Attack: Teachers Unions Defend Campus Free Speech
TEACHERS UNIONS JOIN TO PROTECT FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUSES
Press Associates, Inc.
WASHINGTON (PAI) – The nation’s two teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, joined a wide coalition of groups banding together to protect free speech on U.S. college campuses.
The coalition, Free Exchange on Campus, was unveiled at a Washington press conference March 16 but its members were active before that, campaigning against a book by right-winger David Horowitz that blacklisted 101 professors for their political views and against Horowitz’s misnamed “Academic Bill of Rights,” which he has convinced conservative lawmakers to sponsor in 24 states.
In statements reminiscent of the McCarthy era, Horowitz charges campuses are “politically correct” and he demands the firing of what he calls “left-wing” professors and that colleges teach what he calls competing views. Such threats chill free speech on campuses, say the unions, and other coalition members.
At AFT’s behest, the AFL-CIO Executive Council issued a statement Feb. 27 blasting the so-called “Academic Bill of Rights,” too. It called the measure “an unacceptable infringement on free speech and an unwarranted intervention of government into academic decision-making.”
The federation also said the legislation “would provide for government monitoring of curriculum, including reading materials in the classroom, to ensure that Right-Wing ideas are given more prominence, monitoring of faculty hiring to ensure more conservatives are hired and tampering with longstanding procedures” that protect college professors from “unsubstantiated” accusations of bias.
Students from working families “would be negatively affected by replacing academic professionalism with political ideology,” the federation added.
To combat the assault on free speech, the coalition will organize students and faculty to testify against Horowitz’s measure in state legislatures, circulate information about it on the Internet, publish op-eds and reports on the campaign to protect free speech on campuses, sponsor ads and book speakers for campus and community forums on the issue, said Megan Fitzgerald, head of one of the groups, the Center for Campus Free Speech, that is part of the coalition.
"The authors of this book and the ABOR legislation paint a pretty scary picture," AFT Vice President William Scheuerman, a political scientist at SUNY, told a prior press conference called to denounce the blacklisting book. "To hear them tell it, left-wing indoctrinators control universities without regard for teaching," but the authors' evidence has been "either thin or completely fictitious."
Press Associates, Inc.
WASHINGTON (PAI) – The nation’s two teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, joined a wide coalition of groups banding together to protect free speech on U.S. college campuses.
The coalition, Free Exchange on Campus, was unveiled at a Washington press conference March 16 but its members were active before that, campaigning against a book by right-winger David Horowitz that blacklisted 101 professors for their political views and against Horowitz’s misnamed “Academic Bill of Rights,” which he has convinced conservative lawmakers to sponsor in 24 states.
In statements reminiscent of the McCarthy era, Horowitz charges campuses are “politically correct” and he demands the firing of what he calls “left-wing” professors and that colleges teach what he calls competing views. Such threats chill free speech on campuses, say the unions, and other coalition members.
At AFT’s behest, the AFL-CIO Executive Council issued a statement Feb. 27 blasting the so-called “Academic Bill of Rights,” too. It called the measure “an unacceptable infringement on free speech and an unwarranted intervention of government into academic decision-making.”
The federation also said the legislation “would provide for government monitoring of curriculum, including reading materials in the classroom, to ensure that Right-Wing ideas are given more prominence, monitoring of faculty hiring to ensure more conservatives are hired and tampering with longstanding procedures” that protect college professors from “unsubstantiated” accusations of bias.
Students from working families “would be negatively affected by replacing academic professionalism with political ideology,” the federation added.
To combat the assault on free speech, the coalition will organize students and faculty to testify against Horowitz’s measure in state legislatures, circulate information about it on the Internet, publish op-eds and reports on the campaign to protect free speech on campuses, sponsor ads and book speakers for campus and community forums on the issue, said Megan Fitzgerald, head of one of the groups, the Center for Campus Free Speech, that is part of the coalition.
"The authors of this book and the ABOR legislation paint a pretty scary picture," AFT Vice President William Scheuerman, a political scientist at SUNY, told a prior press conference called to denounce the blacklisting book. "To hear them tell it, left-wing indoctrinators control universities without regard for teaching," but the authors' evidence has been "either thin or completely fictitious."
1 Comments:
This is a pack of lies. It is downright scary how these people use the press to weave their distortions and falsehoods about a good book, common sense legislation, and a very smart man.
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