Now They're Doing It In My State: NC Bill of Rights Proposed

[Hissyspit]

I prayed and prayed they wouldn't try it here, but of course I knew that was wishful thinking on my part.

Add North Carolina to the list of states where a state legislator or legislators are trying to introduce a "Students Bill of Rights" to control thought, expression.

This (Horowitz) stuff needs to be stopped, people. While we're sitting around arguing about whether intellectuals are dogmatic or not, the fascists will take control.

http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-591704.html
UNC 'Bill of Rights' proposed

BY ERIC FERRERI : The Herald-Sun
[email protected]
Mar 29, 2005 : 11:01 pm ET

CHAPEL HILL -- A bill introduced in the state Senate promises guidelines for the college classroom to assure fair treatment for all students, regardless of their ideology. At least, that's what supporters of the Academic Bill of Rights say.

Opponents of the bill -- versions of which have sparked outcry in a number of states -- say it is nothing more than an attempt by conservatives to monitor and manage what goes on in the classroom.

North Carolina's introduction to what could become a contentious academic squabble comes via state Sen. Andrew Brock, a Mocksville Republican who sponsored the bill last week. The bill has been sent to the Senate higher education committee.

The bill would require all UNC system schools to adopt a policy guaranteeing fairness on a number of academic issues ranging from grading to the use of "controversial" subject matter to the distribution of student fee money.
MORE AT LINK

Here's an excellent article on why this needs to be stopped. Last week's The Nation had some excellent pieces too; the cover story:

http://www.aaup-ca.org/Larkin_abor.html

What's Not To Like About
The Academic Bill of Rights
Dr. Graham Larkin
Stanford University, Department of Art & Art History
CA-AAUP VP for Private Colleges and Universities

September 22, 2004

Locking up my bike on the way to the office on May 3, 2004, I noticed that events were underway in the large pavilion pitched in front of the Hoover Center, the right-wing think tank overshadowing my office in the Nathan Cummings Art Building at Stanford University. The voice on the microphone was introducing prominent ultra-conservative intellectual David Horowitz. As the representative for private universities on the steering committee of the California Conference of the American Association of University Professors (CA-AAUP), I had recently taken a pressing interest in Mr. Horowitz's activities. He is, after all, the brains behind the mischievously-named-and-crafted Academic Bill of Rights--a document which co-opts post-modern ideas on the situated nature of truth and knowledge, along with politically inclusive language, to counteract what Horowitz depicts as the stranglehold of progressive politics on university campuses. 1

Thanks in part, perhaps, to the protestations of the CA-AAUP, a version of this bill (CA Senate Bill 1335) died in committee, with only one vote cast in its favor. And yet, prior to this, another version had actually been passed as law in Georgia with a 41-5 vote, and it is making the rounds elsewhere. Clearly the battle is only beginning. I wanted to see this guy.

By the time I had dropped off my bag and returned to the doorway of the climate-controlled pavilion, Horowitz was already speaking, to a packed audience consisting mainly of white-haired men with Hoover Center tote bags. To my disappointment, the parts of the speech that I stayed for were not about the university at all. Instead they amounted to a generalized rant about the war in Iraq. What's Not To Like About This War? the speaker intoned repeatedly, with shrill voice and sweeping gestures. With each re-utterance he would offer more proof of how great the invasion has been in every respect. Looking smaller and angrier every minute, Horowitz went on to lash out at the portrayal of the war in the major American media, which he characterized as nothing more than a "megaphone" for "neo-communist" viewpoints.

It is disheartening to see such an intelligent man resort to such reckless overstatement, even when he's preaching to a choir in need of a little martial uplift. (Nor did his audience seem especially receptive; I was impressed by their somber lack of reaction to his more strenuously "funny" digs at the war's detractors.) Realizing that I had not garnered a single piece of substantive knowledge after ten minutes of attentive listening, I returned to my office to check the online news, and to prepare for my afternoon class.
MUCH MORE AT LINK

[comsymp]

1. Yeah, caught a discussion about it on WUNC yesterday (or Wed?)

Hopefully, enough ppl will raise a stink about it to ensure that it'll die in Committee.

[onenote]

2. ask the supporters of the bill why they support holocaust deniers

If its the same version I've seen elsewhere, it declares that "Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate."

So "all human knowledge" in the humanities and social studies, which would include history, religion, and political science, is uncertain. Thus, it would be a violation of the bill NOT to assign students the "Elders of Zion" or the work of some holocaust denier.

Toss that little nugget at them. Or maybe just thank them for supporting the inclusion of Ward Churchill's writings in any class that talks about the War on Terror (history, foreign affairs, etc).

Stupid morans.

onenote

[marions ghost]

3. Art historians to the barricades...

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

"Another Horowitz-approved corrective would be to ensure that for every art historian inclined to assign 'leftist' material, the department hire a person who tends toward right-wing thinking.
And reading lists are only one of the places in which Horowitz and his followers think university or government administrators should "protect" such ideological "diversity." His Academic Bill of Rights also tries to ensure a greater spectrum of opinions (by which he invariably means left-to-right political positions) in matters of grading, curriculum development, selection of invited speakers, allocation of university funds, hiring, firing, promotion and tenure review."

[Hissyspit]

4. To quote Brig. Gen. McAuliffe: "Nuts!"

I'm an art historian. If we were unbiased in the way that Horowitz' Bill of "Rights" demands, it would be like having to present the argument, prewar, that there ARE WMDs, equally with the argument that there are not, when as a scholar, you have 90% certainty that there are not.

We wouldn't be offering conservative readings of avant-garde, innovative, postmodernist work - which I often do. We would be studying cowboy art and happy clown paintings 50% of the time. (And you CAN find postmodernists studying that stuff, but it's hardly worth 50% of the time!)

Mainly what I do? I offer my students the tools to UNDERSTAND.