EvC Forum: The Academic Bill of Rights

Thanks for the info.

This seems to be another case which isn't quite as cut and dried as it first appears. Putting "Explain Why President Bush Is A War Criminal" into Google gave me 12 hits, one of which was from Inside Higher Ed. It begs some interesting questions mostly about the intervention of David Horowitz but one crucial one about the studentsforacademicfreedom reference.

How accurate was the studentsforacemicfreedom and Horowitz version of events and just how left wing was the professor?:

Because while a Northern Colorado spokeswoman acknowledged Monday that a complaint had been filed, she also said that the test question was not the one described by Horowitz, the grade was not an F, and therewere clearly non-political reasons for whatever grade was given. And the professor who has been held up as an example of out-of-control liberal academics? In an interview last night, he said that he’s a registered Republican.

The crucial one - what exactly was the question:

Here is the question, as provided by Gloria Reynolds, a university spokeswoman:

The American government campaign to attack Iraq was in part based on the assumptions that the Iraqi government has Weapons of Mass Destruction. This was never proven prior to the U.S. police action/war and even President Bush, after the capture of Baghdad, stated, we may never find such weapons. Cohen’s research on deviance discussed this process of how the media and various moral entrepreneurs and government enforcers can conspire to create a panic. How does Cohen define this process? Explain it in-depth. Where does the social meaning of deviance come from? Argue that the attack on Iraq was deviance based on negotiable statuses. Make the argument that the military action of the U.S. attacking Iraq was criminal?

Was it really a required question?:

Reynolds added that the student did not receive an F, and that although the instructions on the test said that answers were supposed to be at least three pages long, the student submitted only two pages on this question. In addition, Reynolds said that the student never had to answer this question. The test, she said, had four questions: two required questions and two others (including the disputed one) from which a student needed to select one.

I'm no lawyer - even I have standards

- but that version of the question seems a long way from the one quoted by studentsforacademicfreedom.

The Inside Higher Ed article overall makes intersting reading. Of course with only the Web as a tool neither of us is going to be able to definitively prove one way or another what happened but I would contend another of your examples of left wing bias is on dodgy ground.

EDIT: I'm off to hospital for a few days soon so I won't be able to respond to any replies for a while.

This message has been edited by MangyTiger, 06-10-2005 02:43 AM

Oops! Wrong Planet

5 online now:	DrJones*, LamarkNewAge, nwr, PaulK, Theodoric
Newest Member:	ChatGPT
Post Volume:	Total: 916,912 Year: 4,169/9,624 Month: 1,040/974 Week: 367/286 Day: 10/13 Hour: 0/1