In light of the Undergraduate Council of Students’ commitment to protect student rights, indicated by the passage of a same sex marriage resolution, a coalition of rights of center groups has submitted a Resolution on Academic Freedom to the UCS. The resolution reads as follows: The Brown University Undergraduate Council recognizes that the central purposes of Brown University are the pursuit of truth the discovery, communication and preservation of knowledge and understanding, the teaching and general development of students to help them become creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the transmission of knowledge and learning to a society at large Whereas free inquiry and free speech within the academic community are indispensable to the achievement of these goals, and Whereas academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech,
Be it hereby resolved that the Undergraduate Council of Students affirms the following principles of academic freedom and intellectual diversity:
1. Students should 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.
2 Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should provide 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.
3. Faculty should not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination.
4. All faculty should be hired, fired, promoted and granted tenure on the basis of their competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of their expertise. No faculty should be hired or fired or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of bis or her political or religious beliefs.
5. Selection of speakers, allocation of funds for speakers programs and other student activities should not discriminate on the basis of political or ideological affiliation.
6. The obstruction of invited campus speakers, destruction of campus literature or any other efforts to inhibit the civil exchange of ideas should not be tolerated.
This resolution has been endorsed by Students for Academic Freedom, The Spectator, Students for Liberty, College Republicans, and Young Americans for Freedom.
Editor’s note: a version of this resolution was passed try the UCS on April 21.
San Francisco State University
Tatiana Menaker, afifty five year old Russian student at San Francisco State University, recently escaped a five-year expulsion for a series of political confrontations on campus. The impetus for the attempted expulsion stemmed from a lecture given by Deborah Gerson ofJewish Voice for Peace. Menaker was accused of threatening Gerson. In a meeting with a judicial affairs officer after the lecture, the administration accused her of going into a rage and throwing objects around the office upon hearing of her expulsion. Menaker denied the charges. At the Gerson event, Menaker claims she simply voiced her opinion by saying, ‘Ifyou believe when they start killing fews, you will be spared, you will be killed two hours later.”
Menaker’s case reeked of political bias. In the past, she has been forced to serve forty hours of community service for getting into a verbal disagreement with pro-Palestinian and Marxist activists. Also known for her articles for Front Page Magazine, Menaker could be seen as an embarrassment for an administration upset with her unsavory descriptions of academic life at
San Francisco State University. In an article entitled, “My Second Marxist Indoctrination,” Menaker writes of sinking in a puddle of socialist propaganda” and highlights similarities between her American education and the one she received at Leningrad University, where professors forced Marxist ideology upon their students.
With help from Students for Academic Freedom and organizations like The fewish Community Relations Council, Menaker is able to continue her education at San Francisco State University. Menaker’s case is an example of the university’s failure to protect their students’ freedom of speech.
University of Massachusetts – Amherst
The Everywoman’s Center, affiliated with U. Mass-Amherst, is a “multicultural campus based women V center established in 1972.” Charged with the impossible task of working to eradicate all forms of oppression, the Center posts their Peace Resolution from April 2003 on their Web site. Motivated by their desire to stop violence against women and children, the resolution voices the Center’s displeasure with the Iraq War. Disregarding the Hussein’s regime atrocities—many committed against women—it is deplorable that a resource, meant for “every woman” at the university and surrounding areas, would adopt such a partisan tone.
Historians Against the War
During the 2004 annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Historians Against the War petitioned the organization to support a resolution that dealt with freedom of speech and access to records. Established in to oppose the Iraq War, Historians Against the War held teach-ins and created a petition condemning preemptive war.
At the meeting in March, the Organization of American Historians9 executive board passed the resolution and agreed to create a committee that would look into HAW’s claims: To be fair, some of the topics addressed in the resolution are legitimate, such as the surveillance of library use under the Patriot Act, but what is ludicrous is HAWS attack of No Indoctrination and Students for Academic Freedom. According to the resolution, these groups are guilty of, “systematic denunciation of historians who have criticized government policy.”
It is rather sad that HAW fie Is threatened by student groups dedicated to maintaining a certain amount of professionalism in the classroom, only desiring to leave their professor’s rants on the Bush administration’s foreign policy to letters to the editor.
Cornell University
The Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy at Cornell University exhibited a certain amount of bias in sponsoring an event, entitled “The Rise of Religious Right,”featuring foan Bokaer, director of Theocracy Watch. The president of the organization is on record as saying Theocracy Watch’s goal is to, “get the workout to as many people as possible because the agenda of the Christian right is to replace the Constitution with biblical law.” The article in The Cornell Daily Sun describes the audience at the event being “enthusiastic” In an op-ed written after the event, foe Sabia, a graduate student at Cornell University, highlighted the absence of a dissenting opinion at the event Although Pat Robertson and ferry Falwell are not always available to parade around campus so students can look at a real member of the Religious Right, an opposing viewpoint could have been brought to the event for the sake of serious academic inquiry on Christianity’s impact on the American political process.
