Editor's Note Recently David Beito, Robert"KC" Johnson, and Ralph E. Luker wrote an article published on HNN that took David Horowitz to task for his campaign promoting ideological balance on American campuses. On the HNN blog, Cliopatria, Mr. Horowitz was criticized for allegedly mischaracterizing a controversy involving a student at the University of Northern Colorado. Mr. Horowitz asked to be given the opportunity to respond. We agreed to his request.

My campaign for academic freedom has roused up a storm of unprincipled opposition from the academic left. Although the campaign is based on the academic freedom tradition of the American Association of University Professors extending back to 1915 it has been compared by its opponents – including the current leadership of the AAUP and the American Federation of Teachers -- to the “red scare” and the “McCarthy witch-hunt” and even Mao Zedong’s purge of Communist Party officials during the “Cultural Revolution.”

The hysterical nature of these accusations should be sufficient in themselves to demonstrate the bad faith of the opposition. The “red scare” was, in fact, a police roundup of terrorist suspects after American anarchists sent 100 mail bombs to targets earmarked for assassination, including the attorney general of the United States. The McCarthy “witch-hunt” targeted members of a conspiratorial Communist Party which is now known through the opening of the Soviet archives to have been conducting extensive espionage against the United States. Mao’s cultural revolution resulted in the disappearances and deaths of Communist Party officials and intellectuals who failed to follow his political diktats.

Likening the campaign for academic freedom to such historical events is to employ precisely the political tactics its opponents claim to deplore. The academic freedom campaign is in fact an effort to end blacklists and the imposition of intellectual orthodoxies and does not target any party or political persuasion. The Academic Bill of Rights is not about Republicans and Democrats or liberals and conservatives. It is about restoring the integrity of the academic process, and about determining what is and is not appropriate to an academic classroom.

The campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights is not even about legislative measures to address these problems. Legislation became a last resort only when faculty organizations like the AAUP refused to discuss protecting students against these abuses and set itself against university reform. The AAUP took this position despite the fact that these provisions were drawn from the AAUP’s own academic freedom guidelines.

On the other hand, when university administrators have shown a readiness to step forward to discuss the provisions of the Academic Bill of Rights in good faith, as happened in Colorado, legislators withdrew the Bill in favor of a “Memorandum of Understanding” under which all provisions are implemented by the university without legislative intervention. This was a victory of the academic freedom campaign, but it has been cynically reported as a “defeat” by its opponents.

Another dishonest tactic of the opposition has been to seize the slightest ambiguity in the information we have been gathering in order to discredit the idea that there is any problem at all. The most prominent example of this strategy involved a final exam question in a criminology course given at the University of Northern Colorado. We had drawn attention to this case to show that a fundamental principle of academic freedom – the distinction between education and indoctrination – had been ignored. Among the vigilantes who pounced on our story to discredit it were writers for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Media Matters.com, the Associated Press and the Greeley Tribune, a local Colorado paper whose readership includes the University of Northern Colorado community.

This incident called into question a final exam in a criminology course taken by a University of Northern Colorado sophomore. It was one of hundreds of stories we had gathered and one of dozens that I regularly referred to in my speeches and articles. This merited attention because it was dramatic and easily understood. The student reported to us in late 2003 that she had been required to answer a “question” on her final exam that instructed students to “Explain why George Bush is a war criminal.” The test was administered approximately three weeks after the fall of Baghdad in early May 2003. In responding to the instruction, the student explained instead why she thought Saddam Hussein was a war criminal and was given an “F.”

When we initially reported this story, and throughout the academic year 2003-2004, we did not disclose the name of the student, since she was too frightened to come forward and asked us to protect her anonymity. (We did not know the name of the professor, and would not have reported it at the time in any case. Our purpose was not to indict individuals but to show the existence of a problem.) After receiving her failing grade on the exam, the student had submitted her case to a university appeals process, and – according to her testimony -- her grade was subsequently raised. The university will not make any statement about the result of the process, except to say that the student’s final grade was a “B.”

For almost a year, the Colorado exam case was one of a number of examples I used in speeches and articles to deplore the tendency of faculty ideologues use their classroom authority to indoctrinate students, betraying their academic responsibilities in the process. Then two incidents occurred to draw attention to this case. The first was the surfacing of Ward Churchill who put a face on the faculty members I was alluding to, as it happened at a Colorado University. Churchill was an academic so extreme in his viewpoints, and so unscholarly in his temperament that no one would have been surprised if he had actually imposed on his own classes an exam like the one in question. The second development was the sponsoring of an Academic Freedom Bill by a member of the Senate in Ohio.

With few exceptions the Ohio press was hostile to the Academic Bill of Rights, treating it as a threat to professorial speech, even though it was a perfectly liberal document drawn from the very canons of academic freedom devised by the American Association of University Professors. In every state, editorial writers and reporters mostly followed the talking points of AAUP spokesmen opposing the bill. In its headline describing the Bill, for example, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, typically misrepresented the academic freedom legislation as introducing new restrictions into professorial speech, even though its purpose was quite the opposite -- to introduce intellectual diversity into the curriculum and to encourage open and respectful dialogue in the classroom.

In addition to its slanted headline and story, the Plain Dealer also published an op-ed piece by a leftwing professor. Mano Singham, who suggested that I had made the whole Colorado incident up -- the student, the exam and the professor. To be fair I had made this line of attack possible by mistakenly referring to the case as one that had come up at legislative hearings held in Colorado in December 2003. It had actually been referred to in a second round of legislative hearings in September 2004, when Kay Norton, the president of the University of Northern Colorado mentioned it.

In his Plain Dealer column, Professor Singham claimed to have contacted the provost of the University and the political science department (even though it was a criminology exam in the Sociology Department). “They had never heard of this story,” he wrote in his column, “and were all surprised to hear that they were supposedly harboring this fiend. To jump to his conclusion, Singham simply ignored the testimony by president Norton and failed to contact the appropriate department.

The leftwing site, MediaMatters, then jumped on the case and alleged that this inventing the facts was a pattern of mine and of the campaign’s. InsideHigherEd.com a normally responsible publication reported these speculations under the headline, “The Poster Child Who Can’t Be Found,” which was two misleading suggestions in one. First, the student had never been a “poster child” for our campaign, but was only one of the many cases we had put forward. Second, the only reason the student couldn’t be found was that no one had really looked for her (or asked us to find her).

InsideHigherEd.com did report my objections to the thrust of its story, and the offer I made to locate the student and retract the story should it prove wrong. Meanwhile reports of our allegedly invented incident spread like wildfire across the web on leftwing blogsites hostile to the academic freedom campaign itself.

With our story under siege, I had my staff contact the student who was on spring break and ask her for the name of the professor, which turned out to be Robert Dunkley, as well as additional information about the criminology class in question. I published the new information, and demanded an apology. In doing so I misjudged the bad faith of the opposition, which ignored the evidence that validated our story and selectively used other information we provided – in particular the name of the professor -- to escalate the attacks.

Scott Jaschik, editor of InsideHigherEd.com called both the university and Professor Dunkley, and wrote a story without checking his claims with us. The result was the most damaging report yet.

Titled, “Tattered Poster Child” (thus repeating the false claim that this was a singular case) the Jaschik story reported first that Dunkely, was not a “wild-eyed liberal” (implying that we had said he was) but a Republican. In fact our academic freedom campaign was never about leftwing abuses as opposed to right wing abuses. It was about academic abuses without regard for viewpoint. I had never identified Dunkley as a liberal and I have in fact defended liberal students against conservative professors who have targeted them for indoctrination. For the record we have scoured the election roles and Republican Party contribution records and can find no evidence that Dunkley is telling the truth even in this trivial matter. But even if Dunkely were a Republican I would still have defended this student against him.

Jaschik’s article further reported that the famous exam question was not “required,” as the student had claimed, and that the student got a “B” grade not an “F” as we reported. Finally, he reported that according to Dunkley and the university spokeswoman, the text of question itself was different from what we had said it was.

These were serious charges. The only bright lining for us was that the new exam question that Dunkely provided to Jaschik was very close to the one we had reported and thus was also a clear case of indoctrination. This prompted me to make a serious tactical mistake.

Instead of waiting to refer these matters to the student for her response – she was still on spring break and not easy to reach – I decided to immediately post an article conceding that we had possibly erred on some minor points. I say “possibly” because Dunkley had destroyed all copies of the exam and the students’ answers, even though this was a violation of university regulations. I felt confident in offering this “correction” because even if the university’s and Dunkley’s claims were true, the bottom line was that the essay question still required one right answer on a controversial matter of opinion, which was a form of indoctrination. I assumed that the students’ claims would be given a fair shake, particularly because of Dunkley’s destructive act. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The student had reported to us that she had originally received an “F” on the exam for writing about Saddam Hussein. Dunkley claimed he gave her a bad grade (he will not say what the grade was) because she handed in a two-page answer when three were required. Since Dunkley had destroyed her exam, this claim seemed suspicious on its face, though no independent press source mentioned this fact.

Although Dunkley and the university referred to her final “B” grade as a refutation of the student’s claim to have received an “F,” neither of them would say (and neither were asked by the press) whether they were claiming she also got a “B” on the original exam and not an “F.” If she did, why would she have gone through an appeal? In fact, the student told us that the “B” grade was her final grade in the course, while the exam grade was indeed an “F”. She had been able to raise her grade through the appeals process when the university had allowed her to receive credit for her class work even though she had been failed on the exam itself. That’s how she ended up with the “B.”

A short time later, I received this confirming email from the student: “I did fail the final exam, at least that is what I was told, however based on Dunkley’s and the school’s comments you never really know what is truthful. It has always been my understanding and my story that I got an “F” on the exam but a B in the class. I don’t think Dunkley disputed that but he is such a manipulative person you never really know.” Not a single press source that had reported the claims of Dunkely and the university spokeman so much as commented on the student’s defense of her claim.

In my “correction” article, I had included the exam question that the university spokesman provided to Jaschik, and which our student claimed Dunkely had doctored after the exam, and specifically for the appeals process. The exam question he supplied was this:

“The American government campaign to attack Iraq was in part based on the assumptions that the Iraqi government has ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction.’ This was never proven prior to the U.S. police action/war and even President Bush, after the capture of Baghdad, stated: ‘we may never find such weapons.’ Cohen’s research on deviance discussed this process of how the media and various moral entrepreneurs and government enforcers can conspire to create a panic. How does Cohen define this process? Explain it in depth. Where does the social meaning of deviance come from? Argue that the attack on Iraq was deviance based on negotiable statuses. Make the argument that the military action of the U.S. attacking Iraq was criminal?”

In reading this it occurred to me that there were several transparent peculiarities about the text. It referred to the deviant criminal behavior of states (rather than individuals,) which is a complex subject appropriate to an advanced course in international law, not an introductory survey course in criminology, particularly one administered by the sociology department for sophomores. Dunkley’s course is described like this in the 2002-2003 UNC Course Catalog: “SOC 346 - Criminology. Survey criminal behavior generally, including theories of causation, types of crime, extent of crime, law enforcement, criminal justice, punishment and treatment.” The criminal behavior of states does not appear to be part of the course. States are not commonly the subjects of criminology courses because states normally commit and normally sanction acts that would be criminal if committed by individuals. This suggested to me that to defend question in the appeals process, Dunkley had substituted the United States as the criminal actor in place of the original subject, which was George Bush.

I did not bring this up in my response to this round of attacks, but confined myself to the very last sentence of the exam question, which was a declarative statement ending inexplicably with a question mark. Notwithstanding the inappropriate punctuation, the sentence enjoined students to give only one answer to a highly controversial question. It was in fact, exactly the same instruction that we had originally reported and objected to -- except that the war criminal was the United States instead of George W. Bush. On the other hand, as the chief executive of the United States, George Bush would have been equally guilty.

Since our original point had been validated – the exam was an indoctrination, I decided to post these thoughts and concede that perhaps we had erred in stating our case about the grade and even the form of the question more authoritatively than we should have (I will explain our position on the issue of whether the question was “required” in a moment). I did this to show our good faith. Better to concede the uncertainties and possible error about minor points – I thought – in order to return the focus to the main issue, which was the inappropriateness of the question itself.

I wrote: “So while we apologize for not having fully checked and corrected this story, we conclude that our complaint about the exam was justified. What happened in Professor Dunkley’s class at the University of Northern Colorado is not education, it is indoctrination. And that violates the academic freedom of the students who were subjected to it.” I thought that would be the end of it. This was a huge mistake.

MediaMatters was the first to attack. I had accused Media Matters of slander for spreading the false story that I had invented the student, the exam and professor. Media Matters not only never retracted that falsehood, but now embellished its accusations: “Under fire right-wing campus watchdog admits Colorado exam story is phony after accusing Media Matters of slander.” Literally hundreds of leftwing blogsites picked up the “phony” story angle and circulated it on the Internet: “Over the past week we’ve watched as David Horowitz’s reputation for accuracy and integrity have taken a beating…at the hands of David Horowitz,” commented leftwing blogster Roger Ailes (not the Fox News Channel Ailes).

Meanwhile, the Greeley Tribune, interviewed Dunkley and swallowed his claims whole: “Professor Calmly Refutes Test Tales,” was its headline. Picking up an equally uncritical AP story (based on the one-sided Tribune interview), the Denver Post, followed suit. Five days later, the Greeley Tribune followed its sweetheart Dunkley interview with an editorial attack on my integrity and credibility, which began: “Intentional ignorance is as bad as lying. If David Horowitz didn't know that before the essay question controversy at the University of Northern Colorado, he should now.” The entire editorial was based on no evidence or independent reporting, but solely on the questionable claims of a professor who had destroyed his exam and whose student had succeeded in getting redress at a special hearing over her unfair grade.

In its interview with Dunkley, the Tribune described the alleged exam he had come up with after the fact in these disingenuous words: “UNC released a copy of the test from his class last week. The instructions tell students that the question which reportedly offended the student is optional. The question is 119 words, not the one sentence reported.”

Of course UNC did no such thing, because it did not have a copy of the original exam; it had Dunkley’s “recollection” of his exam. The document he submitted with reconstructed essay questions has a roman numeral I section but no roman numeral II, an additional unexplained problem. The document contains the four exam essay questions, of which two were required and two the student had to choose between.

At the end of this article, I am appending the four essay questions supplied by Dunkley after the fact so the reader can judge what the merits of this case. The reader will see that the first optional question is just as controversial as the Iraq question and also requires a single answer.

The first optional question begins like this: “The taboo (deviance) society places on homosexual relationships and gay lifestyles today is beginning to subside. Attempts are being made to allow gay marriages, which appears right around the corner. Make an argument that would support gay marriages and gay families and explain how this additional type of family could help prevent crime…” It is not too difficult to imagine why a conservative student might regard the two “optional” questions as a requirement to write an essay expressing views with which she could not agree.

Like the Iraq war “question” the instruction to defend gay marriage requires a politically correct answer to a controversial issue. It is another unprofessional attempt by Dunkley to force his students to defend his own political agendas.

Indeed all of the exam questions devised by Dunkely, which include explications of “power theory,” “marxism” and “feminism,” are more appropriate to a training course in leftwing theory, than to an academic course in a public university. None of these questions reflect a professorial interest in opening students’ minds to a diversity of ways in which one might look at crime and the family.

The final examination for Sociology 346, was a take home exam given to students on May 5 and due on May 9, 2003, according to the information supplied by Dunkley and the University of Northern Colorado, through its spokesperson Gloria Reynolds. As my colleague Ryan Call observed upon receiving a copy of the document the dating of the exam puts the whole matter of who is lying in this dispute between the student and Professor Dunkley in a new light.

Recall how the text of the disputed exam question begins: “The American government campaign to attack Iraq was in part based on the assumptions that the Iraqi government has ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction.’ This was never proven prior to the U.S. police action/war and even President Bush, after the capture of Baghdad, stated: ‘we may never find such weapons.’…”

Baghdad fell on April 13, 2003, and the exam question was handed out roughly three weeks later. As of this date, May 5, 2003, neither President Bush nor anyone in the White House was saying “we may never find such weapons.” Here is what President Bush actually said to reporters on May 31, 2003, three weeks after the exam:

You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons.... They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two [the labs were later judged to not contain any such weapons, that they most likely were used for weather balloons]. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on, But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them.

This statement by Bush, conclusively reiterating his belief that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and made more than three weeks after the exam was handed to students, lends credence to the student’s claim that the exam question supplied by Dunkley to the university and the media was not the original exam question. The student does not have any recollection of the Bush quote appearing in the original exam, or the final sentence as supplied by Dunkley after the fact.

When I brought this evidence to InsideHigherEd.com. It’s editor refused to concede that it showed anything at all about Dunkley’s claims (though he did offer to link any story I wrote about the case). When I brought it to the Greeley Tribune, its editors came up with an AP story by White House correspondent Ron Fournier that appeared on April 24, 2003. This would have been two weeks before the Dunkley exam was handed to students. The story was headlined “Bush Says Weapons of Mass Destruction May Have Been Destroyed.” Although the Bush quote in Dunkley’s exam (“we may never find such weapons”) did not appear in the AP article, this created enough ambiguity so that someone intent on defending Dunkley could plausibly claim that the professor had misread the Fournier piece and made up the Bush quote on the basis of its headline.

To do so, however, Dunkley would have had to ignore the actual text of the Fournier article which quoted Bush unambiguously asserting that weapons of mass destruction did exist in Iraq and would be found: “‘ [Saddam Hussein] tried to fool the United Nations and did for 12 years by hiding these weapons. And so it’s going to take time to find them,’ the President said at the Lima Army Tank Plant. ‘But we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth.’”

Dunkley and others have made one further claim, which is to suggest that the professor was playing “devil’s advocate” in compelling students to make the case for gay marriage or explain why the United States and its president were conducting a criminal operation in Iraq. This seems a very large stretch when all four essay questions on this final exam required students to explain and apply leftwing theories or justify leftwing prejudices on controversial political issues. It is more plausible that both the professor and his course were committed to these points of view. This is a conclusion reinforced by the way the actual views of Bush were distorted by Dunkley to imply their opposite.

Although the destruction of the evidence by Dunkley and the refusal of the university administration to provide a candid accounting of the appeals process make a conclusive verdict impossible, it seems beyond question that Dunkley’s exam was an indefensible attempt to force students in Sociology 346 to demonstrate a knowledge of leftwing theory (and no other theories) and to argue the radical point of view on two extremely controversial issues in order to get a good grade.

This is indoctrination not education, a distinction that has been recognized for nearly hundred years by the academic profession. As the Dunkley case shows the distinction was not observed in this Colorado exam and – more troubling -- neither the university system nor the nation’s press seems to care.

I.       The following questions are essay. Answer as completely as possible. Be thorough and concise, but make a solid argument and logical case for your answer. Make sure you answer all questions sought. All Students must answer questions 1& 2. Select one question from 3 & 4 to answer. The minimum number of pages per question is three (3) typed, double spaced, and stapled to the test questions.

1)     Compare and contrast Power Control Theory and Integrated-Structural Marxism. How do they analyze the family in terms of social class? How does this class discussion relate to crime? Which family members are essentially excluded in their analysis? What are the weak points of both theories and what are their strengths? Which theory do you support?

2)     The Feminist movement of the 1980s offered a significant “new way” in looking at law and its affect on women. The idea of equality is an issue still unresolved. Explain what the equality doctrine is. How should women define and respond to sexual differences? Can the claim of special treatment for women be considered problematic? Why? How can this be neutralized? What do feminists mean by “Doing Law?”

3)     The taboo (deviance) society places on homosexual relationships and gay lifestyles today is beginning to subside. Attempts are being made to allow gay marriages, which appears right around the corner. Make an argument that would support gay marriages and gay families and explain how this additional type of family could help prevent crime (use one of the above theories form question #1 in your discussion and Shaw and McKay’s analysis of social ecology).

Irfan Khawaja - 8/4/2006

Horowitz is right about two things. His left wing critics have occasionally been unfair to him (as he has been to them), and left-leaning academics have their heads in the sand about academic abuse of power by instructors bent on indoctrination in the classroom. I'd be willing to accept that even if some on the left can't.

Having said that, I hate to toot my own horn (OK, that's a lie) but on my blog, I've offered what might be construed as a "right-wing" criticism of Horowitz's project. Not all of Horowitz's critics are on the left.

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/11338.html

I should add that the SAF students on my campus have perfectly embodied the contradiction I mention in my blog-entry; it is not a merely 'logic-chopping' criticism.

Ricardo Luis Rodriguez - 5/26/2005

The difference becomes Supremely important when the student is penalised for disagreeing with the professor, as is usually the case with the kind of professor that writes these types of questions. He would have been more credible had he prefaced his question by saying:" Assuming that..." Instead he methodically introduces the question by making several statements of fact (which are themselves contestable), and then asks the student to dutifully recitate why 2=2+4, and finally fails her for refusing to accept his obvious universal truth.

Lisa Kazmier - 5/1/2005

Thanks. I read over the questions again and the one where I have the most expertise would be questions 2 (big surprise; my minor field was women's/gender history). This question is actually very open to various ways of approaching it. How one addresses sexual difference is a major preoccupation of various women's movements and it has been quite the riddle. For students to tackle it really enables them to apply theory to something quite obvious: women and men are physically different. Does that matter? How and why? What significance should be reflected in the law on its account? This is not purely an exercise in being a feminist, as any working woman expecting a child will realize it is an issue pretty quickly. And so too will folks who work in the same area be affected by whether it is legal to fire her, give her temporary leave or whatnot.

Graham Hick - 4/30/2005

Yes, why do these arguments have to be cast as "either/or", "left/right"?

As long as we are going to do that, however, why does Mr. Horowitz use the overplayed right wing "victim" tactic? A victim of "leftist" educators, a victim of critics "slandering" him. Not to develop a straw man argument and detract too much, but yesterday I heard a Baptist minister on the radio talking about how "people of faith" are "victims" of "secular attacks" and "tyrranical" judges. I acknowledge that Mr. Horowitz made no points about this other issue, but does anyone else see a larger pattern here in the current political and cultural climate? I tire of tough conservatives crying about being victims of liberals.

Lisa Kazmier - 4/30/2005

John Stuart Mill would be proud of you comment, Mr. Hick. That's basically a good extraction from his argument in "On Liberty" as to why he was against censorship.

Graham Hick - 4/30/2005

Actually the best that Mr. Luker did in his above comment was point out that arguing for a viewpoint one disagrees with displays one's ability for communication and reasoning. The comment about the missing cited 4th question simply underlines Mr. Horowitz's already sloppy larger analysis. That's at least how I interpret Mr. Luker, and I agree with him.

I learned quite a lot in school about viewpoints I detested by having to argue them, and consequentially, how to dismantle and prevail over them in my real world experience. A valuable teaching tool. Know your enemy, their motives and their ideology and you have the advantage.

Arnold Shcherban - 4/29/2005

Mr. Rise,

We all know the answer to your therefore rhetorical, but revealing D.Horowitz's "democratic" approach, question, don't we?

Arnold Shcherban - 4/29/2005

Horowitz and his dear friend Ann Coulter are fascist-type idealogues, albeit not anti-Semitic.

Arnold Shcherban - 4/29/2005

Horowitz is far, far right about all things, that's true.

N. Friedman - 4/27/2005

Lisa,

Re your comment: I am all in favor of someone presenting their view -- after all, it's what they worked to be able to do, no?

I agree in principle although there are many good approaches to teaching. The one concern with the noted approach is that the teacher should be up front with his students about the teacher's approach and in a manner so that students are challenged to think critically and not merely to parrot the teacher. I can remember a sociology teacher who expected students to say that men were all garbage. (The virtues of Vassar).

N. Friedman - 4/27/2005

Lisa,

Re your comment: I am all in favor of someone presenting their view -- after all, it's what they worked to be able to do, no?

I agree in principle although there are many goods approach to teaching. The one concern with the noted approach is that the teacher should be up front with his students about the teacher's approach and in a manner so that students are challenged to think critically and not merely to parrot the teacher. I can remember a sociology teacher who expected students to say that men were all garbage.

Lisa Kazmier - 4/27/2005

Some professors have styles more conducive to knowing their viewpoint than others. For example, I took a class with sociologist William Sampson and I couldn't tell you what he thinks of the voucher program. He's so good at arguing a case you never know what will happen next or where he's invested.

Think tanks and university professors read different literature, hence they come to different conclusions. I would guess one side if not both are selective on reading choices too.

I am all in favor of someone presenting their view -- after all, it's what they worked to be able to do, no? I still remember the ROTC's having trouble with Michael Sherry's lecture on Vietnam ("The Impotence of Omnipotence") but it was like all-of-a-sudden Sherry had an objectionable opinion. Where were they when he was talking about Woodrow Wilson? I don't think I'd be giving the students the benefit of my experience if they did not know where I was coming from.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/27/2005

I tend to have respect for people who don't carry around a felt obligation to attack whatever I say. It really is possible to have an intelligent conversation that isn't conducted in attack mode. I respect your caring for your niece. I respect it when and if you are willing to have conversations that aren't necessarily cast in terms of Right/Left warfare.

Jason Nelson - 4/27/2005

Mr. Luker,

You are correct to note that I mentioned you with "other respectable men". You are welcome for the tribute. It is evidence that I can respect someone that I often disagree with. You should try it sometime.

Jason Nelson - 4/27/2005

I take pride in being the best uncle that I can be to my sister's fatherless daughter. Not all accomplishments are published. Thanks for asking.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/27/2005

Where have I claimed to speak for David Beito, KC Johnson, or Jason Nelson? You simply have a felt obligation to trail me around to add denigrating commentary to whatever I say. Go be a "truth squad" to someone else for a while. But I do appreciate the "other respectable men" line, because that construction says that I, too, am respectable. I appreciate the tribute. My work speaks for me. What have you done?

Jason Nelson - 4/27/2005

I love it when Mr. Luker speaks for me. I draw a distinction between Mr. Luker and Mr Beito and Mr. Johnson. In a way, he is speaking for them also.

Further, I have made no comment here about Mr. Horowitz, either a defence of a rebuke.

It is interesting to examine Mr. Lukers tactics here. He lumps me in with Horowitz and calls me a "right-wing nutcase", a very persuasive argument, to be sure, rivaled only by the "I know you are but what am I" argument.

Then he defends himself, not by any rational evidence, but simply by associating himself with other respectable men.

Is this the best he can do?

[ Reply ]

Jason Nelson - 4/27/2005

I love it when Mr. Luker speaks for me. I draw a distinction between Mr. Luker and Mr Beito and Mr. Johnson. In a way, he is speaking for them also.

Further, I have made no comment here about Mr. Horowitz, either a defence of a rebuke.

It is interesting to examine Mr. Lukers tactics here. He lumps me in with Horowitz and calls me a "right-wing nutcase", a very persuasive argument, to be sure, rivaled only by the "I know you are but what am I" argument.

Then he defends himself, not by any rational evidence, but simply by associating himself with other respectable men.

Is this the best he can do?

Brad Rice - 4/26/2005

If the professor's essay question had been "Critics have accused President Bush for being a war criminal for his unprovoked attack on Iraq. Explain why such criticisms are unfounded" would it have become one of the examples used so often in so many of your speeches? Would this professor have become one of your many poster boys?

N. Friedman - 4/26/2005

Lisa,

Very well argued.

I note, of course, that some courses appear to operate in a different manner than you suggest. Some courses appear to be peace (or war) group meetings disguised as academic classes.

Nonetheless, you have made a very good point.

Peter N. Kirstein - 4/26/2005

In my above post, I noted that frontpagemag.com, on Tuesday, April 26, 2005, had referred to two academicians as a "Nazi" and as a "fascist." It was prominently posted at the upper right-hand corner of the webpage. I received numerous e-mail stating that my comment was inaccurate. It was not. There was a reference to Professor Ward Churchill as a fascist and a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado as a Nazi. For whatever reason, the magazine removed these unfortunate references subsequent to my posting.

N. Friedman - 4/26/2005

Michael,

I do not come to defend Mr. Horowitz and, I suspect, he would not like my defense in any event.

That said: if you look back to the time before the current obsession began, his magazine actually included quite a large number of high quality articles - whether or not you or I agree with their editorial position -, particularly regarding protecting the human rights of non-Muslims in the Muslim regions.

You will note that such non-Muslims live under truly oppressive - in fact, they are brutalized - conditions and such ought to be a major cause of those on both the left and right who actually might care about people. The left has entirely dropped the ball on the issue so that the posts on his website regarding this issue are truly a public service. Or, in simple terms, and by way of example: since the left began obsessing about Israel in 1982, 2 million people have died (almost all of them Christian or animists) in Sudan as part of a genocidal campaign by the Muslim government (and, in fact, a Jihad was declared), 4 million Christians and animists were displaced, about 200,000 people became slaves (and many of them sold to gulf state countries) and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to convert to Islam by the witholding of food. Today, we hear about Darfur but that, in fact, is merely an extension of what has been occurring, at the hands of the Islamists, since 1983.

While I disagree with the tactics of his current campaign - or at least it obsessiveness -, he really has uncovered some professors who hold views that, whether you are on the left or the right, are accurately described as lunatic conspiracy theories.

Michael Green - 4/26/2005

A look at Frontpagemag.com--the "quality" of its contributors and the news and analysis it purports to give--shows that Mr. Horowitz has no use for argument and actual evidence. As to finding professors no different from "UFO conspiracy enthusiasts," I think it is safe to say that whether you are on the left or on the right, you are likely to find people whose views strike you as blinkered. The point here is that Mr. Horowitz's attitude is that only those whose views fit with his own should have the freedom to express them. In the process, he debases the legitimacy of the causes--academic freedom and conservatism--that he claims to represent, and thereby debases himself.

N. Friedman - 4/26/2005

Peter,

Perhaps Horowitz respects your argument and marshalling of actual evidence to support your position.

While, as I noted above, I think his approach is rather heavy handed - to say the least -, he appears to have found some professors who hold views that are not any different from UFO conspiracy enthusiasts.

N. Friedman - 4/26/2005

Lisa,

Even the report by Columbia includes substantial evidence of harrasment. I have checked into this matter fairly carefully. What is occuring at Columbia is very, very bad and very, very scary.

As for the rest of your comment, your experience sounds somewhat different from mine (although I graduated in 1978, which makes me ancient history I suppose). With one exception, I had no idea what the politics of any my professors were. One professor (in political science) stated that he was a believer in the so-called critical theory. I recall handing in a paper to him on Plato. I was not surprised that the professor might have disagreed with me (although he never said so) but, instead, that his understanding of Plato amounted largely to knowing nothing at all about the topic. Which is to say, I could have taught him!!!

I note that a history professor "pen pal" of mine - a radical marxist - tells me that he is particularly popular among conservative students because he presents all points of view in class and respects all points of view. Assuming that is true - and I do -, he has adopted one of a number of possible appropriate approaches to teaching, which is to say that he uses his classes to expose students to events and great ideas.

I can, for what it is worth, imagine a teacher also presenting a particular viewpoint and being an excellent professor. Thus, I would expect and even want, if I were in Niall Fergussen's class at Harvard (if he actually teaches), him to teach his perspective. The same would have been had I been, way back when, in Herbert Marcuse's classes at Brandeis. I can imagine a less well known professor taking that approach as well (so long as the professor is up front about what he or she is doing). But, I would consider such a class, whether or not taught by someone famous, to be about learning a particular approach to history or society.

Peter N. Kirstein - 4/26/2005

I cannot comment on the specific facts of the incident above because I have not explored its various dimensions. However, I add the following.

On today's Frontpagemag.com two professors are referred to as a Nazi and a fascist. Many academicians abhor such vituperation as a threat to academic freedom and an unfair assault on the academy in general. Many are skeptical of Mr Horowitz's professed objective of removing bias from academia and imposing greater "balance" and "neutrality". It is difficult for many to separate Mr Horowitz's daily attacks on radical academicians and his claims of being ideologically neutral in his goal of academic transformation.

Roger Bowen, the general secretary of AAUP, told a conference in Chicago last Saturday, that AAUP is monitoring on a state-by-state basis efforts to legislate the "Academic Bill of Rights" or otherwise vitiate the very notion of institutional autonomy. Indeed, despite Mr Horowitz's modest disclaimer in his HNN piece, it seems clear that his modus operandi is to garner ideologically conservative support in state legislatures and use that as his tool of implementing his "Bill of Rights." It was also noted that Mr Horowitz has received considerable financial support in his national crusade including monies from the Olin Foundation. I have no problem with that except it is revelatory that this is not a one-person crusade but perhaps ideologically driven by conservatives who bemoan the fact that the one institution in America that has not totally capitulated to the national ethos of racism, war and unbridled materialism, is academia.

In my own case, Frontpagemag.com gave spacious treatment to my suspension for an antiwar email response to the Air Force Academy. Fair enough. Yet unlike other progressive academicians who become controversial, I received different treatment than others whom are daily condemned by Mr Horowitz. I was asked to debate Victor Davis Hanson and others on the Iraq war which helped avert a blacklist of my work and provided me spacious opportunity to express my views on the war. I wish Mr Horowitz would be as generous with other professors with whom he disasgrees with.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8746

Lisa Kazmier - 4/26/2005

I've seen references to how the Times unfairly covered the Columbia case and that "charges" there were basically a witch hunt. That's my problem. What if you're reading evidence of a smear that's bent on intimidating or silencing a group? That's not mere "criticism." And some of the tactics used against certain professors where students have launched a "campaign" against them strike me as something way more intense than criticism.

Look, I knew way-back-when what the political affiliations were of professors and so did most students. One semester in an English class it was being taught by a radical marxist type who got in a car accident and was replaced by a Harvard-educated conservative. It was almost funny to see how the dynamics of the class changed in terms of who spoke up and such. The kids one thought of as "smart" or "read up" transformed totally. Except for maybe me and a few others. I was middle of the pack both times, though my grades went up with the conservative. Don't know why. It could have been the readings or me growing with the class. Some would point to the instructor. I don't think it's clear-cut.

Heck, that campus also had a Nazi engineering professor. Who didn't know? Students cope with and, at least then, were sophisticated enough, to decide who to take, what to expect, etc. I learned from the radical and the conservative; that's the main point. But I would never campaign against someone for their politics. I'd see what I could learn (or not) from the exposure. Isn't that what college is for?

The only professor I wanted to expose or question (and unfortunately I never went to the department itself to complain) was the jerk who gave a midterm of 3 essay questions in a 50 minute class with the "gift" of our 10 minute break for writing. Then he assumed we'd all use those 10 minutes, whereas some of us had midterms the next hour in other buildings. I considered this abusive, and quite unfair that time determined my grade. And I still don't get how and A/A/F average out to a C. THAT'S worthy of a serious accusation, moreso than any case of harrassment, which I believe are mostly (if not totally) spurious. As I understand it, if there's trouble, it comes up in the course evaluation. That's where I lodged my complaint about that Mr. 3 essay midterm crap.

N. Friedman - 4/25/2005

Lisa,

Your points are all well taken. I am not sure I agree with all of them but there is much that you say that I agree with.

I think, deep down, that Horowitz is half right and half wrong. He is certainly correct that the university suffers from one political philosophy being so predominant. Even the New York Times concurs with his basic proposition about the politic alignment of most professors.

On the other hand, his approach to the problem seems very heavy handed. Clearly, despite rejecting his early radicalism, he has not rejected the radical tradition of contraversy to bring change.

I note that he has changed his website Frontpage from one which included occasional first rate articles to one devoted rather obsessively to unmasking the academy.

His was the only such general interest magazine which included articles from Middle Eastern scholars interested in advancing the human rights causes of non-Muslims living in the Muslim regions - when most other publications only consider the Middle East from the Muslim point of view. So, Ithink it is a shame that he has latched onto the academic lunatic hunt - although he has found quite a few lunatics/professors who are not much different from UFO conspiracy enthusiasts.

In any event, I would think that he would better spend his time advocating his own position which, whether or not you or I agree, is certainly arguable. But, that is his affair, not mine.

In my view, there is a difference between obtaining tenure and being free from criticism. The most you can expect as a professor (unless you become famous) is tenure. You should, however, not expect to avoid criticism. In fact, criticism keeps everyone on their feet.

At present the world is in a bit of a mess. There are divergent theories of what is occurring. That leads to close examination of why university scholars see things one way while think tanks tend to see things otherwise.
And, as always, when there is contraversy, there is politics.

Moreover, there is the concern - and there does seem to be quite a lot of evidence of it - about students being indoctrinated. My impression, after reading about the Columbia scandal, is that the critics have a real point. That, of course, does not mean that every program is a problem but, quite clearly, some are.

I agree with you, however, that education is not a consumer product. On the other hand, education should not - as appears to be the case at Columbia - include harrassment.

Lisa Kazmier - 4/25/2005

I'll bite and say, yes, it might be a valid pedagogical exercise. I cannot say for sure because I DID NOT TAKE THE CLASS. I do not know what was discussed, what was read and how the students responded, either in previous assignments or in discussions with the instructor. All of these matter. Working out material in some hypothetical situation is typically a valid exercise. And I have on occasion told students what position I want them to argue. It makes for fairer grading, for one, if the students all take the easier or more difficult position. Open ended (you choose the position) are the ones prone to have penalties for taking the "wrong" or "right" side. That has happened to me, but it did not occur to me that I was being indoctrinated to think the great break in English political history was 1529 rather than 1485 or that Radical Reconstruction after the Civil War was a good (or bad) idea. Professors take positions on these things for a myriad of reasons; someone might call those political, too. What's the difference?

Lisa Kazmier - 4/25/2005

I understand your position from your example. It seems history is full of obscuring and then resurrecting voices such as Dr. Ye'or. There seems to be an ebb and flow of what is "orthodox" on a lot of issues. I'm not sure that's wholly political, though I'm not denying politics a role.

I did a course in 2004 on the French Revolution and we went through the histories written by Lefebvre, Cobban, Doyle, Blanning, Censer, Hunt and a few others (I sorta wanted to use Schama but in the end did not, because I also opted to include Dickens and de Toqueville; I wanted to cover opinions over time and I think Schama interfered with someone else of that time). The students got to see an unfolding of preoccupations or emphasis, types of arguments, etc. The point was for them to come to their own understanding of what the French Revolution was, as in come up with their own synthesis.

After all that, I found the students still held sympathy for the simple elegance of the marxist Lefebrve, an opinion I myself had at one time (it's the way he tells the story, not necessarily the politics). That was oddly amusing to me. I thought they'd come to appreciate Doyle or Blanning moreso. I chalked it up to accessibility, the reason why I still love TS Ashton's little book on the Industrial Revolution.

More interestingly, the students did not respond exactly the same way, and that was the point, since the synthesis had to be their own in a course without a singular textbook. That was my primary goal and the final exams showed they could do that. So how I felt or feel about Lefebvre (or whomever) was besides the point.

That class was actually fun to teach since I could treat them as big kids who read their books and were prepared to respond to my questions. I sure wouldn't have liked someone telling me not to use Lefebvre or anyone because of politics.

I am concerned that this intrusion and talk of rights will be damaging for several reasons. First, it's the language of consumerism, as if students passively buy their educations and degrees, rather than work to produce it. Why enhance student laziness? This proposes to energize them in some abstract sense, but that's not what actually happens. Second, I'm concerned about being censored from doing what I think is best when I am the one most fit to judge, since I'm the one who is teaching. This could be reading selections, teaching style, testing protocol, etc. It might lead to censure of some kind. So, third, this leads to the erosion of what "tenure" means. What's the point of having it, then?

Then, where does it end? It took me a LONG time to get a PhD. Does one have to keep defending oneself despite having this credential. Are these "rights" eroding what that degree represents, too?

Ralph E. Luker - 4/25/2005

Mr. Bailey, I must tell you that Mr. Nelson is, like Horowitz, a right-wing nutcase, with whom I rarely agree. Would he also like to make the case that David Beito and KC Johnson are left-wingers? Mr. Nelson should understand that it's not all about ideological vindication.

N. Friedman - 4/25/2005

Lisa,

Your have posed a good question when you ask: do I as an instructor have the freedom to conduct my class in the manner I see fit?

I think you do have the right to do what you want in your class. However, people like Mr. Horowitz (as well as others) have the right to criticize what you or anyone else does. Which is to say, you are not beyond criticism because you have become an instructor.

It is my impression, however, that Horowitz's position is not so much against any one instructor's approach to teaching but to the impact of students hearing pretty much only one point of view - with shades of difference between scholars rather than a real divergences of viewpoints -. Where one point of view becomes orthodox, that is bad for both those on the left and the right (or any other perspective) because slipshod assumptions become accepted as true for the simple reason that they seem true to the orthodox group in control and because such also leads to student indoctrination and not to students learning the art of critical thinking.

I have somewhat more than a passing knowledge of Islam. I note that the lack of diversity has to some extent allowed one point of view to control while dissident points of view do not even receive a hearing. One needs only to examine college reading lists to see that this is true. For example, a brilliant scholar like Bat Ye'or is basically ignored by large sections of academia. (Note: She examines the causes for the near extinction of Christianity [and also Judaism] over the centuries from the Muslim regions.) Scholarship and students are thus deprived of her scholarship so (a) her contributions and/or mistakes are ignored (and her mistakes, if any, not corrected) and (b) students only hear the story of Muslim society from the perspective of "tolerance" when that is not the entire story. I am not, of course, limiting the problem to the failure to include Bat Ye'or but used her as a very good example. Other brilliant scholars are ignored as well.

I note that the issue is not a left-right issue. The issue is whether scholarship will be based on fidelity to truth or on hoeing the line of orthodoxy. The current situation where one side's point of view is the only one is, over the long term, harmful to all involved.

Whether Horowitz is correct to use political pressure and, in some instances, law to alter the academy is, to me, not necessarily the case. But that he has found a real issue is, I think, beyond all doubt. The academy would do well to listen to what he says rather than responding reflexively to protect entrenched interests.

And I say this as a person from more or less the left side of the spectrum.

Jason Nelson - 4/25/2005

Mr. Bailey,

I must tell you that Mr. Luker is not "left-wing", he simply quite often agrees wholeheartedly with many who are.

david horowitz - 4/25/2005

The point of course is that my academic bill of rights merely reiterates guidelines that the AAUP instituted startingin 1915 and has not formally repudiated although the current campaign by the AAUP against my bill of rights looks exactly like that. Do we really what teachers of biology and mathematics and English literature using their classrooms to advance partisan politicall agendas? That's the question. These unprofessional practices are already leaking into the secondary schools. There is nothing in the academic bill of rights that infringes at teachers' ability to teach their subject. And does anyone think that the Colorado exam is a valid pedagogical exercise?

Lisa Kazmier - 4/25/2005

Here's the question: do I as an instructor have the freedom to conduct my class in the manner I see fit? Is the classroom a "democracy" where any and all opinions have equal weight (gee, Horowitz could be a postmodernist there), no matter what they are (radical right or left or slipshod or racist, sexist, irreligious, etc.) or am I running this class as the most qualified person to do so? That's the bottom line. If we are given a job and take that job seriously, shouldn't we be allowed to do it w/o interference of outside pressure? Isn't that academic freedom and entrusting those hired to do what they're trained to do? I don't think a group of legislators or undergraduates have the right to tell me how to conduct class any more than I have the right to tell a biology professor how to discuss human sexuality.

Lisa Kazmier - 4/25/2005

Nice selective critique missing most of what Mr. Lucker wrote. I guess you weren't the brightest bulb in class in missing so much content in order to lodge your complaint. How are your comments anything other than character assassination? Can you substantively address the comment other than derisively snort at the point that applying a theory is not to endorse it? To quote Homer Simpson: D'oh!

Neil Anthony Bailey - 4/25/2005

Is this the best you can do? Attack Horowitz for the fact he publishes 3 questions, not 4? As he's already stated, his campaign for an academic bill of rights never hinged on one arguably refutable case. You are currently confirming the claim that his left wing critics stoop as low as character assasination, rather than arguing the case on an ideological grounding.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/25/2005

Mr. Heisler, You'll have to document that "routinely" claim. Neither you nor Horowitz have shown that such exclusions are systemic. Nor does evidence to the contrary persuade you. Is it that that's what you want to believe and therefore it must be so?

Charles Edward Heisler - 4/25/2005

Ah, Michael, the question is, do academics grant that "freedom of speech" to conservative spokesmen, both in the classroom and in the faculty lounges??? There is the rub, neatly avoided by Horowitz critics.
Much easier to make the attack at the man and not the idea when it comes to this issue.
Here we have academia with all its babble about promotion of "diversity" when it routinely denies diversity of thought within many disciplines.
Name calling and sneering will not answer the naysayers to "academic freedom" as that "freedom" is currently practiced in many universities.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/24/2005

This thing is typical of Horowitz.
There's all the sturm und drang about the Left, which ignores the fact that, among his academic critics, David Beito, KC Johnson, and I cannot easily be identified as part of the Left.
Then there's the sloppiness, to put it charitably. "At the end of this article, I am appending the four essay questions supplied by Dunkley after the fact so the reader can judge what the merits of this case," he writes. I've found only three questions appended at the end of the article.
Finally, there's the just plain wrong-headedness of the whole thing. Horowitz justifies the charge of "indoctrination" on the basis of instructions that ask a student to apply theory learned in the class to a hypothetical. Either he _knows_ that testing a student's ability to make a case that he or she may or may not agree with is standard academic practice or he is simply ignorant. In debate, a debater is ordinarily expected to be able to make the best case for a proposition with which she or he may or may not agree. It's an evaluation of skill at applying theory and evidence. As a Christian, I should be able to outline what about my faith is most offensive to a Jew or a Muslim. When I do that, I'm not being indoctrinated against my will. If this is the best he has to offer, it's outrageous that David Horowitz doesn't acknowledge the bankruptcy of his own critique of American higher education.

Michael Green - 4/24/2005

Mr. Horowitz should indeed be angry. Instead of supporting his bill of rights, better known as the bill of the right-wing, most people, including the academics he scorns for attacking his drivel, are using the only Bill of Rights that matters: the one that gives them, me and even Mr. Horowitz freedom of speech.