The Chronicle of Higher Education
Government & Politics

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i20/20a03301.htm

From the issue dated January 20, 2006

Conservative Activist Admits Lack of Evidence for Some Allegations of Faculty Bias

By JENNIFER JACOBSON

Philadelphia

As a state legislative committee gathered here last week to investigate whether Pennsylvania colleges discriminate against conservative students, a prominent activist admitted that he could not back up some of his allegations of bias.

The committee was holding its third round of hearings to examine whether the state's public colleges indoctrinate students in left-wing ideology and treat unfairly those with conservative points of view.

But in two days of testimony at Temple University, only two students voiced any complaints about professorial bias, prompting some Democratic lawmakers to complain that the whole exercise was a waste of time.

Moreover, David Horowitz, the California activist whose crusade to promote intellectual diversity led to the hearings, admitted to the panel that he lacked evidence to back up two of his past allegations: that a biology professor at Pennsylvania State University inappropriately showed students the film Fahrenheit 9/11, and that a professor in California who opposes abortion gave a student a low grade for supporting it.

When Mr. Horowitz said he did not check the veracity of students' claims, Rep. Lawrence H. Curry, a Democrat, admonished him to be more careful with his assertions.

The committee, established in July, will hold at least two more hearings on the issue in other parts of the state. It then has until November to report its findings to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

So far, a central focus of the hearings has been the "academic bill of rights," which Mr. Horowitz has promoted as necessary to make colleges more intellectually diverse and tolerant of conservatives. Versions of the measure have been introduced in several state legislatures, but none have become law.

Alternate Realities

On the hearings' first day, Temple's president, David Adamany, testified that while the university's professors are entitled to freedom in the classroom, they cannot introduce controversial matter that has no relation to the subject. "Classrooms cannot be viewed as pulpits," he said.

During his five and a half years as president, Mr. Adamany said, the university has not had any complaints from students about being discriminated against for their political views.

Rep. Bernard T. O'Neill, a Bucks County Republican, asked Mr. Adamany to reconcile that statement with assertions by Mr. Horowitz that the academic rights of students at Temple have been widely abused.

"I have no idea of the abuses to which he's referring," Mr. Adamany said.

Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong, a Lancaster County Republican who introduced the resolution to create the committee, told Mr. Adamany that he had received more than a dozen complaints from Temple students about political indoctrination in the classroom. Mr. Adamany told the lawmaker, "I'd appeal to you, plead to you, to encourage the students to come forward and file their complaints" so the university can investigate them.

Logan Fisher, a senior majoring in business law at Temple, testified that many conservative students feared that filing such complaints would lead retribution because many of them must take classes with the same professors again.

Democratic members of the committee voiced opposition to the hearings. Rep. Dan B. Frankel, of Allegheny County, said he was concerned that the committee intended to make state government "much more invasive in academic environments." That, he said, is "a path we don't want to go down."

On the second day of hearings, Mr. Frankel, who is a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Pittsburgh, said the issue of potential political discrimination at state universities had received a considerable amount of publicity since the committee's previous hearing three months ago (The Chronicle, November 25). He said that he would have expected students to come forward with complaints, but that none had done so.

"It seems to me we may be overblowing this problem," he said.

http://chronicle.com
Section: Government & Politics
Volume 52, Issue 20, Page A33

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