David Horowitz: Encyclopedia II - David Horowitz - Academic Bill of Rights

David Horowitz - Academic Bill of Rights

Horowitz, along with some Republican leaders, has been promoting his "Academic Bill of Rights," an eight-point manifesto that seeks to eliminate alleged political bias in university hiring and grading. Horowitz claims that liberal bias in universities amounts to indoctrination, and charges that conservatives and particularly Republicans are 'systematically excluded' from faculties. He has often attempted to prove this by examining party registrations of faculty members[7]. The student government of Bates College has endorsed his Bill of Rights.[8] Critics, such as Stanley Fish, have argued that "academic diversity," as cited in the bill, is not a legitimate academic value. This is a normal course of argument for Fish, who frequently argues that no endorsement of a concept like "diversity" can be absolute. [9] Others claim that it is just an 'affirmative action' program for conservatives, although Horowitz denies this, saying that the Bill is designed to prevent hiring being carried out on anything other than 'clear academic criteria'. His critics point out that rather than preventing hiring based on political criteria, the Bill would require political tests to be explicitly applied in the hiring process itself. Prospective applicants would be identified as "liberal" or "conservative" based either on their political party registeration or on the subjective decision of an evaluator within the process. Horowitz also charges the campus Left as having heavily slanted courses and reading lists towards a Left-liberal interpretation of history and society, implicitly or explicitly excluding non left-of-center points of view.

Horowitz was hit with a pie in the face by left-wing activists during a lecture given at Butler University, just days after similar incidents at Western Michigan University, during a speech by conservative writer and talk-show host Pat Buchanan, and at Earlham College, during a speech given by conservative writer and activist Bill Kristol.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Academic Bill of Rights", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki