12 January 2008 >> On the night of Tuesday, January 29th, the Indoctrinate U campus tour will kick off with a screening at Duke University.

Other screenings at additional schools will be announced in the coming weeks. The Screenings page on the Indoctrinate U website will always have the latest information.

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I’m also happy to announce the first Canadian screening of Indoctrinate U! The screening will be held on February 18th at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, Ontario.

Hopefully the film won’t cause anyone from the screening’s sponsor to be dragged before Canada’s increasingly-powerful thought police, the Human Rights Commissions. But with the right complainant, I guess it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

2 January 2008 @ 8:57AM >> Two of my favorite creative minds in music—Thom Yorke and David Byrne—recently sat down to discuss the future of the music business. Last October, Yorke’s band Radiohead released its latest album, In Rainbows. But rather than releasing it through a traditional music label, Radiohead let fans download the music directly from its website. And rather than charging a fixed amount for the album, users were given the option of naming their own price—down to and including zero.

The sinking fortunes of the music industry establishment may have been instigated by technological change, but they are worsened by the industry’s unwillingness to let consumers buy music that isn’t locked to specific formats or media. It’s like peering into the future of the movie industry.

In both cases, you have industries whose fortunes have been protected for decades by the commingling of content and medium. Record albums weren’t just vinyl, they were vinyl with embedded music: the music couldn’t exist without the physical medium. As tapes replaced records and CDs replaced tapes, higher fidelity and increased convenience of each new format gave consumers a reason to re-purchase content that they already paid for in lesser formats. But when songs are stored as data and can be moved around like any other computer file, consumers will only ever need to buy one copy. As long as open formats are used, people will be able to play their music on any device devised in the future. There goes the upgrade gravy train.

Like the music industry, the film industry is rightfully concerned with piracy, because once music and movies aren’t tied to a physical medium, they can be copied endlessly. But consumers don’t care if this inconveniences the industry; people have shown that they want the convenience of digital content, and they are willing to pay for it. So the more that record companies lock down digital content in order to fight piracy, the less incentive legitimate customers have to buy the product in the first place. What good is the “music as a file” model if it is artificially burdened with the same limitations as physical media?

The movie business hasn’t been hurt by the shift away from physical media yet. But that’s only because technology hasn’t advanced far enough. It takes a lot more data to store a high-definition movie than an album’s worth of high-fidelity music. When a typical consumer’s Internet connection becomes fast enough to download high-definition full-length movies in a matter of minutes, the home market for movies will be subject to same technological dynamics affecting the music business today. And that future is only years away.

But that isn’t the film industry’s biggest problem right now. After all, people won’t pirate content that they don’t want to watch in the first place.

The problem with the film business is that too many insiders forgot that the rest of America doesn’t necessarily share the same view of the world as their friends in Hollywood. Instead, Hollywood has become its own echo chamber, which is why distributors keep pushing out flop after flop of military-bashing films. In Hollywood and at film festivals, such fare is highly praised. But in theaters around the country, the audience for films like Redacted is comprised mostly of empty seats. It’s almost as if Hollywood is producing films only for itself.

My experience in trying to get distribution for Indoctrinate U only confirms this. People in the film business just don’t take seriously the possibility that there’s a market for documentaries outside Hollywood’s typical Michael Moore/Al Gore worldview. I don’t know to what extent that’s out of political bias or the result of a simple Catch-22: they don’t see a market for anything different, but that’s because they’ve never tried distributing anything different.

That leaves us in the position of having to self-distribute Indoctrinate U. And because the Internet will allow us to put the film in people’s hands in the fastest, most cost-effective way possible, we’ll be able to conduct a little experiment of our own. Indoctrinate U will not be available on DVD right away. Instead, we’re going to focus our efforts on seeing whether the Internet can be used to route around the gatekeepers in Hollywood—without the shackles of physical media. (Although unlike Radiohead, I’m afraid, we’re not in a position to give our goods away for free.)

Who knows? Maybe the market can be proven without Hollywood’s help. I think it can. And once the market is proven, we’ll finally know who in the film business wants to serve customer desires instead of the dogma of Hollywood groupthink.

30 December 2007 @ 3:35PM >> Assuming the last few details get worked out in time, sometime in January, Indoctrinate U will be offered as a web download. At some point after that, DVD sales will begin as well.

Prices have not yet been set for either the download or the DVD. More details will follow when they become available.

In the meantime, happy New Year!

11 December 2007 @ 5:49PM >> Perhaps due to the relative speeds of e-mail and snail mail, I wasn’t aware of this until reading James Taranto’s column today (scroll down), but apparently Indiana University has dropped their demand that On The Fence Films hand over what remains in our depleted coffers. In other words, it looks like they’ve backed off their threatened legal action.

Thanks to Indiana University for resolving the matter so quickly after it became public. We acted in good faith, and we appreciate that it was reciprocated.

Update: A statement has been posted on the Indoctrinate U website, which reads in part:

Being employed by a school with an endowment of over $1 billion might give him a different financial perspective, because Mr. MacIntyre refers to the amount of money the school was demanding ($1,500) with a dismissive “That’s it.”

For an independent production company like ours, that small amount of money is the difference between making the final payment to our sound engineers and producing promotional DVDs. Being bankrupted by a bogus demand didn’t seem inconsequential to us.

Nevertheless, we are of the philosophy that all’s well that ends well. And in the end, we’re happy with Indiana University’s final decision.

Given the experiences we had with other college administrators, the folks at Indiana have been among the better ones to deal with.

Indeed that’s true. Thanks to Mr. MacIntyre (and everyone else involved at Indiana University) for helping bring this matter to a speedy and amicable resolution.

7 December 2007 >> As promised, the Indoctrinate U website came back online last week, and we’ve now posted a statement explaining why the site was taken down in the first place.

James Taranto’s “Best of the Web Today” covers the story.

Sorry for any inconvenience, and thanks a lot for all the supportive e-mails. It’s good to be back!

12 November 2007 @ 10:04AM >> Due to a threatened lawsuit from a major taxpayer-funded university, the Indoctrinate U homepage has been taken down temporarily. On The Fence Films LLC is deciding how best to proceed, and we will not be commenting on anything until after our final response has been executed.

Don’t worry, though, this will not derail the film.

Indoctrinate U will be back.

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Update: The site is now back online, along with an explanation of why it was taken offline temporarily.

6 November 2007 @ 1:56PM >> Glenn Reynolds has an essay at TCSDaily that highlights the growing numeric disparity between male and female students in academia. He cites a USA Today article stating, “135 women receive bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men. That gender imbalance will widen in the coming years, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education.”

Reynolds writes:

[I]t seems to me that there are three possible ways of looking at the growing higher-education gender imbalance.

One would be to treat it the way we treat other “underrepresentation” issues in higher education: By wondering what universities are doing wrong. There seems little doubt that universities have become less male-friendly in recent decades, to the point of being downright unfriendly in many cases. The kind of statements that are routinely made about males and masculinity in classrooms and hallways would get professors fired if they were made about blacks, gays, or many other groups. Sexual-harassment policies start with the presumption that men are guilty, and inherently depraved. And colleges now come at the tail-end of an educational system that is (compared to previous decades) anti-male from kindergarten on, meaning many males probably just want to get out as soon as they can.

The remedy, in this view: Affirmative action for male candidates, re-education for faculty, campus “men’s centers” to match the womens’ centers that were created when women were an underrepresented group on campus (and which still remain today almost everywhere), and efforts to make curricula, dormitories, and recruiting more male-friendly. (Right now, though we see lots of courses on literature by and about women, courses on literature by and about men are regarded as too narrow.”) There seems little doubt that if any other group were suffering similar declines in college attendance, this is precisely the approach we’d be seeing, and some schools have already been trying this to some degree.

The second approach would be to shrug the problem off. Men aren’t going to college as much? Big deal. Maybe it’s because women are smarter, or better suited to such things.

Harvard President Larry Summers got his head handed to him when he raised similar factors as an explanation for why women are underrepresented in the hard sciences. But genetic explanations of gender differences are always socially acceptable so long as they posit male inferiority, so I suspect we’ll see somewhat more people offering this sort of explanation — though it may prove awkward when people point out the contradictions.

In one scene from Indoctrinate U, I noted this gender imbalance and wondered: given the fact that men were now in the minority, would they be rewarded with the spoils that identity politics practitioners typically bestow upon underrepresented groups?

To find out, I went searching for the Men’s Resource Centers and Men’s Studies Departments at various schools around the country. Needless to say, I didn’t find them, but I had a few laughs along the way.

2 November 2007 @ 8:35AM >> Indoctrinate U will be screened in Cleveland, Ohio at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque for one show only: Sunday, November 18th at 4:00pm.

The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque is located at 11141 East Boulevard in University Circle. Free parking is available in the Institute lot. Tickets are $8 and may be purchased at the box office just before showtime, or earlier by calling (216) 421-7450 for advance ticket sales.

29 October 2007 @ 9:31AM >> Scott Johnson of PowerLine attended Indoctrinate U’s opening night in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He writes:

The Minneapolis debut was only the film’s second public showing; it premiered in Washington a few weeks ago before a raucous crowd at the Kennedy Center. In Minneapolis the film continues with showings at the Oak Street Cinema (the old Campus Theater) through next Thursday. The theater was also packed with a responsive crowd last night, a large part of which stuck around after the screening to hear from Evan and film producer Thor Halvorssen. I haven’t seen such a big crowd in that theater since “Putney Swope” opened there in 1969.

Scott concludes:

This is a funny, humane, and powerful film. If there is any justice in the world, with Evan Maloney’s screen debut a star is born.

The film will continue its run in the Twin Cities with multiple screenings per day until Thursday night.

27 October 2007 @ 6:58AM >> Matthew Sheffield of NewsBusters recently interviewed me on a wide range of topics. His extensive interview, the first in what will soon be a series on the website, has now been posted.

It is quite apparent from reading the transcript that I must have spoken with Sheffield after a few cups of coffee.

26 October 2007 @ 10:19AM >> Tonight, in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Indoctrinate U begins a week-long run at the Oak Street Cinema on the east edge of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus.

Stanley Kurtz of National Review wonders if this is part of a media revolution:

Maybe you’ve heard about Indoctrinate U’s DC premiere. The crowd went wild. Now, if you live in or near the Twin Cities, you can go wild too. In association with the Minnesota Association of Scholars and the Tocqueville Center at the University of Minnesota, the Moving Picture Institute is going to be putting on a full week of screenings of Indoctrinate U. [...]

Now for the “global” implications. Think about it. Something very interesting is happening here. The producers of Indoctrinate U are promising to arrange local screenings in areas where enough people express interest at their website. And now they’re holding a local screening. The idea of a local screening tour for politically incorrect films could become the cinematic equivalent of the internet—a way around the mainstream Hollywood blockade. And with luck, strong local interest might even break the Hollywood blockade and prompt a distributor to actually offer Indoctrinate U in commercial theaters. So we may be looking at a genuine “media event,” in the best sense of that term.

19 October 2007 @ 8:49AM >> The latest deleted scene from Indoctrinate U is now available over at the film’s website.

18 October 2007 @ 9:22AM >> Walter Williams dedicates his latest column to a look at Indoctrinate U.

Also, here’s another review of Indoctrinate U that I recently found online:

It’s a film that grows on you the deeper into the narrative you get, alternately making you belly-laugh and shake your head at the insanity that activists get away with against their ideological opponents - and sometimes their insufficiently zealous sympathizers - while campus administrators bury their heads in the sand.

[...]

Without revealing too much, I can say that the tiffs would be hilarious material for screenwriters if they were fictional, and I hope day we can laugh them off. But there is a tinge of sadness as you realize, after a hearty laugh as a target recounts his or her dark night of the soul, what crushing periods they went through for something as simple as being married to a Republican.

[...]

If I sound perturbed in my writing, it’s only after the fact, dwelling on what students these days face. But the film lends itself more to laughter and mockery than hurt feelings, carried along by a poppy dance soundtrack. Clearly these interview subjects have developed a sense of removal since their trials, and they have a sense of humor about it.

16 October 2007 @ 1:43PM >> Indoctrinate U is coming to the Twin Cities for a week-long run at Minnesota Film Arts’ Oak Street Cinema!

I’ll be there on opening night, Friday, October 26th. The run continues until the following Thursday, November 1st.

Here are the details:

Date		Screening Times
Friday, October 26			7:15 PM
Saturday, October 27		5:15 PM	7:15 PM
Sunday, October 28		5:15 PM	7:15 PM
Monday, October 29			7:15 PM	9:15 PM
Tuesday, October 30		5:15 PM	7:15 PM	9:15 PM
Wednesday, October 31		5:15 PM	7:15 PM	9:15 PM
Thursday, November 1			7:15 PM	9:15 PM

Tickets for the matinee screening (5:15 PM) are $4 for students and $6 for adults.

All other times, tickets are $5 for students and $8 for adults.

The screenings are sponsored by the Minnesota Association of Scholars and the Tocqueville Center at the University of Minnesota.

16 October 2007 @ 9:31AM >> In yesterday’s New York Times, Professor Stanley Fish took an extensive look at Indoctrinate U. While it is clear that the professor and I feel quite differently about the extent of the problems in academia, the final two paragraphs of the piece contained more intellectual honesty than the last bit of coverage the Times gave Indoctrinate U. Professor Fish admits:

But then there’s the part we should take seriously: professors who use the classroom as a stage for their political views. Maloney speculates that perhaps one out of seven perform in this way. I would put the number much lower, perhaps one out of twenty-five. But one out of 10,000 would be one too many.

Academics often bridle at the picture of their activities presented by Maloney and other conservative critics, and accuse them of grossly caricaturing and exaggerating what goes on in the classroom. Maybe so, but so long as there are those who confuse advocacy with teaching, and so long as faculty colleagues and university administrators look the other way, the academy invites the criticism it receives in this documentary. In 1915, the American Association of University Professors warned that if we didn’t clean up our own shop, external constituencies, with motives more political than educational, would step in and do it for us. Now they’re doing it in the movies and it’s our own fault.

Perhaps my biggest disagreement with Professor Fish is over the issue of speech codes. Professor Fish contends:

This is a fake issue. Every speech code that has been tested in the courts has been struck down, often on the very grounds — you can’t criminalize offensiveness — invoked by Maloney. Even though there are such codes on the books of some universities, enforcing them will never hold up. Students don’t have to worry about speech codes. The universities that have them do, a point made by “Indoctrinate U” when Maloney tells the story of how Cal Poly was taken to the cleaners (no, not his cleaners) when it tried to discipline a student for putting up a poster with the word “plantation” in it.

In the Cal Poly case cited by Professor Fish, a student spent 18 months of his life under the threat of expulsion while he battled the university all the way up to federal court. His crime? Posting a flier announcing an upcoming event: a speech by Mason Weaver, a black conservative author who wrote a book on economic empowerment called It’s OK to Leave the Plantation. Apparently, Mr. Weaver’s point of view was not welcome in the Multicultural Center on campus, so Steve Hinkle, the student who attempted to post Weaver’s flier in there, had the police called on him and was brought up on disciplinary charges by the school.

Ultimately, Hinkle was vindicated, and Professor Fish focuses only on the positive outcome in order to deem the whole issue of speech codes to be “fake.” But having to spend 18 months fighting for rights that are already constitutionally guaranteed sends a strong signal to other students that expressing the wrong point of view will end up costing you dearly. It corrodes the whole concept of free speech by dissuading people from speaking. After all, if simply hanging a flier could result in 18 months of battles, many students are going to conclude that certain speech just isn’t worth it. People whose views differ from the campus orthodoxy are going to keep quiet. Speech is undoubtedly chilled.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) gets hundreds upon hundreds of cases each year involving students and professors who have had their rights of conscience trampled. Many of these cases center on the “fake issue” of speech codes. A recent study conducted by FIRE found that over 90% of the hundreds of schools they surveyed had some form of speech regulation on the books.

FIRE’s William Creeley comments on Professor Fish’s dismissal of the issue of speech codes:

First, while Fish correctly observes that “[e]very speech code that has been tested in the courts has been struck down,” he vastly understates the severity of the problem by dismissively concluding that therefore “[s]tudents don’t have to worry about speech codes.” That’s hogwash. While the fact that restrictive speech codes have been consistently struck down in court offers clear proof of their unconstitutionality, it certainly doesn’t mean that “[s]tudents don’t have to worry” about them. Contrary to Fish’s assertions, a student at a college with restrictive speech codes on the books is in danger of being punished for engaging in speech clearly protected by the First Amendment. According to FIRE’s first annual speech code report, Spotlight on Speech Codes 2006: The State of Free Speech on Our Nation’s Campuses, more than 68% of the 330 colleges and universities surveyed maintained policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech. Regardless of Fish’s contention otherwise, that’s something to worry about, as FIRE’s extensive list of speech code cases proves. Besides, Fish gets it exactly backwards: the fact that speech codes are still so pervasive on our nation’s campuses despite consistently losing in court is cause for outrage, not apathy.

Further, students at schools which maintain speech codes must carefully tailor their speech to satisfy oftentimes inscrutable rules—e.g., students at The Ohio State University must be sure that their words aren’t unintentionally “threatening infliction of emotional harm,” whatever that means—or else risk discipline. The chilling effect that inevitably results causes students to self-censor and renders free speech on campus all the more elusive. This too is something to worry about.

Contrary to Fish’s casual faith in the courts, resorting to litigation in hopes of vindicating one’s right to free speech is almost never an attractive option for students. The sheer amount of time spent securing representation, preparing a case, filing charges and, if necessary, pursuing appeals is extremely daunting to students. Just ask the San Francisco State University College Republicans, who are suing SFSU after being put on trial for “harassment” for stepping on Hamas and Hezbollah flags at an anti-terrorism rally. In addition to spending countless hours preparing their defense against SFSU’s charges, the students have had to coordinate a federal lawsuit against the college they currently attend. That’s not an easy or enjoyable task by any standard, and FIRE knows firsthand that despite the strength of their case, too many students decide that a lawsuit is just not worth the time, stress, trouble and alienation.

Still, the good professor does acknowledge a problem in academia. We just disagree about the scope of it and the interpretation of the data that document it.

There are other points made by Professor Fish that I could quibble with, but I don’t want to spend too much time arguing with someone who says I have “lean boyish looks that could earn [me] a role in Oceans 14 alongside Brad Pitt and Matt Damon.”

Can someone please forward that suggestion to a few agents in L.A.? I’d do it myself, but the self-promotion might be a bit much...even by Hollywood standards.

9 October 2007 @ 7:03AM >> The Wall Street Journal ran a piece yesterday by Peter Berkowitz. In it, he mentions the premiere of Indoctrinate U at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and refers to the film as “riveting.”

1 October 2007 >> National Review’s Stanley Kurtz attended the Indoctrinate U premiere:

Last Friday I attended the world premiere of Evan Coyne Maloney’s film, Indoctrinate U, before a packed house of 500 at the Kennedy Center. There were many students, and a number of professors as well. I’d seen the film a couple of times at press screenings, but was totally unprepared for the raucous audience reception.

The press screenings were quiet, with the main response being horror at the nightmarish incidents of political correctness chronicled by Maloney. This time, however, the audience roared with laughter through the first two-thirds of the film-to the point where lines were drowned out by the audience roar. The laughter abated toward the end, from sheer exhaustion. The latter part of the film brought a major applause line-when the topic turned to bans on military recruitment and the Supreme Court Solomon Amendment case. One line about half-way through the film-about what really motivates professors who indoctrinate their students-brought the house down.

Yes, this movie tells a series of heart-breaking tales. But the political correctness on display is ludicrous and laughable-and I can assure you that laugh is exactly what this audience did. So add that point to “Reeducation Camp.” To sign up for a local screening of the film, to follow its film-festival tour, or to order a DVD when it becomes available (soon), head over to the Indoctrinate U website.

27 September 2007 >> I am happy to report that the public premiere of Indoctrinate U has sold out. Thanks to everyone who supported this project by sending well-wishes, by telling friends, and by writing about it.

And thanks especially to everyone who bought tickets—I’ll see you Friday night at the Kennedy Center!

19 September 2007 >> Recently, I was invited by the Pope Center to write a piece for their Clarion Call describing some of the resistance I faced from college administrators while putting together Indoctrinate U.

In the article, I talk a bit about my run-in with the head of security at my alma mater, Bucknell University. It was one of some half-dozen times police and security officers were called on me while making the film.

The public premiere of Indoctrinate U is next Friday evening (September 28th) at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. For the time being, tickets are still available. And if you want to come to the after party at the infamous Watergate Hotel, you can get a package that includes tickets for the premiere and after-party admission.

15 September 2007 @ 12:13PM >> Syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock discusses Indoctrinate U in his latest piece.

21 August 2007 @ 9:46AM >> Mark your calendars for the evening of Friday, September 28th, when Indoctrinate U will make its public debut at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Tickets are now on sale for the event, which is organized by the American Film Renaissance.

Tickets are also available for the after-party to take place across the street at 600 Restaurant in the infamous Watergate Hotel.

Dates for screenings in other cities will be announced once the details have been set.

Update: The screening has sold out! Sorry to everyone unable to buy tickets.

19 August 2007 @ 2:09PM >> Today’s New York Times profiles Thor Halvorssen, one of the producers of Indoctrinate U.

The piece quotes Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock as saying Indoctrinate U “could be a lightning rod.” Spurlock adds, “Movies that get attention and spark a dialogue, get people talking on news shows, can be profitable at the box office.”

Hopefully the Hollywood gatekeepers will give us a chance to prove him right!

8 August 2007 >> Damian Thompson, a columnist with London’s Telegraph, recently wrote about Indoctrinate U, calling the film “a documentary that all of you should see.”

Mr. Thompson covered this film project in a piece published by the Telegraph two years ago, back when the working title was “Ministry of Truth.”

3 August 2007 @ 9:22AM >> Over at NewsMax.com, Matthew Shuster calls Indoctrinate U “a powerful, thought-provoking call to arms.”

31 July 2007 @ 12:01PM >> Over at the Indoctrinate U film website, we are starting to post some of the scenes we loved but ended up having to cut from the film.

The first deleted scene is called “Columbia Quiz.”

This less-than-five-minute video may prove embarrassing to the administration of Columbia University, which very clearly did not want me filming—unless I could convince them that my film would paper over the truth and make the university look good.

Sorry, Columbia!

27 July 2007 @ 9:12AM >> Over at the website for the film, you will find an update on Indoctrinate U and our plans to show the film publicly.

I am also happy to report that there are now 7 metropolitan areas that have over 500 screening requests, which is our threshold for arranging screenings in a particular area.

24 July 2007 @ 8:14AM >> Ryan Latimer of the pop culture website 411mania.com recently conducted an interview with me regarding the film Indoctrinate U and the state of America’s campuses. The interview can be read here.

10 July 2007 >> Philadelphia’s indie paper The Bulletin ran a piece on my film Indoctrinate U today. The article describes several of the cases mentioned in the film.

28 June 2007 @ 11:18AM >> Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels misrepresented by The New York Times. Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, was also quoted in the Times piece on Indoctrinate U. Here’s his reaction:

I am, to say the least, disappointed by Joseph Berger’s column in The New York Times today concerning Evan Maloney’s film “Indoctrinate U” and free speech on campus in general. I have been corresponding with Joe for several weeks, and even had lunch with him this past Friday. I had hoped that after such extensive interaction, I had demonstrated to him that a serious and ongoing free speech problem exists on campus. I also hoped that I had convinced him that taking student fee funding away from a student newspaper for printing a controversial article is censorship. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

As for the article, I don’t know which is worse: that Berger uses the single example of Vassar College’s handling of a controversial article as a tool to refute the idea that there is a serious censorship problem on campus, or that he chose to praise the outcome of a case in which the school did, in fact, punish a student publication for what would be clearly protected speech outside Vassar’s gates.

[...]

As for using Vassar as the sole counterpoint to “Indoctrinate U’s” presentation of the illiberal academy, Berger cannot claim that he did not have enough examples. At his request, I sent him links to our entire case archive, our 2006 report on speech codes, summaries of our cases at Glendale Community College, Marquette University, SUNY Fredonia, Washington State University, the University of New Hampshire, and Hampton University, as well as our letter to Mayor Bloomberg and details about the Tufts case.

[...]

Despite all of this information, my major contribution to the piece seems to be that I “acknowledged that campus freedom of expression has improved since the low points of the 1990s.” This is my opinion, but I also said: (1) that the situation on campus with regards to speech is actually worse than it appears in “Indoctrinate U”; (2) that speech codes are paradoxically more common than ever; and (3) that I think that the improvement I refer to has been in no small part the result of the attention FIRE and our co-founders Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate have been able to bring to the problem on campus.

So, yes, I am disappointed. I enjoyed meeting Joe Berger, I liked him, I appreciated his interest in FIRE’s issues, but it seems that after spending hours getting him information about the very serious problems on campus, he left our meeting on Friday believing exactly what he believed when he came into the meeting—the problem on campus just ain’t that bad. It’s a shame, too. FIRE could use the help of the Gray Lady in fighting campus censorship, but apparently we’ll have to keep waiting.

27 June 2007 @ 8:28AM >> Today’s New York Times contains a discussion of Indoctrinate U and the issue of free speech on campus.

Most of the article was spent addressing cases that weren’t in the film, rather than addressing what was in the film. The author also claims that “professors, administrators and students say the national picture is far more complicated than that pictured in ‘Indoctrinate U,’” although I don’t know how they could know that, because none of those people actually saw the film.

One of the examples cited in the article (but not the film) was the case of a student paper published by Vassar’s Moderate, Independent and Conservative Student Alliance. It was an odd selection of cases if the point was to argue that there’s more “nuance” to reality than what is shown in Indoctrinate U, because a close inspection of this case shows that it actually backs up the thesis of my film.

The paper was de-funded and shut down for a year after publishing a piece criticizing the school’s funding of special “social centers” for minority and gay students. But because the paper was eventually allowed to start publishing again—the following year—the Vassar case is presented as one in which “[u]ltimately, free speech was respected.”

Sorry, but shutting down a paper for a year is not a benign event, and it is certainly not one in which we can say “free speech was respected.” If Homeland Security shut down the Times for a year after exposing ways that we track terrorist financing, I’m sure they’d understand my position on this.

Rather than address the multiple cases in the film where people were told to see school psychologists because they had the wrong set of views, rather than address the fact that people’s academic careers were put in jeopardy for things like being registered in the “wrong” political party, this piece ignores the evidence presented in the film to set up an alternative straw man to knock down.

And when the author finally gets around to discussing cases that are actually in the film, he minimizes them by leaving out the most vital information.

One student, he says, “underwent a daylong disciplinary hearing for posting a flier.” Actually, that student had the police called on him, he was ordered to see a psychologist, he was questioned by an attorney without being allowed to have one of his own, he was threatened with expulsion, and he was “convicted” by the university for an offense that they couldn’t even define when asked.

The student’s crime? Posting a flyer which promoted an upcoming speech by an author named Mason Weaver. It merely had a picture of him, the title of his book, and the date, time and location of the event. Yet university regarded the flyers as “literature of an offensive racial nature,” and used it to railroad a student whose views they didn’t like. This case lasted 18 months and ended up in federal court before the student finally prevailed.

I think all that amounts to a tad more than “a daylong disciplinary hearing.”

To be honest, I expected worse treatment from the Times. And being written about in the Times—even negatively—is probably better than being ignored, so on the whole, I’m happy that this piece ran.

But I just wish the author addressed cases that I actually covered in the film, rather than ones I didn’t.