BlogWood: MT Archives

Baxley spreads malicious lies to support bias claims

Yesterday's SP Times article is titled “Lawmaker aims to squelch political bias in college classes”. Huh? The headline seems to imply that said political bias exists and that it is a problem, and the article helpfully provides some examples right off the bat.

Conservative-minded students sit in silence because they are afraid to express their views.

Students get F's if they don't write that President Bush should be charged as a war criminal.

And professors are told to leave academia because their right- wing views are unacceptable.

These examples, according to state Rep. Dennis Baxley, are far too common on college campuses these days.

"If you think those things don't happen," Baxley said at hearing in the Florida House on Tuesday, "you are either very naive, or you haven't talked to the students or faculty who live through subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle persecution every day."

Actually, if you think these things don't happen, then you must be paying attention, because Dennis Baxley is full of shit.

First, as noted by Media Matters, the legend of the student who got an F for not calling Bush a war criminal has been positively refuted: it never happened.

Horowitz and his group Students for Academic Freedom had alleged that when asked on a midterm essay exam to explain "why President Bush was a war criminal," a student in "[a] criminology class at a Colorado university" received a failing grade for explaining instead why Saddam Hussein was a war criminal. Horowitz and SAF claimed that this incident constituted anti-conservative bias. Questions were raised repeatedly about the veracity of the story -- first by Mano Singham, the director of Case Western Reserve University's Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education, who questioned the Colorado story March 4 in a Cleveland Plain Dealer op-ed; then by Media Matters; then, on March 15, InsideHigherEd.com refuted nearly all of the claims Horowitz and his SAF group had made about the alleged UNC incident, quoting a UNC spokeswoman as saying that "the test question was not the one described by Horowitz, the grade was not an F, and there were clearly non-political reasons for whatever grade was given."

And it turns out that a story from closer to home may be suspect as well. Baxley cites the example of Elie Lahesa who

said a history professor at Tallahassee Community College told the class that America deserved the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It happened in a Western civilization class the day after Sept. 11, 2001, she said.

When Lahesa, a former Marine dressed in uniform, objected, she said the professor told her, "You have no right to talk. You are just a baby killer."

Afterward, she said, students spat on her.

When she went to the dean's office, Lahesa said she was told the dean didn't have time to talk to her.

Well, this incident never happened either.

College student Elle Lahesa described a humiliating experience in her history class the day after Sept. 11, 2001.

At a news conference with reporters this week, Lahesa said professor Donald Barry told a class at Tallahassee Community College that America deserved the terrorist attacks - "every bit of it."

State Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, who stood beside Lahesa, cited the story as the type of radicalism he hopes to quell with a bill intended to protect conservatives on college campuses.

It was a chilling story, except that the professor says it's not true.

"I absolutely deny that," Barry said Wednesday. "If she was under oath, then she committed perjury."

Barry said he wants to appear under oath before Baxley's House Education Council to rebut the allegations.

College administrators on Wednesday called other students in the class to ask what happened. One student agreed to speak with reporters.

"He didn't say anything like that," said Onome Edukore, 22, who was in Barry's Western civilization class the days after Sept. 11.

Barry did talk about the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.

"The worst thing he could have said that day was that this was a wakeup for America, as far as beefing up security," Edukore said. "He was always down for an argument. He probably did seem liberal."

At the news conference, Lahesa, a former Marine, said she was dressed in her Marine uniform. She said she challenged the professor's remarks but was quickly silenced.

She said Barry told her, "You have no right to talk. You are just a baby killer."

Lahesa, who also claimed students spat on her after class, stood by her story on Wednesday.

"He either (a) forgot it; or (b) is afraid of losing his job," she said.

Lahesa, who now attends Florida State University, said she didn't know any of her community college classmates and, hence, couldn't call any of them to corroborate her story.

Barry called the student's accusations "disgusting."
......

Baxley's academic freedom bill (HB 837) would give students the right to object if professors repeatedly discuss controversial issues irrelevant to a class. They would have the right to be graded and taught without political bias and to have access to "a broad range of serious scholarly opinion" on any subject.

The bill would require student fees to be spent on a "viewpoint-neutral basis," but it does not explain what that means.

State Rep. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat, said he never believed the wild examples of liberal bias that Baxley said permeates Florida's universities.

"I think these folks are stretching to find a justification for a horrible idea," Gelber said. "I would call this thing a dog-and-pony show, except I have too much respect for dogs and ponies."

Baxley could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

At a hearing Tuesday, he said examples such as Lahesa's of liberal bias on campus are very real.

"I find it almost humorous that we are pretending that our universities are not bastions of leftist thought when they are - obviously," Baxley said. "People know this. And all you have to do is talk to a conservative student who has been on campus, and he's experienced it. And he has to go underground."

Well, if said student is running to the media spreading libelous rumors about professors because he doesn't like a grade, then, yeah, he might have to go underground, but only to avoid a subpena.

Troxler has more.

To be sure, plenty of professors have expressed opinions, and yes indeedy, some of those opinions were liberal. I also have heard professors require that students back up their own opinions with supporting evidence and intelligent argument. That's a professor's job.

Maybe that's the reason some people feel "attacked." We live in an age when nobody needs any facts. In this modern day, you can believe any old thing you want, and if the facts get in the way, ignore 'em.

This brings us to House Bill 837 in the current session of the Legislature, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala. His proposal would create a "bill of rights" for students and faculty alike.

Baxley says conservative students and faculty are persecuted. His bill says that students are entitled to hear a wide array of viewpoints, and that neither students nor professors should be punished for their beliefs. (I wonder if he means to protect Commies and atheists too.)

So, what evidence do supporters of this bill cite? One example was that the University of Florida spent student fees to hear the liberal filmmaker Michael Moore. The horror! But it turns out the students also got former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. Sounds like a good mix to me.
......

Really, you know the big target here?

Evolution.

Evolution, as the Baxleys of the world like to say, is "just a theory," no more valid than the story of creation in Genesis. (Does anybody besides me believe they both pretty much describe the same thing?)

Just a theory! Of course, so is gravity. In fact, you might be surprised to know, they are still kinda working on that one.

A "theory" is a model of the universe, based on evidence. When the evidence contradicts the theory, we revise the theory - we don't deny the evidence.

Which is exactly the point I made last week. See the BlogWood archives for more.