their views without fear of being punished? In a letter of opposition sent to the legislators, William Cutler, president of the faculty union at Temple University, noted that they were about to “open the door to the kind of political presence in higher education that we haven’t seen in Pennsylvania for 50 years.” (14)  Yes, say it, ABOR is McCarthyism. ABORism, McCarthyism, Stalinism, Maoism, Nazism are the same in the sense that each desires to use the law to protect or enforce their own ideological preferences, and punish the opposition. Ellen Schrecker has boldly written about the last time they came for the professors and the parallel between the ABOR movement which arose in the wake of 9/11 and McCarthyism. In the “early 1950s the inquisition seriously affected the nation's campuses. At that point, the congressional investigating committees, which had run out of more glamorous targets in the entertainment industry and State Department, called up dozens of academics and questioned them about their past and present political activities.” Schrecker continues, “… at no point did any academic leaders question the need for such an investigation. Studies at the time document the existence of a chill on campus. How, after all, can we assess the courses that weren’t offered, the readings that weren’t assigned, and the research that was not undertaken?” Now we must ask “Does the Academic Bill of Rights language that ‘Curricula and reading lists…should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints’ mean that I will have to have my syllabi vetted by a committee of administrators or politicians?” (15)  With regard to the Special Committee in Pennsylvania, Cutler concluded: “To be a forum for the exchange of ideas of all kinds, a college or university must be free from the threat of oversight by those with a particular cultural or political agenda… the intellectual climate on college and university campuses will be far less open if students and professors feel that their work is being monitored by those who answer to a particular group or set of constituents.”  (16)
     In 2005, Republicans in the Florida state legislature introduced their Orwellian “Academic Freedom Bill of Rights.” Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, reportedly explained that “a university education should be more than one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom, as part of a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.” In the Florida version of ABOR, professors were required to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views and the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to file a law suit against professors and universities. The bill raises some serious questions. Who is to decide which academic theories are “serious”? Would professors be legally obliged to honor the opinions of students who insist upon Holocaust denial and creationism? Outnumbered Florida Democrats worried that “Universities will have to hire lawyers so our curricula can be vetted before it is decided by judges in courtrooms.” And “Professors might have to pay court costs, even if they win, from their own pockets.” Rep. Baxley responded that “if students are being persecuted and ridiculed for their beliefs, I think they should be given standing to sue.” Baxley is reported to have complained that he was called a McCarthyist. According to the Independent Florida Alligator, “Baxley later said he had a list of students who were discriminated against by professors, but refused to reveal names because he felt they would be persecuted.” (17)
     Is ABOR truly an effort to advance academic freedom? Or is ABOR a Trojan horse intended to disguise conservative outcomes behind the façade of liberal neutrality?  The sponsor of the Pennsylvania resolution, Rep. Gibson Armstrong, a Republican, is reported to have said that “professors have nothing to worry about… the resolution is not a right-wing campaign against liberal professors.” “I could care less what your ideology is, my concern is for diversity of thought, diversity of ideas and that an honest debate take place in an atmosphere that promotes free thinking and the exploration of ideas, rather than indoctrination to a pre-established point of view.” A good professor, according to Armstrong, “is going to help his student understand various relevant perspectives and help the student come to his or her own conclusion rather than try to direct them to a pre-established point of view.” (18)  With regard to teaching pre-established points of view, it should be noted that Socrates directed students to where Socrates wanted students to go; Socrates was a good professor; and Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the minds of youths and impiety. (19)  In this day and age there are some among us who still believe it is wrong for a professor to lead students to a conclusion, the rest of us call this teaching.   
     Opponents of ABOR legislation are correct to expose the ABOR movement as a veiled attempt to use the principles of liberal neutrality and academic freedom to achieve conservative goals. Liberal neutrality is essentially the doctrine that the state should not enforce any particular position on normative issues or any particular “conception of the good.” For example, the state should remain neutral on the issue of abortion or homosexual sodomy. Thus, liberal neutrality results in a liberal outcome. The ABOR movement is a shrewd attempt to use neutrality against liberal outcomes by requiring professors to be neutral. However, requiring liberal professors to teach conservative views equally with liberal views would be analogous to requiring individuals to engage in both homosexual relations as well as heterosexual relations. Liberal neutrality is supposed to allow the individual the freedom of choice. The misuse of the neutrality principle by the ABOR movement forces the individual (professor) to do what the individual does not want to do (teach ideas that that the professor believes to be false or distasteful). The true application of the neutrality principle requires the state to stay out of the classroom and allows the professor to profess. The neutrality principle properly applied requires the state to remain neutral; not the individual. Thus, it does seem disingenuous for the rightwing to argue for academic freedom and liberal neutrality in order to thwart advocacy and indoctrination in the classroom. For the rightwing, a vital function of education is to teach the proper values. An ideal day in the politics and history classroom for the true American conservative begins with the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, a teacher-directed New Testament prayer, a visit by military recruiters and then a lecture on all the ways that “U.S. culture is superior to any foreign or historic culture.” (20) The truth is that conservatives do not oppose one-sided teaching; they merely oppose one-sided liberal teaching. (21)
     Thomas L. Krannawitter of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think-tank, does a perfect job of expressing the true conservative perspective on indoctrination and the ABOR movement. (22)  Krannawitter agrees with David Horowitz that “the modern academy in America has become the church of modern liberalism, producing both the priests and servants of the liberal administrative state.”  However, Krannawitter claims Horowitz is wrong because ABOR “marginalizes the true principles of America that should form the core of any decent education.” As Krannawitter correctly suggests, ABOR is based on a liberal-left, multiculturalist, post-modern, relativist epistemolgy. According to the ABOR principle no. 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.” Thus, for Krannawitter:

Horowitz does not oppose liberalism because it is wrong…. It seems he is angry because liberalism is the only "ideology" on our campuses and therefore he wants students to be exposed to other "ideologies" as well. But why? If all ideologies are equally irrational and untrue, why does it matter if students hear one irrational view or a thousand irrational views? …. by denigrating all political opinions to "ideologies," Horowitz’s position precludes teaching the truth and goodness of America. (23)

Clearly, the true conservative has no problem with teaching the truth and goodness of America. Krannawitter claims that it is not wrong to teach students that the self-evident truths of the Founding Fathers are really true. And it is not wrong to teach students that America is good because its true principles establish the framework for a free and just society. Krannawitter argues that “Horowitz is right to try and strike at the liberalism that dominates the academic mind today. But let us not adopt a strategy that also injures or precludes the teaching of the genuine truths upon which America rests, which, in my opinion, is what Horowitz seems to be doing.” Krannawitter believes that

In politics, as in engineering, there are certain fundamental, self-evident truths that form the foundation of legitimate government and free society. We Americans are fortunate in that those self-evident truths are enshrined in our own Declaration of Independence. As a teacher of politics, I believe it is one of my highest duties to help students and citizens understand those truths.(24) 

   Krannawitter reports that he engages “directly in academic and political controversy in the classroom by directly challenging the reigning multicultural assumption that there is no objective truth.” Krannawitter concludes that Horowitz ought to join him on the side of truth; otherwise Horowitz is no different in principle than the multiculturalists. (25)  
     Undoubtedly, the true conservative believes in absolute, objective, universal (self-evident or demonstrable) moral truths. Consequently, the true conservative can see the confusion or the insincerity of the conservative ABOR proponent. Conservative ABOR legislation is premised on “the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge” in the humanities and social sciences. Therefore, ABOR conservatives conclude that professors have no right to advocate. What we get then is an “on the one hand and on the other hand” model of education. The contradiction here is obvious.  If the true conservative believes there are absolute, objective, universal moral truths, then why do conservative ABOR proponents undercut classroom advocacy of American greatness, instead demanding the "on the one hand and on the other" model of classroom neutrality?
     On the other hand, so to speak, the liberal-left argues that the "on the one hand and on the other" model of classroom neutrality is not teaching, and is perhaps unethical, malpractice on the part of professors. (26)  Professors ought to profess. So, how can the liberal-left believe in classroom advocacy and at the same time be post-modern, multicultural, relativists and subjectivists?  In other words, if there are no absolute, objective, universal moral truths, then how can the liberal-left advocate (for example, torturing suspects is wrong, the Iraq war is wrong,  racism and sexism are wrong, privatized prisons are wrong, etc.) in the classroom?  Ultimately, the liberal-left has faith in education as the source of progress to the good society, but as Karl Marx asked, “who will educate the educator”? (27)  This seems to mean that it is the educational system or process that educates the educators, so Marx’s question becomes: how will the system and process come to entail the progressive values necessary to properly educate the educator? Yet, Marx’s thinking begs the deeper epistemological question concerning the foundation of progressive values. Why should the system and process come to entail progressive values?  How do we know that progressive values are true? How can education be the means of progress?
     The ideological confusion and incoherence surrounding this pedagogical paradox is interesting. It seems that the multicultural liberal-left opponents of ABOR want the prerogative for classroom advocacy protected while not believing in the basis for what they advocate. The ABOR conservative wants an end to advocacy in the college classroom which prevents them from advocating the truths of American and Christian greatness. To sort out this ideological goulash it is necessary to think through the second problem of ABOR.  

ABOR Legislation is Poor Pedagogy

     ABOR legislation’s attempt to legislate “balance” in college classrooms rests on ABOR principle no. 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.” If all knowledge in these areas is uncertain, the implication is that all theories, ideas and perspectives about a given topic are equally unsound or equally uncertain. Thus, ABOR legislation requires professors to teach all sides of an issue, rather than advocating one “uncertain” side. The trouble with this teaching-all-sides model is that teaching all sides is not teaching.  It is unethical and malpractice to teach students that one side is as good as the other regarding many social or political issues. As Professor Schrecker asks “How can I possibly teach and offer my students the benefit of my professional training as a historian and years of reading and research if they are free to dismiss what I say in class as simply ‘my opinion’? Education under such circumstances becomes meaningless.” (28)
     Is college education in social studies and the humanities nothing more than the opinions of professors which lack a foundation for truth? Are professors who offer answers to questions and solutions for problems anything more than sophists? Why advocate for what is right when “all knowledge in the humanities and social sciences is uncertain”? What is the point of the “on the one hand and on the other hand” exercise, if neither hand ever holds the truth? Can a professor ever rightfully tell a student what to think? What is the point to teaching students how to think when thinking skills can never lead to truth? Perhaps the answer is found in the realization that teaching students how to think often involves teaching students what to think. Of course, professors do expose students to a variety of perspectives on any given issue. Teaching students how to think begins with laying out the competing arguments, followed by an evaluation of the arguments and evidence, then arriving at a conclusion. The evidence for the 9/11 conspiracy theory, implicating “shadow elements” of the U.S. government, is extremely weak. The evidence for “intelligent design” is practically nonexistent. After reviewing and analyzing the evidence for creationism v. evolution it would be wrong to conclude that one side is just as good as the other. Sometimes, one side wins. Phrenology has been proven empirically to be really bad psychology. But this is exactly what the no advocacy, on the one hand and on the other hand, ABOR model denies. As the AAUP puts it, “If all knowledge would be reduced to opinion, education would be rendered superfluous.” (29)  It is a professor’s duty to profess. 
     The problem with ABOR’s appropriation of postmodern multicultural epistemological relativism is that ABOR’s approach greatly oversimplifies a very complex doctrine. It is careless and misleading to say merely that all knowledge is uncertain. The old distinction between facts and values provides a useful framework. There is a critical difference between a normative proposition such as “torturing enemy suspects is immoral” and an empirical proposition such as “torturing enemy suspects is illegal.” The first is entirely subjective and impossible to prove. The second is a question of fact and can be proven true or false. Likewise, the proposition “governments should (or should not) allow citizens to keep and bear arms” is a normative proposition that cannot be resolved. While the proposition “the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is anachronistic and relevant only in terms of a citizen militia” is a factual claim that is either true or false (even though a person’s subjective ideology can prevent recognition of the truth). Likewise, a student of American government and law who says “as Commander in Chief President Bush may do anything he wants to protect our country” is incorrect according to the facts of Constitutional law. The neocon’s fascistic theory of the “Unitary Executive” is easily refuted by legal facts. The inventive Christian-conservative theory of “Declarationism” also has no basis in fact. It is correct to teach students that the Declaration of Independence is inspiring and expresses some American ideals, but it is incorrect to teach that the Declaration has any kind of legal standing. There is no point wasting precious time in class making students aware of this silly “theory.” (30) My legal rights do not depend upon someone else’s imaginary “Creator.” We might just as well evaluate the argument that Hammurabi's Code has legal standing for Constitutional interpretation? Declarationism is to political science what phrenology is to psychology.
     While no discipline has ever demonstrated an absolute universal objective moral truth, even in the humanities and the social sciences there are factual truths, and there is empirical falsity. The AAUP statement on ABOR goes to the exact heart of this matter. The ABOR premise about the uncertain and unsettled character of all knowledge in the social sciences and humanities “…is antithetical to the basic scholarly enterprise of the university, which is to establish and transmit knowledge.” (31)  All issues in the humanities and social sciences are not unsettled and indeterminate.  Some people believe in the theory of evolution and others believe that dinosaurs and humans coexisted in the Garden of Eden 6000 years ago. Does this make the issue unsettled? No. Furthermore, whether an issue or question is unsettled or not, the on the one hand and on the other hand ABOR teaching model is untenable. Must professors teach both sides of white supremacy issue? If we teach the horrors of the Holocaust, must we the then deny it? The governing council of the American Historical Association (AHA), the nation's largest and oldest professional organization for historians, has unanimously approved a statement condemning the Holocaust-denial movement, stating, "No serious historian questions that the Holocaust took place." The council's action came in response to a petition circulated among members calling for an official statement against Holocaust-denial propaganda; the petition had been signed by more than 300 members attending the organization's annual conference. Moreover, the AHA has reaffirmed its position in a press release which stated that "the Association will not provide a forum for views that are, at best, a form of academic fraud." (32) Those who feel the need to see the other side of this “debate” are free to research the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH), on their own.
     Now, Mr. Horowitz and the ABOR proponents might say, “that’s ridiculous, we are not talking about required readings on white supremacy and Holocaust denial.” Okay, so how do we draw the line? If Holocaust denial and white supremacy crosses the line of what is settled, how about evolution v. creationism? Are we permitted to agree with and advocate the Sp. Ct. decision in Epperson v. Arkansas (1968)? If so, does this mean we can have Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), too? Or are we required to teach both sides and avoid a conclusion on this issue?  Most recently, in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005)the Federal District Court ruled that intelligent design may not be a part of the public school science curriculum.(33) It would be malpractice to teach students of constitutional law that these questions are unsettled. As a matter of fact these questions are settled. Teaching evolution in public schools is constitutional; teaching intelligent design creationism is not constitutional. The Supreme Court does not settle scientific disputes, but the Supreme Court does settle legal disputes. Creationism and intelligent design are religious teachings that should not be taught as an alternative to evolution in public school classrooms.  
     In the name of being fair and balanced, must we resist teaching our students right from wrong? Slavery, child labor, arranged marriage and torture were practiced for most of human history, may we advocate abolition of these practices without giving a fair hearing to the other side? What is the point of teaching our students that torturing terrorist suspects may be right and may be wrong? It is not teaching to merely set out the facts, suspend judgment, and let students decide for themselves. According to ABOR principle no. 4, the professors should provide students with “dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate.” Where appropriate? Who decides this? Is the state legislature’s committee on education qualified to make this assessment? Is it really necessary to assign readings in favor of female genital mutilation? No. Is it “indoctrination” to teach that FGM is an absolutely barbaric practice? No. Ethnic Studies and Women’s Study programs are primary targets of the ABOR movement. Would African-American studies programs be improved if they were not so one-sided? There certainly is a great body of dissenting literature out there that is being ignored. After learning about the institutional racism in our criminal justice system, should we give equal weight to the time-tested theory that “blacks have an inherently more criminal nature than whites?” Why are social welfare and affirmative programs ineffective? Would it be fair to require Ethnic Studies professors to assign right-wing readings that argue “blacks and Latinos are genetically inferior to whites and that most social welfare and affirmative action programs are doomed to failure as a result.” (34)
     Will the proponents of ABOR agree that it is a violation of professional ethics for a professor to teach students information that the professor believes to be false? In 2003, the Southern Poverty Law Center published "Into the Mainstream," in which Chip Berlet named David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture (CSPC) as one of an "array of right-wing foundations and think tanks supporting efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable." (35) Berlet’s research provides a full reading list of the dissenting sources and viewpoints missing from liberal-minded Ethnic Studies courses. When the issue of immigration arises, must students be informed of the “theoretically equal opinions” of John Vinson, a conspiracy-oriented Christian nationalist? Vinson wrote the The American Immigration Control Foundation (AICF) publication Immigration and Nation: A Biblical View, in which he claims that it is against God's will to weaken the "divinely unique" character of every nation. Are professors obligated to tell students that in the United States that divine character belongs to English-speaking white Anglo-Saxon Protestants and “assimilating the races of the world is an impossible task"?  If current immigration patterns may "destroy our nationhood," perhaps a campus guest lecture by Professor David Duke, former Republican member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and the author of  My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding, would provide some ABOR balance. Rather than disregarding the other side, should we consider the possibility that “If a nation with a more advanced, more specialized, or in any way superior set of genes mingles with, instead of exterminating, an inferior tribe, then it commits racial suicide, and destroys the work of thousands of years of biological isolation and natural selection." Berlet’s study calls attention to “race scientist” Roger Pearson who publishes the Journal of Indo-European Studies, which focuses on the roots of "Aryan-based” languages, as well as the Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies. According to The Funding of Scientific Racism, a 2002 book by scholar William Tucker, Pearson has claimed that Nordics are "the very peak of evolutionary progress," far removed from "the ape-like appearance of our original ancestors" who were more like "Negroes and monkeys." Berlet also informs us that, Wayne Lutton, who previously wrote for the racist American Mercury and the Holocaust-denying Journal of Historical Review, has been a frequent contributor to the latter Pearson journal. Pearson co-edits a third journal, the eugenicist Mankind Quarterly, with Richard Lynn, who like Pearson's institute has been financed by the racist Pioneer Fund. Lynn's work, including a study on "Positive Correlations between Head Size and IQ," is cited in The Bell Curve. "What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures," Lynn wrote in 1972. "But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples…. To think otherwise is mere sentimentality." Likewise, “race scientist” Philippe Rushton has produced a chart in which blacks "are said to have, on average, smaller brains, lower intelligence, lower cultural achievements, higher aggressiveness, lower law-abidingness, lower marital stability and less sexual restraint than whites, and the differences are attributed partially to heredity." (36) Are these the rightwing works that Mr. Horowitz and the ABOR proponents expect us to assign in the name of balance? Who is to decide?
     Berlet’s study could be used as an ABOR reading list to balance the perceived liberal-bias of Ethnic and Women’s Studies programs. According to Berlet “Patrick Buchanan’s recent book The Death of the West bemoans the rise in non-white, non-Christian immigrants, and uses information from the racist New Century Foundation to spread claims that blacks have an inherently more criminal nature than whites. He is also given to conspiracy theories about the New World Order, secular humanist plots and powerful Jewish elites.” Berlet continues,

 The Ludwig von Mises Institute promotes a type of Darwinian view of society in which elites are seen as natural and any intervention by the government on behalf of social justice is destructive. The institute seems nostalgic for the days when, "because of selective mating, marriage, and the laws of civil and genetic inheritance, positions of natural authority [were] likely to be passed on within a few noble families." The institute's Web site includes a cyber shrine to Murray Rothbard, a man who complained that the "Officially Oppressed" of American society (read, blacks, women and so on) were a "parasitic burden," forcing their "hapless Oppressors" to provide "an endless flow of benefits." "The call of 'equality,'" he wrote, "is a siren song that can only mean the destruction of all that we cherish as being human." Rothbard blamed much of what he disliked on meddling women. In the mid-1800s, a "legion of Yankee women" who were "not fettered by the responsibilities" of household work "imposed" voting rights for women on the nation. Later, Jewish women, after raising funds from "top Jewish financiers," agitated for child labor laws, Rothbard adds with evident disgust. The "dominant tradition" of all these activist women, he suggests, is lesbianism….  (37)

In the name of intellectual diversity, ABOR legislation would have the effect of propelling sexist, racist, xenophobic, ethnocentric and reactionary ideas into the mainstream. Presenting both sides of the issues and letting the students decide for themselves is not necessarily good teaching. To cite a common example, in the Missouri ABOR bill (HB 213) "intellectual diversity" is defined as “the foundation of a learning environment that exposes students to a variety of political, ideological, religious, and other perspectives, when such perspectives relate to the subject matter being taught or issues being discussed.” With regard to “intellectual diversity,” the board of the Association of American Colleges and Universities released a statement criticizing the Academic Bill of Rights arguing that “the Academic Bill of Rights creates a false impression that good education is primarily about sharing a range of views on issues.” As the statement says, “Teaching the debates is important, but by no means sufficient…. It is also essential that faculty help students learn to engage differences of opinion, evaluate evidence, and form their own grounded judgments about the relative value of competing perspectives.” (38)  The essence of liberal education is to teach students the skills of analysis and critical inquiry with particular emphasis on exploring and evaluating competing claims and different perspectives. The eventual outcome, if not the stated the objective, of the ABOR attack is the destruction of the critical thinking at the heart of the progressive’s liberal education. 
     In the end, critical thought is always progressive because, like the scientific method, it is self-correcting. If liberal is defined as progressive and conservative is defined as protective of the status quo, critical thinkers, by definition, are more likely to be liberal and less likely to be conservative. Critical thought always has to look critically at something in particular. It cannot operate in a vacuum. It thus reflects critically on existing norms, laws and institutions. It is precisely this critical attitude that bothers conservatives. Pretty much the same can be said for creative thinkers. To be creative is to be innovative. To imagine new norms, laws and institutions implies criticism of existing norms, laws and institutions. Those who make it their mission to “conserve” existing norms, laws and institutions would necessarily see creative thought as threatening as critical thought. Both critical and creative thought, therefore, are essentially liberal and progressive tools. Here, then, lies the answer to the problem of “who will educate the educators?” Liberal neutrality, academic freedom and the free market of ideas are inherently and necessarily progressive.  ABOR legislation attempts to give the state a central role in making sure that conservative ideas get equal time. In liberal education it is not the role of the state to subsidize poor ideas, such as “intelligent creationism,” that cannot compete in the free market. The truth does not need the government on its side in the free market of ideas. The best test of truth is the ability to get accepted in the free market of ideas, said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. (39) The truth is by definition progressive.

ABOR Legislation is Unnecessary

     Lastly, ABOR legislation is truly an unnecessary cure in search of a disease. The evidence is overwhelming that incidents of a professor improperly teaching or otherwise mistreating students are uncommon, and that colleges themselves are able to deal effectively with these exceptional cases. Universities already have professional codes of conduct for faculty, and students already have procedures to dispute grades and faculty behavior. The 2006 study conducted by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives found that “academic freedom violations are rare” and the committee came to a general consensus that “legislation requiring the adoption of a uniform statewide academic freedom policy… was not necessary.” (40)  Likewise, in a report from the Washington Post, William B. Harvey, vice president for diversity and equity at the University of Virginia, who spent five years working on diversity issues at the American Council on Education, which represents more than 1,600 university presidents in Washington, states that in his work he had not come across a single serious incident in which a professor discriminated against an evangelical Christian student. "The campus is a microcosm of the larger society. Of course we have intolerant people. Of course it happens on occasion," he said. "But there is no evidence this is a major problem." (41) The truth of the matter is that in the two well-known recent cases of liberal professors clashing with conservative students, each case was resolved impartially by the university administration. Emily Brooker and Christine Mize each voiced reasonable grievances against their apparently liberal professors, and the process produced outcomes favorable to the student in each case.
     In the Emily Brooker case, a professor of social work required her to participate in a project that advocated adoption by homosexual couples. On account of her Christian beliefs Ms. Brooker did not want to participate in the assignment and complained. In the end, Ms. Brooker passed the course, graduated and received a financial award from the university. The professor stepped down as director of Missouri State's master of social work program and he says he has been "vilified around the world" as anti-religious, when in fact he is a former assistant pastor and youth minister in the Assemblies of God, a Missouri-based Pentecostal denomination. (42)  Despite an outcome favorable to their cause, the friends of ABOR in the Missouri House of Representatives used this case as an opportunity to pass the “Emily Brooker Intellectual Diversity Act,” that would require the state's public colleges to report regularly on how they protect students from "viewpoint discrimination." In response, the American Association of University Professors called the bill "one of the worst pieces of higher-education legislation in a century." The legislation is now in the hands of the Missouri State Senate.
     In the Christine Mize case, the student and her professor, also in social work, had a disagreement about including Christian faith-based therapy as a treatment for women experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder from abortions in a term paper. After filing a complaint of religious discrimination in an official grievance letter to the university administration, Ms. Mize received her grade, passed the course and graduated. (43) There are two lessons learned from these cases. First, in each case the existing process fairly resolved the dispute. Second, those who are looking for a case of a conservative student tyrannized at an American university are still looking.
     Still the search for students oppressed by the professors continues to be championed relentlessly by the quixotic Mr. Horowitz. When pressed for evidence to support his McCarthy style charges against cases of wrongdoing by leftwing professors, Horowitz has been forced to retract stories of “indoctrination.” For example, after the Pennsylvania legislative committee ABOR hearings Horowitz admitted that he had no evidence to back up his claim that a biology professor at Pennsylvania State University used a class session just before the 2004 election to show the Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.  This was a story he had told multiple times to support his charges that political bias is rampant in higher education. (44) Another fantastic story used by Horowitz claimed that a student was asked on a test to “explain why George Bush is a war criminal,” and when the student submitted an essay on why Saddam Hussein was a war criminal, she received an F. This story has also been proven untrue. The exam was in criminal justice, the question concerned a theory of social deviance, and the professor was a registered Republican. (45)  
     Mr. Horowitz might really believe that leftwing professors are indoctrinating their students; Senator McCarthy might have really believed that Communists were infiltrating key positions in the U.S. government; President Bush might have really believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction to give to terrorists; Cotton Mather might have really believed the Devil was at work in Salem; and Don Quixote might have really believed the windmills were giants.  Perhaps each believed so much in his cause that the evidence did not matter.  Now, proponents of ABOR legislation ask college students to “contact them if the students feel their free-speech rights arebeing taken away in the classroom.” This request is revealing. An ideologue is one who looks only for favorable evidence and has no interest in the contrary. Concerning the mistreatment of students in the classroom, the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. Proponents of ABOR legislation ought to be willing to listen to college students who feel their free-speech rights are not being taken away. If enough students, and professors and administrators, speak out on this issue the truth will prevail.  

Notes

(1)  Eusebius is used as an example in Persecution and the Art of Writing, by Leo Strauss, pp. 26-32. The University of Chicago Press, 1952.
The Academic Bill of Rights is found online at:
http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/documents/1925/abor.html
ABOR’s Eight Principles:

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.

(2) Legislation Tracker at
http://www.freeexchangeoncampus.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=5&Itemid=61

(3) Legislation Tracker at
http://www.freeexchangeoncampus.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=5&Itemid=61

(4) To date, there has been no mention of scarlet letters or yellow badges in ABOR legislation.
Arizona State Legislature
PROPOSED AMENDMENT 
SENATE AMENDMENTS TO S.B. 1542 (excerpts)
Sec. 2.  Title 15, chapter 14, Arizona Revised Statutes is amended by adding article 8, to read:
ARTICLE 8.  PROHIBITED CONDUCT OF PUBLIC POSTSECONDARY INSTRUCTORS
15-88115-881. Prohibited conduct of instructors; civil penalty; definition
A.  An instructor at a university under the jurisdiction of the Arizona board of regents or at a community college under the jurisdiction of a community college district who is acting as an agent of or who is working in an official instructional capacity for a university or community college shall not…
4.  Advocate one side of a social, political or cultural issue that is a matter of partisan controversy….
B.  Nothing contained in this section shall be construed as denying the civil and political liberties of any person as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions.
C.  The attorney general shall publish and distribute to universities under the jurisdiction of the Arizona board of regents and community colleges under the jurisdiction of a community college district a detailed guideline regarding activities prohibited under this section.  The attorney general may distribute these guidelines through a website or electronically.
D.  By January 1, 2008, the Arizona board of regents shall publish and distribute to universities under its jurisdiction, instructors,  parents and students detailed guidelines regarding the rights and responsibilities of universities, instructors, parents and students under subsection A. By January 1, 2008, each community college district shall publish and distribute to the community colleges under its jurisdiction, instructors, parents and students detailed guidelines regarding the rights and responsibilities of community colleges, instructors, parents and students under subsection A.
E.  In addition to the civil penalty prescribed in this section, an instructor who violates subsection A shall be subject to disciplinary action, including suspension or termination of employment, as the Arizona board of regents or the governing board of the community college, as applicable, deems appropriate.
F.  The Arizona board regents shall require instructors to obtain at least three hours of annual training concerning the responsibilities of instructors under subsection A.  Each community college district shall require instructors to obtain at least three hours of annual training concerning the responsibilities of instructors under subsection A.
G.  The attorney general or the county attorney for the county in which an alleged violation of this section occurred may initiate a suit in the superior court in the county in which the university or community college is located for the purpose of complying with this section. 
H.  For each violation of this section, the court may impose a civil penalty not to exceed five hundred dollars against a person who knowingly violates or a person who knowingly aids another person in violating this section.  The person determined to be out of compliance with this section shall be responsible for the payment of all penalties.  University or community college funds or insurance payments shall not be used to pay these penalties.
Sec. 3.  Legislative intent
In addition to the statutory requirements of this act, the legislature intends by this act to call on this state's professional teacher organizations and teacher labor unions to voluntarily adopt an educator's code of ethics and professional responsibility that incorporates the principles of this act and that specifically prohibits teachers from using their classrooms for the purposes of political indoctrination.”  15-881

(5) For example, Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298 (1957)

(6) U.S. Supreme Court DENNIS v. UNITED STATES, 341 U.S. 494 (1951)

(7) U.S. Supreme Court Noto v. United States, 367 U.S. 290 (1961); (8) U.S. Supreme Court Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 444 (1969)

(8) JUSTICE FRANKFURTER in (344 U.S. 183) WIEMAN ET AL. v. UPDEGRAFF ET AL.
APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF OKLAHOMA. No. 14. Argued October 16, 1952. Decided December 15, 1952.

(9) “The AHA's Double Standard on Academic Freedom” by David Beito, Ralph E. Luker, and Robert K. C. Johnson Perspectives journal of the American Historical Association March 2006 http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2006/0603/0603vie2.cfm
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/07/tabor

(10) The water buffalo story is fully reported in Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate, The Shadow University The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses, New York, NY: Free Press, 1998

(11) Advocacy And Teaching By STANLEY FISH    March 24, 2007 The New York Times
http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP/eJournal/v002n002/a001.shtml

(12) Academic Freedom and Educational Responsibility AAC&U Board of Directors' Statement
January 6, 2006 http://www.aacu.org/about/statements/documents/SAF.pdf;
AAUP Condemns Missouri Bill AAUP President Cary Nelson and Executive Director Ernest Benjamin (4/17/07) http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/GR/state/H213.htm; AAUP Statement on the Academic Bill of Rights (2003) http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/abor.htm

(13) Ibid.

(14) Scott Jaschik A Win for ‘Academic Bill of Rights’ Inside Higher Ed, July 7, 2005
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/07/tabor

(15) Ellen Schrecker “McCarthyism, Higher Education, and the New Assault on Academic Freedom” October 17, 2005 http://www.santarosa.edu/~maparicio/red_scare/schrecker2.html
Also, Schrecker, Ellen (1998). Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Little, Brown and Company.

(16) Scott Jaschik A Win for ‘Academic Bill of Rights’ Inside Higher Ed, July 7, 2005
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/07/tabor

(17) Capitol bill aims to control leftist profs; THE LAW COULD LET STUDENTS SUE FOR UNTOLERATED BELIEFS. By JAMES VANLANDINGHAM Independent Florida Alligator Staff Writer Wednesday, March 23, 2005 http://www.alligator.org/pt2/050323freedom.php

(18) Scott Jaschik A Win for ‘Academic Bill of Rights’ Inside Higher Ed, July 7, 2005
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/07/07/tabor

(19) The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone Little, Brown and Company (1988); I.F. Stone Breaks the Socrates Story  http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/ifstoneinterview.html
For the Socratic method, see Euthyphro, “SOCRATES: I think that you could have answered in much fewer words the chief question which I asked, Euthyphro, if you had chosen. But I see plainly that you are not disposed to instruct me--clearly not: else why, when we reached the point, did you turn aside? Had you only answered me I should have truly learned of you by this time the nature of piety. Now, as the asker of a question is necessarily dependent on the answerer, whither he leads I must follow; and can only ask again, what is the pious, and what is piety? Do you mean that they are a sort of science of praying and sacrificing? http://www.fullbooks.com/Euthyphro.html

(20) Regarding the teaching of U.S. superiority see: Education and the Rise of the Global Economy (Sociocultural, Political, and Historical Studies in Education) by Joel Spring p.134 Lawrence Erlbaum; 1st edition (1998)

(21) A recent study by Gordon Hewitt of Hamilton College and Mack Mariani of Xavier University in Ohio, finds that despite students being educated by liberal professors, their politics change only marginally in their undergraduate years. Faculty Are Liberal — Who Cares? — Scott Jaschik Inside Higher Ed March 27, 2008 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/27/politics

(22)   Thomas L. Krannawitter Horowitz v. Churchill: Principled Differences or Much Ado About About Nothing? (April 10, 2006) http://www.claremont.org/blogs/authorid.204/byauthor.asp)

(23) Ibid.

(24) Ibid.

(25)  Krannawitter does not offer any particular examples of true moral principles and the proof of their truth. Thomas L. Krannawitter Re: Ward Churchill and Multiculturalism (September 7, 2007)  http://www.claremont.org/blogs/authorid.204/byauthor.asp

(26) AAUP Statement on the Academic Bill of Rights (2003) “If a professor of constitutional law reads the examination of a student who contends that terrorist violence should be protected by the First Amendment because of its symbolic message, the determination of whether the examination should receive a high or a low grade must be made by reference to the scholarly standards of the law. The application of these standards properly distinguishes indoctrination from competent pedagogy…. Similarly, if a professor of American literature reads the examination of a student that proposes a singular interpretation of Moby Dick, the determination of whether the examination should receive a high or a low grade must be made by reference to the scholarly standards of literary criticism. The student has no ‘right’ to be rewarded for an opinion of Moby Dick that is independent of these scholarly standards. If students possessed such rights, all knowledge would be reduced to opinion, and education would be rendered superfluous….  Although academic freedom rests on the principle that knowledge is mutable and open to revision, an Academic Bill of Rights that reduces all knowledge to uncertain and unsettled opinion, and which proclaims that all opinions are equally valid, negates an essential function of university education.” The AAUP argument here appears to be a form of the wishful thinking fallacy. The fact that the unhappy result of ABOR’s relativism is to undermine an essential function of university education is not a reason to believe that ABOR’s relativism in untrue. http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/abor.htm

(27) Karl Marx Third Thesis on Feuerbach (1845) “The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.” http://www.marx.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm

(28) “McCarthyism, Higher Education, and the New Assault on Academic Freedom” by Ellen Schrecker October 17, 2005 http://www.santarosa.edu/~maparicio/red_scare/schrecker2.html

(29) AAUP Statement on the Academic Bill of Rights (2003) http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/abor.htm

(30) [“The Declaration of Independence and the Spirit of American Law” Alan Keyes February 21, 1997 Thomas Aquinas College, Presidents' Day Lecture, Santa Paula, CA http://www.keyesarchives.com/transcript.php?id=40]

(31) AAUP Statement on the Academic Bill of Rights (2003) http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/abor.htm

(32) Jewish Virtual Library, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/denial.html

(33) The Supreme Court rulings that teaching evolution is constitutional and teaching creation science is not constitutional in public schools. In the Edwards case Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, dissented, on the grounds that "protecting academic freedom" is a legitimate secular purpose. They construed the term "academic freedom" to refer to "students' freedom from indoctrination", in this case their freedom "to decide for themselves how life began, based upon a fair and balanced presentation of the scientific evidence". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard

(34) Chip Berlet, “Into the Mainstream,” Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center.
Berlet is referring to The Bell Curve, the controversial, best-selling 1994 book by Harvard professor Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray. http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=50
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_Berlet

(35) Ibid.

(36) Ibid.

(37) Ibid.

(38) “Academic Freedom and Educational Responsibility,” AAC&U Board of Directors' Statement, January 6, 2006 http://www.aacu.org/About/statements/academic_freedom.cfm

(39) ABRAMS V. UNITED STATES (1919), Justice Holmes dissenting (and borrowing liberally from J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1851).

(40) Serena Unrein and Diane E. Brown, SB1542 Fact Sheet, Arizona Students’ Association; http://www.freeexchangeoncampus.org

(41) Is There Disdain For Evangelicals In the Classroom? Survey, Bias Allegation Spur Debate
By Alan Cooperman, The Washington Post, May 5, 2007 
http://www.jewsonfirst.org/07b/public167.html    

(42) Jews on First, “Christian Fundamentalist Attacks on Public Education.”
http://www.jewsonfirst.org/public.html
STANLEY FISH, “Advocacy and Teaching,” The New York Times  March 24, 2007

(43) “SIUC: We don't discriminate on basis of religion University responds to Christian group's demands,” By Andrea Zimmermann, Southern Illinois University Carbondale Daily Egyptian, March 20, 2007  http://www.jewsonfirst.org/public.html

(44) Scott Jaschik, “Retractions From David Horowitz” Inside Higher Ed Jan. 11, 2006  http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/11/retract

(45) Scott Jaschik “Tattered Poster Child” Inside Higher Ed, March 15, 2005  http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/15/horowitz3_15