A good lie, the wisdom goes, is based in the truth. When framed by accepted facts, even otherwise apparent falsehoods may gain credence by association.
This is exactly the strategy prominent conservative David Horowitz used when he drafted his "Academic Bill of Rights," a thinly veiled conservative agenda coated in saccharine common sense.
The spoonful of sugar, as it were, is comprised of such commonsensical gems as, "Students will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs." Or, "While teachers are and should be free to pursue their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, they should consider and make their students aware of other viewpoints."
Horowitz would like to believe that academic institutions skew left because "the governance of American universities has fallen into the hands of a self-perpetuating political and cultural subset of the general population, which seems intent on perpetuating its control." A sense of victimhood is important to Horowitz's cause - you can't have righteous indignation if you're not oppressed - and accusations of an academic conspiracy are meant to stoke these flames the same way that the "liberal media" remains a buzzword even in the days of Fox News and CNN.
Groups such as Students for Academic Freedom - a Horowitz-founded group with as many as 150 school chapters, including one at Brown - need a liberal conspiracy to rail against, and so look for one where it does not exist.
However, I am not going to dispute the charge that Brown is a liberal school. One needs to look no further than our laundry list of left-leaning groups to see that. I would argue, though, that Brown's liberal tendencies are not a problem, per se, but a matter of course.
The political leanings of the faculty at Brown reflect the political leanings of the field. When Brown takes on a new professor or evaluates a candidate for tenure, the administration does not ask for his or her voting history. There are no political code words hidden in a dissertation on the longevity of the adult damselfly, and a thesis on self-awareness in Hamlet's soliloquies says little about whether its author supports the war in Iraq.
While, in letter, the Academic Bill of Rights opposes hiring or firing any faculty based on political beliefs, Horowitz and his Students for Academic Freedom are implicitly suggesting that Brown and other schools make a concerted effort to do just that.
This insistence on intellectual diversity among the faculty is an especially ironic one coming from such staunch conservatives - it amounts to no less than a call for affirmative action.
While affirmative action, in the traditional sense, seeks to make reparations to historically maligned ethic groups, supporters of academic diversity instead suggest that schools seek out Republicans in their applicant pools based on ideology alone.
I appreciated Ruth Simmons' efforts to address the concerns brought to her by Brown students, parents and alums in her Spring Semester Opening Address, but I'm afraid that she was tricked by the sugar. Brown need not make an effort to hire more conservative professors or less liberal ones, but should stick to its present criteria: hiring the best ones.
The "Academic Bill of Rights" seems noble but is needless. Most troublingly, it has given birth to bills before several state legislatures, such as one in Ohio that would prohibit professors from presenting opinion as fact or assigning controversial materials unrelated to the course. If legislated, such laws would be only subjectively enforceable, and in the end threaten more speech than they might protect.
I'll put forth a simple alternative that requires no self-important documents or declarations: If a professor uses his or her own ideology to stifle class discussion or make students feel uncomfortable, it's not a sign of a liberal conspiracy - it's just a sign of a bad professor. If you feel you've encountered this kind of academic bias in the classroom, by all means let the University administration hear about it.
In looking for solutions, though, let's attack the problem at its root - and hire better professors, not more conservative ones.
Donald Tetto '06 does not know whom his professors voted for.
