3 comments

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  abqprofessor

  10 months ago

  This is building upon a long-term Republican effort to "depoliticize" higher education. Horowitz has been collecting anecdotes about conservatives who were criticized in college classrooms. This is not balanced, however, as he has not collected information on liberals who might be criticized in business school classes. He focuses heavily on courses on gender and ethnic literature and the tendency for professors to expect students to understand the material rather than just characterize it and criticize it.
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  abqprofessor

  10 months ago

  I had a professor who wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan and would regularly explain how there was an aura of goodwill that followed in the wake whenever Reagan walked down a hall. As a liberal, it didn't bother me. It was a way to draw students into political discourse. Period. Here are two samples from Horowitz' organization. They are poorly documented assaults on critical thinking and free speech.
  
  "Fortunately, this isn't my college I am having to report. A friend of mine attends Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, CA. He is a liberal which is fine, but he does not really pay much attention to politics. Therefore, he really does not have much of a clue as to what is going on. It is because of that I believe him to be vulnerable to his professor's biases. His professor, who teaches a Critical Thinking and Writing class at Mt. SAC, assigned "Stupid White Men" and "Dude, What's Happened to My Country?", (both by Michael Moore), as required reading for this class. According this friend of mine, the class was told to write an argumentative paper on "Stupid White Men". I do not know for certain what the professor will do, grade-wise, to those who hold a conservative stance on the book and I do not want to speculate."
  
  "Used door for office as political pulpit: One day, when I was just happening to walk by [the professor’s] door, I noticed a letter on his door. This blatantly offended me. It was a letter from some organization for the election of John Kerry, thanking Mr. Mandell for being an elector for the Democratic primary. I can understand this being important to Mr. Mandell, and fully respect his own political views and the political views of all faculty on campus. However, being in a position needing clear neutrality between the faculty in general and the student body, this bothers me."
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  abqprofessor

  10 months ago

  This is my favorite student complaint on the Horowitz site from a student who signed up for a course entitled "20th Century African American Thought":
  
  "Professor was racist since she only assigned books that were written by african americans. Additionally, some of these authors believed that white people have some how had a negative influence on african american economic and social condition."
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