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Arizona (2006)

Senate Bill 1331 states that “each university under the jurisdiction of the Arizona board of regents and each community college under the jurisdiction of a community college district shall adopt procedures by which students who object to any course, coursework, learning material or activity on the basis that it is personally offensive shall be provided without financial or academic penalty an alternative course, alternative coursework, alternative learning materials or alternative activity.  Objection to a course, coursework, learning material or activity on the basis that it is personally offensive includes objections that the course, coursework, learning material or activity conflicts with the student's beliefs or practices in sex, morality or religion.”  Though not endorsed by David Horowitz, the bill was seen as an outgrowth of his campaign for an “Academic Bill of Restrictions.”  Educators, students and free speech advocates opposed the bill because of the chilling effect it would have on education.  If faculty were required to provide alternate materials to any student that objected, it would either make class impossible to teach given that students would be reading from multiple texts.  Faculty would then have no choice but to cut any content that could potentially be objected to in order for their classes to be logistically possible to teach.

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