Lawmakers in several states have set out to ensure the liberal
arts do not get too liberal.
A new GOP bill to be presented to the California Senate
Education Committee on Wednesday has drawn fire from Democratic
opponents who believe the proposal undermines academic authority in
order to get more conservative college professors hired and assert
more legislative influence in the academic world.
The debate highlights the growing concern of a possible liberal
bias among college and university faculty in the United States.
Senate Bill 1335, presented by State Sen. Bill Morrow,
R-Oceanside, aims to install an Academic Bill of Rights to which
the California State universities and California community colleges
must adhere. The bill also recommends the University of California
voluntarily adopt its principles.
The bill was designed to ensure a plurality of viewpoints in
college classrooms and to protect the differing viewpoints of both
students and college faculty. Morrow developed his proposal from
the Academic Bill of Rights model created and promoted by
conservative activist David Horowitz.
“Our children are systematically being denied a full
education on too many campuses,” Morrow said in a
statement.
“They are not exposed to the diversity of social,
economic, historical and political perspectives that characterizes
the world they will enter upon graduation,” he said.
The bill seeks to promote “pluralism, diversity,
opportunity, critical intelligence, openness and fairness” in
college curricula by ensuring no faculty member can be hired,
fired, reprimanded or promoted due to their political or religious
beliefs. It also says faculty members cannot indoctrinate students
with only a single viewpoint.
Champions of the bill and similar legislation in Colorado,
Georgia and Missouri have routinely cited the consistently high
proportion of liberal faculty members as evidence of an ideological
skew in the teaching and discipline at public colleges and
universities.
Students for Academic Freedom, a group founded by Horowitz,
analyzed 32 schools around the United States and found the overall
ratio of Democrats to Republicans among the faculty was about
10-1.
Of 238 faculty members at UCLA surveyed, the group found that
137 were Democrats, 11 were Republicans and 90 were unaffiliated
with a political party.
Though the bill speaks of “intellectual
independence” and contains no language about liberals or
conservatives, the debate surrounding it nonetheless focuses on
left-right imbalance in publicly funded institutions of higher
learning.
But some question whether professors’ political views
truly pose an academic threat to their students.
“We see no connection between who faculty members vote for
and how they evaluate students or how they evaluate other faculty
members,” said Jonathan Knight, director of program in
academic freedom and tenure at the American Association of
University Professors.
Thomas Schwartz, a UCLA political science professor and a
registered Republican, said the faculty at UCLA is slanted
“very heavily to the left,” but he does not see it as
harmful to students.
He said political beliefs cannot be entirely divorced from what
a professor says in class, but if the professor is honest about his
or her personal biases, he or she can still effectively teach
students without indoctrinating them.
“Just because you can’t do something perfectly
doesn’t mean you can’t do it well,” Schwartz
said.
The debate has largely hinged on the question of whether the
bill is necessary if the political biases of college faculty have
no significant effect on student learning.
He says UCLA probably does not need an Academic Bill of
Rights.
“The best policy is probably the one we already
have,” Schwartz said.
UCLA has an official ombuds office in Westwood to informally
investigate and consult students’ concerns and
complaints.
Allegations of a liberal bias have been levied in the political
arena before, and while liberal dominance has been proven in terms
of absolute numbers of faculty members, actual bias has not been
proven.
Wade Teasdale, chief of staff for Morrow, said though the
senator “hasn’t reviewed any broad studies” of
actual liberal bias, he does believe the liberal presence on
college and university campuses poses a potential threat to the
free expression of political beliefs on campus. The bill, he said,
will help prevent future problems.
“When you codify principles of fairness, sometimes they
head off emerging problems,” Teasdale said.
Beyond potential ideological bias, opposition to this bill has
stemmed from the desire to keep the influence of the government out
of academia.
The AAUP has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the
Academic Bill of Rights for this reason. The group has worked with
faculty and administrators in several states to persuade
legislators to stop legislation on Academic Bills of Rights to
reduce the influence of the government on the academic sphere.
“The problem with the Academic Bill of Rights is that it
implicitly undermines the ability of the professors to determine
the content of academic programs,” Knight said.
“The Academic Bill of Rights fails to take into account
the fact that academic departments, using their own best judgments,
can determine the appropriate level of diversity (of
viewpoints),” Knight said.
But Teasdale said the state has the duty to ensure its entities
are properly functioning.
“This bill only applies to publicly funded and governed
universities,” Teasdale said.
Schwartz said the bill’s necessity should be determined by
its own merits and not rejected merely to keep the government off
college campuses. Since the bill only applies to public
universities, he said the level of government influence should not
be a determining factor since the state already plays a large role
in how the schools are run.
But the AAUP believes the bill will damage the ability of
colleges and universities to educate students.
“The community of scholars must be free to determine the
quality of scholarship and teaching and to assess alleged
violations of professional standards,” the AAUP said in a
statement. “Academic freedom can only be maintained so long
as faculty remain autonomous and self-governing.”