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]]]]]]]]]]]]] THE ILLIBERAL ACADEMY [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[
by Natalie and Gerald Sirkin (1/2/1989)
(AtE Subscribers)
From CITIZENS NEWS New Fairfield, Conn., 7/8/1987
[Kindly uploaded by Freeman 06784LOEB]
When, a few years ago, Accuracy in Academia was formed to help college
students who were being cheated and lied to by ultra-left professors,
academia threw a tantrum.
--Academic freedom will be infringed, wailed the critics, though AIA
is in no position to threaten anyone's freedom or job.
--The classroom is a strictly private affair between teacher and
students, declared the critics, though they did not explain why a
professor's views in his class should be private when his views in his
books are public.
AIA sums up its approach in the simple proposition, "Sunlight is the
best disinfectant." Exposure is AIA's only weapon. The burst of outrage
about AIA made one wonder what academia was so fearful of having exposed.
The monthly CAMPUS REPORT published by AIA tells us what the
colleges are trying to hide, like courses with conventional academic
titles that give the students only political stuff unrelated to the
course titles. Consider--at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois--
Sociology 100, "The Sociological Perspective," an introductory course
consisting mostly of civil disobedience, Sandinista Nicaraguan
propaganda, apartheid, radical feminist workshops, women against
nuclear war, and other leftist material, but nothing of the
fundamentals of sociology that the students had paid for.
Another side of the campus cover-up was exposed to the sunlight at the
AIA Conference in Washington, D.C., on June 26 and 27, 1987. Conserva-
tives among college students, faculty, and visiting speakers, face what at
its worst might we would call a reign of terror.
Five student leaders at five different colleges spoke of the
harassment to which conservatives are subjected.
At Northwestern University, a small group of students led by a faculty
member prevented Nicaraguan resistance leader Adolfo Calero from speaking
to a large waiting audience and poured blood on him. "He should be lucky
to get out of here alive," declared the faculty member, Barbara Foley.
"Violence is a form of freedom of speech," said this proponent of freedom
of speech in defense of her action to prevent it.
Miss Foley happened to be up for tenure (permanent appointment). The
faculty supported her and voted to give her tenure. The provost and
president vetoed the tenure. But she is now on her way to Rutgers
University for a year and thence to a grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities. Such are the institutions that are or will be
educating your children and spending your tax money.
At the University of Chicago, conservative student leaders and their
parents received offensive or threatening telephone calls. ("I am your
son's lover. I was just with him. I have AIDS." Fortunately the father
knew his son was in Paris.) The telephone calls were eventually traced to
the student newspaper, THE MAROON. The University has refused to take any
action against the offenders.
The University of Texas at Austin prohibits the distribution of the
TEXAS REVIEW, the conservative student newspaper, in certain areas of the
University where other student publications are distributed.
At the College of William and Mary, conservative students organized to
start a newspaper and an independent speakers' forum at their own expense
because the only speakers brought in by the official student organization
are Sandinistas, members of the Communist Party USA, and similar illiberal
leftists. The conservative organizers have received threats and have had
their automobile tires slashed. These violent tactics are not unexpected
where a faculty member waved the conservative newspaper before students
and shouted, "Death to the fascists."
Benjamin Hart, a founder of the DARTMOUTH REVIEW -- the first of some
80-90 conservative campus newspapers--gave a number of stunning examples
of campus intolerance, some or more of which are recounted in his book,
POISONED IVY [Stein and Day, Briarcliff Manor, New York, l05l0, l984,
254pp].
A black student participated in dismantling some illegal shacks that
for three months had been disfiguring public property as a protest against
South Africa. He was hailed before the College disciplinary committee,
called "bigot," "Klansman," "Nazi," "Fascist," "Uncle Tom," and "nigger"
and expelled from the College. By contrast, a leftist student punched a
town policeman who had been sent to remove those same illegal shacks. He
was arrested, but was defended by the Dartmouth President and let off
without punishment.
When Hart was distributing copes of the DARTMOUTH REVIEW to college
buildings, he was attacked by an upper-level college administrator who
kicked him, punched him, tried to push him through a plate glass door, and
finally bit him through four layers of clothing producing a four-inch
wound that required a tetanus shot. The College suspended the administra-
tor for ten days. The faculty assembled and voted ll3 to 5 to censure not
the attacker, but his victim, on the ground that the newspaper had tempo-
rarily driven the administrator berserk.
Another astonishing story was told by Professor George Marotta, polit-
ical scientist at The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace,
which is connected with Stanford University. The faculty of Stanford,
which is solidly illiberal-left, has declared war on The Hoover
Institution, which is moderately conservative.
So when President Reagan offered to establish the Reagan Presidential
Library at Hoover, the Stanford zealots went to work. Out of sheer hatred
for the President and his conservative principles, the Stanford faculty
succeeded in turning away a major research asset that would have provided
scholars not only with a treasure house of documents but also electronic
access to all the other presidential library archives around the country.
Dr. Ann Donnelly, columnist and observer of affairs at the University
of Colorado, described "the most extreme political persecution of a uni-
versity professor in modern history." University of Colorado officials
set out to get political scientist Edward Rozek, one of the few outspoken
conservative professors. With the collaboration of Colorado public
officials, 27 trumped-up criminal counts were charged against Professor
Rozek. All 27 were eventually dropped or thrown out of court.
Several AIA conference panels included spokesmen for the illiberal
left. In a revealing exchange, Anthony Podesta and Curtis Gans said they
oppose suppression of free speech in colleges. (Podesta is founding
President of People for the American Way. Gans, a campus activist of the
'60s, was staff director of Senator Eugene McCarthy's presidential
campaign and also a member of the Democratic National Policy Council.)
They were asked what they had done to secure freedom of speech on
campuses for distinguished figures like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Henry
Kissinger, Caspar Weinberger, Alexander Haig, Adolfo Calero and others,
who have been prevented from speaking by leftist violence.
Mr. Gans said he would sign a letter of protest if asked. Mr. Podesta
didn't see any problem, evidently regarding anti-conservative stormtroop-
ers as people for the American Way.
Our colleges are a microcosm of the modern political scene in which
the illiberal left extols freedom until it gets in power. Then it shuts
down freedom, by every means, however foul, at its command.
If there is a way out of this trap in which freedom is only the device
for the destruction of freedom, we have not seen it yet.
Copyright, Natalie Sirkin, Sherman, Connecticut, l987
* * *
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