13 May 2008 @ 9:01AM >>
For years, universities have worked to increase diversity of appearance. Now, it seems like the one form of diversity most important in a marketplace of ideas—diversity of thought—is finally getting some attention. At least at one school:
How liberal is the University of Colorado at Boulder?
The campus hot-dog stand sells tofu wieners. A recent pro-marijuana rally drew a crowd of 10,000, roughly a third the size of the student body. And according to one professor’s analysis of voter registration, the 800-strong faculty includes just 32 Republicans.
Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson surveys this landscape with unease. A college that champions diversity, he believes, must think beyond courses in gay literature, Chicano studies and feminist theory. “We should also talk about intellectual diversity,” he says. So over the next year, Mr. Peterson plans to raise $9 million to create an endowed chair for what is thought to be the nation’s first Professor of Conservative Thought and Policy.
Mr. Peterson’s quest has been greeted with protests from some faculty and students, who say the move is too — well, radical. “Why set aside money specifically for a conservative?” asks Curtis Bell, a teaching assistant in political science. “I’d rather see a quality academic than someone paid to have a particular perspective.”
Even some conservatives who have long pushed for balance in academia voice qualms. Among them is David Horowitz, a conservative agitator whose book “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America” includes two Boulder faculty members: an associate professor of ethnic studies who writes about the intersection of Chicano and lesbian issues, and a philosophy professor focused on feminist politics and “global gender justice.”
While he approves of efforts to bolster a conservative presence on campus, Mr. Horowitz fears that setting up a token right-winger as The Conservative at Boulder will brand the person as a curiosity, like “an animal in the zoo.” We “fully expect this person to be integrated into the fabric of life on campus,” replies Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
[...]
“That’s what a good university does — look for an area where they don’t have depth or diversity and start investing,” Mr. Gleeson says.
10 May 2008 @ 11:44AM >>
Politicians sometimes misspeak. George W. Bush is well-known for it. And if it had been the current president who claimed to have visited 57 states—with one more to go—you’d probably have heard a few dozen jokes about it by now.
Perhaps Obama is planning an imperialist presidency, and he accidentally let it slip that we’ll soon have a few more states. If so, then maybe he wouldn’t be the pushover president I worry he’d be.
I’m sure Barack Obama knows how many states there actually are. The coverage of this quote (or the lack thereof) is more telling about the media than anything else.
Update: Dale S. of Lewisville, Texas writes in to contest my math. Because Senator Obama cited Alaska and Hawaii separately in addition to the “one [state] left to go,” Dale contends his statement could be interpreted to mean we have 60 states. Fair enough. On the other hand, he could be saying that Alaska and Hawaii are not states at all. So confusing! Can’t we just go back to having 50 states?
8 May 2008 @ 10:01PM >>
The Associated Press reports:
A Malaysian Islamic court allowed a Muslim convert Thursday to return to her original faith of Buddhism, setting a precedent that could ease religious minorities’ worries about their legal rights.
Lawyers said the Shariah High Court’s verdict in the northern state of Penang was the first time in recent memory that a convert has been permitted to legally renounce Islam in this Muslim-majority nation.
A rising number of disputes about religious conversions has sparked anxiety among minorities — predominantly Buddhist, Christian and Hindu — because in the past courts virtually always ruled against people seeking to leave Islam.
Penang’s Shariah court, however, granted Siti Fatimah Tan Abdullah’s request to be declared a non-Muslim. She embraced Islam in 1998 because she wanted to marry an Iranian, but claimed she never truly practiced the religion.
“I am very happy,” Siti, a 39-year-old ethnic Chinese cake seller, told The Associated Press by telephone. “I want to go to the temple to pray and give thanks.”
The Shariah court, which governs Muslims’ personal conduct and religious lives, ruled that Siti’s husband and Islamic authorities failed to give her proper religious advice.
“So you can’t blame her for her ignorance of the teachings and wanting to convert out,” said Ahmad Munawir Abdul Aziz, a lawyer for the Islamic Affairs Council in Penang.
5 May 2008 @ 9:20AM >>
While food costs continue rise, the role of government is getting more attention:
With high food prices prompting grocery-store apologies to customers and raising fears of starvation in impoverished countries, Congress suddenly faces renewed pressure to cut subsidies to the wealthiest farmers and incentives for ethanol production.
The American farmer, long an untouchable political icon, has even become something of a political embarrassment on Capitol Hill, with President Bush earlier this week demanding an end to crop subsidies for “multimillionaire farmers.”
Congress just last year required that more ethanol be added to the gasoline supply. The mandate is now blamed for inflating the price of corn and other staples.
[...]
In Congress, some lawmakers are calling for changes in the nation’s commitment to ethanol as the biofuel of choice to replace oil. “This is a classic case of the law of unintended consequences. Congress surely did not intend to raise food prices by incentivizing ethanol, but that’s precisely what’s happened,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who introduced legislation this week that would end federal support for ethanol.
[...]
At the Santa Ana Food Market in Orange County, owner Ken Lau said he has had to raise his prices. Small tortillas that once sold for 69 cents for three dozen are now 99 cents. “We have lots of customers with low-paying jobs and they are struggling now just to make it,” he said. High food prices have inspired critics, including the president, to renew their attacks on subsidies for farmers. The nearly $300-billion, five-year farm bill, delayed for months, has become an easy target for opponents who cite a new outrage: Many farmers are making record incomes while consumers are shocked by dramatic price increases.
“They’re talking about continuing $25 billion in these subsidies over the next five years at a time of record commodity prices and food prices,” said Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat from Wisconsin.
The Agriculture Department forecasts that the average farm household will earn more than $89,000 in 2008, up 6.3% from 2007. That’s a third higher than the average U.S. household income, which is projected to be $67,000.
Despite that, farm-bill negotiators are fighting to keep $5.2 billion in direct payments, which go to farmers regardless of how much they earn or whether they are growing a crop.
I wish I could get paid not to work. I guess I’m just in the wrong business.
1 May 2008 @ 9:11PM >>
Get ready to start surrendering more of your rights to government. You knew the Nannycrats wouldn’t stop at smoking, fast food and foie gras. Now they’ve got their crosshairs zeroed in on that modern-day horror, the thing most of us dread and fear... you guessed it...
[Baltimore City Councilman James Kraft] equated using plastic bags with Nazi extermination tactics at a City Council meeting earlier this week.
“We don’t want to be criticized by future generations for not doing enough now as were those who dealt with the Germans then,” Kraft said.
So what follows? Should those who use plastic bags be charged with murder? Genocide?
No one can claim plastic bags help the environment. But he hurts his cause by outsizing their danger by orders of magnitude - especially when similar plans have failed throughout the rest of [Maryland].
Bills in both Anne Arundel County and the state legislature failed to make it into law in the past year. And studies show plastic bags are cheaper and require less energy to make than paper bags.
They are also much less environmentally-unfriendly than people like Councilman Kraft believe, according to the London Times:
Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.
The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds.
[...]
Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.
They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”
[...]
The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.
Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags”.
The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the “typo” remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing “plastic bags” with “plastic debris”.
Oops.
Nevertheless, knowledge of this error will not quell the Nannies’ desires to meddle more.
Bored people seeking the tingle of power are drawn to becoming Nannies because they get to feel morally superior while also controlling the behavior of others. It’s a win-win.
So I predict, the campaign against plastic bags will continue.
27 April 2008 @ 11:49AM >>
Senator Barack Obama’s “spiritual advisor” and pastor of 20 years is the gift that keeps on giving... to the Senator’s opponents:
We cannot see how what we are doing is the same thing al-Qaeda is doing under a different color flag, calling on the name a different God to sanction and approve our murder and our mayhem.-Reverend Jeremiah Wright
Called “Worst Email Ever: The Internet’s Inbox,” what the site chronicles is fairly obvious.
Had I known there would eventually be an appropriate venue for airing some of the venomous missives sent my way, I would have made a practice of hanging on to many more of them.
Still, I was able to dig up a few, and I’ve sent them along to Mr. Malice. These e-mails are now publicly available for all to enjoy.
P.S. For you Harvey Pekar fans out there, here’s the scene from David Letterman that couldn’t make it into the film American Splendor. Yikes.
23 April 2008 @ 8:44AM >>
Barack Obama’s hometown of Chicago is famous for its political history in which the dead rise from the grave to show up on election day and cast votes for Democrats.
But, perhaps thanks to the messianic effect Senator Obama seems to have on some voters, his dead supporters go a step further. They actually open their checkbooks:
The [Los Angeles] Times’ campaign finance expert Dan Morain has found Obama campaign records reporting a $50 donation by Roy Scheider, who lists his occupation as actor and his home as Sag Harbor, N.Y. Remember him from many great movies including “The French Connection” and “Jaws” and the immortal line: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”?
According to the campaign records, Scheider made the donation on March 10 last month.
Trouble is, Scheider died exactly one month before that, on Feb. 10 at the age of 75.
As the reporter notes, “Scheider was unavailable for comment.”
22 April 2008 @ 8:16PM >>
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri seems upset that conspiracy theorists are robbing his terrorist network of the recognition it deserves.
Al-Zawahiri also denied a conspiracy theory that Israel carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., and he blamed Iran and Shiite Hezbollah for spreading the idea to discredit the Sunni al Qaeda’s achievement.
Hey, Ayman! Don’t forget that the Western left has a stake in promoting the al-Qaeda-didn’t-do-it theory. After all, if they’re forced to acknowledge that the attack was perpetrated by al Qaeda, then they can’t also claim it was an “inside job” orchestrated by the U.S. government.
Al-Zawahiri accused Hezbollah’s al-Manar television of starting the rumor.
“The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it,” he said.
And plenty of Westerners have bought into it, too.
19 April 2008 @ 10:45AM >>
In the New York Sun, John McWhorter, the former Berkeley professor and current Manhattan Institute Scholar who appears in Indoctrinate U, has some thoughts on the type of groupthink documented in the film:
I’ve just attended a showing of Evan Coyne Maloney’s fine documentary about political correctness on college campuses, “Indoctrinate U.” Finally what we usually only read about: University of California Regent Ward Connerly shouted down by a near-violent audience, or an English professor whose department tried to blackball her when they found out she was a Republican.
The film got me thinking about how I was treated when I was teaching at Berkeley and wrote a book against racial preferences. The truth is that if someone made a movie about my life and had students throwing bricks through my office window and a cabal of professors signing a petition calling for my tenure to be revoked, it’d be good drama but sloppy history.
Most people, including professors, are not especially political, and I should say that the Berkeley administration was nothing but supportive of me, seeming to value that my new press presence kept Berkeley in the news more than anything else.
Sure, I got some catcalls, and God knows what sorts of things were being said behind my back. And there was, in fact, one “Indoctrinate U”-type episode. A black education professor invited a black-ish star sociology professor to come to campus and “debate” me, and the event turned out to be an occasion for audience members loudly booing me and hurling extended tirades.
To me, it was all in a day’s work: you don’t do what I do expecting not to be hated. What has never left me, however, is a chat I had with the education professor a few days later. He actually thought the event — a know-nothing burning in effigy in which my opponent had clearly not even read my book — had been a useful debate. To him, that public spanking was a productive and appropriate response to my opinions — at a university no less. I will never forget his sober expression, his sad, earnest eyes: he actually was sincere.
This is the ideology “Indoctrinate U” is about, and it is mistaken to treat these people as bullies, willfully precluding debate by hurling epithets like “racist” and “sexist.” This analysis implies an insecurity of these people which they do not feel. They thrill as much to the idea of open dialogue as anyone — but they think that a radical leftist perspective is truth, not opinion. To them, dialogue about a conservative perspective’s correctness is no more legitimate than dialogue about heliocentrism.
15 April 2008 @ 11:50PM >>
The only thing that can be more gratifying to a filmmaker than having a packed house is having the house packed with a lively audience that responds enthusiastically.
It was truly a special night, and it makes me all the more certain that the only thing standing in the way of massive success for Indoctrinate U is making sure that enough people get a chance to hear about the film.
14 April 2008 @ 9:11AM >>
Reminder: The New York City premiere of Indoctrinate U is this evening at 6:30PM. For more information, visit the Indoctrinate U website.
Also, I’m scheduled to discuss the film and the premiere on Fox & Friends tomorrow morning at 7:40AM (Eastern time).
11 April 2008 @ 9:16AM >>
In an apparent change of corporate policy, Starbucks is being a little more laissez faire about what it allows to be printed on its customizable Starbucks cards.
After the Wall Street Journal ran a piece on Monday in which Starbucks was accused of repeatedly rejecting the phrase laissez faire—apparently for violating an unspecified part of company policy—the story was covered widely online.
So, as a public service to you the reader, I decided to place my own order for a laissez faire Starbucks card. Perhaps as a result of the negative publicity, Starbucks is now allowing the phrase. My card, shown here, arrived yesterday.
How is it that when Christian parents complain about such books, they are at best politely dismissed and at worst attacked as intolerant bigots, but when Muslim parents complain, schools can’t bend over backwards fast enough to accommodate them? Is it because people fear violent reprisals from Muslims more than from Christians? Or is it just a matter of the “secular” schools actually being against Christianity specifically instead of all religions in general?
It all goes back to the Multicultural Hierarchy, which dictates that actions can’t be judged without knowing on whose behalf those actions are taken.
Therefore, an action (such as removing books that offend some religious sensibility) can be considered fascistic when done at the request of Christians, but the exact same action, when done in the name of Islam, is considered a sign of tolerance and understanding.
That’s because Christians rate higher on the Guilty Oppressor scale and lower on the Victim scale than gays, who apparently don’t rate as high in the Multicultural Hierarchy as Muslims do.
Of course, the hidden story here is that gay rights activists have been silent. Is the gay community content with suddenly playing second fiddle to a constituency that places higher in the Multicultural Hierarchy? Or, as Jason suggests, are they just afraid of inciting a community with an outsized proportion of members who’ve shown a propensity to commit murder over far more trivial matters?
8 April 2008 @ 12:13AM >>
In the 1980s and ’90s, many schools began adding children’s books to the curriculum that portrayed gay relationships. At the time, some people objected, but the people who objected did not outrank gays in the Multicultural Hierarchy, so the books stayed in the classroom.
But because multiculturalism depends more on faddish following than coherent philosophy, today’s politically correct darlings can be quickly cast aside as more exotic and fashionable groups are anointed with Victim Status.
In the schools of one British town, gays are now being looked on as no better than those rapacious Dead White Males who, because they fanned out from Europe over centuries past to destroy everything good in the world, needed to be purged from the curriculum.
Two primary schools have withdrawn storybooks about same-sex relationships after objections from Muslim parents.
Up to 90 gathered at the schools to complain about the books which are aimed at pupils as young as five.
One story, titled King & King, is a fairytale about a prince who turns down three princesses before marrying one of their brothers.
Another named And Tango Makes Three features two male penguins who fall in love at a New York zoo.
Bristol City Council said the two schools had been using the books to ensure they complied with gay rights laws which came into force last April.
They were intended to help prevent homophobic bullying, it said.
But the council has since removed the books from Easton Primary School and Bannerman Road Community School, both in Bristol.
A book and DVD titled That’s a Family!, which teaches children about different family set-ups including gay or lesbian parents, has also been withdrawn.
The decision was made to enable the schools to “operate safely” after parents voiced their concerns at meetings.
[...]
Members of the Bristol Muslim Cultural Society said parents were upset at the lack of consultation over the use of the materials.
Farooq Siddique, community development officer for the society and a governor at Bannerman Road, said there were also concerns about whether the stories were appropriate for young children.
[...]
He added: “In Islam homosexual relationships are not acceptable, as they are not in Christianity and many other religions but the main issue is that they didn’t bother to consult with parents.”
Laissez-faire. It’s a policy that made Starbucks vastly successful. But don’t try to put that phrase on a customized Starbucks Card.
The cards are supposed be personalized to reflect customers’ tastes and uniqueness. They are available in a range of colors, often given as gifts and used by regular customers who prefer to prepay for their java.
But when my friend Roger Ream, president of the Fund for American Studies, received a Starbucks gift card for Christmas, he found there was a limit to how personalized a card could be. His card required him to customize it on the company’s Web site. So he went to the site and requested that the phrase “Laissez Faire” be printed on his card. A few days later he was informed that the company couldn’t issue such a card because the wording violated company policy.
[...]
But why should it be considered inappropriate? The phrase itself is an imperative. It’s French for “leave us alone,” more or less. And it comes to us through history as advice offered to Jean Baptiste Colbert, finance minister under the French King Louis XIV in the 17th century. Colbert is best known for his statement: “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.” When Colbert asked a group of merchants, “What do you want from us?,” the answer was, “laisser nous faire.” “Laissez-faire” is, then, an old piece of economic advice with an impeccable French heritage.
Maybe Starbucks considers the phrase inappropriate because it’s “overtly political commentary”? Certainly my friend regards it as a firm statement of political philosophy.
And so, at my suggestion, my friend went back to the Web site and asked that his card be issued with the phrase “People Not Profits.” Bingo! Starbucks had no problem with that phrase, and the card arrived in a few days.
I wondered just what the company’s standards were. If “laissez-faire” is unacceptably political, how could the socialist slogan “people not profits” be acceptable?
My assistant and I tried to get the company to explain its policy. We started by trying to purchase a card with the phrase “Laissez Faire,” and were rejected as my friend had been. We then asked a company spokesperson why. He suggested that it might be because “laissez-faire” is a foreign phrase. That seemed possible and a reasonable precaution.
So we tried another foreign phrase – “Si Se Puede,” or “Yes we can.” It’s the United Farm Workers slogan, now adopted by Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. That sailed right through. The senator’s political campaign slogan was acceptable.
Update: Yesterday, I placed an order for my own “Laissez Faire” Starbucks card. I guess the publicity led to a change of policy, because today I got an e-mail saying the “order has been completed and will ship within the next business day.” (8 April 2008)
4 April 2008 @ 10:20AM >>
Apparently, if vodka maker Absolut had its way, Texas, California and much of the southwest United States would be given to Mexico.
At least, that’s the only conclusion one could reach after looking at an ad campaign Absolut is running in Mexico.
The ads, with the bold caption “IN AN ABSOLUT WORLD” show a fictional map of the United States where much of its territory has been taken over by Mexico.
3 April 2008 @ 8:05AM >>
Spam blogs, sometimes called “splogs,” are phony blogs set up to earn money by displaying ads. Splogs steal content from other sites so that they appear to the untrained eye as genuine blogs. When people conduct web searches, that stolen content drives traffic to the site, raising the revenue from advertising.
It’s a sleazy practice, and at times, I’ve seen posts from this site appear on splogs. Recently, I found a splog that copies text from this site, but it also does something new: it changes certain words in the post to modify the content slightly.
I realize that by linking to the splog, I am helping them achieve their goal of increased traffic. Still, it’s an interesting development in the evolution of spam, and it seems worthy of note.
28 March 2008 @ 10:43PM >>Indoctrinate U will be shown on Monday, April 14th at the Director’s Guild of America Theater on West 57th Street in midtown Manhattan.
The screening, which starts at 6:30PM, is free and open to the public. However, you must RSVP if you would like to attend. Space is limited and expected to go quickly.
25 March 2008 @ 10:45PM >>
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is undergoing an assault in an all-out wikifight.
Recently, FIRE’s Wikipedia page and that of the organization’s president, Greg Lukianoff, have been repeatedly modified to insert bogus claims trying to paint the organization as some sort of right-wing front group.
It’s ironic that FIRE finds itself the subject of a partisan smear campaign. FIRE as a group is quite principled in its non-partisan nature, and its staffers are more intellectually diverse than many colleges seem to be. Over the years, they’ve provided consistent and unwavering support for liberals and conservatives alike—and to folks of just about any other school of thought represented on college campuses.
All of the proof for this is quite easy to find, as FIRE’s record is well-documented and readily available online.
Earlier today, Lukianoff singled out Simon DeDeo, one of the Wikipedia editors, for his “many errors.” To his enormous credit, when presented with the facts, Mr. DeDeo retracted his “remarks on [FIRE], some of which were in error and others of which were I think overly harsh and rhetorical.”
Unfortunately for FIRE, the rest of the group’s wikicritics may not be as intellectually honest as Mr. DeDeo.
21 March 2008 @ 1:25AM >>
In my last exchange with John K. Wilson, he tried making the case that Indoctrinate U suffers from “biases, distortions, and omissions” and that I am only a fair-weather friend of free speech.
My response pointed out the various ways in which Wilson makes off-base assumptions about my views. It seems that unless Wilson hears me explicitly state an opinion, he simply assumes I hold whatever position he disagrees with most and proceeds to argue against me from there.
And in his latest piece, a response-to-my-response-to-his-critique, Wilson does it again.
As reluctant as I am to encourage him to issue another interrogatory of my views, Wilson does ask three direct questions that merit answers. He introduces his questions in this discussion:
Maloney wonders “why Mr. Wilson believes I only favor free speech for folks I agree with is beyond me.” The reason is given in my article. At times, conservatives in the movie (including Maloney) seem to advocate censorship in a few cases. So I asked Maloney, does he believe that Foothill College should have banned flyers criticizing the conservative student? Does he believe that the professor in Michigan who denounced a student’s op-ed on affirmative action should have been punished or fired? Does he endorse David Horowitz and ACTA’s efforts to stop professors from discussing politics in classes? I didn’t get a clear answer. I have no problem with Maloney expressing his conservative viewpoint and criticizing professors he disagrees with; but I do want to know if he really support free speech for those he disagrees with.
As for military recruiters, I have my disagreements with the protesters and I have no doubt that some of them should be arrested if they step over the line. However, Maloney still hasn’t defended the right of students to protest, and he hasn’t acknowledged the fact that the rights of student protesters have been restricted at many campuses.
I appreciate Wilson’s questions, but first I need to address another one of those pesky assumptions by turning the tables and asking him a question. He claims, “conservatives in the movie (including Maloney) seem to advocate censorship in a few cases.”
So, my question: When and in what way did I “seem to” advocate censorship?
Perhaps Wilson would have me preface each case in the film with a disclaimer: “Warning: Even though the following scene contains no call for censorship, please be aware that the following scene contains no call for censorship.”
Anyway, getting back to his questions...
Question 1: “Does [Maloney] believe that Foothill College should have banned flyers criticizing the conservative student?”
No, I don’t, and I never said I did.
My purpose in going to Foothill was to try to determine if a professor was responsible for producing the flyers in question. If a professor of Ahmad al-Qoloushi wrote flyers disparaging him, it would be a major revelation that would add to the public’s understanding of the story. And because those flyers were literally stamped with the approval of the school, someone in the administration had to know whether a professor submitted those flyers for approval.
Unfortunately, I ran into a comically evasive administrator who stonewalled, stammered and summoned the police. So I never got a straight answer.
In the film, I wanted the audience to see the contrasts among the different handling of controversial flyers at different schools. At a number of schools, rather tame flyers have been censored, sometimes leading to Kafkaesque disciplinary proceedings that drag on for months. Yet in this case, flyers attacking a student by name got the school’s official stamp of approval. Merely pointing out this contrast should not be confused with advocating censorship.
Question 2: “Does [Maloney] believe that the professor in Michigan who denounced a student’s op-ed on affirmative action should have been punished or fired?”
(In the case Wilson references, a professor harshly criticized a student in class over her letter in the school paper. In the letter, the student discussed her multi-racial family and how it informed her opinion against racial preferences.)
In general, I think that a professor who uses class time to give political lectures when the issues involved have nothing to do with the class is acting in an unprofessional manner. Doubly so when the professor is haranguing a student over political views that she never expressed in class and that had nothing to do with the topic being taught.
Do I think the professor should be fired or otherwise punished? Not for this. But I’d hope that someone somewhere in the university would remind this professor what it means to act like a professional.
And if students ever decided to demand a refund for the portion class time wasted on off-topic political rants by professors who repeatedly and egregiously abuse their academic freedom, a school would be on thin moral ground to deny that refund.
Academic freedom bears a cost that is paid for by tuition and tax dollars, and it carries with it the expectation that professors will use that freedom to fulfill their educational responsibilities to students.
Having said all that, I think that professors should be given absolute freedom to discuss whatever controversial topics they wish in the classroom, when it relates to the educational purpose of the class. And outside of class, of course, professors are free to say whatever they’d like.
Question 3: “Does [Maloney] endorse David Horowitz and ACTA’s efforts to stop professors from discussing politics in classes?”
Wilson refers to a person and an organization, each with a long history of activism in academic circles, so I’m not entirely sure what efforts in particular he’s asking me to discuss.
I think my answer above covers my view of political advertising in class well enough.
But in case it’s still not clear where I stand, rather than consign myself to an infinite loop of questions aimed at determining whether I really am a genuine supporter of free speech in Wilson’s eyes, let me offer a rough outline of my thinking:
People should have the right to speak their minds
Academic freedom does not exempt professors from criticism
Feeling offended by speech does not give one the right to suppress it
People should not be forced to finance the speech of others
If a person declines to finance the someone else’s speech, that is not censorship
The right to speak encompasses groups, so that assembly and protest are possible
A protest that disrupts an event or otherwise interferes with the speech or movement of others is not covered by the concept of free speech
Hopefully this list will help make Wilson’s future assumptions about my views a little more accurate.
But, in the end, it may not matter much. I don’t think I’m going to persuade him. The author of a book called The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education might have a vested interest in not being persuaded by the data and cases covered in Indoctrinate U.
Wilson closes his piece with a plug for one of his other books and a call to “unite in the struggle for freedom of expression.”
As Wilson knows from my previous response, I publicly defended Ward Churchill’s speech rights despite comments that I personally found abhorrent. I’m already on the free-speech-in-the-abstract team. But since Wilson still seems not to believe me, I’ll just end with something I wrote last September:
Erwin Chemerinsky, “a well-known liberal expert on constitutional law” according to the Los Angeles Times, was hired and then quickly fired by the Irvine campus of the University of California. The culprit, says Chancellor Michael V. Drake, was “conservatives out to get” Chemerinsky. Later on, an “emotional” Drake, “his voice at times quivering,” reversed his position and “said there had been no outside pressure and that he had decided to reject Chemerinsky” himself because the professor’s views were “polarizing.”
Given the unreliability of Chancellor Drake’s public testimony, it’s hard to know whether there really was a conservative cabal trying to take out Chemerinsky, or whether he was just the victim of a spineless administrator seeking to avoid controversy. Either way, the only decent thing for the university to do is to re-hire Chemerinsky, assuming he’d be forgiving enough to take the job instead of taking the school to court.
[...]
If there was a concerted effort among conservatives to block Chemerinsky, they probably felt justified in doing so, thinking that they’d just be preventing the dominant campus thinking from dominating another campus. But it’s hard to argue for tolerance of your views when you’re damaging the career of a man whose only transgression is disagreeing with you.
Whatever the sequence of events that led to Chemerinsky’s firing, conservatives who believe that their views deserve better respect on campus must stand with him on principle.
And who knows? Maybe the next time a conservative professor runs into career trouble for his or her views, some decent-hearted decision-maker will think back to this story and remember how not to act.
Respect can be brought back to campus if only enough people have the courage to practice it.
The second video shows what happens when a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice comes to give a speech on campus. In Welcome Wagon NYC, students at NYU Law School object quite strongly to the presence of Antonin Scalia, giving him a reception worse than the President of Iran received at that other large Manhattan institution, Columbia University.
15 March 2008 @ 1:56PM >>
The Associated Press reports on the latest attempt to impose Sharia standards on Western civilization:
The Muslim world has created a battle plan to defend its religion from political cartoonists and bigots.
Concerned about what they see as a rise in the defamation of Islam, leaders of the world’s Muslim nations are considering taking legal action against those that slight their religion or its sacred symbols. It was a key issue during a two-day summit that ended Friday in this western Africa capital.
The Muslim leaders are attempting to demand redress from nations like Denmark, which allowed the publication of cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in 2006 and again last month, to the fury of the Muslim world.
Though the legal measures being considered have not been spelled out, the idea pits many Muslims against principles of freedom of speech enshrined in the constitutions of numerous Western governments.
“I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy,” said Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. “There can be no freedom without limits.”
[...]
“Muslims are being targeted by a campaign of defamation, denigration, stereotyping, intolerance and discrimination,” charged Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the group.
The report urges the creation of a “legal instrument” to crack down on defamation of Islam. Some delegates point to laws in Europe criminalizing the denial of the Holocaust and other anti-Semitic rhetoric. They also point to articles within various U.N. charters that condemn discrimination based on religion and argue that these should be ramped up.
“In our relation with the western world, we are going through a difficult time,” Ihsanoglu told the summit’s general assembly. “Islamophobia cannot be dealt with only through cultural activities but (through) a robust political engagement.”
[...]
Hemayet Uddin, the lead author of the OIC report and head of cultural affairs for the group said legal action is needed because “this Islamophobia that we see in the world has gone far beyond a phobia. It is now at the level of hatred, of xenophobia, and we need to act.”
A new charter drafted by the OIC commits the Muslim body “to protect and defend the true image of Islam” and “to combat the defamation of Islam.”
The image if Islam isn’t damaged by people criticizing the excesses of the Jihadists, it is damaged by people who commit murder and other atrocities in the name of Islam. If the OIC spent as much time trying to stamp out the extremism in their own ranks, maybe the world’s perception of Islam would be a little better. But instead of trying to rein in the extremists who kill in the name of Islam, the OIC wants to prevent anyone from even discussing it.
The West has a long tradition of allowing very strong and sometimes quite pungent criticism of religion. Here in America, we’re so tolerant that if you want to put a Christian cross in a jar of urine, you can get a government grant as long as you call it “art.” If you smear elephant dung on an image of the Virgin Mary, we’ll feature it in one of our nation’s most prominent museums. But if the OIC and their multicultural enablers in the West had their way, legitimate commentary on the state of the world—such as a cartoon depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban—would be illegal.
If the OIC wants respect, they should start by focusing their anger at the people who really are tarnishing Islam by killing in its name. And stop demanding that the West carve out a special exemption for Islam that no other religion enjoys.
14 March 2008 @ 8:53AM >>
In addition to the burnable Virtual DVD and the MPEG-4 version, Indoctrinate U is also now available as a Windows Media Player file. Visit the Indoctrinate U Store for more information.
Also, we will (finally!) have actual, physical DVDs available within a few weeks. I’ll post an update once the DVDs are ready for sale.
State lawmakers are considering a bill that would grant free college tuition for some juvenile offenders. Supporters say it’s a way to encourage troubled youth to get their lives back on track. John Dixon, Deputy Secretary for the MD Department of Juvenile Services says, “The kids the department serves face a lot of obstacles and challenges when they return to the community. This bill will allow kids who are interested in attending public institution to go there tuition free.”
Delegate Norm Conway is sponsoring the bill. As an educator for 39 years, he says it’s important to help troubled teens make a positive transition. “They’re out of their own families in many instances. You’re hoping for the best possible transition and incentives that say hey if you’re willing to do your part there are some opportunities out there for you.”
Under the proposal, committed juveniles under the age of 21 would be eligible for free tuition at any public institution in the state.
11 March 2008 @ 7:35AM >>
Not content with fighting “excessive” and “obscene” pay for corporate officials, the Governor of New York has a new target. In a piece entitled “Eliot Spitzer Vows To Crack Down On Excess Prostitute Pay,” financial website DealBreaker.com reports:
Discovering that the exclusive international ring of prostitutes known as the “Emperor’s Club” charged up to $5,500 an hour for their services, New York governor Eliot Spitzer vowed to put an end to this price gouging practice.
Four people alleged to have run the “Emperor’s Club” were charged with conspiracy to violate federal prostitution statutes, while two of them were also charged with laundering more than $1 million in illegal proceeds.
“That kind of excessive compensation is simply outrageous. Prostitution is allegedly a victimless crime,” Spitzer said in a press conference that took place only in our imaginations. “But now we see that its customers can become its victims.”
Spitzer added it was especially shameful that one of the most trusted names in prostitution had engaged in this shocking betrayal and rank greed.
