Academic Bill of Restrictions Talking Points

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The “Academic Bill of Restrictions” is a politically motivated attack on the free exchange of ideas on campus.  Moreover, proponents of ABOR are distracting us from the real problems in higher education--that fewer and fewer Americans lack access to get the education they need to succeed.

1. For real learning to happen, higher education needs to include a free exchange of ideas. 

Freedom and open debate are the core of what makes learning at a college campus possible.  It’s this freedom that sponsors new ideas, fosters debate, exposes students to frames and theories they have never encountered and challenges core beliefs.  It’s hard to imagine universities successfully challenging their students and their communities without the freedom to say, think and debate anything and everything.

Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Restrictions would stifle that freedom. It would introduce  restrictions on the books that professors choose to teach and on the subjects that they choose to discuss. Real academic freedom comes from a classroom free of restrictions. Let the marketplace of ideas, not political correctness, rule the classroom.

2. Instead of trying to restrict what students can learn, we should focus on the real issues that college students face, like paying for an education

Over the past ten years, college costs have skyrocketed. State governments have cut college budgets, causing tuition increases. Federal grant aid is stagnant. As a result, more students and more families are forced to take out larger loans to pay for the student’s education. Over the past decade, debt levels for graduating seniors with student loans more than doubled.

3. There is not a problem with political bias in higher education. 

Horowitz claims to be defending students from “indoctrination”, but presents precious little evidence of this problem.  Initially he touted a survey of professors’ voter registration, but once pressed to explain how that is evidence of a problem, even he has backed off – “We did this [voter registration study] not to establish a principle for balancing faculties or even because we believed that these categories provided a useful intellectual standard.”  He’s also had to retract several stories of “indoctrination” after they were proven false.

A quick glance at the “complaints” posted by students on his web site reveals a lot of sour grapes and hurt feelings that result from being confronted with an alternate point of view, but not much indoctrination.  For instance, one student writes that his professor “talked about flags as symbols of states and argued that new Iraqi flag was not a result of a transparent and fair process. Argued AS FACT that new flag had similar colors to Israeli flag and that this could be problematic. Claimed AS FACT that other Arab societies had red, green and black in their flags. Very biased. Had no visual proof of this.”

Furthermore, in those cases where a professor does behave inappropriately, there are standards and a process for dealing with it already in place.  For example, at the University of California one professor suggested in his course description that conservative thinkers avoid his section of a class about the Middle East conflict. The University recognized that this was inappropriate and the professor apologized and changed the course description.

4. The Academic Bill of Restrictions is an attempt by David Horowitz to silence political debate on campus and advance his own political agenda.

Horowitz makes no attempt to hide his political agenda – he wants to undermine “liberal” professors and students and replace them with his conservative ideology and political cronies.  The Academic Bill of Restrictions is based on political strategy, not a devotion to freedom.

In his essay about the campus blacklist, Horowitz uses a personal story to justify the need for an Academic Bill of Restrictions. In 2003, prior to a Horowitz speaking engagement at Columbia University, a professor sent out an email encouraging some students to protest his appearance. An infuriated Horowitz demanded that the professor apologize and the university issue a statement deploring her actions, simply because this professor chose to speak out against the ideas and policies advocated by Horowitz.

This is not the reaction of a man interested in free speech – this is the action of a man interested in silencing the political opinions of those with whom he disagrees.