Capitol bill aims to control ‘leftist’ profs

[Amelia]

Capitol bill aims to control ‘leftist’ profs

THE LAW COULD LET STUDENTS SUE FOR UNTOLERATED BELIEFS.

By JAMES VANLANDINGHAM

The Independant Alligator

Gainesville, Florida

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

TALLAHASSEE — Republicans on the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to pass a bill that aims to stamp out “leftist totalitarianism” by “dictator professors” in the classrooms of Florida’s universities.

The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, passed 8-to-2 despite strenuous objections from the only two Democrats on the committee.

The bill has two more committees to pass before it can be considered by the full House.

While promoting the bill Tuesday, Baxley said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”

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.

Rep. Eleanor Sobel, D-Hollywood, argued universities and the state Board of Governors already have policies in place to protect academic freedom. Moreover, a state law outlining how professors are supposed to teach would encroach on the board’s authority to manage state schools.

“The big hand of state government is going into the universities telling them how to teach,” she said. “This bill is the antithesis of academic freedom.”

But Baxley compared the state’s universities to children, saying the legislature should not give them money without providing “guidance” to their behavior.

“Professors are accountable for what they say or do,” he said. “They’re accountable to the rest of us in society … All of a sudden the faculty think they can do what they want and shut us out. Why is it so unheard of to say the professor shouldn’t be a dictator and control that room as their totalitarian niche?”

In an interview before the meeting, Baxley said “arrogant, elitist academics are swarming” to oppose the bill, and media reports misrepresented his intentions.

“I expect to be out there on my own pretty far,” he said. “I don’t expect to be part of a team.”

House Bill H-837 can be viewed online at www.flsenate.gov.

[Guest]

"When freedom destroys order,

the yearning for order will destroy freedom"

Eric Hoffer

[Nicodema]

True freedom never destroys order, any more than genuine liberty is devoid of responsibility.

-- Nico Kinney

[Guest]

DEAR ABBY

Readers weigh in: The teacher was wrong, as was the columnist

March 24, 2005

DEAR ABBY: You printed a letter from a student who received detention for "respectfully disagreeing" with her teacher during a discussion of world events. In your reply, you suggested that the writer's comment may have been "disruptive," justifying the detention, and advised that it would have been more "diplomatic" to have voiced the disagreement in private. I take exception to your answer.

I am semiretired now, but as a manager I had tremendous difficulty convincing subordinates that it was not only safe to disagree with me, but that I needed their frank opinions. I trace this to a situation described by John Holt in his 1964 book, "How Children Fail," in which he points out that the education system kills creativity, teaching students to anticipate what the teacher wants to hear and to feed it back to him/her.

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I am currently co-director of the Master's in Health Physics Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology, engaged in the training of radiation safety professionals. It is essential that a safety professional be prepared to challenge his/her management when it proposes to do something that's contrary to law or regulation, or prejudicial to safe operation. The type of education described by Holt produces individuals who go along with management no matter what is proposed.

It is despicable that a teacher would conduct a "discussion" in which she entertains only opinions that agree with her own and punishes those that don't. The result for the students and our country is tragic. You should have supported the student.

– Laurence F. Friedman

DEAR DR. FRIEDMAN: You're right; I should have. And thousands of readers wrote to tell me so. (The e-mails, when printed out, weighed more than 15 pounds.) Read on:

DEAR ABBY: Your advice to the student to follow the "diplomatic" approach and wait until after class to comment was still reverberating in my mind when I moved on to a USA Weekend story, "First Amendment Rights Lost on Teens," describing a Knight Foundation poll of 100,000 students that found that the majority of them assign little or no value to their constitutional right to free speech. Your response to that student makes you part of the problem.

– Upset in Santa Cruz

DEAR ABBY: That teacher was behaving unprofessionally. I have been teaching for more than 20 years and have strong opinions of my own. One of them is that students be taught to think for themselves. The student should have been listened to with respect instead of punished.

– Teacher in El Cerrito, Calif.

DEAR ABBY: Any educator who uses the classroom to pontificate on his or her political or religious views and allows no dissent is more a tyrant than a teacher. Send that kid to my classroom and give the teacher detention!

– Encourages Thought

in Indiana

DEAR ABBY: Prejudice comes in many shapes and forms, and I applaud that student for standing up against it. Punishing a student for having a different political opinion sounds more like North Korea than the United States of America. As it stands, these students are being cheated in their education because they are being taught about the world only through the narrow opinions of one misguided teacher.

– Outraged in Dublin, Calif.

DEAR READERS: My answer left something to be desired, and for that I apologize.

[Dr. Shane]

Something needs to be done about academic tyrants. I don't know if the Florida bill is the answer but too many profesors punish students that disagree with them politically. I got a "D" in American Racial Minorities even though I aced all my tests. The was one presentation we had to give and in it I said I not only recognized racial problems in America's past and present but stated they were not exceptable. However I stated I would not appoligize for being America. I sang its praises as white trash raised on the welfare dime being able to graduate college. This was a few years after China killed all those students in Tenemen Square.