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90–304 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–380

IS INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY AN ENDANGERED

SPECIES ON AMERICA’S COLLEGE CAMPUSES?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION,

LABOR, AND PENSIONS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

EXAMINING INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY ON AMERICA’S COLLEGE CAMPUSES, FOCUSING ON THE PROBLEM OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION,

POLITICIZED INSTRUCTION, AND CORE CURRICULA

OCTOBER 29, 2003

Printed for the use of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

(
COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire, Chairman

BILL FRIST, Tennessee

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri

MIKE DEWINE, Ohio

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

TOM HARKIN, Iowa

BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland

JAMES M. JEFFORDS (I), Vermont

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico

PATTY MURRAY, Washington

JACK REED, Rhode Island

JOHN EDWARDS, North Carolina

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York

SHARON R. SODERSTROM, Staff Director

J. MICHAEL MYERS, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel

(II)
CONTENTS

STATEMENTS

WEDNESDAY, 29, 2003

Page

Gregg, Hon. Judd, a U.S. Senator from the State of New Hampshire ................ 1

Neal, Anne, President, American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Washington, DC; Robert David Johnson, professor, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY; Greg

Lukianoff, Director of Legal and Public Advocacy, Foundation For Individual Rights in Education, Philadelphia, PA; and Anthony Dick, student,

University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA ........................................................ 9

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Statements, articles, publications, letters, etc.:

Anne Neal ......................................................................................................... 33

Robert David Johnson ...................................................................................... 36

Greg Lukianoff .................................................................................................. 39

Anthony Dick .................................................................................................... 43

Stanley Rothman .............................................................................................. 46

American Jewish Congress .............................................................................. 52

(III)

(1)

IS INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY AN ENDANGERED SPECIES ON AMERICA’S COLLEGE

CAMPUSES?

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2003

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:55 p.m., in room

SD–430, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Gregg, (chairman

of the committee), presiding.

Present: Senators Gregg, Alexander, and Sessions.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GREGG

The CHAIRMAN. We will get started. There are other members

who are going to be coming and we are a little early, but I have

a fairly lengthy opening statement and I don’t want to tie up our

witnesses. I will make this statement and get the thing rolling, and

as other members come, we will proceed.

I consider this to be a very important hearing from my standpoint, my focus. This whole issue of intellectual diversity is something I am very concerned about and the deterioration, in my opinion, of the quality of education in this country is tied to the failure

of our higher education community to recognize that they are basically becoming single-dimensional and that they need more diversity in the area of intellectual activity.

The word diversity is quite popular today, and nowhere is that

more true than on our Nation’s college campuses. There is no doubt

that our Nation’s colleges and universities have in recent years devoted vast resources toward the goal of establishing ethnic and

gender diversity on their campuses, and they are certainly to be

credited for doing that.

This hearing, however, will focus on a different and yet equally

important kind of diversity and that is intellectual diversity. This

is the kind of diversity that comes from having the full marketplace of ideas represented on a campus rather than just a narrow

slice, the kind of diversity characterized by the free exchange of

ideas and the honest debate on the issues of the day rather than

by restrictions on free speech and one-sided curriculum.

I believe that, with rare exception, the intellectual diversity of

academia has diminished significantly over the last 30 years. My

view is not unique and it is not new. Others have been pointing

to what I see as a lack of intellectual diversity in academia for

years and we will hear some of those voices today. However, new
2

evidence is beginning to show just how pervasive and damaging

this lack of intellectual diversity really is.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, has

just launched a website that catalogs hundreds of speech codes at

colleges and universities across our Nation. The Independent Women’s Forum has just released a report documenting the decline of

fundamental liberal arts courses at the top ten liberal arts schools

in our country. They found these courses are being replaced by

trendy courses focused on race and culture and gender.

A soon-to-be-published survey of the American College Faculty

shows that the academy leans to the political left by a wide margin

in contrast to 30 years ago. Ultimately, this is a quality issue.

While college tuitions go up and up, it is fair to ask just what are

our students and our parents getting for their money? Hopefully,

this hearing will shed light on just how this lack of intellectual diversity is hurting the quality of education received by college students. That is what this hearing is about.

Now, let me say a brief word concerning what this hearing is not

about. It is not about restricting anyone’s academic freedom or having the Federal Government dictate college curriculum; just the opposite. One can see evidence of the lack of intellectual diversity in

higher education if one looks at the course offerings in certain

fields. Whereas at one time traditional approaches to history and

literature, for example, were featured prominently in the curriculum, along with new approaches like social history, today, those

traditional approaches are being squeezed out in favor of a uniform

curriculum based more on the interest group politics than on academic merit.

A study by the National Association of Scholars shows that only

one of the top 50 colleges in the country required undergraduate

students to take an introductory history course in 1993. That is

down 60 percent from 1964.

A recently released report by the Independent Women’s Forum,

looked at the top ten liberal arts colleges as ranked by U.S. News

and World Report and found that, for example, a freshman at Amherst is not offered an overview course in American or European

history, that Carleton College’s history department offers only one

broad overview course.

What is replacing such traditional and educationally sound

courses? The answer is a proliferation of classes focused on race,

class, gender, with little intellectual substance. At Antioch College

in Ohio, for example, students can take classes in the

‘‘Ethnopsychiatry,’’ ‘‘Queer British Fiction,’’ and ‘‘Ecology and Feminism.’’ The University of Texas offers an English course which

teaches students that there is nothing grammatically wrong with

the sentence, quote, ‘‘Nobody didn’t leave.’’ Vanderbilt University

offers courses entitled ‘‘Pornography and Prostitution in History.’’

Swarthmore offers courses in ‘‘Illicit Desires in Literature and

Fictions in Identity.’’

These are just a few examples, but increasingly, they represent

the norm. It would not be so bad if these examples were simply

courses in a structure of many courses that were being offered that

was a balanced structure. The problem is, it is not a balanced

structure as traditional courses are being eliminated, such as the
3

overview courses in American and European history. It has gotten

so bad that some professors have actually started new professional

associations in fields like history and literature as an alternative

to the new uniformity that they see in these fields.

Campus speech codes that seek to punish students for exercising

their First Amendment rights are also rampant on colleges today.

These codes typically define forbidden speech in overly broad terms

that cannot help but have a chilling effect on open, rigorous, and

thoughtful dialogue. Some recent examples include any, quote,

‘‘jokes and stories experienced by others as harassing.’’ That is a

Bowdin College speech code. Any speech that causes a loss of,

quote, ‘‘self-esteem.’’ That is a Colby College speech code. Any,

quote, ‘‘verbal behavior that produces feelings of impotence, anger,

or disenfranchisement.’’ That is a Brown University speech code.

Any, quote, ‘‘inappropriately directed laughter,’’ a University of

Connecticut speech code.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has cataloged

hundreds of these speech codes and has fought several of them in

court. FIRE, which is the acronym for the Foundation, estimates

that approximately two-thirds of our U.S. colleges have speech

codes of some kind.

In addition to speech codes in the past few years, we have seen

the rise of another strange new development on campuses, the free

speech zone. These zones are created by college administrators to

limit students’ protests and demonstrations only to certain areas on

campus. The implication, of course, is that free speech can and will

be restricted in places outside those zones.

With policies like these in place, one must seriously question

whether freedom of expression really exists for today’s college student. They stifle the voices of public criticism, commentary, and

satire and teach students to engage in self-censorship so as to

avoid causing even the slightest offense.

Another serious barrier to intellectual diversity on campus is the

political and ideological bias of the faculty and the outright indoctrination practices by too many professors and administrations. A

soon-to-be-published survey of 1,500 faculty members at 140 American colleges and universities conducted by the Angus Reid polling

firm and directed by Professor Stanley Rothman of Smith College

found that 72 percent of the faculty members described themselves

as politically liberal, while only 15 percent described themselves as

politically conservative.

In the humanities and social sciences, where social and political

issues are more likely to arise and where bias most impacts classroom teaching, this bias is even more pronounced. Eighty-one percent of professors in the humanities and 75 percent of professors

in the social sciences identify their views as strongly or moderately

liberal, while only nine percent hold conservative views.

Rothman points to evidence that over the last 30 years, we have

witnessed a startling shift toward the left in academia. According

to the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education survey conducted

in 1969, 45 percent of faculty classified themselves as politically

liberal that year. That compares to 72 percent today.

It seems clear from this data that the American professor is unrepresentative of the full range of views in America today. Not only
4

is the faculty biased, but this bias impacts what goes on in the

classroom, as well. There appears to be an increasing number of instances in which alternative viewpoints are either silenced or ignored in the classroom, often with hostility or disdain. It has gotten

so bad that a new, nonpartisan website sprang up a year ago to

catalog these sorts of incidents and has so far registered scores of

examples.

A couple of examples are these. At the University of Maryland

at College Park, a course on ‘‘Art of Ancient America’’ was derailed

by the professor’s frequent tirades on U.S. foreign policy and the

oppression of Middle East people, in which he pretended to strap

a bomb to himself as a terrorist would. Examples like this that disparage the State of Israel are unfortunate and all too common.

A Notre Dame professor’s stated goal in his introduction to

American government class was to, quote, ‘‘win students over to

the cause of liberalism.’’ A student reported the professor spent so

much time discussing his political bent that few of the required

readings were actually covered.

Another example of this type of bias concerns students at Citrus

College in California. As part of a speech class at that institution,

one professor offered her students extra credit if they wrote letters

to President Bush protesting the war in Iraq. Those who wrote the

letters praising the Iraq campaign or who refused to actually mail

their letters were refused credit for the assignment.

What is more, universities are not even trying to hide what they

are doing. The University of California in Berkeley recently repealed its longstanding policy against politicizing the classroom,

calling it, quote, ‘‘outdated.’’ It is not just that classrooms in some colleges have instituted

mandatory freshman orientation programs and diversity training

workshops, run by administrative entities with names like the

Prejudice Reduction Committee. These efforts at thought reform

often involve paid consultants whose job it is to reeducate students

and faculty to accept the view of multiculturalism based on the victim mentality and group rather than individual rights. In recent

years, the classified section of the Chronicle of Higher Education

has included hundreds of advertisements for these consultants,

demonstrating just how pervasive such an effort has become.

Students on many of America’s college campuses are being exposed to only a narrow range of viewpoints through the politicized

course offerings and the ideologically homogeneous faculty that fosters an atmosphere where dissenting views are either quashed or

ridiculed and significant restrictions are placed on free speech.

Simply put, this lack of intellectual diversity in higher education

shortchanges students by depriving them of the exposure to a robust debate on the issues of the day. There is nothing wrong with

having a dominant liberal view on our campuses. It is to be expected. It is the nature of higher education. But allowing that dominant view should not eliminate the opportunity for dialogue of

other views on the campus.

How can students be liberally educated if they are only receiving

part of the story? What do we teach students about freedom when

they see that some views are discouraged or even forbidden? What

does free speech stand for if it is not allowed on a campus? What
5

are we teaching them about our American traditions if traditional

subjects like political and constitutional history are shoved aside to

make room for trendy courses of the cultural elite? How can students lacking in exposure to the full marketplace of ideas be expected to thrive after college in a world where opinions and perspectives differ greatly?

[The prepared statement of Senator Gregg follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR GREGG

The word ‘‘diversity’’ is quite popular today, and nowhere is that

more true than on our nation’s college campuses. There is no doubt

that our nation’s colleges and universities have, in recent years, devoted vast resources toward the goal of establishing ethnic and

gender diversity on their campuses. And certainly, we all applaud

the fact that the doors of higher education today are now open to

all, regardless of gender or race.

This hearing, however, will focus on a different, and yet equally

important, kind of diversity—intellectual diversity. This is the kind

of diversity that comes from having the full marketplace of ideas

represented on campus, rather than just a narrow slice; the kind

of diversity characterized by the free exchange of ideas and honest

debate on the issues of the day, rather than by restrictions on free

speech and a one-sided curriculum.

I believe that, with rare exceptions, the intellectual diversity of

the academy has diminished significantly over the last 30 years.

My view is not unique, and it is not new. Others have been pointing to what they see as a lack of intellectual diversity in the academy for years, and we will hear some of those voices today. However, new evidence is beginning to show just how pervasive, and

damaging, this lack of intellectual diversity really is. For example,

the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has just

launched a website that catalogues hundreds of speech codes at colleges and universities across the nation. The Independent Women’s

Forum has just released a report documenting the decline of fundamental liberal arts courses at the top 10 liberal arts colleges.

They found these courses are being replaced by trendy courses focused on race and gender. Also, a soon-to-be-published survey of

American college faculty shows that the academy leans to the political left by a wide margin, in contrast to 30 years ago.

Ultimately, this is a quality issue. While college tuitions go up

and up, it’s fair to ask just what students and parents are getting

for their money. Hopefully, this hearing will shed light on just how

this lack of intellectual diversity is hurting the quality of education

received by college students. That is what this hearing is about.

Now let me say a brief word concerning what this hearing is not

about. It is not about restricting anyone’s academic freedom or having the federal government dictate college curricula.

One can see evidence of the lack of intellectual diversity in higher education if one looks at the courses offered in certain fields.

Whereas at one time traditional approaches to history and literature, for example, were featured prominently in the curriculum,

along with new approaches like social history, today those traditional approaches are being squeezed out in favor of a uniform curriculum based more on interest-group politics than academic merit.
6

A study by the National Association of Scholars showed that only

one of the top 50 universities in the country required undergraduates to take an introductory history class in 1993, down from 60%

in 1964. And a recently released report by the Independent Women’s Forum looked at the top 10 liberal arts schools as ranked by

U.S. News and World Report, and found, for example, that a freshman at Amherst isn’t offered an overview course in American or

European history, and Carleton College’s history department offers

only one broad overview course.

What is replacing such traditional and educationally sound

courses? The answer is a proliferation of classes focused on race,

class, and gender, with little intellectual substance. At Antioch College in Ohio, students can take classes in Ethnopsychiatry, Queer

British Fiction, and Ecology and Feminism. The University of

Texas offers an English course which teaches students that there

is nothing grammatically wrong with the sentence: ‘‘Nobody didn’t

leave.’’ Vanderbilt University offers a course entitled Pornography

and Prostitution in History. Swarthmore offers courses in Illicit Desires in Literature, and Fictions in Identity. These are just examples, but increasingly they represent the norm. It has gotten so bad

that some professors have actually started new professional associations in fields like history and literature, as alternatives to this

new uniformity they see in those fields.

Campus speech codes that seek to punish students for exercising

their First Amendment rights are also rampant on college campuses today. These codes typically define forbidden speech in overly

broad terms that cannot help but have a chilling effect on open,

rigorous debate. Some recent examples include: any jokes and stories ‘‘experienced by others as harassing’’ (Bowdin College); any

speech that causes a loss of ‘‘self-esteem’’ (Colby College); and any ‘‘verbal behavior’’ that produces ‘‘feelings of impotence, anger, or

disenfranchisement’’ (Brown University). The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has catalogued hundreds of

these speech codes, and has fought several of them in the courts.

FIRE estimates that approximately two-thirds of U.S. colleges have

speech codes of some kind.

In addition to speech codes, in the past few years we have seen

the rise of another strange new development on campus—the ‘‘free

speech zone.’’ These zones are created by college administrators to

limit student protests and demonstrations only to certain areas on

campus. The implication, of course, is that free speech can, and

will, be restricted in places outside the zone.

With policies like these in place, one must seriously question

whether freedom of expression really exists for today’s college student. They stifle the voices of public criticism, commentary, and

satire, and teach students to engage in self-censorship so as to

avoid causing even the slightest offense.

Another serious barrier to intellectual diversity on campus is the

political and ideological bias of the faculty, and the outright indoctrination practiced by too many professors and administrators. A

soon-to-be published survey of more than 1500 faculty members at

140 American colleges and universities, conducted by the AngusReid polling firm and directed by professor Stanley Rothman of

Smith College, found that 72% of faculty members describe them-
7

selves as politically liberal, while only 15% describe themselves as

politically conservative. In the humanities and social sciences,

where social and political issues are most likely to arise and where

bias most impacts classroom teaching, this bias is even more pronounced. 81% of professors in the humanities and 75% of professors

in the social sciences identify their views as strongly or moderately

liberal, while only 9% hold strongly or moderately conservative

views. Furthermore, Rothman points to evidence that the last 30

years have witnessed a startling shift toward the left in academia.

According to the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education survey

conducted in 1969, 45% of faculty classified themselves as politically liberal that year. That compares to 72% today.

It seems clear from this data that the American professorate is

unrepresentative of the full range of views in America today. Not

only is the faculty biased, but this bias impacts what goes on in

the classroom as well. There appear to be an increasing number of

incidents in which alternative viewpoints are either silenced or ignored in the classroom—often with hostility or disdain. It has gotten so bad that a new, nonpartisan website sprang up a year ago

to catalogue these sorts of incidents, and has so far registered

scores of examples.

For example, a University of Maryland, College Park course on

the Art of Ancient America was derailed by the professor’s frequent

tirades on U.S. foreign policy and the oppression of Middle Eastern

people, in which he pretended to strap a bomb to himself as a terrorist would. Examples like this that disparage the state of Israel

are unfortunately, all too common. Also cited is a Notre Dame professor, whose stated goal in his ‘‘Introduction to American Government’’ class was to ‘‘win students over to the cause of liberalism.’’ A student reported that the professor spent so much time discussing his political bent that few of the required readings were actually covered.

Another example of this outrageous bias concerns students at

Citrus College in California. As part of a speech class at that institution, one professor offered her students extra credit if they wrote

letters to President Bush protesting the war in Iraq. Those who

wrote letters praising the Iraq campaign or who refused to actually

mail their letters were refused credit for the assignment.

What’s more, universities are not even trying to hide what they

are doing. The University of California, Berkeley recently repealed

its long-standing policy against politicizing the classroom, calling it

‘‘outdated.’’

And it’s not just in the classroom. Some colleges have instituted

mandatory freshman orientation programs and ‘‘diversity training

workshops.’’ Run by administrative entities with names like the

‘‘Prejudice Reduction Committee,’’ these efforts at thought reform

often involve paid consultants whose job it is to ‘‘re-educate’’ students and faculty to accept a view of multiculturalism based on a

victim mentality and group, rather than individual, rights. In recent years, the classified section of the Chronicle of Higher Education has included hundreds of advertisements for these consultants, demonstrating just how pervasive such efforts have become.

Students on many of America’s college campuses are being exposed to only a narrow range of viewpoints through politicized
8

course offerings, an ideologically homogenous faculty that fosters

an atmosphere where dissenting views are either quashed or ridiculed, and significant restrictions on free speech. Simply put, this

lack of intellectual diversity in higher education shortchanges students by depriving them of exposure to a robust debate on the

issues of the day. How can students be liberally educated if they

are only receiving part of the story? What do we teach students

about freedom when they see that some views are discouraged or

even forbidden? What are we teaching them about our American

traditions if traditional subjects like political and constitutional

history are shoved aside to make room for trendy courses designed

to appeal to grievance-based politics? How can students lacking in

exposure to the full marketplace of ideas be expected to thrive after

college in a world where opinions and perspectives differ greatly?

I look forward to hearing our witnesses testify about these

issues.

The CHAIRMAN. This hearing is about these problems and about

this concern, and therefore, I greatly appreciate the fact that our

witnesses are willing to take the time to come here and testify.

We have a very talented and knowledgeable panel today. I will

introduce everybody and then we will begin.

I will start with Anne Neal, who is President of the American

Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit organization dedicated

to academic freedom and excellence in higher education. Ms. Neal

has served as General Counsel for the National Endowment of the

Humanities, as well as a First Amendment and communications

lawyer with two different law firms.

We also have Robert David Johnson, a professor of history at

Brooklyn College and Graduate Center of the City University of

New York. Dr. Johnson, I understand, is now completing a book on

Congress and the Cold War.

We have with us Greg Lukianoff, who is Director of Legal and

Public Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonprofit foundation devoted to free speech, individual liberty, and academic freedom in higher education. He attended Stanford University, where he focused on the First Amendment and

constitutional law and practiced law in Northern California.

And we have a student with us today, Anthony Dick, a third-year

student at the University of Virginia. Anthony is majoring in philosophy, and cognitive sciences, with a concentration in neuroscience, and is a columnist and former opinion editor for UVA’s

daily student newspaper. He recently founded the Individual

Rights Coalition, a student group dedicated to preserving free

speech and free thought on the campus. It is great to have you here

today, Anthony. Do you like to be called Anthony or Tony?

Mr. DICK. Anthony is fine.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you. We will go this way and

we will start with you, Ms. Neal.
9

STATEMENTS OF ANNE NEAL, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN COUNCIL OF TRUSTEES AND ALUMNI, WASHINGTON, DC.; ROBERT

DAVID JOHNSON, PROFESSOR, BROOKLYN COLLEGE AND

THE GRADUATE CENTER OF THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW

YORK, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK; GREG LUKIANOFF, DIRECTOR

OF LEGAL AND PUBLIC ADVOCACY, FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN EDUCATION, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA; AND ANTHONY DICK, STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA

Ms. NEAL. Thank you very much. A pundit has described our colleges and universities as islands of oppression in a sea of freedom.

While the comment is humorous, the observation is quite serious.

Threats to intellectual diversity in our colleges and universities

should be of profound concern to all of us interested in the education of the next generation.

As early as 1991, Yale President Benno Schmidt warned that the

most serious threats to free expression existed on college campuses.

‘‘The assumption seems to be,’’ he said, ‘‘that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom

and to liberate the mind.’’ Retiring Harvard President Derek Bok

also warned, ‘‘What universities can and must resist are deliberate

overt attempts to impose orthodoxy and suppress dissent. In recent

years, the threat of orthodoxy has come primarily from within rather than outside the university.’’ My organization, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni,

was founded in 1995 and is a bipartisan network of trustees and

alumni across the country dedicated to academic freedom and excellence. Since our founding, we have had occasion to evaluate colleges and universities in terms of academic freedom and academic

offerings and what we have discovered confirms these presidents’ worst fears. Rather than fostering intellectual diversity, the robust

exchange of ideas that the center has talked about, the very essence of a college education, our colleges and universities are increasingly bastions of political correctness, hostile to the free exchange of ideas.

Before I go any further, I want to make one principle perfectly

clear. There is no more important value to the life of the mind than

academic freedom. This is the value that Thomas Jefferson vividly

outlined for the University of Virginia. ‘‘We are not afraid,’’ said

Jefferson, ‘‘to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any

error so long as reason is left free to combat it.’’ And that means

permitting academics of all political stripes to engage in that exercise.

But what is at issue here today is the students’ right to academic

freedom, the students’ right to learn and hear both sides of controversial issues of the day. While there is much thoughtful teaching, there are also many examples of teaching and learning being

put into the service of politics and ideology.

Threats to free exchange of ideas come in many forms, but as you

have heard earlier, typically manifest themselves in the following

ways: Disinviting of politically incorrect speakers; sanctions against

speakers who fail to follow the politically correct line; instruction

that is politicized; virtual elimination of broad survey courses in

favor of trendy and often politicized classes; intimidation of stu-
10

dents who seek to speak their mind; political discrimination in college hiring and retention; speech codes and campus newspaper

theft and destruction.

In my written testimony, there are numerous examples of these

problems, but because we are limited for time, today I will highlight only a few. Let us look first at politicized courses.

At the University of California, a course description for ‘‘The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance’’ stated that, and I

quote, ‘‘Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections.’’ The university called the description a failure of oversight

and announced that it would monitor the class to ensure that it did

not discourage varying viewpoints. The professor, a leader of the

Students for Justice in Palestine, was not reprimanded and the

class is now full.

At the University of South Carolina, a professor provided students with a set of discussion guidelines that asked them to, and

I quote, ‘‘acknowledge that racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism,

and other institutionalized forms of oppression exist,’’ and called

upon them to ‘‘agree to combat actively the myths and stereotypes

about our own groups and other groups so that we can break down

the walls that prohibit group cooperation and group gain.’’ I should

note students are not asked to evaluate this thesis but to absorb

it.

As outlined in my full testimony, there are studies which have

found that a substantial majority of faculty define themselves as

politically liberal or left of center. Now, this alone would not be

troubling if students were exposed to varying points of view. But,

as the previous examples indicate, that is not the case.

Indeed, the very concept of balance appears to be out of favor in

contemporary academe. This, as we heard from Senator Gregg, is

starkly underscored when the University of California Faculty Senate adopted a new regulation on academic freedom. This new provision removed the long-term prohibition against using the classroom, quote, ‘‘as a platform for propaganda’’ on the grounds that

in this new age, academic freedom does not distinguish between interested and disinterested scholarship. At a time when

postmodernism reigns on our campuses, the concept of the disinterested search for the truth has too often been supplanted by a

conception that views issues in terms of race, class, and gender are

the focus.

Even this approach would not be fatal if students were given the

knowledge and background that empowers them to think for themselves. But survey after survey by ACTA and others shows that

students are no longer even being exposed to broad areas of knowledge. Rather than being introduced to foundational subjects, such

as history, natural science, literature, government, and economics,

students are permitted to pick and choose from a smorgasbord of

classes that are often trendy and tendentious.

In two studies conducted by the American Council of Trustees

and Alumni, ‘‘Losing America’s Memory and Restoring America’s

Legacy,’’ we discovered that not one of the top 50 colleges requires

a course in American history of all its graduates, and only five required any history at all. Instead, students are picking from course

offerings ranging from, and I quote, ‘‘From Hand to Mouth: Writ-
11

ing, Eating, and the Construction of Gender’’ at Dartmouth, ‘‘Global Sexualities’’ at Duke, to ‘‘Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Magic’’ at Williams.

Given substantial evidence that college students’ freedom to

learn is in jeopardy, this committee is to be commended for raising

public awareness of this issue. Sunlight, as Justice Brandeis once

observed, is a great disinfectant. The next question, of course, is

what the remedy ought to be.

ACTA respectfully submits that the solutions are not legislative

mandates but, in fact, fall within the purview of college and university faculty, administrators, and boards of trustees. Statutory

edicts on curricular matters are bound to raise academic freedom

problems of their own. The remedy, as Madison wrote in The Federalist, would be worse than the disease.

Therefore, ACTA recommends that the onus should rest upon

boards who have a fiduciary obligation to protect academic freedom

of both faculty and students from internal as well as external

threats.

In my full testimony, ACTA offers eight recommendations. Let

me focus on just a few.

Trustees should adopt a statement that all faculty are expected

to present points of view other than their own in a balanced way

and respect and nurture students’ ability to make up their own

minds on contentious issues. Trustees should adopt a policy underscoring that the focus of courses is intellectual development and acquisition of knowledge, not the manipulation of attitudes or engaging in political activism. Trustees should insist that their institutions offer broad-based survey courses designed to expose students

to the best that has been done and said. Trustees should insist that

university speaker programs present a range of views, and trustees

should make clear that they will not tolerate ideological or political

discrimination in the hiring, firing, or promoting of faculty.

In sum, the challenges are great, but they are not insuperable.

This committee has done a great service by bringing this important

issue into public view. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ms. Neal.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Neal may be found in additional

material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Johnson?

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. As a historian of the Senate, I have

written two books on the Senate and foreign policy and I am just

finishing a book on Congress and the Cold War, as the Senator

mentioned. It is a great honor for me to testify here today.

I survived an attempt by Brooklyn College to deny me tenure,

not on the basis of my scholarship, which the college praised, or my

teaching, which the college also praised, but on my academic and

intellectual values and beliefs, and as such, this was an attack on

the principle of intellectual diversity on campus. Brooklyn’s decision, which was based on the grounds of collegiality, which was not

in the bylaws of the City University of New York or in the faculty

contract, was ultimately overturned by CUNY Chancellor Matthew

Goldstein and by the CUNY Board of Trustees.

As it turned out, the basis of the college’s case was a series of

secret letters that were revealed to me by CUNY after the case was
12

settled that came to be labeled the ‘‘Shadow File.’’ The ‘‘Shadow

File’’ letters made three principal charges on my alleged

uncollegiality. These were written by senior members of the history

department at Brooklyn.

My first allegedly uncollegial act was having objected along with

other, but tenured, colleagues to the college’s decision to sponsor as

an educational event a teach-in after the September 11 attacks

that contained no speakers who were favorable to either U.S. or

Israeli policy in the Middle East. My argument was not that antiwar speakers should not be heard on campus, but only that if the

college was going to bill the event an educational one—the provost

actually invited professors to dismiss their classes to attend the

teach-in—that all views be represented.

Second, I was condemned for joining other, again tenured, colleagues in recommending that the history department, during the

search for a new hire in European history, base its hire on the values of academic merit as revealed in candidates’ personnel and application files rather than concerns of gender or personality, and

this came only after the department was briefed by the college affirmative action officer that giving undue preference on the basis

of gender would be violative of Federal law.

And third, I was condemned in these secret letters because of a

hostility to the fields that I teach. I teach political, diplomatic, and

constitutional history at Brooklyn, fields that are perceived as conservative. Even though I am not a conservative, I was attacked as

such out of the fear that these fields only represented the views of

dead white men.

Indeed, one of the ‘‘Shadow File’’ letters argued for my dismissal

on the grounds that I taught about, quote, ‘‘figures in power,’’ which the ‘‘Shadow File’’ author dubbed an old-fashioned approach

to the field that appealed only to young white males whose narrowminded intellectual interests explained why they chose to study

American political, diplomatic, or constitutional history.

That such a letter could be written and that the author of such

a letter would expect this argument to be persuasive within the college community as a whole testifies to the pervasive nature of the

bias against fields perceived as conservative, like political, diplomatic, and constitutional history within the academy.

Indeed, as Aaron O’Connor, a professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the influential academic web

log ‘‘Critical Mass’’ recently wrote, ‘‘Since scholarship centered on

questions of identity, oppression, and power relations is in turn a

sign of a particular political commitment, faculty diversity will only

be pursued insofar as it ensures and perpetuates ideological uniformity.’’

My case attracted a good deal of media attention partly because

of a perception in both the academy and the media that it illustrated broader patterns within the academy that disturbed many

people on both the left and the right who respect the principle of

intellectual diversity within college campuses.

If you look through the websites of 30 large State public universities for their departments of history, you will find an interesting

thing in terms of the specialists in U.S. history. In these 30 history

departments, 22 of the 30 have less than a quarter of their
13

Americanist faculty, faculty who teach U.S. history, who deal in

any way with topics dealing with political, diplomatic, or constitutional history, topped off by the University of Michigan and the

University of Washington which have only one professor on their

faculty in history dealing with these important topics. Instead, the

departments focus on social history, trendy issues, as the Senator

mentioned in his opening statement.

As bad as this situation is, the situation is often worse at smaller

schools, again public, that often fly below the radar screen because

of insufficient attention devoted by alumni and trustees. This is

particularly true at smaller State public institutions that fall under

the influence of national organizations like the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the American Association of

Higher Education that promote radical revisions of college curricula away from the acquisition of knowledge and toward the study

of diversity and multiculturalism.

For instance, at Washington State’s Evergreen College, there are

two courses, and only two, for students who wish to take offerings

in 20th century U.S. political, diplomatic, or constitutional history.

One is a course in the history of American injustice. The second is

a course in the history of the United States since 1950 which is entitled, ‘‘Inherently Unequal,’’ and asserts as a premise, not as a

subject for debate, that racist opposition and a resurgence of

conservativism in all three branches of the Federal Government

have barricaded the road to desegregation.

It is important to note that I am advocating, and I think most

in the academy are not advocating that the government should impose a curricula on college. All that we want is some sense of balance, that if courses are offered that reflect one clear ideological

point of view, their commitment to intellectual diversity be established by administrators, by trustees, and by the Federal Government as a whole.

And so what can be done to solve these problems? Well, it is not

as if these issues have been ignored entirely by the academy. As

the Senator mentioned in his opening statement, some people within the historical profession, for instance, have founded an organization called the Historical Society, which is designed to promote the

study of history free from ideological polarization and based instead

on research and the acquisition of knowledge.

However, since this is largely a problem created by a lack of intellectual diversity among the faculty, it is very unlikely that this

issue is going to be solved by faculty action alone, and so administrators and trustees have a very important role in this case, as

well. For instance, at CUNY, the Chancellor, Matthew Goldstein,

has made the raising of standards and the promotion of intellectual

diversity his hallmark goal and has intervened at local campuses

when necessary to promote that goal. The CUNY trustees have

done likewise. And so the Goldstein-CUNY trustees in this sense

are a model for other administrators to follow in the promotion of

intellectual diversity.

And finally, the Federal Government does, I think, have a role

in this issue. First of all, through hearings such as this, it brings

the matter to the attention of the public and it seems to me that

it is impossible for any college or university to publicly defend the
14

offering of politicized curricula or hiring and promotion policies for

faculty that base the judgment on political viewpoints or perceived

conservativeness rather than academic merit. And in addition, targeted funding is also important.

I commend the Senator, Senator Gregg, for his sponsorship of the

Higher Education for Freedom Act, which is designed to promote

the study of democracy, of civic institutions, of liberal economics

within our Nation’s institutions of higher learning.

Four decades ago, William Fulbright, a longtime member of the

Senate Foreign Relations Committed, said that the Senate’s primary obligation to American political life was helping enable a national consensus through educating the public. I commend the committee for holding this hearing in an attempt to educate the public

and I thank you for listening to me.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Doctor, and thank you for

the background. It is extremely enlightening. We very much appreciate it.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson may be found in additional material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lukianoff?

Mr. LUKIANOFF. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my

name is Greg Lukianoff. I am the Legal Director of the Foundation

for Individual Rights in Education, commonly known as FIRE.

Prior to working at FIRE, I was unaware of how common serious

violations of students’ basic free speech rights are on campus. Since

working at FIRE, however, I have witnessed hundreds of cases in

which private and public universities have demonstrated a distressing regard for free speech.

For example, despite the protections of the First Amendment at

public colleges and powerful statements of commitment to free

speech and academic freedom at most private liberal arts colleges,

most campuses still promulgate speech codes. You may wonder

what we mean by speech codes. FIRE defines a speech codes as any

campus regulation that punishes, forbids, heavily regulates, or restricts a substantial amount of expression that would be protected

in the larger society.

The current generation of speech codes come in many shapes and

sizes, including, but not limited to, e-mail policies, diversity statements, and harassment policies that extend to speech that may

merely insult or demean, in their own words. While they may not

call themselves speech codes anymore, a speech code by any other

name still suppresses speech.

To combat these codes, FIRE has established speechcodes.org,

which was updated just this last summer, a website that catalogs

speech restrictions at colleges across the country. FIRE has rated

each of the nonsectarian universities using a lighting scheme.

Green lights indicate we found no policy that seriously imperils

speech. Yellow lights indicate that a university has some policies

that could ban or excessively regulate speech. And red lights are

awarded to universities that have policies that ban a substantial

amount of what would be clearly protected speech in the larger society. Of the 176 universities that we have rated so far, only 20

have green light policies. Eighty earned yellows. Seventy-six, fully

43 percent of the schools we have done so far, earned red lights.
15

Some of these red light policies are bizarre. For instance, Hampshire College in Massachusetts bans psychological intimidation and

harassment of any person or pet. Others are almost quaint, like

Kansas State University, which bans the use of profane or vulgar

language if it is used in a disruptive manner. It has been long settled in constitutional law that free speech is not limited to the

pleasant or the pious.

Some codes are remarkably broad and vague, like that of Bard

College in New York, which bans deliberately causing embarrassment, discomfort, or injury to others or to the community as a

whole.

Another kind of speech code is a so-called speech zone policy,

which limits protests, debates, and even pamphleteering to tiny

corners of campus. FIRE has identified or fought these policies at

over two dozen public universities. One example is that until FIRE

intervened, Texas Tech University, a school with 28,000 students,

provided only one 20-foot-wide gazebo to be used as a sole free

speech area.

While it has been FIRE’s experience that students and professors

with orthodox religious views, conservative advocates, and bold

satirists are more likely than other to be censored under the current campus climate, we all have an interest in free speech of our

Nation’s students. Not only are all students affected by these overbroad policies, and students of every political stripe are punished

if they cross certain often arbitrary lines, but everyone suffers

when any side of an important debate is stifled, silenced, or otherwise quashed.

And make no mistake about it. The war on free speech is often

not ideological at all. Campus censorship is quite often a simple

naked exercise of power. Take, for example, Shaw University,

where a professor was fired for, quote-unquote, ‘‘faithlessness and

disloyalty’’ for circulating a document that was simply critical of

the university president. Colleges and universities too often view

criticisms of their policies as tantamount to sedition.

If there is one constant in the history of free speech, it is that

the censors of one generation often become the censored of the

next. This vicious cycle of censorship teaches citizens to take advantage of any opportunity that they have to silence those on the

other side. Students educated in this environment can hardly be

blamed if they come to view speech as little more than a tool that

one must do their best to deny their enemies, rather than as a sacred value.

FIRE hopes we can put an end to this vicious cycle of censorship

with this generation. With the help of a coalition of individuals and

organizations from across the political spectrum, we can teach the

current generation that a free society’s cure to bad speech is more

speech.

FIRE believes that the best way for Congress to ensure intellectual diversity on campus is to work to remove the often unlawful

restrictions on speech that currently exist. When students and faculty do not have to fear punishment for expressing their deeplyheld beliefs, no matter how outrageous or unpopular, greater intellectual diversity will result.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.
16

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lukianoff may be found in additional material.]

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dick?

Mr. DICK. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to speak

here today. As you said in your introduction, I am a third-year student at the University of Virginia.

When I came to college 3 years ago, I expected to find an institution dedicated to free inquiry and the open competition of ideas.

Now, for this expectation to be realized, however, it seems that two

things must hold constant. First, the students must feel secure in

their ability to speak and express any idea or viewpoint without

fear of punishment, and second, the university must refrain from

using any of its institutional power to privilege ideas, certain favored ideas, over others.

Now, in my time at UVA, I have seen that both of these principles have been compromised as certain individuals and groups

have sought to take control of the university for a more politicized

function. These individuals and groups seek to use universities and

to politicize them and not treat liberal education as an end in itself,

but as a means to a political goal, and this goal manifests itself

variously in the eradication of social inequalities, the alleviation of

oppression, or the rectifying of injustices.

So from these goals that they have in mind, they argue that the

equal competition of ideas and the free speech that should be afforded to students in fact only perpetuates the past injustices that

our society has allowed. So they argue that these things can be curtailed or privileged, depending on the views, with a progressive aim

in mind.

So these advocates have succeeded to some degree at UVA, and

as they have succeeded, liberal education has declined, and I am

going to tell you a little bit about the policies that they have advanced. The policies are of two types, first, those that limit free expression, and second, those that unfairly privilege certain views

over others.

Earlier this semester, as you also mentioned, myself and some

other concerned students at the university founded the Individual

Rights Coalition, which is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to

the defense of liberal arts education and to the defense of the marketplace of ideas. One of the really heartening things that we have

seen is the truly nonpartisan nature that we have been able to

achieve. We have people on the left and the right who have stood

up for free speech values. I, myself, am a liberal, but we have college Republican members and university Democrat members in the

organization. Although all of us have a different vision of how we

think society should be, none of us is willing to sacrifice the liberal

arts environment to try to achieve our political goals.

So I am going to tell you a little bit about the different policies

that we are trying to combat. In UVA’s Discriminatory Harassment

Policy printed in our Undergraduate Record this year, the policy

warns students against unreasonably interfering with a person’s

work or academic performance through speech, an then it went on

to list examples. These examples included directing racial or ethnic

slurs at someone, ridiculing a person’s religious beliefs, and my
17

personal favorite, telling persons they are too old to understand a

new technology. [Laughter.]

At best, these examples imply a threat of punishment for constitutionally protected expression at a public university, at Thomas

Jefferson’s university, no less. But even worse, they lend definition

to how the administration defines unreasonable interference.

Now, if these examples can be construed to unreasonably interfere with someone’s educational pursuits, then a whole category of

speech becomes threatened by analogy. Would religious satires

count as ridiculing someone’s religious beliefs? If Mark Twain were

at the University of Virginia today, could he write all the things

that he had? Do racial or ethnic slurs include passionate arguments that offend someone on the basis of race, when you get into

arguments on racial preferences or affirmative action in higher

education?

The simple fact that these questions can be asked illustrates a

real problem because students don’t know when they are going to

be punished and oftentimes choose to silence themselves rather

than risk being punished by the administration. So you get a situation the students are silencing themselves, and it is often the students who have views that are widely disfavored or views that are

in the minority on the campus and you have people who see, when

they see that their views disagree with the administration, they

hesitate to express those views in a passionate way. And at Thomas Jefferson’s university, of all places, this bespeaks a really sad

State of affairs.

There are other examples of codes. Our Sexual Harassment Policy warns against jokes of a sexual nature or comments about physical attributes and things like this. So there is a definite amount

of free speech that we feel is unduly infringed upon.

Now, as a columnist with the student newspaper, I have wondered how these policies have been applied in the past, so I have

written university officials on a number of occasions, trying to get

them to divulge the past case records, but I have been systematically denied under the supposed concern of confidentiality. The university has said that they can’t release these records because they

are protected under the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy

Act. So together with the vague nature of these codes and the lack

of knowledge of how they have been applied in the past, there really is a great chilling effect on free discourse at the university.

But the most evidence of the politicization of UVA is not in

speech codes but rather in the recent efforts of some groups on

campus to impose mandatory diversity training programs. Now,

some of you may have heard of these things on other campuses, but

it is basically that what has been proposed at UVA is a program

centering on issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and other controversial social issues and this trying to be made mandatory. This is

something that has been under discussion at the university and the

mandatory part of it would be that students would be blocked from

registering for classes until they completed this program, making

it mandatory in the strictest sense of the word.

When this program was proposed, one administrator described

the purpose of the program as providing entering students with the

opportunity to gain insights into the way their cultural, ethnic, or
18

racial expectations and experiences influence their interaction with

other students, faculty, and staff from different backgrounds, as if

this were something that could be truly taught. And another faculty member described it as getting students to confront their own

prejudices and areas of misunderstanding.

So this program is really motivated by the idea that students are

coming to universities with prejudices and misunderstandings

about issues of race and identity and different social issues and

that students need to be cleansed of these different opinions and

ideas that are unprogressive and unsatisfactory. So by using the

administration’s power to block students from classes or in other

areas of students’ life to sort of make students go through these

training programs that include a certain partisan message.

So we have had some success, the Individual Rights Coalition, at

combating this, but the administration maintains that such programs are still under serious consideration. A lot of the concern

that we have had comes from what we have seen implemented at

other universities, diversity training programs at other universities.

One quick example is something, a film called ‘‘Blue Eyed,’’ which is a movie that is distributed to a bunch of different campuses. In it, a diversity trainer named Jane Elliott teaches a lesson

about the nature of oppression and the plight of racial minorities

on college campuses and the way she does this is she takes a group

of blue-eyed individuals and she ridicules them and insults them

and yells at them for a few hours on videotape, and supposedly,

this is supposed to make it analogous to the situation that racial

and ethnic minorities have in society every day.

So she yells at them. She pushes one individual to the brink of

tears, at which she tells him, ‘‘You have no power, absolutely no

power, quit trying,’’ and then says, ‘‘What I just did to this individual today is what Newt Gingrich is doing to you every day and you

are submitting to that oppression. I am doing this only for 1 day

to little white children. Society does this to children of color every

day.’’ And then as a prescription for the problem, she says, ‘‘It is

not enough for white people to stop abusing people of color. All U.S.

people need a personal vision for ending racism and other oppressive ideologies within themselves.’’

The point of this film is clear, that America is an unbearably racist society, that it is threatened by overwhelming forces of oppression, and that these can only be overcome by sweeping institutional

changes. Instead of treating this as a viable topic for debate, this

is something that is being trained. This type of claim is being

trained in the students at universities across the country. So that

is something that we want to see not treated as an objective truth

that students should be trained on, but something that should be

open to debate.

So we think that this sort of thing is allowed because of the intellectual uniformity of our administration. Most of our administrators are overwhelmingly on the left of the political spectrum, but

we don’t see that as a problem necessarily as much as the fact that

they are all of the same political view. So they are susceptible to

use their power toward a partisan end because they see certain

programs, like diversity training, not as viewpoint discriminatory,
19

but more as just a way to bring about a positive change. So we

think that things could benefit from maybe a little bit of diversity

of viewpoints there.

In summary, we really think that the two main areas that trouble UVA’s intellectual climate are, first, the policies that restrict

free speech, and second, policies that unfairly privilege certain

views over others with a sort of progressive aim in mind. If liberal

arts education is to be preserved, freedom of speech and freedom

of thought must be firmly secured. Students and faculty must feel

confident in their ability to enjoy the full protection of their free

speech rights. The administration must also refrain from instituting mandatory training that seeks to direct or control student

thought on controversial issues. And most importantly, for higher

education to maintain its integrity, it must be treated and viewed

not as a means to a political end, but as an end in itself, as a highest end, where people can come to critically enhance their minds

and to learn about the free discussion of ideas. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Dick. I think that was an extraordinarily good summary of the issue, especially your closing

comments as to what the purpose of a university should be and

how it should be structured.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dick may be found in additional

material.]

The CHAIRMAN. I might direct my first questions to you, therefore. Do you run into colleagues, other folks attending the university, who are taking courses which clearly have a teacher who may

have a strong political viewpoint, that find that if they express

their viewpoint in the classroom, it may affect their grade or the

way they are treated and, therefore, adjust their performance in

the classroom to try to conform?

Mr. DICK. I certainly have, and this is something that—due to

the nature of what I am studying, most of my classes haven’t been

very heavily political. I am taking classes in neuroscience and some

nonpolitical philosophy. But I do know people who have taken

classes in areas dealing with race and gender and things like that

where they have had professors who are not only active in the university community, but are very vocal on the national scene so that

their views are very well known.

Students often in those sorts of classes, when they have a professor who is very passionate about the issue, they will try to bring

up objections to these things and they don’t feel that they are being

afforded a necessary degree of impartiality by the professor, that

the class is seen as sort of getting students to accept a certain

viewpoint rather than as a forum where students can discuss all

different viewpoints and the professor will evaluate all those fairly

based on just the strength of the argument, not on the content of

that argument.

So I definitely have run into that and that is something that always really breaks your heart, especially when you are at a great

university and you see all these opportunities for fair discussions

to happen and you see professors who you are supposed to trust

really subverting it.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there a forum at UVA where you can raise

that issue? In other words, if you think that basically the course
20

is indoctrination that doesn’t allow alternative views and you want

to express an alternative view, is there some recourse?

Mr. DICK. That is what we are trying to provide with the Individual Rights Coalition. We have not been aware of anything that existed before. I mean, you could always go to the administration, I

guess, but the feeling among most people I know is that the administration generally wouldn’t take that kind of thing seriously. So

that is what we are trying to do. We think that just getting people’s awareness raised about these types of things will help. Just

by writing about it in the newspaper and things like that, we hope

to be able to provide a better area for people to think about those

sorts of things.

The CHAIRMAN. You mentioned that with this diversity program

that is being proposed, your concern is that it is going to be basically a reeducation-indoctrination program as versus an open freefor-all discussion of how people are treated in our society.

Mr. DICK. Correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that consistent with the Jeffersonian principle

of education?

Mr. DICK. I would have to say not, which is one of the things

that we are trying to use as a leverage in our discussion of this

issue at the university and we hope that it is going to be successful.

The CHAIRMAN. I think Ms. Neal quoted Jefferson as saying

something to the effect of it is all right for people to be wrong as

long as people with reason are allowed to rebut them.

Mr. DICK. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. I take it you don’t think people of reason are necessarily given a chance to rebut on occasion.

Mr. DICK. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Ms. Neal, I was interested in your proposal. I

personally don’t see that there is a significant Federal role that we

can set forward. I am trying to use the sunshine effort here. But

I was interested in your proposal that outlined a series of things

that trustees could do. Do you have this in a format that was presented to trustees across the country and have you had any response from various groups of trustees on this statement of how a

campus that is open to fair dialogue from all viewpoints should be

functioning?

Ms. NEAL. A new organization called the Institute for Effective

Governance has just been launched which focuses on providing

services to trustees. This most definitely would be one of those, because clearly defending the academic freedom of the institution is

one of the most critical jobs for a trustee. This is a fiduciary obligation of that trustee. And the Institute for Effective Governance certainly provides guidance, written and otherwise, to trustees on how

to do that.

I think listening to Mr. Dick here talking about what are the

best ways to find out whether there are various opinions being offered in classes or whether or not students are feeling that their

opinions are suppressed really again falls back on trustees, and primarily to set up processes that allow administrators to monitor, if

you will, or at least to review intellectual diversity in classes, to as-
21

certain whether students are exposed to diverse points of view,

whether or not speaker series are open to diverse points of view.

I think this is something that trustees individually don’t want to

get involved in. What they want to do is establish procedures and

make it clear to their administrators that these are important goals

of academic freedom and intellectual diversity and that they expect

to have their administrators uphold those goals and report back to

them to establish the facts.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there a systemized way that you are planning

to distribute this, or is it just going to be——

Ms. NEAL. Well, I am glad you have asked me. Most definitely,

we will produce a document momentarily that will outline this.

The CHAIRMAN. I think it comes to Dr. Johnson’s point. Dr. Johnson, in most universities, especially large universities, but I suspect

it is true in smaller universities and colleges, isn’t the dominant

driver of what the philosophy and culture of the university is going

to be, the faculty? And how does a board of trustees ever confront

the fact that the faculty is so overwhelmingly influential and the

fact that they usually, in many instances, are so politically correct?

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I think there are two issues here. We use

terms like ‘‘left’’ and ‘‘right’’ quite frequently in the political realm

and in the academic realm, but they really do mean very different

things in the academic realm.

The idea that the left within the academy is reflected at Brooklyn College would consider every member on this committee a conservative, because after all, you all are figures in power. It gives

you a sense of what some of the ideas are.

The principles of academic freedom——

The CHAIRMAN. I will explain that to Senator Kennedy when I

see him.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. [Laughter.]

Or you may explain to Senator Clinton. One of the strange things

about my case is I supported Senator Clinton in 2000 and that was

viewed as further evidence of my conservative nature. [Laughter.]

That is not a viewpoint that would be common, I suspect, on the

floor of the U.S. Senate.

There is no way that any policy can violate academic freedom or

faculty self-governance and go anywhere realistically. But also, we

have to deal with the realistic fact that too many faculties, again

at smaller and, I think, nonelite universities in particular, hold

ideas that are fundamentally disrespectful of intellectual diversity

and we have to find ways to get around that.

A lot of these institutions are funded by taxpayer dollars and

taxpayers shouldn’t be paying to have students receive one-sided

political viewpoints. And so as Anne Neal mentioned, trustees do

have a fiduciary responsibility. I think the media has a responsibility to expose these issues. And I think there is a limited role for

both State and Federal Governments in the degree to which they

either fund or highlight these issues.

Universities in the end can’t sustain for long periods of time negative publicity. Administrators may not understand much, but they

do understand that. And since these policies can’t really be defended publicly, the extent to which they can be exposed is one way
22

to encourage administrators to uphold the principle that I think all

of us share.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lukianoff, I agree with that, and I am not

sure what our Federal role should be. I am very hesitant to involve

the Federal Government legislatively in any level in this debate,

other than to have you folks come testify, and we intend to do a

lot more of this, quite honestly, just to raise the visibility of the

problem, which I think is acute.

Mr. JOHNSON. One issue at least you could raise is that a Federal

policy should be to do no harm. For instance, the AACU, that organization that I mentioned, is sponsoring a federally-funded program funded by the Department of Education called ‘‘The Arts of

Democracy.’’ It is at 12 colleges and universities—Brooklyn College

is among them—and it has as its stated goals that students who

complete the program will understand the basic principles of American democracy and be able to make intelligent choices about contemporary issues in American foreign relations.

And yet the course cluster at Brooklyn College contains not even

one course in history, political science, philosophy, or economics

that deal with political, diplomatic, or constitutional topics at all.

Instead, these students will get courses like ‘‘The Literature of Cultural Diversity’’ or ‘‘The Global Cinema.’’ These are perfectly appropriate topics, but they aren’t appropriate topics to teach students

what democracy is or to teach students to make informed choices

about international relations. It does seem to me that the Federal

Government shouldn’t be funding such programs on the grounds

that they are teaching students what democracy is.

The CHAIRMAN. I certainly agree with that, and it leads to a

question I have for Mr. Lukianoff. Your organization is concerned

about free speech. But how do you create a concept of free speech

on a campus where there is no educational function that teaches

what constitutional law is, which teaches what the concepts of the

Constitution are, which bring to light what the essence of free

speech is, what its Western value, structure is, why it developed

as really the gravamen of our rights as a nation?

It gets to Dr. Johnson’s point, which is if you don’t have broad

overview courses which get into the basic philosophy of how you got

to the Western value of free speech, how do you convince people

that free speech has any relevance on a campus? I mean, isn’t that

one of your basic problems?

Mr. LUKIANOFF. Well, I think to some extent that that does. Although it would be great to have greater diversity in courses that

are offered, I think it underestimates the power of the idea of free

speech. Michael Kent Curtis is a historian of First Amendment law

and explains that the First Amendment and free speech was largely protected in the 19th century, not through formal acts but just

for the populist idea of speech.

It is a very powerful ideal that students do know even when they

come to college. Even despite attempts to stifle it, FIRE has been

largely effective just based on the fact that we are able to point out

these injustices, to point out the violations of basic principles that

Americans understand and thereby call universities to task, both

public and private.
23

That being said, I do understand one thing that universities really could do is do a better job of teaching students about living in

freedom. I mean, one of the examples that I find terrifying is the

phenomena of newspaper thefts. Over the last decade, over five— there are at least five dozen circumstances that are well-documented in which students have basically stolen the entire press

run of student publications when they have published articles that

some student group didn’t like. Now, that is horrifying enough, and

in at least half-a-dozen of those situations, the papers were burned.

And what are universities doing to teach people not to do this,

to respect the right of dissent and the right of free speech? Well,

Berkeley recently passed a rule banning the theft of free student

newspapers, but this was only after the Mayor of Berkeley, Tom

Bates, was caught trying to throw out over 1,000 copies of a student newspaper that endorsed his opponent. At Hampton University in Virginia, an entire press run of a student paper was stopped

because they refused to put a letter by the president of the university on the front page.

I mean, certainly at the very least we can ask them to teach by

example. In some cases, this just requires us to hold university administrators to their First Amendment obligations.

Now ultimately, at some level, people have to start learning— and this is cyclical—to appreciate the value of free speech as an internalized value, as James Madison hoped we eventually would.

From an overview of First Amendment and free speech history, this

ebbs and flows throughout history.

But I have noticed that I do—and I am often accused of being

overly optimistic—with the successes that FIRE has had, with the

changes that I have seen on campus, I think that it is ready to

happen. I think there are people on both sides of the aisles, whether Republican or Democrat or anything else, who want to see a return of ideals of individual rights and ideals of free speech. But as

I said, I may be overly optimistic.

The CHAIRMAN. I hope you aren’t. I absolutely hope you aren’t.

Senator Alexander?

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for scheduling

this hearing, and thanks to each of you for your comments.

Universities are historically somewhat subversive, I mean,

whether in this country or any country. In fact, the reason Japan

was slow to create universities in its modern age was because of

that. The leaders of Japan were afraid that the universities, being

subversive, would overthrow the established order and challenge

norms and values and cultures. So we expect that, and it is undeniably true that, with only some exceptions, the attitudes of the faculty and the thoughts of the faculty and cultural attitudes set the

tone of the campus and most of those head in a uniform direction

and it is often politically to the left. And we generally accept that.

I think throughout our history we have thought, well, the children come out of a more conservative approach, by and large, and

then when they go to college, they are exposed to different views

and that makes them better people because their views are challenged.

Before I came here, I was on the faculty of the Kennedy School

of Government at Harvard for a year and a half, which was a won-
24

derful experience, and the students there, even though that school

made a very good effort, I think, to try to attract Republican students and more Republican faculty members and have more diversity, still many of the students said the people who get the best

education here are the Republican students or the conservative students because their views are regularly challenged in the classroom, and those who get the least education are the more liberal

students because their views are the same as their teachers and

they are very rarely challenged.

So all of those are just things that have gone on for a long time.

But what is disturbing to me, and I agree with Senator Gregg, it

is hard to see exactly what the Federal Government remedy would

be, is that we have created in our country these wonderful colleges

and universities with enormous freedom, yet on those campuses,

too often, all the discussion and thought goes one way. You are not

honored and celebrated for having a different point of view. That

is not really true in physics or in the sciences so often. You are

often celebrated for having a divergent view and proving something

different and testing something else. But certainly in many areas

on campus, that is true.

It is true we have established enormous amounts of freedom. I

mean, the Federal Government, in a way it resists doing for K

through 12, pours lots of money into colleges and universities and

gives it to the students and lets the money follow the students to

the schools. I mean, that is a voucher. School choice is what we

have in colleges and universities. Half the students have a Federal

grant or loan to help pay for college and so they can go anywhere.

They can go anywhere that is accredited and they can take these

bizarre courses and we just let that go.

And then we have accepted that tenure is a right of the faculty

members, and that has gone to excess, but we accept that. So faculty are free to say what they want. Trustees are often there for

a while. Students can go wherever they want. There is an enormous amount of freedom, yet in this country that celebrates liberty

and freedom above all, we allow the discourse to just go one way.

As an example of that, take the colleges of education, one of the

most frustrating examples in American higher education. Even at

very good colleges of education, all the thought is one way. You

don’t find 32-year-old young faculty members on their way to being

dean doing great dissertations on how to expand the voucher program, or how to find new ways to reward teachers for teaching

well, or how to encourage teaching of English as a second language.

All those are not the accepted way to go.

While I was at Harvard last year, the speaker at the College of

Education was the sponsor of the ballot in California that won

overwhelmingly to basically reject bilingual education and put instead teaching English as a second language, and that person barely received a respectful hearing when he tried to make a speech

there. It was embarrassing. It was embarrassing to think that at

a great campus, different thinking would have been frowned upon.

So I have been listening and trying to think of how do we change

with. I don’t want to start here with laws, but the way we used

to change it, the student newspapers used to have a lot to do with

that. I mean, if you read Willie Morris’s book on the Daily Texan
25

and what that used to do in the 1960s, they changed the campus

of the University of Texas. Of course, they were liberals running

against conservative trustees, but they did change it on our campus

in 1962. We were segregated at Vanderbilt University. The student

newspaper fought that. Even though the student body voted to

keep it segregated, we raised enough hell about it that the trustees

had to change the policy and integrate the campus.

So I wonder why the student newspapers aren’t doing more. I

wonder why there aren’t faculty organizations that aren’t doing

more. I wonder why there is not a list in our country today—U.S.

News publishes a list of the best buys, the best liberal arts colleges.

Why not an equally well publicized list of the colleges that provide

the most freedom of speech?

One thing we might do, Mr. Chairman, at this hearing is invite

the accrediting agencies to come for a round. When I was Education Secretary, I noticed that the accrediting agencies were enforcing their politically correct ideas on the colleges themselves,

which I thought was none of their business. So I invited them in

and said, I will disaccredit you if you start disaccrediting colleges

because of the viewpoints of the faculty members or the ideas

there. We might see whether that is one proper role we could have.

I am interested to see what we might do.

One other thought I would like to make, I would like to direct

a question to Dr. Johnson. At the heart of all this in our country,

I think, has been over the last 34 years a failure on the campus

to recognize and honor the study of what one might call American

exceptionalism. There is a professor named Seymour Martin Lipset,

with whom you may well be familiar, who has written about that,

and most average Americans would think about that as the study

of America as a unique country, not always better, but different,

and what are the qualities that cause us to be different and what

are the ideas that hold us together.

That really is the conventional view of America, one I believe in

and one which still I hope would be taught but is often not being

taught. But my sense is that our politics and our universities and

our dominant thought in our country of intellectuals is to reject

that idea and to say America is just a lucky country, a big place

where the people are from everywhere, who should be happy there

are here and richer than most people and should not bother each

other very much and celebrate where they came from and not

worry too much about where they are.

Now, at least that ought to be a legitimate debate, and my sense

of things is that in American history, U.S. history—you wouldn’t be

supposed to call it American history anymore, but in U.S. history,

that argument between—the emphasis on diversity at the expense

of unity is at the root of a lot of this problem on American campuses. But it seems to me that is also a wonderful invitation to various faculty members, student organizations, foundations, Congressmen, speakers, rabble-rousers from all directions to go out and

complain about that and change that and become trustees of colleges and universities and make lists of places that do a good job

of this and places that do the worst job of this.

I wonder, Dr. Johnson, what you run into as a professor of U.S.

history in this discussion of American exceptionalism or lack of it
26

and whether you feel like that is at the root of the political correctness, or to what extent it might be.

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I think that certainly since the 1960s, the

academy with regards to professors of U.S. history has changed

and there has been a great deal more attention to issues of race,

class, and gender, people who were underrepresented, it was perceived, in the earlier studies of American history. And initially

when this started, the idea was that it would create a more balanced view of the American past, which is a perfectly reasonable

goal. I think what we have seen over the last ten or 15 years is

a movement to interpret this as the only version of the American

past.

I do think on this issue there is something of a tiered system

which I find particularly troubling in American higher education.

Senator Gregg mentioned that often students come from conservative backgrounds, small ‘‘c’’ conservative backgrounds, and they go

to more liberal faculty and expand their knowledge, and I think

that that is largely true at more elite institutions. These students

come in often with good educations, and if they are being propagandized to by faculty, they can recognize that and they can challenge that.

At middle-level and less-elite institutions, a place like Brooklyn

College, frequently our students don’t come in with terribly impressive educations and this is their one chance to get a good education. And so if they are getting totally slanted views, they have

no chance of remedying that.

I think that within the academy, at an institution like Harvard

or even at the University of Virginia, there is enough peer pressure

and particularly enough emphasis on research which creates new

knowledge and makes dogmatism at least difficult to sustain, that

it makes it hard to have a politicized curricula, whereas at midlevel schools, the emphasis on research sometimes is not quite so

high and this is, I think, a proper area for administrators and

trustees, that they can emphasize things like the promotion of research or the promotion of free speech that will not correct biases

in and of themselves but will make it more likely to promote an

intellectually diverse campus.

Senator ALEXANDER. Ms. Neal?

Ms. NEAL. I would like to pick up on your accrediting question

because I think it is a very good one, on whether or not accrediting

might not be an area for intervention. In fact, on the House side,

there is a bill that has been introduced which would decouple the

accrediting system from the provision of student loan moneys, in

large part because of its belief that the accrediting system has not

been effective, that, in fact, as you say, more often than not, it has

imposed politically correct mandates on institutions, or if it has not

done that, it has been watching while these various politically correct intrusions are occurring and has said nothing as we have seen

this grow and grow and grow at different institutions.

So I think, to my knowledge, there is not a Senate version of that

bill, but there might very well be some important look at it as a

way of getting at some of these issues.

You also raised some questions about the need to be exposed to

broad areas of learning. This is an area in which the American
27

Council feels very, very strongly. We have put out a book called Becoming an Educated Person: Towards a Core Curriculum, because

it is our belief that for students to be able to make up their own

mind, to speak to their professors and to be engaged as intelligent

citizens, that they need broad exposure to general areas of knowledge. And as you have heard from any number of us here today,

that is not the case. If students obtain a coherent education, it is

often out of luck rather than out of the requirements that institutions offer.

In our booklet, we highlight various institutions, including

Brooklyn, which has had a marvelous core curriculum in the past

and that has definitely exposed students to general areas of knowledge. We think this is very important and we hope that more and

more institutions will do that.

You raised the question of teacher ed, I think also a critically important area worthy of focus. Again, the American Council has a

project called Trustees for Better Teachers, because again, we feel

trustees should be concerned about the quality of teachers being

produced, the need for those teachers to have strong understanding

of substantive courses and disciplines and not simply focusing on

pedagogy, which in many instances has been shown to be virtually

social engineering rather than instruction. So we agree with you

that that is a problem and it is something that trustees can be actively involved.

We think another solution here again is an organization like the

Institute for Effective Governance, which is there working with

trustees, providing them independent sources of information so

that they are not entirely reliant on administrators, to be able to

address these very, very important issues of freedom and quality

on college and university campuses.

Senator ALEXANDER. Mr. Chairman, I guess my time is probably

about up, but I mentioned my time at Harvard for a year and a

half. I didn’t want to be too critical there because I found at the

same time, as Dr. Johnson said, one would have to be pretty dull

not to find some diversity there. I mean, there is Harvey Mansfield

teaching constitutional law and Samuel Huntingtom, a great political scientist, and Paul Peterson doing work on school choice. So

there is plenty of diversity there if one would go look for it, and

the dean of the school where I was, I am sure, in a not very popular decision, supported President Bush’s decision on Iraq.

When it is a good institution and the leaders of the institution

make a special effort to see that many views are represented, that

solves most of the problem, it seems to me, and that is what we

really ought to be encouraging ways to do more of.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator.

Senator Sessions?

Senator SESSIONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a fascinating

subject. I have felt that in the recent years that there has been a

failure in the academy, a moral and political failure to lead effectively, to understand the challenges that America faces, and we can

all disagree. Maybe I am in error, but I would say that the American people have got pretty good judgment about these matters and

there is a tremendous gap, between faculty on most of our college

campuses and the mainstream American values.
28

I saw the numbers—I think I have them here. I don’t know if you

have talked about them, Mr. Chairman. In the IPSO-Reed Survey,

72 percent of the faculty members at 140 American colleges described themselves as politically left. Only 15 percent claimed to be

politically right. An even smaller percent, 14 percent, claimed to be

in the middle. The bias was found to be worst among the humanities and social science faculty, which often discuss political and social issues in their classes. That is where these matters are discussed. This bias can be found in the classroom.

If liberal arts colleges represented a variety of ideas and provided

a student with well-rounded education, it would serve them well in

their life. As a graduate of a liberal arts college myself, Huntington

College, I am an absolute believer in the liberal arts. I think it is

just wonderful and I cherish that. I am on the Board of Trustees

of my college. I was the chairman of the alumni association. I try

to support that institution.

But I have seen and talked with students on a regular basis that

causes me to believe it is not so free, is not so liberal in the classical sense of what liberalism is. It is more of an environment in

which our freedom is not respected and different views are not respected.

I remember as Attorney General, and Ms. Neal, I would like to

ask you a little bit about this, we had a situation involving whether

or not the United States military—and you are a lawyer, I understand—whether the United States military, a JAG officer could

come on the campus of the University of Alabama School of Law,

one of the top 50 law schools in America. Based on this accrediting

agency’s decision that President Clinton’s policy of ‘‘don’t ask, don’t

tell,’’ they declared it discriminatory. Therefore, they would not

allow the United States military, who protects our liberties and

freedoms, to even come on the campus to interview students about

perhaps making the military a career, which you want the best students and the best universities with the most open minds as lawyers in the military. So we ended up passing a statute in the Alabama legislature that specifically said they could come on campus.

I recently have received information on the accrediting agency for

universities. Auburn University is one of the best academic institutions and is just doing exceedingly well. They are not happy, the

accrediting agency, with Auburn’s Board of Trustees. They think

they micromanage the business and they are also concerned about

the firing of the football coach and they are talking about not accrediting Auburn University because they have disagreements

about this.

First of all, is there a concern that some of these entities have

political biases and that it intimidates universities and liberal arts

colleges, and in order to get good evaluations and be accredited,

they sometimes feel pressured to be politically correct on the issues

that they might not otherwise?

Ms. NEAL. I certainly feel that the accrediting—we have looked

at it at the American Council and have found that the organizations look very much at inputs rather than what the institution is

actually producing, rather than looking at outputs. But there is no

question that there have been past cases where various, if you will,

PC criteria were brought to the accrediting process. And, of course,
29

this can be costly and can take significant amounts of time on the

part of the institution.

We think that, clearly, the fact that we are finding institutions

that have no core, where academic freedom is being diminished,

where prices are going up, all the while that the accrediting associations have supposedly been responsible for overseeing the quality, that it does raise serious questions about the usefulness of the

accrediting system as it now exists.

As I indicated, there is a bill that would decouple, but I think

there is also a great opportunity to give the States the accrediting

responsibility, as well, so that you have competition within the accreditation system. Right now, you have a set of regional

accreditors and there is virtually no competition, and so as you say,

institutions are intimidated or at least have very little choice when

the accreditation system has to go into play. If States were allowed

to provide an alternative source of accreditation, you would at least

bring some competition to that system. You presumably could get

a greater focus on outputs, what our institutions are actually producing, as opposed to simply looking at inputs.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, I certainly think so. I know my little

alma mater of Huntington College, they are very intimidated by

this group. They want to get a successful rating.

Well, who are they? How do they get selected? What kind of government money do they get? Where do they come from? How do

they have this power?

The CHAIRMAN. Would the Senator yield on that? We are going

to be holding a hearing where we will answer the questions of the

Senator. We are looking forward to that. Senator Alexander suggested it, and obviously your interest suggests it. I think it is worth

holding a hearing on, so we will be pursuing those questions.

Senator SESSIONS. I won’t pursue that a lot longer, then, but I

appreciate your comments because it is something I have now seen

in at least three different instances that have concerned me significantly. As an American that believes in democracy, I like to know

who people are, where they come from, and by what authority do

they get to raise these questions and make these demands.

Mr. Dick, I have talked to a lot of young people that worked for

me and in other instances about what goes on on the campuses and

I get the impression that students are just sort of hunkering down

in a lot of these classrooms and letting it go over the top of their

heads. I notice a recent survey by Harvard University Institute of

Politics found that the number of students who declared themselves as Democrats has decreased from 34 percent to 29 percent

from 2000 to 2003. The number of Independents has increased

from 33 to 41 during the same period. This is during a time in

which the ratio of Democrat to Republican professors in the topranked colleges was ten-to-one, 1,397 Democratic professors to 134

Republican professors.

Well, I think a Republican can teach a class fairly and I think

a Democrat can teach a class fairly, but I have a sense that college

students are, rather than engaging their professors, either intimidated or just sitting down, turning in their paper, and not really

engaging in the ideas. Is that fair?
30

Mr. DICK. Well, it is interesting that you brought up the fact that

more students seem to be becoming conservative at a time when

both the administration and the faculty are becoming more liberal

and I think that part of that has to do with the fact that there is

a natural instinct toward rebellion. I mean, one of the best ways

you can make a college student more conservative, I think, is to get

a bunch of liberals in power doing a bunch of ridiculous things.

Just out of natural resentment, they are going to say, just for spite,

we are going to rebel against this.

But yes, certainly there is the sense that if you have a professor

who is some radical who just rants about things and doesn’t respect

anybody’s views, then students are going to say, okay, I am just

going to get done what I need to to get my grade and I am going

to kind of treat this as an obstacle that I have to jump over rather

than as something that I can engage in.

So it seems that there is a certain responsibility and the opportunity is there for professors who could treat things, treat subjects

as genuine areas of inquiry, and a lot of times, I think that the

temptation is just too great when the professor has a subject and

they feel strongly about it and they almost want to use their power

just to convince students rather than encouraging a dialogue. So,

yes, I think that is a very interesting point that you make.

Senator SESSIONS. I salute you for the leadership you and your

colleagues and friends there at the University of Virginia are taking to restore the great democratic ideal of Thomas Jefferson, who

swore opposition to any domination of the mind of man, as I recall.

Mr. Chairman, I share your dubiousness about how much legislation we ought to pass. If accrediting agencies are authorized and

funded by us, maybe we need to look at that, and I am glad you

are.

I don’t take the matter lightly. I feel that a student ought to be

able to go to a State university and have some sort of balance of

opinion at that university, and I think trustees, taxpayers, and

politicians have a right to be concerned if there is an excessive, obsessive almost, movement in one political direction as opposed to

fairness and objectivity. It goes against our heritage, and we have

all these examples of just ludicrous actions by faculty that strike

at the heart of freedom and seem to be just amazing.

I will ask one more question if you will allow me, Mr. Chairman.

I thought of the great debate we had a number of years ago about

the right to burn the flag. We have now declared that the right to

burn the flag is a constitutional right. But at Central Michigan

University, a student was criticized for displaying the American

flag on his door. I mean, what is happening here? What is behind

this mentality? Because they thought it would offend some students on the campus.

Mr. LUKIANOFF. Oh, he wasn’t just criticized, Senator. He was

actually made to take it down. That, in addition to anti-Osama bin

Laden posters, and this is right in the wake of September 11. The

RA and the other administrators thought that students from other

nations would find that offensive.

Senator SESSIONS. Well, things offend me. Nobody worries about

me being offended. [Laughter.]
31

Would anyone like to speculate on the mentality here? I know

you could talk for hours. We don’t have that time.

Mr. LUKIANOFF. Sure.

Senator SESSIONS. But just briefly, what is it that causes people

who ostensibly are great believers in free speech to somehow drift

into curtailing what we have classically understood to be free

speech?

Mr. LUKIANOFF. Well, for one thing, a lot of these administrators

take incredibly paternalistic and patronizing approaches to their

students, believe that they essentially—at Florida State University,

for example, as part of its disciplinary process, it says flat out part

of our goal is to reeducate students about their attitudes, beliefs,

etc.

In that environment, peace and quiet has been placed as being

more important than cantor and debate. If you want to keep everything quiet, then yes, let us have uniformity of belief. We will punish people who dissent and, therefore, we can avoid the nasty and

painful process of actually thinking hard about things.

And even though I just played it optimistic, I am going to play

quite cynical right now. I actually—from what I have seen and just

the incredible knee-jerk sort of reaction that a lot of these universities have to any opinion that offends them, to silence it, I believe

that we are raising a generation of students, if they have certain

political beliefs, who don’t even know how to defend them anymore

because they have never had to.

I see that there is an incredible double standard in the application of speech codes and of all these rules. To say that views that

are crushed are conservative is also, as Professor Johnson pointed

out, not really conveying the whole idea. I mean, the idea that an

American flag an anti-Osama bin Laden poster would be offensive—I am a Democrat, I consider myself a liberal, but obviously,

the idea that that is not perfectly within the idea of protected

speech means that there is something seriously gone wrong with

the respect for free speech on college campuses.

Mr. DICK. I also would like to comment real quickly on that. You

were asking for the underlying motivation for somebody who would

want to take down an American flag in a residence hall. I think

that often that something like that being censored is really harmful

to intellectual diversity, but it is often done in the name of diversity, and diversity of a type of ethnic, racial, or national diversity,

and that you see administrators and people who are in the Office

of Housing and Life and they see themselves as having the responsibility to make their campus more welcoming to attract racial and

ethnic minorities and they see the American flag as something that

would be sort of, you know, a really patriotic symbol that would

make someone from another country or another culture uncomfortable.

So they say that in order to create a welcoming environment,

that they have to take this thing down. I don’t know how they construe the American flag to be some sort of offensive or

unwelcoming symbol, but it seems that that is the view. And so a

lot of this censorship that is done to harm intellectual diversity is

done in the name of diversity, just diversity of a different kind.
32

The CHAIRMAN. That is a brilliant answer, by the way, and very

accurate.

I would just note for the record that so far, three of the four

members of this panel have identified themselves as liberals.

[Laughter.]

Nobody can say we stacked this panel. [Laughter.]

In any event, we do intend to continue to pursue this issue with

sunshine. We will be holding hearings on textbooks, specifically

textbooks in high schools dealing with American history, and we

will be holding a hearing on accreditation, and we will be holding

other hearings on this issue of how we open our campuses up so

that different views can be heard without people being subjected to

some sort of penalty, either direct or indirect.

We thank you very much. This has been an extraordinarily good

panel. Thank you for your time.

The subcommittee is adjourned.

[Additional material follows.]
33

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANNE NEAL

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee: One pundit on higher education

has described our colleges and universities as islands of oppression in a sea of freedom. While the comment is humorous, the observation is quite serious. The lack of

intellectual diversity on our college and university campuses is increasingly troublesome and of profound concern to all of us interested in the education of our next

generation of leaders.

As early as 1991, Yale President Benno Schmidt warned that, ‘‘The most serious

problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on campuses. The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion

rather than to search for wisdom and liberate the mind.’’ In his last report to the

Board of Overseers, retiring Harvard president Derek Bok similarly warned: ‘‘What

universities can and must resist are deliberate, overt attempts to impose orthodoxy

and suppress dissent. . . . In recent years, the threat of orthodoxy has come primarily from within rather than outside the university.’’

My organization, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, was founded in

1995 and is a bipartisan network of college and university trustees and alumni

across the country dedicated to academic freedom and excellence. Since our founding, we have had occasion to evaluate colleges and universities in terms of academic

freedom and academic offerings. And what we have discovered confirms these eminent university presidents’ worst fears.

Rather than fostering intellectual diversity—the robust exchange of ideas traditionally viewed as the very essence of a college education—our colleges and universities are increasingly bastions of political correctness, hostile to the free exchange

of ideas.

Before I go any further, I want to make one principle perfectly clear. There is no

more important value to the life of the mind than academic freedom. This is the

value that Thomas Jefferson so vividly articulated in reference to the University of

Virginia: ‘‘We are not afraid,’’ said Jefferson, ‘‘to follow truth wherever it may lead,

nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.’’ And that means

permitting academics of all political stripes—with partisan or ideological commitments counting neither for nor against them—to engage in that exercise.

But what is at issue here today is the other side of the equation, the student’s

right to academic freedom, the student’s right to learn and hear both sides of controversial issues of the day. While there is much thoughtful teaching and superb

scholarship across the country, there are also many examples—as I will outline in

the next few minutes—of teaching and learning being put into the service of politics

and ideology. As a consequence, our colleges and universities are failing at their responsibility to educate the next generation of leaders by rigorous and balanced exposure to significant— theories and thoughtful viewpoints.

Threats to the robust exchange of ideas on our college and university campuses

come in many forms, but typically manifest themselves in the following ways:

1. Disinviting of politically incorrect speakers;

2. Mounting of one-sided panels, teach-ins and conferences;

3. Sanctions against speakers who fail to follow the politically correct line;

4. Instruction that is politicized;

5. Virtual elimination of broad-based survey courses in favor of trendy, and often

politicized, courses;

6. Reprisal against or intimidation of students who seek to speak their mind;

7. Political discrimination in college hiring and retention; and

8. Speech codes and campus newspaper theft and destruction.

Here are some examples.

DISINVITED SPEAKERS

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was disinvited by the University of

Texas-Austin president because of threats by a fringe student group. The heckler’s

veto reigns.

University of California trustee and recognized public figure Ward Connerly was

disinvited by Columbia on the grounds that the university could not provide adequate security. Again, the protesting few limited the rights of the majority.
34

ONE-SIDED PANELS OR TEACH-INS

Yale sponsored a teach-in examining the events of September 11 but was publicly

criticized by Professor of Classics Donald Kagan for its utter failure to include a single spokesman in favor of military action.

Brooklyn College sponsored a post 9/11 panel without any representatives of the

U.S. or Israeli government’s point of view. Professor Robert David Johnson condemned the panel as one sided, and—as you will learn—paid dearly for doing so.

At Columbia University, college professors convened a six-hour anti-war ‘‘teachin.’’ One student, quoted in the campus newspaper, described the teach-in as nothing more than a ‘‘fervid presentation of an exclusive viewpoint... where professors could express their viewpoints unopposed.’’

SANCTIONS AGAINST THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT

In these cases, professors or students are singled out for punishment because of

the content of their views. In the wake of September 11, a number of professors

were sanctioned for being pro-war, while very few cases arose of professors being

taken to task for anti-war views.

Duke University shut down a faculty member’s website after he included an article advocating a vigorous military response to terrorism. The website was later reinstated, but the professor must now include a disclaimer that his views do not reflect

the views of the university. Duke has never before required such a disclaimer.

A University of Massachusetts administrator revoked a permit for a pro-war rally,

while allowing an anti-war rally to proceed.

A Florida Gulf Coast dean instructed employees to remove ‘‘Proud to be an American’’ stickers until negative public reaction prompted her to revoke the decision.

POLITICIZED INSTRUCTION

At the University of California, a course description for ‘‘The Politics and Poetics

of Palestinian Resistance’’ stated that ‘‘conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek

other sections.’’ The University called the description a failure of oversight and announced it would monitor the class to ensure it did not exclude or discourage points

of view. The professor, a leader of the Students for Justice in Palestine, was not

reprimanded.

At the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts (along with at least

30 institutions across the country, including Princeton and the University of California) students enroll in ‘‘whiteness studies.’’ At Massachusetts, the enrollees are required to participate in a ‘‘privilege walk.’’ According to the Washington Post, the

field is ‘‘based on a left-leaning interpretation of history by scholars who say the

concept of race was created by a rich white European and American elite, and has

been used to deny property, power and status to nonwhite groups for two centuries.’’

Note: students are not asked to evaluate this thesis but to absorb it.

At the University of South Carolina a professor provided students with a set of

discussion guidelines that asked them to ‘‘acknowledge that racism, classism,

sexism, heterosexism, and other institutionalized forms of oppression exist’’ and

called upon them to ‘‘agree to combat actively the myths and stereotypes about our

own groups and other groups so that we can break down the walls that prohibit

group cooperation and group gain.’’

At Arizona State University, a course on Navajo history restricted enrollment to

American Indian students.

Several Spanish courses at Florida International University are closed to non-Hispanic students.

ONE-SIDED FACULTY

An Academic Study Survey conducted by Stanley Rothman, Emeritus Professor of

Political Science at Smith College, the results of which are being released today,

finds that half of American professors identify with the Democrats, a third call

themselves independent, while a tenth of the respondents identify with the Republicans. A much higher percentage of faculty members surveyed-72%-describe their

own ideology as ‘‘left,’’ while 15% self-describe their ideology as ‘‘right.’’ Eighty one

percent of professors in the humanities and 75% in the social sciences identify their

views as strongly or moderately left, while only 9% of respondents in these two

fields hold strongly or moderately conservative views. Even in the science, math,

business, and medicine sectors, faculty who identify themselves as Republican are

in the minority.

This would not be so bad if professors consistently offered different points of view.

However, the concept of balance appears to be out of favor with contemporary acad-
35

emicians. This was starkly underscored this fall when the Faculty Senate at the

University of California adopted a new regulation on academic freedom. This new

provision removed the long-term prohibition against using the classroom ‘‘as a platform for propaganda’’ on the grounds that in this new age ‘‘academic freedom does

not distinguish between ‘interested’ and ‘disinterested’ scholarship.’’ At a time when

postmodernism reigns on our college and university campuses, the concept of the

disinterested search for the truth has been supplanted by a conception of the world

that views every issue in terms of race, class and gender.

DISAPPEARING CORE CURRICULA

Even this ideological imbalance would not be fatal if students were given the

knowledge and background that empowers them to think for themselves. But survey

after survey by ACTA and others also show that students are no longer even being

exposed to broad areas of knowledge.

Rather than being introduced to foundational subjects such as history, natural

science, literature, government, and economics, students are permitted to pick and

choose from a smorgasbord of academic offerings that are often trendy and tendentious. In two studies conducted by ACTA, Losing America’s Memory and Restoring

America’s Legacy, we discovered that not one of the top 50 require a course in

American history of their graduates. Only five institutions required any history at

all. Instead, students are picking from course offerings ranging from ‘‘From Hand

to Mouth: Writing, Eating and the Construction of Gender’’ at Dartmouth and

‘‘Global Sexualities’’ at Duke to ‘‘Witchcraft, Sorcery and Magic’’ at Williams College.

In this atmosphere, faced often with only one viewpoint and having very little or

no information on which to make up their own minds, our next generation is truly

being disserved.

Now, many will argue that these are isolated anecdotes, that political correctness

and the lack of intellectual diversity are not really a problem, that courses are handled fairly and that teachers are well aware of the need to let students speak their

mind.

But the fact is there are too many alarms from too many quarters to ignore what

is happening. Whether it is ACTA or FIRE, Nadine Strossen of the ACLU, or the

late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan (who once said, regarding college

speech codes, ‘‘They ought to just abolish all of them’’), evidence of widespread limitations on intellectual diversity on our college campuses is now overwhelming.

Only last weekend, two recent college graduates bewailed the state of affairs in

the Wall Street Journal. And I quote: ‘‘One would not dare question certain ‘truths’

in the classroom for fear of being ostracized, vilified—or receiving a ‘grade adjustment.’ An independent-minded renegade chooses instead to bite his tongue rather

than face the inevitable wrath of his peers and, worse, his instructor, who ought

to be facilitating an honest, open dialogue.’’

Given this substantial evidence, this committee is to be commended for raising

awareness of this most critical academic freedom issue. ‘‘Sunlight,’’ as Justice Louis

Brandeis once observed, ‘‘is a great disinfectant.’’ By contrast, to ignore a problem

or to be less than candid about it discourages a remedy.

The next question, of course, is what is that remedy ought to be.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni respectfully submits that the solutions for this problem are not legislative mandates—but instead fall within the purview of college and university faculty, administrators, and boards of trustees. Statutory edicts on curricular matters are bound to raise academic freedom problems of

their own. The remedy, as Madison wrote in The Federalist, would be ‘‘worse than

the disease.’’ Therefore, ACTA recommends the following.

Boards have a fiduciary obligation to protect the academic quality and academic

freedom of their institutions. They should protect academic freedom—of both faculty

and students—from internal as well as external threats. Faculty and administrators

likewise have this obligation but, at many universities, they have clearly defaulted

on this responsibility.

Trustees should adopt a statement or resolution that all faculty are expected to

present points of view other than their own in a balanced way and respect and nurture students’ ability to make up their own minds on contentious issues.

Trustees should adopt a policy underscoring that the focus of courses is intellectual development and the acquisition of knowledge and skills, not the manipulation

of attitudes or engaging in political activism.

Trustees should insist that their institutions offer broad-based survey courses designed to expose students to the best that has been done and said.

Trustees should insist that speaker programs sponsored by the university present

a range of points of view.
36

Trustees should make clear that they will not tolerate ideological or political discrimination in the hiring, firing, or promoting of faculty. Trustees should monitor

tenure decisions—both granting and denying—on a regular basis.

Trustees should direct administrators and faculty to engage in an ‘‘intellectual diversity inventory’’ to see whether students are exposed to diverse points of view in

classroom readings, speakers series, etc., and whether partisan or ideological bias

is influencing hiring and retention.

Congress should hold periodic hearings to raise public awareness of this problem,

and should encourage faculty, administrators, and boards of trustees voluntarily to

conduct intellectual diversity reviews and to make the results public so that students, parents and taxpayers can see what the facts are.

Congress should target federal grants to promote the study and teaching of American history, politics and the law. ACTA commends Senator Gregg for sponsoring

S.1515, the Higher Education for Freedom Act, which focuses on this need. Thank

you.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT DAVID JOHNSON

Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Committee: My name is Robert David Johnson. I am a professor of history at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center of

the City University of New York, where I teach courses in U.S. political, diplomatic,

and constitutional history.

As a historian of the Senate, I am particularly honored to appear before the Committee. I have written books on the interwar Senate and on former Alaska senator

Ernest Gruening, both published by Harvard University Press. I am now completing

a study of Congress and the Cold War, which Cambridge University Press will publish.

I survived an attempt by Brooklyn College of the City University of New York

to deny me tenure on the basis of my ideas and academic values, an attempt

amounting to an attack on the principle of intellectual diversity on campus, and as

such, perhaps, of interest to this body. Though conceding that my accomplishments

as a scholar and a teacher were first-rate, the college based its case on a handful

of senior colleagues’ secret letters, which came to be labeled the ‘‘Shadow File.’’

CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein ultimately overturned Brooklyn’s decision.

The ‘‘Shadow File’’ letters, which attacked not only me but also several other

untenured professors, condemned me for three violations of prevailing campus orthodoxy. First, I was deemed uncollegial for having objected, along with other, but

tenured, professors that a college post-9/11 forum was unbalanced because none of

its speakers supported either U.S. or Israeli foreign policy. The provost had termed

the forum an educational event and allowed professors to dismiss their classes to

attend it; I argued only that the college should not label a one-sided event educational.

Second, I drew criticism for the standards that I employed in a search for a new

professor in European history, when I joined several colleagues in urging the department to base its choice on the candidates’ demonstrated records as researchers

and teachers. My critics instead advocated granting a disproportionate role to subjective comments on the candidates’ personalities and to gender considerations, despite the college affirmative action officer’s having cautioned that the department’s

existing gender diversity would make such an approach violative of federal law.

Third, the significance of my scholarship and teaching was downgraded because

of the kind of history that I teach. Scholars perceived as politically conservative, or

even those who taught fields perceived as conservative—such as political, diplomatic, or constitutional history—were to face a huge disadvantage in personnel decisions at Brooklyn College.

In some ways, my case represented an anomaly in the academic world. Those who

want to fire someone because of his beliefs or academic specialty rarely put their

opinions in writing, as did the ‘‘Shadow File’’ professors. Because of my credentials,

I attracted support from dozens of national political and diplomatic historians of

varying ideological persuasions. I benefited from all but perfect legal representation.

Finally, CUNY, rather than Brooklyn, possessed the final say on my tenure. I can

only wonder what happens to job applicants or untenured faculty from my fields

who are rejected for reasons similar to those offered by Brooklyn, but who lack the

advantages that I possessed.

These events attracted unusually widespread media attention because they illustrated troubling patterns within the academy as a whole, such as how considerations relating to departmental or campus politics can arbitrarily override merit in

the tenure process; or how some professors impose ideological litmus tests as preconditions for hiring and promotion.
37

Within the historical community, some also saw Brooklyn’s action as part of a

broader assault on the fields of political and diplomatic history. Jonathan Zasloff,

a professor at UCLA Law School who also holds a Ph.D. in diplomatic history from

Harvard, noted that the controversy highlighted ‘‘the decline of the history of American foreign policy as a subject of academic study-not because it isn’t still critically

important, but rather because it is simplistically dismissed as studying dead white

men. The ‘new social history’ that focuses on studying the working class, unemployed people, minorities, women and gays is critically important as well—but the

academy, in its quest for novelty, has really thrown the baby out with the

bathwater.’’ Ironically, this dismissal has come at a time when the study of diplomatic history has never been more intellectually diverse, ranging from the multitude of recent studies that have considered factors like race and gender in the history of American foreign relations to the exemplary Cold War International History

Project, a truly multicultural intellectual enterprise if ever there was one.

The contents of the ‘‘Shadow File’’ confirmed Zasloff’s observations. One of the

file’s contributors, a specialist in women’s history, denigrated my teaching and

scholarship on the grounds that I taught courses dealing with ‘‘political history, focused on figures in power.’’ Such an ‘‘old-fashioned approach to our field,’’ this professor mused, attracted only ‘‘a certain type of student, almost always a young white

male,’’ whose interest in such ‘‘narrow’’ topics implied limited intellectual abilities.

The former department chairman, who has since been reassigned, termed this document the ‘‘reasoned consideration’’ of a senior colleague.

Since the early 1960s, the academy has witnessed an explosion of interest in race,

class, and gender in U.S. history. These developments have produced more nuanced

views of American history as a whole. They have, however, come with a cost. Marc

Trachtenberg, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has lamented

how many adherents of this ‘‘new social history’’ have seemed ‘‘interested in pushing

fields like diplomatic history—and to a certain extent even political history as a

whole, not to mention a whole series of other fields—to the margins of the profession.’’ As a result, vast areas of U.S. history addressing our core values—democracy,

foreign policy, the law—have been deemed unworthy of instruction.

That my colleague was willing to commit to paper her comment that a professor

teaching about ‘‘figures in power’’ constituted grounds for condemnation testifies to

just how certain she and others have become of support for these views among the

professorate. In the academy as reflected by Brooklyn College, someone like me,

whose first two books studied left-wing congressional dissenters and who wore a Hillary Clinton button during the 2000 Senate campaign, was deemed holding views

too ‘‘conservative’’ to be tolerated. We now have a culture to which many academics

conform without giving much thought to the absurdity of some of the culture’s cen- tral tenets. Indeed, of the current Members of Congress, perhaps only Maxine Waters would not fall under the definition of ‘‘conservative’’ as offered by academics

who see the study of ‘‘figures in power’’ as somehow catering to sexism or racism.

These patterns certainly are not confined to Brooklyn College. Again to quote

Trachtenberg, advocates of the new social history ‘‘talked a lot about ‘diversity,’ but

in practice they certainly did not embrace a live-and-let-live philosophy.’’ An outside

observer might have expected that departments would add faculty positions in social

history fields as a complement to pre-existing positions in political, diplomatic, or

constitutional history. Instead, these newer topics too frequently have taken the

place of more ‘‘traditional’’ approaches, as a representative sample of history departments—from 30 large state universities around the country—suggests. If anything,

such a sample would seem likely to reveal a disproportionately high percentage of

political and diplomatic historians, both because of the size of these departments

and because these schools get much of their funding from the government, and thus

would seem less likely to avoid entirely topics that most in the country consider crucial for students to learn. Instead, a majority of full-time U.S. history professors in

only three of the sampled departments (Ohio State, Virginia, and Alabama) have research interests that deal with politics, foreign policy, the law, or the military in

any way. At 20 of these schools, less than a quarter of the Americanists address

such topics in any aspect of their scholarly work. The University of Michigan has

25 full-time department members teaching U.S. history: only one publishes on political history, as opposed to 11 professors examining race in America and seven specialists in U.S. women’s history. Of the 11 Americanists in the University of Washington’s history department, only one studies politics, the law, or foreign policy—

and he specializes in American socialism and communism.

The situation can be even more depressing at lower-profile public institutions,

since some administrations tolerate students receiving U.S. political history only

through a distorted lens. This is particularly true at schools promoting the agenda

of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Though a na-
38

tional organization to which dozens of colleges belong, the AAC&U’s curricular program is dominated by a handful of members committed to using banal rhetoric of

diversity and inclusion to defend curricula that present one-sided viewpoints on controversial political issues.

Washington’s Evergreen College, for example, features two courses on 20th century U.S. political history: ‘‘Dissent, Injustice, and the Making of America,’’ and ‘‘Inherently Unequal.’’ The latter course, which addresses U.S. history since 1950, holds

as an indisputable premise that in the 1990s, ‘‘racist opposition to African American

progress and the resurgence of conservatism in all branches of government barricaded the road to desegregation.’’ California State University-Monterey Bay, another

AAC&U-oriented school, likewise presents students with only two, clearly biased,

courses examining the history of American government institutions. Those wanting

more U.S. political history are invited to take such classes as ‘‘History According to

the Movies,’’ ‘‘California at the Crossroads,’’ and ‘‘Multicultural History in the New

Media Classroom.’’ The historical profession needs balance, not intolerance. No one denies that students should have the opportunity to sample such offerings from the new social history as ‘‘History According to the Movies.’’ But courses in American political, diplomatic, and legal history are at least as important. Groups such as The Historical

Society, which has brought together historians of all viewpoints to champion a return to a discipline based on reasoned appeals to evidence rather than promotion

of an ideological agenda, have resisted the exclusion of whole fields from college history departments. In addition, the Miller Center for Public Affairs, housed at the

University of Virginia, has launched an ambitious project to promote and fund innovative new scholarship in the history of American political development. Still, historians seem unlikely to create an intellectually diverse profession on their own. As

recently noted by University of Pennsylvania professor Erin O’Connor, publisher of

the weblog Critical Mass, since ‘‘scholarship—centered on questions of identity, oppression, and power relations—is in turn a sign of a particular political commitment,’’ faculty diversity will ‘‘only be pursued insofar as it ensures and perpetuates

ideological uniformity.’’ With faculty unwilling or unable to create an intellectually diverse campus, administrators and trustees must step forward, as my case suggested. Chancellor

Goldstein used my case to affirm his previously stated commitment to improving

standards and promoting intellectual diversity. Several trustees likewise used the

matter to articulate the basic principles under which CUNY personnel policy would

operate. In the contemporary climate, responsible administrators and trustees

should require careful accountings of hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions coming

from academic departments. These same administrators and trustees should be

ready and willing to act when such decisions prove to have been made to satisfy

personal ideological wish lists rather than educational and scholarly needs.

Simply paying lip service to the principle of teaching students about American democracy will not suffice. An unfortunate example of this trend comes in a federally

funded grant, distributed to 12 colleges through the AAC&U, with an apparently

non-controversial name (‘‘The Arts of Democracy’’) and mission (promoting ‘‘a deeper

understanding of, debate about, and practice of democracy’’). Brooklyn’s ‘‘Arts of Democracy’’ program promises to produce students who will understand the heritage

of American civic ideals; be able to resolve moral dilemmas posed by U.S. foreign

policy; and comprehend the fundamental premises of U.S. democracy.

Despite these promising claims, the program contains not even one political

science, history, economics, or philosophy course exploring American government or

international relations. Instead, ‘‘Arts of Democracy’’ students learn that democracy

entails support for a multicultural political agenda and what the college terms a

‘‘community of diversity,’’ by taking courses such as ‘‘Literature and Cultural Diversity,’’ ‘‘Introduction to Global Cinema,’’ and ‘‘Peoples of the United States.’’

By underwriting ‘‘The Arts of Democracy,’’ the federal government itself is not

only undermining the teaching of political and diplomatic history, but providing for

a program that views the entire modern liberal democratic project, from its inception in 17th century England and the 18th century European Enlightenment to the

present, as a sustained effort to suppress and marginalize one group or another in

the interests of maintaining power, privilege, and profits. Even taking the stated

goals of the ‘‘Arts of Democracy’’ at face value, one wonders how American students,

as citizens of a country that for nearly a century has possessed unprecedented global power, could be expected to resolve the ethical dilemmas associated with that

power if the students lack a well-rounded understanding of its past uses as well as

abuses.

In the end, restoring intellectual diversity on campus requires support from the

outside—from alumni, trustees, and government. As a historian of the U.S. Con-
39

gress, I know as well as anyone how the lessons of the McCarthy era suggest the

dangers of Washington excessively involving itself in college instruction. But Congress possesses an array of powers through which it could encourage intellectual

freedom on today’s campuses, without the risk of heavy-handed intervention.

Hearings such as this one can help frame the issue for public discussion and force

colleges to adopt transparent standards in personnel and curricular matters. Doing

so would indirectly stimulate intellectual diversity. No institution can publicly admit

that its promotion and tenure process is weighted against professors who teach

about American politics or foreign policy, or that it wants to indoctrinate students

through politically one-sided course offerings.

In addition, specifically targeted federal grants to promote the study and teaching

of American politics, foreign policy, and the law are very much needed. In this regard, I especially commend Senator Gregg for his sponsorship of S. 1515, the Higher

Education for Freedom Act, which would create a targeted grant program aimed at

reviving postsecondary teaching and research about our political institutions and

the philosophical and cultural background out of which they emerged. This legislation will complement the Teaching American History Grant Program authored by

Senator Byrd, which focused on the elementary, middle, and high school levels of

American education. The emphasis on grants for new program creation is especially

well-conceived, since the development of new programs is probably the best way of

ensuring that there will be faculty lines in existence, and graduate training available, for future historians and other scholars who wish to make careers studying

subjects related to political and constitutional institutions.

Four decades ago, William Fulbright theorized that the Senate’s ‘‘primary obligation’’ to political life came in contributing ‘‘to the establishment of a national consensus’’ through educating the public. This function remains vitally important for the

Senate. I commend the Committee’s efforts to educate the public on the need for

campus intellectual diversity, and I thank you for your consideration.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GREG LUKIANOFF

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee: My name is Greg Lukianoff, and

I am the director of legal and public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual

Rights in Education, commonly known as FIRE. For four years now, FIRE has been

fighting for free speech and academic freedom on college and university campuses

across the nation, following through on the analysis and recommendations contained

in a book written by FIRE’s co-founders, Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A.

Silverglate—The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses. Prior to working for FIRE, I was unaware of how common serious violations

of students’ basic free speech rights are on today’s campuses. Since working at

FIRE, however, I have witnessed hundreds of cases in which private and public universities have demonstrated a distressing disregard for free speech. FIRE has come

to the defense of anti-war protestors, pro-war demonstrators, satirists, political activists from across the political spectrum, student newspapers, and students and

faculty who often have done little more than criticize an administration or its policies, or who have tried constructively and peaceably to address pressing social or

political concerns.

While violations of basic expressive rights are always troubling, it is especially

disturbing when they take place at our colleges and universities—institutions that

depend on an open exchange of ideas in order to fulfill their most basic mission. Colleges and universities should be the institutions where individuals enjoy the greatest possible free speech rights. Sadly, students and faculty too often have to fight

for the right to express opinions that citizens outside of academia would simply take

for granted as enjoying full legal protection.

Despite the protections of the First Amendment at public universities and the

powerful statements of commitment to free speech and academic freedom at most

private liberal arts colleges and universities, many campuses still promulgate

speech codes. You may wonder what we mean by ‘‘speech codes.’’ FIRE defines a

speech code as any campus regulation that punishes, forbids, heavily regulates, or

restricts a substantial amount of expression that would be protected in the larger

society. Our definition is straightforward and applies to all university policies

whether they call themselves ‘‘speech codes’’ or not. In contrast to the way that such

codes were put into effect during their heyday in the late 80s and early 90s, colleges

today are loath to label their policies ‘‘speech codes’’ even when they restrict or forbid clearly protected speech. This may be a result of a series of court cases in which

university speech codes were struck down as unconstitutional, or perhaps it is a reaction to public relations disasters that were generated by early attempts to regulate student speech.
40

But make no mistake, as Harvey Silverglate and I explain in our attached article,

speech codes are alive and well on college campuses.

The current generation of speech codes come in many shapes and sizes, including

but not limited to e-mail policies that ban ‘‘derogatory comments,’’ highly restrictive ‘‘free speech zone’’ policies, ‘‘diversity statements’’ with provisions that outlaw ‘‘intolerant expression,’’ and so-called ‘‘harassment policies’’ that extend to speech that

may ‘‘insult’’ or ‘‘demean.’’ While they may not call themselves ‘‘speech codes’’ anymore, a speech code by any other name still suppresses speech.

FIRE has been combating speech codes as a part of its general operations for the

last four years. We have come to the defense of thousands of individuals who have

been the victims of rules and regulations that should have no place on our campuses. Drawing from that experience, we decided to undertake a colossal program

that seeks to catalog the restrictive speech policies on every college and university

campus across the country. The preliminary results of this massive research undertaking can be found on a public website, speechcodes.org. The website—which, according to our research, is current through this past summer—now features nearly

200 hundred public and private colleges and universities. FIRE has rated each of

the non-sectarian universities using a ‘‘lighting scheme’’: green lights indicate that

we found no policy that seriously imperils speech; yellow lights indicate that a university has some policies that could ban or excessively regulate protected speech;

and red lights are awarded to universities that have policies that ban a substantial

amount of what would be clearly protected speech in the larger society. Of 176 rated

universities only 20 have earned green lights, while 80 earned yellows. A distressing

76—forty-three percent of the institutions rated—earned red lights.

Some of these red light polices are truly bizarre. For instance, Hampshire College

in Massachusetts bans ‘‘psychological intimidation, and harassment of any person

or pet.’’ Others are almost quaint, like Kansas State University, which bans the use

of ‘‘profane or vulgar language’’ when it is used in a ‘‘disruptive manner.’’ It has long

been settled in constitutional law that free speech is not limited only to the pleasant

or the pious.

Some codes are remarkably broad and vague, like that of Bard College in New

York, which states, ‘‘It is impermissible to engage in conduct that deliberately

causes embarrassment, discomfort, or injury to other individuals or to the community as a whole.’’ By banning speech that ‘‘discomforts,’’ Bard takes a position that

has been adopted by many colleges and universities: valuing and promoting peace

and quiet at the expense of robust debate and intellectual engagement. To be sure,

politeness is a commendable value, but it simply does not compare in importance

to unfettered debate and discussion in a pluralistic democracy. Furthermore, it is

not the place of college administrators to force students to speak in any particular

fashion. Civility should, perhaps, be inculcated when a student is young, by his or

her elementary school teachers and by parents. In college, it should be learned by

example. Furthermore, conditioning speech on civility virtually denies the existence

of justified moral outrage.

Other codes define the ‘‘protected class’’ of the speech code so broadly as to ban

even the most basic forms of free speech. The University of California-Santa Cruz,

for example, warns against speech that shows ‘‘disrespect’’ or ‘‘maligns’’ on the basis

of, among other categories, ‘‘creed,’’ ‘‘physical ability,’’ ‘‘political views,’’ ‘‘religion,’’

and ‘‘socio-economic status or other differences.’’ One can only imagine what dreary

places colleges would be if students weren’t even allowed to express passionate political criticisms.

Still others dangerously trivialize society’s most serious crimes in an effort to get

at ‘‘offensive speech.’’ Ohio University’s ‘‘Statement on Sexual Assault,’’ for example,

declares that ‘‘Sexual assault occurs along a continuum of intrusion and violation

ranging from unwanted sexual comments to forced sexual intercourse.’’ One should

be very concerned about any university that cannot make a principled distinction

between loutish comments and rape.

Most colleges, however, rely on this strategy: they redefine existing serious offenses to include protected expression. Hood College in Maryland, for example, defines ‘‘harassment’’ as ‘‘any intentionally disrespectful behavior toward others.’’

While ‘‘disrespectful behavior’’ may be rude, it certainly does not rise to the level

of the crime of harassment. No one denies that a college can and should ban true

harassment, but hiding a speech code inside of a ‘‘racial-harassment code,’’ for example, does not thereby magically shield a college or university from the obligations

of free speech and academic freedom.

A particularly pernicious brand of speech code goes beyond punishing what one

says and extends to what one feels, thinks, or believes. Transylvania University in

Kentucky bans ‘‘oral, and written actions that are intellectually... inappropriate’’

if they touch upon a broad list of protected classes. Florida State University’s ‘‘Gen-
41

eral Statement of Philosophy on Student Conduct and Discipline’’ states, ‘‘Since behavior which is not in keeping with standards acceptable to the University community is often symptomatic of attitudes, misconceptions, and emotional crises, the

treatment of these attitudes, misconceptions, and emotional crises through re-education and rehabilitative activities is an essential element of the disciplinary process.’’ All citizens should be very concerned when state universities, which often offer

only a bare minimum of due process, take upon themselves the ‘‘re-education’’ of

adult students and empower themselves to compel correct ‘‘attitudes.’’ That is not

worthy of a free nation.

Another kind of speech code is the so-called ‘‘speech zone’’ policy, which limits protests, debates, and even pamphleteering to tiny corners of campus. FIRE has identified or fought these polices at over two dozen public universities. Until this past

summer, Western Illinois University provided students with only one ‘‘Free Speech

Area.’’ This area was only available during business hours and had to be reserved

five days in advance. Even within the ‘‘Free Speech Area,’’ additional speech restrictions applied. Until FIRE intervened, Texas Tech University—a school with 28,000

students—provided only one 20-foot-wide gazebo to be used as a ‘‘Free Speech Area.’’

Protests, demonstrations, pamphleteering, speeches, and even the distribution of

newspapers had to receive prior, official approval if they were to occur outside of

the ‘‘free speech’’ gazebo and requests had to ‘‘be submitted at least six university

working days before the intended use.’’

Texas Tech has since expanded the number of speech zones on campus, but FIRE

continues to fight, along with a broad coalition that includes the Alliance Defense

Fund in the courts and a new student group called Students for Free Speech on the

ground. We are determined to make Texas Tech grant its students the full freedoms

that students at an institution of higher learning deserve—not just the bare legal

minimum.

Lest anyone think that these speech codes might not be such a threat if they are

applied judiciously and fairly, they need only consult our website at

www.thefire.org. In the past year alone we have seen dozens of examples of blatant

violations of the free speech rights of students and faculty members. At Harvard

Business School, an editor was threatened with discipline for publishing a mildly

critical political cartoon. We continue to work on behalf of a professor who was fired

for ‘‘faithlessness and disloyalty’’ for daring to criticize the policies of the president

of Shaw University in North Carolina. At California Polytechnic State University

we came to the assistance of a student who had been subjected to a seven-hour

hearing and found guilty of disruption for posting an ‘‘offensive’’ flier advertising an

upcoming speech by a black conservative. The flier only contained information about

the speech, the name of the speaker’s book, and a photo of the speaker. FIRE is

currently helping a fifty-five-year-old grandmother who is a student at SUNY Suffolk and has been found guilty of ‘‘harassment’’ and ‘‘intimidation’’ for using a single

profanity in an e-mail accidentally sent to a professor. At Roger Williams University

in Rhode Island, just within the past few weeks, administrators froze an entire

year’s worth of printing funds for a student newspaper, The Hawk’s Right Eye,

when it published number of controversial articles. At this very moment, FIRE is

involved in half a dozen other cases involving serious infringements upon the free

speech rights of students and faculty, and these cases keep on coming.

Free speech is not, nor should it ever be, a partisan issue. Part of the brilliance

of our form of government is that it binds the rights of each individual to the rights

of all citizens. As a society, we only enjoy the rights that the least of us receive.

Therefore, all of our rights depend on the protection of even the most controversial

or ‘‘politically incorrect’’ of us—and, rest assured, the definition of ‘‘political correctness’’ changes dramatically over time. However, since colleges and universities recognize that if they were really to ban all speech that offends anyone all colleges and

universities would be reduced to silence, they often apply their speech restrictions

with an unconcealed double standard.

While it has been FIRE’s experience that students and professors with orthodox

religious views, conservative advocates, and bold satirists are more likely than others to be censored under the current campus climate, we all have a common interest

in the free speech of our nation’s students. While it may be the more conservative

students who today feel the brunt of speech codes on campuses, it was only a generation or two ago when the shoe was on the other foot and liberal students bore

that burden. The problem is censorship, pure and simple. The group that bears the

brunt of censorship at any given moment in history is of academic interest, but the

existence of censorship that can silence you one year and your opponent the next

is the ongoing problem. Not only are all students affected by these overbroad policies—and students of every political stripe are punished if they cross certain, often
42

arbitrary, lines—but everyone suffers when any side of an important debate is stifled, silenced, or otherwise quashed.

And make no mistake about it, the war for free speech is often not ideological at

all. Campus censorship is quite often a simple, naked exercise of power. For example, at Hampton University in Virginia, the entire press run of last week’s Hampton

Script was confiscated by administrators who were angry about the paper’s refusal

to run a letter from the university’s acting president on the front page. College and

university administrators too often view criticisms of their policies as tantamount

to sedition. Furthermore, many administrators censor viewpoints not to achieve an

ideological purpose or ideological homogeneity, but rather to avoid having offended

students conduct noisy demonstrations that embarrass the administration. But this

kind of ‘‘trouble’’—loud, vociferous, and often unruly dissent—is indispensable to

higher education; it is not an embarrassment or an inconvenience that needs to be

stamped out. American freedom may occasionally be more troublesome than the

order that exists in a police state, but it is our most precious birthright.

As noted earlier, if there is one constant in the history of free speech, it is that

the censored of one generation often become the censors of the next. This vicious

cycle of censorship teaches citizens to take advantage of any opportunity that they

have to silence those on the other side. Students educated in this environment can

hardly be blamed if they come to view speech as little more than a tool that they

must do their best to deny their enemies, rather than as a sacred value. That is

a terrible threat to American liberty.

FIRE hopes that we can put an end to this vicious cycle of censorship with this

generation. With the help of a coalition of individuals and organizations from across

the political spectrum, we can teach the current generation that a free society’s cure

to ‘‘bad’’ speech is more speech.

It is important to mention, however, that there are grave dangers that you must

avoid in congressional involvement to return free speech to campus or through any

other attempt to legislate an expansion of intellectual diversity. Well-intentioned

legislation designed to protect the interests of different groups of students is all too

often used as an excuse for censorship. For example, the sexual harassment regulations issued by the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education (OCR)

have been abused and misinterpreted so commonly to justify regulations that punished merely ‘‘offensive’’ speech that the OCR decided it needed issue a letter of clarification this past summer. This letter of clarification stated what one might think

would be a self-evident point: no federal regulation may be used as a justification

for denying students or faculty the free speech rights that are protected under the

First Amendment. The OCR incident is only the most recent example of how regulations that were passed with the best of intentions can be turned into weapons of

censorship.

History shows that efforts to control either speech or the content of speech almost

always result in abuse, leading to the suppression of unpopular ideas or opinions.

Any bill that would ban ‘‘indoctrination’’ on campus, for example, or that would

promise ‘‘unbiased teaching,’’ could too easily result in a nightmare of abuse and

suppression as different sides fight to label the other sides’ arguments as ‘‘indoctrination’’ and their own as simply ‘‘truth.’’ The best way for Congress to ensure intellectual diversity on campus is simply to work to remove the often unlawful restrictions on speech that currently exist. When students and faculty do not have to

fear punishment for expressing their deeply held beliefs—no matter how outrageous

or unpopular—greater intellectual diversity will result.

Yet any such legislation should be crafted with great care so as to avoid undue

governmental control of or influence over institutions of higher learning, particularly at private institutions. Legislation should remind public universities that they

have not only a moral, but also a legal duty to protect rather than infringe upon

free speech, and that speech restrictions that would be unconstitutional in the outside world are likewise unconstitutional on public university campuses, regardless

of whether or not administrators believe that such restrictions would advance other

values. Legislation affecting private colleges should avoid imposing the same obligations that are imposed on public campuses, since true diversity requires that private

institutions be allowed to deviate and vary from the norm. What would be most

helpful would be legislation that simply required private institutions to fulfill whatever promises they make in their catalogues and literature. Thus, if a private college promises intellectual diversity and academic freedom, it should be required to

deliver it. FIRE is in favor of true disclosure and of private institutions living up

to their promises and assurances, rather than of governmental efforts to dictate the

values to which such institutions should be dedicated. If ABC College says that it

is a liberal arts institution devoted to academic freedom, then it should deliver this
43

or else be held accountable for breaking its contractual assurances to its students.

Fraudulent inducement is not a part of academic freedom.

While any remedial action should be considered carefully and thoroughly, the cost

of leaving things as they are is too high. One chilling example of how poorly free

speech is understood and how little it is respected in higher education today is the

phenomenon of newspaper thefts. For over a decade in at least five dozen documented instances, students have stolen and destroyed tens of thousands of copies

of student-run newspapers on colleges and universities across the country in an effort to silence viewpoints with which they disagree. In some cases these newspapers

were thrown out, and—in at least a half dozen cases—they were burned. I hope I

do not need to remind you of the fate of societies of the previous century when they

began burning books. In fact, this form of mob censorship has become so commonplace that this month the Berkeley City Council passed an ordinance making newspaper theft illegal. This was in part a response to an incident involving Berkeley’s

current mayor, Tom Bates, who stole 1,000 copies of a student newspaper after it

endorsed his opponent in the mayoral race. With those in power teaching the current generation these kinds of lessons about free speech, how can we expect them

to defend their own basic rights when they are threatened? It would truly be a terrible thing to have a whole generation of students so unfamiliar with their basic

liberties that they would not even know if they lost them.

[‘‘Speech Codes: Alive and Well at Colleges . . . By Harvey A. Silverglate and

Greg Lukianoff may be found in the issue dated August 1, 2003 of The Chronicle

of Higher Education.]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ANTHONY DICK

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to

be here today to discuss with you the important issue of intellectual diversity in

higher education.

When I came to college three years ago, I expected to find an environment firmly

devoted to free inquiry and the open competition of ideas. In order for such an atmosphere to be sustained, however, two core principles of liberal education must

hold strong: First, universities must respect the freedom of every individual to express any idea or opinion without fear of punishment. Second, universities must

allow all ideas to compete on an equal footing, without using institutional power to

privilege certain viewpoints above others. At UVA, both of these principles have

eroded as the University has strayed from strict liberal arts education and moved

toward a more politicized function.

Judging from my experience over the last three years, many in the UVA community view a university education not as an end in itself, but merely as a means to

achieving some higher political goal. This ‘‘higher goal’’ manifests itself in various

causes such as the rectifying of historical injustices, the eradication of social inequalities, or the alleviation of racial or socioeconomic oppression. It is a common

view among many that the equal competition of ideas and the equal right to free

expression together serve only to perpetuate various prejudices and injustices that

linger from our less-than-perfect past. From this premise, they argue that certain

viewpoints should be either curtailed or privileged in a deliberate manner, with a

progressive aim in mind.

These advocates of politicized education have succeeded to some degree in influencing the state of affairs at UVA. As they have succeeded, liberal arts education

has suffered. On the one hand, they have propagated policies that stifle the expression of certain viewpoints. On the other hand, they have worked to establish mandates and requirements privileging certain favored opinions above all others. With

the selective application of administrative power both to restrict some ideas and

favor others, the marketplace of ideas has lost balance. In many controversial fields

of discussion at UVA, the competition of opposing views has become slanted in one

particular direction, and the situation threatens to become much worse.

Earlier this semester, a group of concerned students and I founded the Individual

Rights Coalition (IRC) at UVA. We also launched a website, www.freeuva.com. Our

motivation stems from our belief in the enduring value of liberal arts education. Following in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, the father of UVA, we believe that our

university should treat education as an apolitical end in itself, and that social

progress is best assured when the realm of ideas is kept as free as possible from

interference at the hands of authority. Further, we hold that the best way to ward

off such authoritarian interference is to foster an equal respect for the individual

rights of all people in all circumstances. We are a truly non-partisan group, with

members on all sides of the traditional left-right political divide. I was raised in a

liberal family, I am a registered Democrat in the state of Virginia, and I maintain
44

liberal views on many political issues. Although each of us in the IRC has a different vision of the ideal society, none of us is willing to sacrifice liberal arts education in an effort to see our vision realized.

In UVA’s ‘‘Discriminatory Harassment Policy’’ printed in this year’s Undergraduate Record, students are warned against engaging in any type of expression that

‘‘unreasonably interferes with [a] person’s work or academic performance or participation in University activities, or creates a working or learning environment that

a reasonable person would find threatening or intimidating.’’ The policy then proceeds to list examples of expressions for which students should be ‘‘reported for review.’’ These examples include: ‘‘Directing racial or ethnic slurs at someone,’’ ‘‘Telling persons they are too old to understand new technology,’’ and ‘‘ridiculing a per- son’s religious beliefs.’’ At best, these examples imply a threat of punishment for engaging in constitutionally protected expression. But even worse, they seem to lend definition to the

Administration’s conception of ‘‘unreasonable interference.’’ If these examples could

be construed to unreasonably interfere with another person’s educational pursuits,

then a wide range of other offensive speech becomes threatened. As a result, some

students I know at UVA are unsure about exactly what they can write or say without having to fear punishment. Would a religious satire in the tradition of Mark

Twain count as ‘‘ridiculing a person’s religious beliefs?’’ Do ‘‘racial or ethnic slurs’’ include passionate arguments that offend anyone of another race? The simple fact

that these questions need to be asked illustrates the chilling effect of a speech code

that is both vague and potentially overbroad.

Similar problems arise from UVA’s Sexual Harassment Policy, which warns

against sex-related expressions that create an ‘‘offensive working or learning environment.’’ In its discussion of sexual harassment, UVA’s Office of Equal Opportunity

Programs lists some ‘‘examples of problematic behavior.’’ These include ‘‘jokes of a

sexual nature,’’ ‘‘suggestive comments about physical attributes or sexual experience,’’ ‘‘sexually suggestive emails,’’ and ‘‘sexual comments that bear no legitimate

relationship to the subject matter of a course.’’ As a columnist with UVA’s student newspaper, I often have wondered how the

University’s Discriminatory Harassment Policy and Sexual Harassment Policy have

been applied in the past. Last year, I wrote to University officials on three separate

occasions to try to obtain records of past cases that have been prosecuted under the

Policies. At first, I received a reply that the documents I sought were considered

‘‘education records’’ under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Therefore, ‘‘even if they were found, [they] would ultimately have to be withheld from disclosure because of federal law.’’ Eventually, the University Judiciary Committee

(UJC) offered to search their records and release the number of cases prosecuted

under the Policies, as long as I would pay ten dollars per hour for their research.

Because this would have amounted to hundreds of dollars that I did not have, and

because this paltry information would have told me nothing about the type of speech

to which the Policies were applied, I did not accept the offer.

UVA’s vague Sexual and Discriminatory Harassment Policies, along with the University’s unwillingness to release details about how these policies have been applied,

create an environment where the protection of free expression is uncertain. According to the Policies, and especially in light of the provided examples, it seems that

some speech can be punished simply for being ‘‘offensive.’’ The result of this uncertainty is largely intangible, as some UVA students simply choose to silence themselves rather than risk punishment for their potentially ‘‘offensive’’ views. Not surprisingly, the types of views that are silenced in this way are usually those that

are widely and vocally disfavored by both the majority of the UVA community and

by the UVA Administration. At Thomas Jefferson’s University, of all places, this unnatural conformity of opinion bespeaks a sad state of affairs.

The politicization of UVA is most evident in the University’s recent efforts to establish a mandatory ‘‘diversity training program.’’ This program centers on topics

such as race, ethnicity, gender, identity, and other controversial social issues. One

UVA administrator has described its purpose to me as ‘‘instilling community values’’

in students. The impetus for this ‘‘training’’ draws strength from the idea that incoming UVA students are burdened with certain prejudices and misunderstandings

regarding social issues, and that they must be ‘‘trained’’ to abandon these prejudices. This function of the University falls far outside of its traditional role of providing a liberal arts education, and extends into the realm of bringing about directed social change.

At the beginning of the summer in 2003, the Charlottesville Daily Progress and

The Cavalier Daily (the UVA student newspaper) reported that the UVA Administration had mandated an online ‘‘diversity training’’ program to be imposed upon

undergraduates at the University. In a June 12 news story, one administrator de-
45

scribed the mandatory program: ‘‘The purpose of the online diversity training system is to provide entering students with the opportunity to gain insights into the

way their own cultural, ethnic or racial expectations and experiences influence their

interaction with other students, faculty and staff from different backgrounds with

whom they come into contact as members of the University community.’’ In the same news story, a member of the faculty steering committee for the mandatory program stated that the training was created to get students ‘‘to confront

their own prejudices and areas of misunderstanding’’ with regard to diversity-related topics. From my personal conversations with administrators and media reports,

the planned method of enforcing this requirement is to block students from registering for classes until they complete the training—making it mandatory in the strictest sense of the word. Thus, with the backing of administrative power to force people to attend them, whatever views are included in this particular mandatory training program will necessarily be privileged over competing views.

Since the co-founding of the IRC at UVA, administrators fortunately have

distanced themselves somewhat from the idea of mandatory diversity training. This

is due largely to the strong student support that the IRC has garnered, as well as

the IRC’s articulation of the inadvisability of using administrative power to privilege

certain controversial views over others. Issues pertaining to diversity are far too

fluid and complex for the Administration to act as if there is an objective truth

about them that students can be ‘‘trained’’ to understand. However, top administrators still maintain that such training is under serious consideration at UVA, and

plans for the implementation of this program are still under way. Most importantly,

the spirit of support for such a program remains strong among many in the UVA

community who want to abandon the University’s strict focus on liberal arts education in favor of a more extensive political function.

Much of the IRC’s opposition to mandatory diversity training at UVA comes from

our knowledge of how similar diversity training programs have been implemented

at other colleges and universities. In an invasive exercise at Swarthmore College in

1998, students were lined up in their dormitories according to their skin color, from

lightest to darkest, and asked to speak about their feelings regarding their place in

line. In Skin Deep, a nationally distributed diversity training film, students are

summarily informed, ‘‘intolerance has once again become a way of life’’ on America’s campuses. The movie’s ‘‘study guide’’ goes on to assert dogmatically the necessary

and proper role of racial preferences in higher education, the undeniable problem

of white privilege, and the need for students to fight against the ‘‘internalized oppression’’ that lurks within each of them.

In another widely used training film titled Blue Eyed, a diversity trainer by the

name of Jane Elliott spends a day abusing and ridiculing a group of blue-eyed men

and women in order to teach viewers a lesson about the nature of oppression and

the plight of racial minorities in American society. She forces them to sit on the

floor, yells at them incessantly, and reminds them, ‘‘You have no power, absolutely

no power... quit trying.’’ After viciously pushing one sullen blue-eyed individual

to the brink of tears, Elliott announces, ‘‘what I just did to him today Newt Gingrich

is doing to you every day... and you are submitting to that, submitting to oppression.’’ To get her message across more clearly, she proclaims, ‘‘I’m only doing

this for one day to little white children. Society does this to children of color every

day.’’ As a prescription for this supposed problem, the written guide accompanying

the movie baldly states, ‘‘It is not enough for white people to stop abusing people

of color. All U.S. people need a personal vision for ending racism and other oppressive ideologies within themselves.’’ The point of the film is clear: America is an unbearably racist society, dominated by sinister forces of oppression that can only be

overcome by sweeping institutional changes. Instead of being treated as viable topics for free debate, claims like these are now the regular subject of ‘‘training’’ sessions at universities across the country.

At UVA, administrators themselves typically do not take the initiative to conceive

and implement illiberal policies and programs. Rather, they often implement such

programs under significant pressure from vocal student groups who champion socalled progressive causes. UVA administrators by and large constitute an extremely

risk-averse and reactive body. They are careful to avoid criticism at almost any expense, as they have their own careers to look after. Thus, on any given issue, they

have proven themselves with great reliability to take whichever side seems least

likely to generate negative publicity for them. When high-profile incidents occur relating to racial or ethnic insensitivity, administrators are harshly accused of inaction and failure to provide a welcoming community for minority students. In order

to deflect such criticism, they readily accede to radical demands from student groups

offering drastic solutions to the University’s alleged problems. As a result, administrators can be trusted to defend individual rights and academic integrity only to the
46

extent that they perceive such defense will grant them favor in the eyes of the University community and of society at large.

Further, from my experience, the overwhelming majority of administrators at

UVA could be described as either left or far left on the political spectrum. Regardless of the reason for this, it translates simply into a greater danger of administrative power being used for partisan ends. This is not due to some innate ambition

for power inherent in their political views—the same problem would arise under a

solidly conservative administration. The problem is simply that when administrators all think in roughly the same way about certain political issues, they seem less

likely to recognize certain programs as wrongly viewpoint—discriminatory, and

more likely to view such efforts simply as instruments of social justice and positive

change.

Thus, two relevant features describe administrators at UVA: First, they are highly susceptible to pressure from groups who pose a legitimate threat of career-damaging criticism. And second, they are somewhat pre-disposed to sympathize with requests for administrative action on behalf of a particular political ideology.

At UVA, ‘‘diversity’’ is the focus of an amazing amount of attention. All too often,

though, it is discussed only in terms of the superficial characteristics of students

and faculty. Differences in race, ethnicity, and gender are praised and sought after

with great fervor, but significantly less attention is given to the intellectual diversity of the University community. This problem is exacerbated by the efforts of some

who seek to shape the University into a vehicle for social change as opposed to an

impartial guardian of the liberal arts. To these people, vibrant intellectual diversity

is not so much a boon to the development of the mind as it is an obstacle to the

achievement of political ends.

If liberal arts education is to be preserved at UVA, freedom of speech and freedom

of thought must be firmly secured. Students and faculty must feel confident in their

ability to enjoy the full protection of their free speech rights as accorded by the First

Amendment of the Constitution. The University Administration must also refrain

from implementing any form of mandatory ‘‘training’’ that seeks to direct or control

students’ thinking on controversial social issues. For higher education to maintain

its integrity, it must be treated not as a means to any political end, but as an invaluable end in and of itself.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STANLEY ROTHMAN

I would like to thank the Chairman, Senator Gregg, the Ranking Minority Member Senator Kennedy, and the other members of the Senate Committee on Health,

Education, Labor and Pensions for the opportunity to submit this statement.

For purposes of identification, Stanley Rothman is Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of Government Emeritus at Smith College, and the Director of the Center for

the Study of Social and Political Change. He received his Ph.D. in Government from

Harvard University. He is the author, co-author or editor of 18 books including European Society and Politics (1970), Roots of Radicalism (1982) and The Media Elite

(1986). His more recent books include American Elites (1996), Hollywood’s America:

Social and Political Themes in Motion Pictures (1996) and Environmental Cancer:

A Political Disease? (1999). The Least Dangerous Branch? Social and Political Consequences of Judicial Activism was published published in the fall of 2002.

Professor Rothman is also the author, or co-author, of over 140 articles in professional and popular journals. Most of his work in recent years has dealt with various

leadership groups in the United States and their role in social change. He has emphasized the role of individuals and groups who help define cultural values.

THE 1999 ACADEMIC STUDY SURVEY

The 1999 Academic Study Survey provides data on ideological attitudes of American and Canadian faculty, students and Administrators. This American faculty random sample consists of 1520 faculty members drawn from 140 universities and colleges in the US. The sample is stratified by institution type according to the Carnegie classifications of Doctoral, Comprehensive, and Liberal Arts schools. The survey

was conducted for professors Seymour Martin Lipset, Neil Nevitte and Stanley

Rothman in 1999 by Angus Reid (now Ipsos-Reid), a survey research firm. Response

rate among faculty was 72 %. Professor Rothman is the director of the study

IDEOLOGY OF US FACULTY

The 1999 Academic survey shows that ideological orientation of the US faculty is

significantly tilted to the left. Half (50 %) of American professors identify with the

Democrats, a third (33 %) call themselves independent, while a tenth (11 %) of the
47

1The 1995 Elite Survey was based on random samples of the following elite groups in the

United States: bureaucrats, business leaders, federal judges, lawyers, media, religious leaders,

and TV/Movie makers. The sample size was over 1900. For details, see Rothman, Stanley and

Amy Black. ‘‘Elites Revisited: American Social and Political Leadership in the 1990s.’’ International Journal of Public Opinion Research 11 (2), 1999, pp. 169-195.

faculty respondents identify with the Republicans. Similarly, a much higher percentage of faculty members describe their own ideology as ‘‘left’’ than ‘‘right’’ (72 and

15 %). The rest (14 %) regard themselves as holding middle of the road views. (Table

1).

IDEOLOGICAL SELF-IDENTIFICATION OF FACULTY BY ACADEMIC FIELDS AND

DEPARTMENTS

The 1999 Academic Study Survey shows large differences in ideological orientation of the faculty by academic fields and disciplines. Faculty members in the humanities and the social sciences are the most supportive of left of center ideology

and the Democratic Party. Eighty one percent of professors in the humanities and

75 % in the social sciences identify their views as strongly or moderately left, while

only 9 % of respondents in these two fields hold strongly or moderately conservative

views. Sixty two percent of professors in the humanities and 55 % in the social

sciences identify with the Democratic Party compared to 6 and 7 % who identify

with Republicans. Although the science and math faculties, and professors of business, and medicine are more likely to identify with the right than their counterparts

in the humanities and the social sciences, supporters of right-wing ideological views

and the Republican party in these fields are also in the minority. (Table 2).

Similar differences exist among academic disciplines. For example, 88 % of professors of English, 84 % of faculty in theater, drama and dance departments, 83 % of

professors in fine arts, 81 % of political scientists, 80 % of philosophers, and 77 %

of sociologists and historians express strongly or moderately left leanings. In contrast, only 2 % of political scientists, 3 % of professors of English, 5 % of philosophers, 8 % of professors in fine arts, 9 % of sociologists, 10 % of historians, and 17

% of faculty in theater, drama and dance departments embrace right of center

views. The remainder of the respondents identify themselves as middle-of-the-road.

(Table 3).

Left self-identification is less prevalent among faculty in business schools (49 %),

engineering (51 %), economics (54 %), chemistry (64 %), physics (66 %) and mathematics (69 %). Comparatively higher proportions of faculty, but still the minority,

in these disciplines express moderately right or strongly conservative views. This

applies to faculty in business schools and economics departments (39 %), chemistry

(29 %), engineering (19 %), and to lesser extent, to faculty in mathematics (17 %),

and physics (11 %). (Table 3).

Similar pattern characterizes support for political parties. For example, threefifths i.e., 59 % of sociologists, prefer the Democratic Party compared to 0 % who

prefer the Republican Party. Analogous patterns of party preferences characterize

political scientists (58 and 8 %), historians (70 and 4 %), philosophers (62 and 11

%), psychologists (63 and 7 %), linguists (64 and 2 %), and faculty in the departments of English (69 and 2 %), education (55 and 7 %), music and musicology (56

and 6 %), theater, drama, and dance (63 and 2 %), fine arts (55 and 4 %), and mass

communications (52 and 3 %). This contrasts with support for Democratic and Republican parties by the faculty in business (26 and 26 %), agriculture (31 and 24

%), nursing (32 and 26 %), chemistry (41 and 25 %), engineering (34 and 13 %), and

computer science (43 and 21 %). (Table 4).

COMPARISON OF FACULTY WITH OTHER LEADERSHIP GROUPS

A comparison of ideological attitudes of faculty in the 1999 Academic Study Survey with the ideological orientation of other elite groups in the 1995 Elite Survey

shows that academics are more liberal than most other elites, many of which are

more liberal than the general public. 1 The two surveys asked the same questions

on a number of political and social issues. Because responses to questions on each

of these issues were closely related, political and social ideology indexes were created by means of factor analysis from a combined sample of the faculty and administrators in the Academic Study Survey and elite groups in the Elite Survey. Index

scores were standardized at the mean of 100 and standard deviation of 10. A higher

score signifies more liberal attitudes.

The political ideology index is derived from questions dealing with the government role in ensuring that everyone has a job, reducing the income gap between

rich and poor, and attitudes towards competition, and views of the relative impor-
48

2The political ideology index for the Elite Study does not include question on competition.

3Ladd, Everett Carl and Seymour Martin Lipset. The Divided Academy: Professors and Politics. Mc Graw-Hill Book Company, 1975, p. 369. 4 Hamilton, Richard F. and Lowell L. Hargens. ‘‘The politics of the professors: self-identifications, 1969-1984.’’ Social Forces 71(3), 1993, p. 608. 5Ladd and Lipset, pp. 223-224. We find that self professed Democrats are more liberal than

self professed independents on on both the political (104.82 vs 99.90) and social (105.30 vs

100.54) ideology scales.

tance of freedom and equality. 2 The social ideology index is created from questions

on a woman’s right to decide whether or not to have an abortion, attitudes toward

a couple living together without intending to get married, and whether homosexuality is as acceptable a lifestyle as heterosexuality.

On the political ideology index, the faculty (101.89) is more liberal than the business elite (90.72), judges (95.68), lawyers (96.50), and bureaucrats (96.53), but professors, taken as a whole, are more conservative than media elites (103.10). Political

ideology of faculty, as measured by this index, is close to ideological preferences expressed by religious elite (101.92), and TV and movie elites (100.35). On the social

ideology index, faculty (101.67) is more liberal than religious elites (87.59), judges

(95.68), business elites (98.00), lawyers (100.42), and bureaucrats (100.74) but more

conservative than media elite (105.39) and TV and movie elites (106.11). (Table 5).

Once again the views of academics in the humanities and the social sciences are

considerably further to the left. On the political ideology index they are further to

the left than any other group in either study (1.03.56; 104.45). On the social ideology index (104.57; 104.34) they are only outpaced by the media and Hollywood

elites), but are far to the left of any other group in either sample.

CHANGES IN IDEOLOGICAL ORIENTATION

A comparison of the 1999 Academic Study Survey with previous surveys of American faculty indicates a significant shift to the left, but one should note that differences in question wording may have affected survey results. The 1969 Carnegie

Commission on Higher Education Survey revealed that 45 % of faculty classified

their political views as left or liberal, 27 % as middle of the road, and 28 % as moderately or strongly conservative. 3 The 1975 Carnegie Commission Survey and the

1984 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Survey showed only

minor ideological changes. The left and liberal faculty members constituted 41 % in

1975 and 40 % in 1984. Twenty-eight and 27 % of the respondents occupied middle

of the road positions, 31 and 34 % of the faculty identified their views as moderately

and strongly conservative. 4 As noted, 72 % of the faculty respondents in the US in

1999 placed themselves on the left of the 10 point ideological scale, compared with

14 % in the middle and 15 % on the right.

The data on political party identification show a similar shift to the left. Half, 50

% of faculty in the 1999 Academic Study Survey, compared to 37 % in the 1972

Ladd/Lipset Survey, described themselves as Democrats. The proportion of Republicans was 11 % in 1999 and 13 % in 1972, while the proportion of independents

declined from 49 % to 33 %. 5
49
50
51
52

STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS

The American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) is a membership organization of

American Jews with members throughout the United States. It is committed to protecting fundamental constitutional freedoms and American democratic institutions,

particularly the civil and religious rights of Jews and of all Americans. It is also

committed to advancing the security of the State of Israel and to supporting its

search for peaceful relations with its neighbors in the region.

In the implementation of this mandate, AJCongress has always been particularly

concerned with issues involving the education of America’s youth. It has taken

strong positions with respect to issues of equality in schools, separation of church

and state, and in recent years, the problem of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism on

college campuses. Through our interest in the latter subject we have been made

aware of the problems of bias and distortion in certain K-12 teacher outreach programs emanating from Mid-East area and language studies centers funded by Title

VI of the Higher Education Act.

Our own investigation revealed that anti-American and anti-Israel bias permeated

materials distributed at Title VI funded teacher workshops conducted by Mid-East

centers at the University of California at Santa Barbara; Connecticut Central State

University; and Georgetown University. And we have become aware of the criticism

of Title VI programs by such knowledgeable critics as Stanley Kurtz, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes.

To further our investigation of these outreach programs, AJCongress sought,

through a Freedom of Information Act request, copies of the reports sent by the

Title VI funded Mid-East centers to the Department of Education concerning their

activities. Our examination of many hundreds of pages of these reports showed that

the Department of Education was given detailed information about the place, time,

subject, title and number of attendees at outreach activities. However, no information was requested or given as to the content of these programs. Thus, the Department of Education has no way of assessing whether the K-12 teacher workshops it
53

is funding give a fair, historically accurate and balanced view of the subjects presented and thus fulfill the statutory purposes of providing not only language instruction, but ‘‘full understanding of areas, regions and countries in which such language is commonly used.’’ When AJCongress realized not only that the funded programs lacked accuracy

and balance but that the criteria employed by the DOE did not even include these

qualities as a basis for selection, we filed the attached Petition. The Petition asks

the Department of Education (DOE) to amend the criteria they employ in awarding

funds to Title VI grantees. It gives examples of the bias and distorted anti-American

and anti-Israel materials distributed in some of these Title VI funded programs. It

also requests that DOE require that in considering grant proposals its reviewing

readers ‘‘determine the extent to which the teaching faculty and staff [of the grantee] represent the full range of scholarly and political views on the subjects taught,’’ and the ‘‘extent to which the content of the courses and materials are objectively

presented without bias and reflect the full range of political and scholarly views on

the subject taught.’’ This suggested change in the selection criteria is clearly in accord with DOE’s re- sponsibility to only fund grantees that will fulfill the purposes of the authorizing

statute. The Higher Education Act of 1965 reflected Congress’ belief that ‘‘systematic efforts [were needed] to enhance the capacity of institutions of higher education

in the United States to not only produc[e] graduates with international and foreign

language expertise’’ but to ‘‘disseminate information about world regions, foreign

languages and international affairs throughout education... government, business, civic and nonprofit sectors.’’ Based on this finding and these purposes, the Secretary is authorized to make

grants to national language and area studies centers which shall be national resources for ‘‘teaching of any modern foreign language’’ and for ‘‘instruction in fields

needed to provide full understanding of areas, regions or countries in which such

language is commonly used.’’ Clearly, if the information disseminated in teacher

workshops is inaccurate, biased, distorted and does not reflect all political and scholarly views, the workshops are not fulfilling their statutory purpose of providing ‘‘full

understanding’’ and DOE is without power to, and should not fund, such programs.

Nevertheless, officials of the Department of Education have told AJCongress informally that they believe the Department is without power to influence the content

of any of the Title VI funded programs. Despite having received from us additional

evidence of anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda in a more recent Title VI program, the Department has yet to send AJCongress a formal reply to our petition

requesting amendments to the Title VI selection requirements.

This state of affairs makes clear, and the House of Representatives in enacting

H.R. 3077 appears to agree, that Title VI of the Higher Education Act requires significant amendment.

Title VI grantees must be put on notice of what their responsibilities are under

the statute. Clearly, DOE is now remiss in its duty to properly implement and administer the statute when it fails to require accurate and balanced material and

presentations at the teacher workshops, and if fails to monitor the presentations

and materials developed for the workshops to assure that the grantees are fulfilling

the statutory purpose. Surely, the role of the Department of Education with respect

to Title VI K-12 outreach programs is not merely to count how many teachers attend and how many speeches are made to the community, and then just send

money.

Neither academic freedom nor respect for local control of education compels DOE

to be a passive conduit of federal monies funding anti-American and anti-Israel

propaganda. Whereas at one time K-12 education was the sole province of state and

local governments, that day is long past. The Bush Administration prides itself on

enacting the ‘‘No Child Left Behind Act,’’ whose myriad regulations concerning

teacher quality, accountability, test scores improvement and extra help for needy

students must be observed as a condition for obtaining federal funds. That same Administration cannot in good conscience continue to claim it may not monitor the use

of federal funds to achieve balance and accuracy in K-12 teacher workshops dealing

with international affairs.

We urge the Committee to pass legislation to amend Title VI to assure, as the

House enacted bill does, that courses and instructions for K-12 classrooms be ‘‘representative of a full range of views on the subject matter.’’ We also urge that there

be a general requirement that the Secretary of Education, in making and evaluating

grants t language and areas centers, must consider whether they are presenting ‘‘diverse perspectives’’ and are reflecting the ‘‘full range views on the subject matter.’’

Finally we urge the Committee to provide oversight and accountability for the

Title VI programs through the creation of an advisory board.
54

Thank you for the opportunity to offer these views.

AMERICAN JEWISH CONGRESS,

NEW YORK, NY 10028,

March 10, 2003.

Hon. RODNEY PAIGE,

Secretary of Education,

U.S. Department of Education,

Washington, DC 20202-0100.

CITIZENS PETITION

RELIEF REQUESTED

The American Jewish Congress (‘‘Petitioner’’) petitions the Secretary of Education

(‘‘Secretary’’) under 5 U.S.C. §553(e) and 20 U.S.C. §1232(d), the General Education

Provisions Act, to amend the selection criteria required to be employed by the Secretary in evaluating an application for a grant to fund comprehensive National Resource Centers authorized under Section 602 of the Higher Education Act as amended, 20 U.S.C. §1122.

Thirty-four C.F.R. §656.21(b) authorizes the Secretary in evaluating such an application to make certain determinations as to the qualifications of teaching faculty

and staff for Center activities and training programs. Petitioner seeks to amend this

regulation to require that the Secretary in making this determination also ‘‘determine the extent to which the teaching faculty and staff represents the full range

of scholarly and political views on the subjects taught.’’ Petitioner also seeks an

amendment to 34 C.F.R. §656.21(f)1, which already grants points based on the quality of the Centers’ non-instructional program and extent of the Centers’ course offerings in a variety of disciplines, to require that the Secretary also consider ‘‘the extent to which the content of the courses and materials are objectively presented

without bias and reflect the full range of political and scholarly views on the subjects taught.’’

STATEMENT OF INTEREST

The American Jewish Congress is a membership organization of American Jews

committed to the protection of American constitutional rights and liberties and to

the well-being of the State of Israel.

REASONS FOR REQUESTING AMENDMENTS

Petitioner seeks these amendments to the Secretary’s criteria for making grants

to National Language and Area Centers Program because of persistent reports and

persuasive documentary evidence which we believe to be true that at least some

centers, particularly centers devoted to the study of the language and culture of the

Middle East, have conducted outreach programs for teachers of primary and secondary schools that have been biased, and lacked balance and academic rigor. See Stanley Kurtz, Anti Americanism in the Classroom, Hudson Institute OnLine, page 1,

May 16, 2002, concerning the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of

California; Maryellen Fillo, Mideast Course Gets Mixed Reviews, Hartford Courier,

page 12, August 3, 2002, concerning Central Connecticut State University Middle

East Summer Institute; Leonard Felson, State Auditors to Review Process That Led

to Funding of Controversial Program on Mideast, The Jewish Ledger, November 24,

2002, concerning Central Connecticut State University; Martin Kramer, Ivory Towers on Sand, passim, concerning Middle East Centers generally.

While Petitioner recognizes that with respect to controversial aspects of the curriculum there may not be any one accepted view, with respect to such subjects, it

is particularly important that the diversity of perspectives be presented and that all

academically supportable sides of a disputed subject be set forth as fairly and dispassionately as possible. Our own examination of the materials distributed in the

various Outreach Programs for Middle School and Secondary School teachers funded

under Title VI indicate that this appears not to be happening in many workshops.

In other instances, some elements of the curriculum materials distributed do not

meet the test of academic or intellectual rigor since they are not supported by credible facts.

University of California at Santa Barbara

In the materials distributed in connection with a teachers workshop entitled ‘‘The

September 11 Crisis: A Critical Reader,’’ held by the Middle East Studies Center,
55

1 Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Guardian, Saturday September 29, 2001, included in The September 11 Crisis: A Critical Reader, prepared for ‘‘the September 11 Crisis

and Teaching Our Children: A Workshop for K-12 Teachers,’’ hereinafter ‘‘Reader.’’ 2Dr. Meir Paul, Dr. Ami Isseroff, Deir Yassin, Mier Paul’s Eyewitness Account (attached), presented by Peace Middle East Dialog Group in ‘‘Reader’’ and Mitchell G. Bard, Myths and Facts:

A Guide to the Arab Israeli Conflict, p. 172 (2001) (attached).

University of California, Santa Barbara on October 13, 2001, there are at least five

articles (Attachment A) that in the guise of supposedly explaining the ‘‘cause’’ of the

9/11 disaster contain ‘‘explanations’’ that are inaccurate, and contain significant

amounts of anti-Israel and anti-United States bias. The piece by Aruhndati Roy,

The Algebra of Infinite Justice, is typical. She writes:

For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to

persuade its public that their commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and

anger, it’s an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it’s reasonable to

wonder why the symbols of America’s economic and military dominance-the World

Trade Centre and the Pentagon-were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not

the Statute of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks

has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government’s

record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things-to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)? It must be hard for ordinary Americans, so recently

bereaved, to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what

might appear to them to be indifference. It isn’t indifference. It’s just augury. An

absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually

comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them but their government’s policies that are so hated.

The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Bin Laden (who knows?) and

delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the

victims of America’ old wars. The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia,

the 17,500 killed when Israel-backed by the US-invaded Lebanon in 1982, the

200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who

have died fighting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died,

in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the

American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And

this is far from being a comprehensive list. 1

The materials distributed at the Santa Barbara October workshop contain no articles giving the more conventional, and, we believe, clearly accurate, explanation for

Bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center.

Even where effort is made to provide some balance, as in the case of the alleged

massacre at Deir Yassin during the 1948 Arab Israel War, nine pages are devoted

to a so-called ‘‘eyewitness account’’ which supports the Palestine version, as compared to two pages devoted to the Israeli version. 2 (Attachment B)

Resource materials and readings distributed by this same Middle East Center in

connection with a workshop on the Israel/Palestine Conflict held June 18-21, 2002

are similarly biased, with no real attempt to convey the diversity of views on this

controversial subject. For example, the materials treating the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, particularly the reasons for the exodus of Arabs from their villages in 1948

adopt without reservation the controversial position of the ‘‘revisionist’’ Israeli historians (Attachment C). These historians conclude, in contradiction to the accepted

Israeli view that the Arab villagers left voluntarily that (1) there was no blanket

order for Palestinians to evacuate their homes and villages; (2) there were efforts

by Arab leaders to stem the exodus; and (3) there was evidence of direct, hostile

Jewish Haganah/IDF operations against Arab settlements, although it was not official Israeli policy to drive the Arabs out, though it did fit in with their plans and

made it easier to settle more Jews on the land.

The essays of the two Israeli historians included in the distributed materials

adopt this new revisionist history approach and set forth the traditional Israeli view

that the Israelis did not try to drive the Palestinians out only to attack it. The piece

by the Palestinian historian attacks even these revisionist pieces and suggests that

the evidence of the new historians that the Israelis sometimes used force or

‘‘nudged’’ the Palestinians to leave was, in fact, evidence of a pre-ordained de facto

forcible transfer policy of the Israelis in 1948. In short, evidence of only one version

of a sharply contested event is given.
56

3 Joel Beinin, Lisa Hajjar, Palestine, Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, pp. 8-9, produced online by the Middle East Research and Information Project. 4Mitchell G. Bard, Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab Israel Conflict, pp. 89-90, Maryland

(2001). 5 Id. at 232-234.

6 Beinin, Hajjar, supra.

Other materials distributed as part of this June 2002 course (Attachment D) emphasize that Israel established a military administration to govern the Palestinian

residents of the occupied West Bank and Gaza denying basic political rights and

civil liberties and criminalizing Palestinian nationalism and even punishing acts of

non-violence. 3 This treatment makes no distinction between the time before and

after the first and second Intifadas when the Israelis suffered increasing acts of terrorism coming from the territories and responded more harshly as the terrorist acts

increased.

Other historians not represented in the workshop materials state that

early in the Israeli occupation Israeli authorities did try to minimize the impact

on the population in the territories. Except for requirements that school texts in the

territories be purged of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic language, the authorities tried

not to interfere with the inhabitants. They did provide economic assistance, for example to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip who were moved from camps to new homes.

Arabs were given freedom of movement. They were allowed to travel to and from

Jordan. In 1972 elections were held in the West Bank. Women and non-landowners,

unable to participate under Jordanian rule, were now permitted to vote. 4 After the

six day war the traditional pro-Jordanian leadership continued to hold many civil

service positions and were paid by Jordan. Israel also attempted to shift increasing

responsibilities from the military to civilian administrations and to Palestinians.

Efforts to give Palestinians greater responsibility for their affairs were undermined by the Intifada. During the uprisings Palestinian Arabs who worked to cooperate with Israel came under attack and were silenced either through intimidation or murder.

Israeli law prohibits arbitrary arrest of citizens; defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty and have the right to writs of habeas corpus and other procedural safeguards. Some prisoners, particularly Arabs suspected of terrorism, were

interrogated using severe methods that have been criticized as excessive by many

Israelis as well as others.

Israel’s Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in 1999 prohibiting the use of

a variety of abusive practices, including violent shaking, painful shackling in contorted positions, sleep deprivation for extended periods of time and prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures. The death penalty has been applied just once, in the

case of Adolph Eichman, the man largely responsible for the ‘‘Final Solution.’’ No

Arab has ever been given the death penalty, even after the most heinous acts of

terrorism. Under law which Israel inherited from the British, administrative detention is permitted under certain circumstances, in security cases involving violent offenders the detainee is entitled to counsel and may appeal to the Supreme Court. 5

None of this is presented in the materials distributed at the Santa Barbara teachers’ workshops. On the contrary, they present an unrelentingly bleak and exaggerated picture of the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis which is far from

the reality of that complex and changing relationship marked by Israel’s willingness

to engage in self-examination and self-criticism. The materials state:

Hundreds of Palestinian political activists have been deported to Jordan or Lebanon, tens of thousands of acres of Palestinian land confiscated and thousands of

trees have been uprooted. Since 1967 over 300,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned without trial, and over half a million have been tried in the Israeli military

court system. Torture of Palestinian prisoners has been a common practice since at

least 1971, and dozens of people have died in detention from abuse or neglect. 6

This, we submit, is on a par with the now discredited and disproved accounts of

alleged Jewish massacres in the Palestinian city of Jenin. There are other evidences

of bias too numerous to mention in the rest of the Beinin, Haggar materials presented in the workshops. Samples are annexed to this Petition.

Central Connecticut State University

Materials recently received relating to a federally funded Middle East Studies

Summer Institute for Teachers evidences similar bias. Attached are numerous published articles and letters in Connecticut newspapers and journals attesting to the

one-sided nature of the presentation there (Attachment E).

Our information is that similar biased programs have been presented at other

centers. As we obtain more material we will forward it, but we feel we have pre-
57

7 20 U.S.C. §1121.

sented enough evidences of bias to warrant the amendments to the regulations we

seek.

CONCLUSION

Petitioners believe that in this era of globalization it is essential to the security

of the United States that American teachers understand and convey to their students an accurate, complete and unbiased understanding of the history, economics,

politics and culture of the various parts of the world far from American shores with

which Americans must interface. Petitioners contend that this goal is explicitly

spelled out under Purposes of the Act 7 pursuant to which these grants are authorized and that regulations that implement the Act must be designed to help achieve

these Purposes. The current regulations fail to do so. As the United States seems

poised to go to war in this volatile part of the world, a citizenry informed about the

culture, politics and history of this area is particularly important. One way to

achieve such a citizenry is to require that the comprehensive foreign language and

area studies centers and programs funded by the United States government for the

purpose of outreach to the community are staffed by teachers who are qualified and

that the materials they present are as objective, accurate and balanced as possible.

Requiring the Secretary to employ selection criteria with these goals in mind will

prevent distorted, one-sided and biased presentations and should go far to achieve

fairness.

WHEREFORE, the American Jewish Congress respectfully petitions the Secretary

to add the suggested new selection criteria to those already set forth in 34 C.F.R.

§656.21(b)1 and 34 C.F.R. 656.21(f)1 to assure that the faculties and course offerings

at the Comprehensive National Resource Centers funded by the government give

their students a fair, historically accurate and balanced view of the history, politics,

economics and culture of the areas studied.

Respectfully Submitted,

NEIL GOLDSTEIN,

Executive Director.

[Whereupon, at 3:27 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

Æ