A controversial “Student Bill of Rights,” designed
to promote differing viewpoints in academia, has been proposed in
the California State Senate and is causing heated debate among
educators and students about academic freedom.
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Bill Morrow, R-San Juan
Capistrano, and instructs California’s public universities to
include a wide range of viewpoints in classroom discussion,
primarily out of concern that conservative viewpoints are often
overlooked by liberal professors.
Detractors of the bill say the legislation is an assault on
academic freedom and freedom of speech, and they are concerned that
such a bill would provide legal justification to force conservative
or religious viewpoints on students and instructors.
Last year a similar “Academic Bill of Rights” was
defeated in committee in the California Senate.
Morrow’s bill, SB 5, states that students should be
exposed to a variety of viewpoints and should not be discriminated
against for any religious or political views they hold.
The bill says that “faculty shall not use their courses or
their positions for the purpose of political, ideological,
religious or anti-religious indoctrination.”
Both bills in California, along with similar bills proposed in
13 other states this year, have been primarily pushed by Students
for Academic Freedom, a group affiliated with conservative
columnist David Horowitz.
“All too frequently, professors behave as political
advocates in the classroom, express opinions in a partisan manner
on controversial issues irrelevant to the academic subject,”
Horowitz said in a statement.
Such bills have been opposed by the American Association of
University Professors because they “raise the spectre”
of governmental intrusion in the classroom and the limiting of free
speech, said Mark Smith, director of government relations with the
AAUP.
A statement on last year’s Academic Bill of Rights by the
AAUP said the bill requires “that colleges and universities
appoint faculty “˜with a view toward fostering a plurality of
methodologies and perspectives.’ The danger of such
guidelines is that they invite diversity to be measured by
political standards that diverge from the academic criteria of the
scholarly profession.”
The statement went on to say, “No department of political
theory ought to be obligated to establish “˜a plurality of
methodologies and perspectives’ by appointing a professor of
Nazi political philosophy, if that philosophy is not deemed a
reasonable scholarly option within the discipline of political
theory.”
A similar bill in Florida proposed by Republican congressman
Dennis Baxley was approved by a House committee last month.
Baxley, who attended Florida State University, said there is a
climate of discrimination in universities against conservative
viewpoints and students.
“My opponents have tried to turn this into a Scopes Monkey
Trial … I’ve been called ass, buffoon, idiot … and they
haven’t even read the bill. I filed this bill to spark the
debate,” he said.
Baxley said he is looking to protect students “who will be
blacklisted and discredited and humiliated” for holding
conservative viewpoints.
“I talked to a student here who changed her major because
her professors found out she worked for (Florida Gov. Jeb
Bush),” he said.
The AAUP said in a statement that such bills as proposed by
Morrow and Baxley could allow government and the courts to
interfere in higher education, limiting the ability of instructors
to effectively teach students.
“A basic purpose of higher education is to endow students
with the knowledge and capacity to exercise responsible and
independent judgment.
“Faculty can fulfill this objective only if they possess
the authority to guide and instruct students.”