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American Taliban works to stop infidel professors

Right wing extremist David Horowitz has been making lots of noise lately about “academic freedom.” His definition of “freedom: includes the right to challenge one’s professors on such “controversial” subjects as evolution and the holocaust.

See, according to Horowitz, teaching a scientific theory that is universally accepted and backed by hundreds of years of research and millions of years of fossil records without also teaching the “there’s an invisible man in the sky and he’s really awesome and the world is only a few thousand years old and dinosaurs were man’s best friend before god invented dogs” version of events somehow infringes on the rights of students.

Which leads to this.

College students could demand their views be discussed in classrooms without fear of academic retribution, a controversial bill being considered by the Legislature provides.

Dubbed the ``academic freedom'' bill, House Bill 837 and its companion in the Senate, SB 2126, would develop a statewide ``bill of rights'' for faculty to follow in the interest of delivering a ``fair and balanced'' curriculum, according to sponsor Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.

``I believe there are spots in the universities - I call them totalitarian niches - where, in the cover of the classroom dictator, professors are completely in charge of what is taught,'' Baxley said.

``If you disagree with their political view or world view, you will feel it in the grade book or in graduate referrals. ... It's the big pink elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about.''

The House bill sailed through the House Education and Innovation Committee on Tuesday, passing 6-2.

Under the bill, instructors teaching evolution also would have to teach creationism if a student requested it. A course on the Holocaust also would have to include a section on the belief held by some that there was never a Holocaust.

If that did not happen, students who sued the institution would have the support of a state law. The state Education Department warns of the fiscal effects in a bill analysis, stating Florida should be prepared to shell out at least $4.2 million a year to retain an attorney and pay anticipated legal costs if the bill passes.

Opponents say such a law flies in the face of free speech.

``It's silly, empirically inaccurate and unconstitutional in about 60 different ways,'' said Steven Gey, a law professor at Florida State University.

The proposal is a product of an ``Academic Bill of Rights'' written by David Horowitz, founder of the conservative think tank Students for Academic Freedom.

Nearly a dozen other state legislatures - including California's, Pennsylvania's and Georgia's - are considering various versions.

Horowitz says the legislation is necessary to beat back liberal-leaning faculty at colleges and universities.

``Too many professors indoctrinate students while university administrators are intimidated from enforcing their own guidelines,'' Horowitz wrote in an opinion piece in Thursday's USA Today.

``It is because of this that Legislatures are the last resort for providing a remedy and setting universities back on their intended course: educating our kids, not brainwashing them,'' he wrote.

Educators who oppose the legislation say that not only would it set standards for the state's university system that could threaten schools' academic accreditation, but it also would cost millions in lawsuits.

``This will immediately draw a lawsuit where it's already a foregone conclusion that the state will lose and have to pay millions in the ACLU's [American Civil Liberties Union], or whoever takes this case, attorneys' fees,'' Gey said.

Gey and other educators said the matter harkened back to the McCarthy era, when professors and other faculty were forced to sign loyalty oaths.

``We've been here before, and for 50 years the Supreme Court has told legislatures they can't do this,'' Gey said.

More here.

The bill sets a statewide standard that students cannot be punished for professing beliefs with which their professors disagree. Professors would also be advised to teach alternative “serious academic theories” that may disagree with their personal views.

According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.

Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” - for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class - would also be given the right to sue.

“Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,’” Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.

Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, warned of lawsuits from students enrolled in Holocaust history courses who believe the Holocaust never happened.

Similar suits could be filed by students who don’t believe astronauts landed on the moon, who believe teaching birth control is a sin or even by Shands medical students who refuse to perform blood transfusions and believe prayer is the only way to heal the body, Gelber added.

“This is a horrible step,” he said. “Universities will have to hire lawyers so our curricula can be decided by judges in courtrooms. Professors might have to pay court costs - even if they win - from their own pockets. This is not an innocent piece of legislation.”

The staff analysis also warned the bill may shift responsibility for determining whether a student’s freedom has been infringed from the faculty to the courts.

But Baxley brushed off Gelber’s concerns. “Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don’t want to hear,” he said. “Being a businessman, I found out you can be sued for anything. Besides, if students are being persecuted and ridiculed for their beliefs, I think they should be given standing to sue.”

During the committee hearing, Baxley cast opposition to his bill as “leftists” struggling against “mainstream society.”

“The critics ridicule me for daring to stand up for students and faculty,” he said, adding that he was called a McCarthyist.

Baxley later said he had a list of students who were discriminated against by professors, but refused to reveal names because he felt they would be persecuted.

Make no mistake: this bill is part of a much larger national push to force a particular Christian sect’s beliefs into the mainstream.

Young-Earth Creationism (YEC) is the position that most of the politically active "creationists" hold. Young-Earth Creationists demand a literal reading of Genesis. They insist that Earth is less than ten thousand years old; that it and all life were created in just six twenty-four-hour days; and that the entire fossil record is a result of Noah's Flood. They claim to have "scientific evidence" for this, but in fact their "evidence" consists partly of mistakes, partly of misinterpretations, partly of old stories now known to be wrong, and partly of outright lies. YECs routinely lie about the scientific evidence, both that for evolution and that against YECism, and don't even see anything wrong with their blatant dishonesty.

I used to think that young-Earth creationism was the most dangerous form of creationism. Unfortunately, in the last couple of years an even more dangerous form has appeared: the so-called Intelligent Design (ID) type of creationism. ID is dangerous not because it has any real facts on its side -- it doesn't -- but because its advocates have learned how to use rhetoric far more effectively than earlier creationist movements did. ID creationism cloaks itself in reasonable-sounding claims of "weaknesses" in evolutionary theory, and asks why students should be denied the chance to learn the evidence against evolutionary theory. When explained by one of its adherents, ID sounds like a variant on theistic evolution. But it isn't. In fact, "Intelligent Design theory" is just a trick: the latest in a series of disguises used by religious fundamentalists to conceal the same old anti-evolution, anti-science agenda that has driven them for over a hundred years. The "evidence against evolution" that IDers claim is simply recycled young-earthist nonsense. Their true goal is to defeat modern, naturalistic science and put religion (their religion, of course) into a dominant role in public schools and public life.

More:

People For the American Way - Evolution and Creationism in Public Education

Anti-evolution teachings gain foothold in U.S. schools / Evangelicals see flaws in Darwinism

Wired 12.10: The Crusade Against Evolution