Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom

Several years ago, David Horowitz began a campaign to remove political indoctrination from universities in America. He created the Academic Bill of Rights, which drew largely from university charters. The Bill's main thrust is that professors should not promote or endorse particular points of view in the classroom, unless related to their academic field. For instance a professor of English literature should not use his position to opine on the war in Iraq. Such a policy seems sensible to me, but he has received unbelievable criticism in the academic community.

This book is mainly a chronicle of his the opposition he has received while promoting the Academic Bill of Rights. Some of the stories he tells of the rudeness, disruption of speaking engagements, and hostility he has received are unbelievable. If it came from stupid 18 year olds, that would be one thing, but tenured professors have responded to him in child-like ways repeatedly. And when they actually have a debate or engage him in print, they distort truth and sometimes simply lie about what Horowitz has said.

Horowitz is a conservative, so liberal professors suspect an ulterior motive. He clearly makes the case that he opposes equally indoctrination by liberals and by conservatives. He does tell a story or two of conservatives who cross the line, but his case would certainly be bolstered if he spent a little time investigating conservative professors who use their position to promote their point of view (outside their field of specialization). Of course, I guess such a conservative is simply harder to find.

A companion book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, reinforces Horowitz's proclivity toward exposing liberal abusers of academic freedom. I didn't read this one straight through. I don't know why anyone would want to. I did know one professor in the book, Marc Ellis at Baylor. He came to Baylor after I left, but I did meet him. He was friendly, but intellectually snobbish, dismissive of points of view which opposed his own. This concurs with what Horowitz writes. Is he dangerous? Are any of these professors really dangerous? He confesses that the subtitle was added by the publisher, and that he went along with it reluctantly.

The line between scholarship from a particular perspective and pure, objective scholarship seems a bit fuzzy to me sometimes. In any field, the scholar and teacher will have an extensive set of presuppositions from which he will begin. If he didn't, would he be forever stuck on first principles? And are academic fields as clearly delineated as Horowitz suggests? Sometimes not so much.

Nevertheless, Horowitz is right about the frequent myopia of academia. The only explanation for the academic community's rejection of Horowitz's Bill is their refusal to admit they might not be right about everything.