A Tale of Two Reports
The following links below are to 1) the draft report of the select committee on academic freedom and to 2) the final report. The original report drafted under the supervision of Representative Gibson Armstrong, sponsor of the authorizing legislation (HR 177) for the Pennsylvania Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education of the Pennsylvania House. The Committee held four sets of hearings between September 2005 and June 2006 at locations throughout the state. It differs from the final report in several crucial respects. The final report was the product of an eleventh hour coup by the Democratic minority on the committee and two Republicans. In the final report, the entire “Summary of Testimony” – in other words the actual report of what transpired – was deleted. This made possible the insertion of a new “finding” to the effect that abuses of students’ academic freedom in Pennsylvania were “rare.” This was duly reported by the press as the central finding of the Committee. But the deleted “Summary of Testimony” (preserved in the draft) explained exactly why claims of such abuses were rare: Prior to the Pennsylvania hearings, students had no rights that would allow them to complain about such abuses and there was no grievance machinery available to them to air complaints about violations of their academic freedom. The recommendations in the final Committee report were also watered down. Every reference to the need to create “student-specific” rights, for example, was removed. This was an attempt to protect university administrators from embarrassment. But it did not prevent them from recognizing that a serious gap in university regulations did exist, which Temple and Penn State proceeded to rectify. The new student-specific academic freedom policies adopted by Temple and Penn State are contained in the Appendix to this report, and are included in the Appendix to the official report as well.
1) Draft Report
2) Final Report
1) Draft Report
2) Final Report
posted by admin at 12:10 PM
8 Comments:
Dave,
I am thankful that you are doing what you are for me and for my fellow Americans. Without people like you, this country is going to turn to crap a lot faster!!
You are a genuine soul!
Mark
"In the final report, the entire “Summary of Testimony” – in other words the actual report of what transpired – was deleted."
David? You really do have a low opinion of your sheep, don't you. I admit that this at least is the one thing you have correctly assessed. To actually tell them a "summary" is not really a summation but rather a detailed transcript of "what went on", tells me everything I need to know about the mind of those whom you have elected to target.
But let's be nice about it. I say we give them a running start by giving them a few facts to work with, as it's the only right thing to do considering their obvious disabilities. So Ol' Chap, how about allowing them this bit of knowledge as a headstart?
Summaries are inherently a subjective re-interpretation of something else, either written or witnessed. This must be so because in order to write one, a subject must retell that something, but must use fewer words. Frequently many of these words are found nowhere in the actual transcripts. Then...by the time the reader of the summation has finished we now have a situatiuon where the reality has now been reinterpreted twice. As such, academics tend to look down on their use in a final draft report, even going so far as to ban the word in favour of the more intellectual sounding "Abstract".
So Academia, no matter how much you rant and rave on the matter, actually abhors professors who attempt to teach subjective opinions as factual, (i.e. the John Wayne vision of American history or Creationism as "Intelligent Design"), preffering instead to hold to the obvious (at leastif your an intellectual)that the truth is always more important than mythology. That is especially true when religious superstitions give sustence to nationalism, with Zionism and Nazism being two of the more notable examples of the destructive nature of mixing these primitive territorial drives with modern weapons, no matter how comforting such delusionary thoughts may be to those whose parents warped there young brains with such superstitious nonsense. Which is of course, why you are so intent on getting these falsehoods into the classrooms of those who just left home. By attempting to repackage revisionist history as merely being alternative yet valid interpretations of what is happening in the Middle East.
In summary, "Summary" is not a record or transcript of exactly what went on. Those would be "transcrips" and "records"! Still following?
G.W.
Although you are essentially correct in pointing out the mistaken concept that a summary is not a complete record, you have once again exposed the arrogance of the left by assuming that we "sheep" did not notice the erroneous statement.
Those of us with open minds, assumed that he meant the facts and data of the original investigation and the ideas of the draft summary did not match the ideas presented by the final report. But then, splitting hairs to justify avoiding the truth and using minutia to hide from the larger idea is another time honored tradition of the left.
Please raise your debate level to ideas, logic and presient facts and be more open minded to the possibility that your opponents aren't sheep. Then your ideas will have far greater impact. That is; if you intended to persuade rather than just insult and denigrate.
While I believe an Academic Bill of Rights is something we all need, I do not think Horowitz is up to the task.
After reading through this website, I am left with a feeling of despair, if this is what passes for Academic Activism then I see no hope for change anytime soon.
Start by dealing with things as they are, Academia has enough wrong in it that there is no need to use spin, misinterpretation, or any other shady means of argument in order to bring change.
Hit them with reality, let them drown in spin, I support Academic Freedom, I do not support trying to get it the Horowitz way.
Dave,
You are a genuine assoul!
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
By Richard Hofstadter�
Harper�s Magazine, November 1964,
excerpt:
"The paranoid�s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone�s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction (i.e. the university classroom, The Catholic Confessional, La Raza using illegal immigrants to take what the Soviet Bloc couldn't including the bizarre belief that Al Queda poses a threat to the US thatdemands even harsher measure's than it took to defeat the fully nuclear, modern armies, followed by their "rear guard"....homosexual's and their "agenda" (?), etc., etc.)
It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through �front� groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy.* Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist �crusades� openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.
On the other hand, the sexual freedom often attributed to the enemy, his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and express unacknowledgeable aspects of their own psychological concerns. Catholics and Mormons�later, Negroes and Jews�have lent themselves to a preoccupation with illicit sex. Very often the fantasies of true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic punishments." etc. etc., )
The rational thinker versus the paranoid
Presented with the same evidence for a mystery, the rational thinker and the paranoid respond very differently.
Rational thinker=(R)
The paranoid=(P)
(R)1. Checks the evidence carefully and doesn’t rely on uncertain evidence.
(P)1. Grabs onto a few pieces of evidence and defends them inflexibly.
(R)2. Doesn’t care which evidence he must let go.
(P)2. Seemingly irrationally seizes onto something and won’t let go.
(R)3. Seeks a realistic answer in simple and familiar processes.
(P) 3. Invokes complex, unrealistic scenarios controlled by powerful forces behind the scenes.
(R)4. Accepts only what he can critically assess (falsifiable ideas).
(P)4. Deals in explanations that can never be critically assessed (unfalsifiable theories).
(R)5. Is willing to live with unresolved explanations for long periods.
(P)5. Demands quick, even immediate explanations.
(R)6. Accepts the roles of chance and human foibles.
(P) 6. Invents scenarios when nothing ever goes wrong.
(R)7. Uses same rational approach in the rest of his life.
(P) 7. Approaches many other “events” in the same irrational, paranoid way. (i.e., both people are consistent across their lives.)
(R)8. Finds empowering explanations.
(P) 8. Feels powerless before these huge forces (victims).
(R)9. Accepts all demonstrated evidence.
(P) 9. Will not face evidence that destroys his theory.
(R)10. Is willing to live with some fraction of unexplained or contradictory evidence.
(P) 10. Insists on fitting everything into his explanation, often by explaining difficult items as further evidence of conspiracy.
(R)11. Tries to keep everything in proportion.
(P)11. Often seizes single pieces of evidence and blows them out of proportion.
(R)12. Will change ideas a new evidence emerges.
(P)12. Sticks to preconceived notion regardless of new evidence.
(R)13. Open, flexible, empowered, strong.
(P)13. Preconceived, rigid, victimlike, cowardly.
great! thanks very much for sharing
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