Liberals Lose at Princeton, Academic Freedom Wins

http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/BlogEntry.asp?ID=665

Students at Princeton have won a historic victory for academic freedom. The College Republicans led by Alex Maugeri submitted a Student Bill of Rights based on the Academic Bill of Rights as a referendum to the entire student body. It won a 51% majority despite a somewhat hysterical opposition. In doing so Alex and the College Republicans demonstrated that a student bill of a rights on academic freedom is an idea whose time has come.


Princeton University Student Bill of Rights





The following is the full text of the College Republican's proposed bill.


Believing in the need to affirm the importance of the principles of academic freedom and intellectual diversity within the University community, and seeking to further promote an intellectual environment of free inquiry and free speech without intimidation of any given set of beliefs, the undergraduates of Princeton University do hereby declare their desire for the following principles to be observed:


1. We affirm that students should be solely graded on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study; professors must never allow a student's political affiliation or religious beliefs to negatively affect his/her academic performance.


2. Teachers are entitled to freedom in teaching their subject as they see fit, but not to the point of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination, or to the exclusion of other opinions
or viewpoints. Such actions represent a violation of the principles of a student's academic freedom and the principles of free and open sharing of ideas.


3. It is an abrogation of the University's commitment to the pursuit of truth for the hiring, firing, promotion or granting of tenure to ever be based on their political philosophy, public notoriety, or personal connections. Instead, all faculty hiring and the granting of tenure should be based solely on their contributions to academic discovery.


4. Selection of speakers, allocation of University, and/or USG funds for speakers programs and other student activities must observe the principles of academic freedom and promote intellectual pluralism.


5. An environment conducive to the civil exchange of ideas being an essential component of a free university, the obstruction of invited campus speakers, destruction of campus literature or other effort to obstruct this exchange will not be tolerated.


While we have not the power to declare the above binding or irrevocable, it is the position of this body that any act in violation would contravene the "fundamental principles of free discovery" to which Princeton University is committed.

 

I can't understand how anyone at all could vote against it.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/04/27/news/15429.shtml

Referendum's success comes as a surprise

By Brett Amelkin
Princetonian Senior Writer

In the wake of yesterday's passage of the Student Bill of Rights, both liberals and conservatives students on campus have been left scratching their heads, asking themselves a simple question: How did this happen?

Few observers — including those who proposed the bill — expected the undergraduate body to approve the measure in this weekend's referendum after opposition groups launched a campaign to sink it. Indeed, the bill passed with a slim majority, with 51.8 percent of students voting in favor.

"We thought [the vocal opposition] was going to be the kiss of death for it," said College Republicans president Alexander Maugeri '07, who is also an associate editor for The Daily Princetonian.

The bill, known commonly as the SBOR, was crafted by the College Republicans, and is loosely based on conservative author David Horowitz's academic and student bills of rights, to promote "academic freedom and intellectual diversity within the University community." The SBOR outlines principles for removing ideology from student grading, classroom discussions, professor hiring and the selection of campus speakers.

The effort, while marketed as a nonpartisan endeavor, immediately took on a partisan flavor when the College Republicans lined up in support of the bill and the College Democrats in opposition of it.

College Democrats president Julia Brower '08 sent an email to her membership — numbering about 1,000 — encouraging students to vote no on the referendum. "I wanted to send you an email now that voting has begun reminding you that the College Democrats do not support the College Republicans' 'Student Bill of Rights' and we are urging our membership to vote 'no,' " the email read.

SNIP

Opponents of the bill, however, continue to stand by their opinion that the bill is partisan and that it should not have been passed.

"I'm surprised [the vote] was as close as it was," said Asheesh Siddique '07, the leader of Free Exchange at Princeton, which led a campaign against the SBOR. "The Republicans did a good job misleading people."

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/national/25bias.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=82368481a00b30e5&ex=1293166800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Professors' Politics Draw Lawmakers Into the Fray


By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Published: December 25, 2005
While attending a Pennsylvania Republican Party picnic, Jennie Mae Brown bumped into her state representative and started venting.

Jennie Mae Brown told her Pennsylvania state representative, Gibson C. Armstrong, that she felt a physics professor's comments in the classroom about President Bush and Iraq were inappropriate.
"How could this happen?" Ms. Brown asked Representative Gibson C. Armstrong two summers ago, complaining about a physics professor at the York campus of Pennsylvania State University who she said routinely used class time to belittle President Bush and the war in Iraq. As an Air Force veteran, Ms. Brown said she felt the teacher's comments were inappropriate for the classroom.

SNIP

...Nathaniel Nelson, a former student at the University of Rhode Island and a conservative, who said a philosophy teacher he had during his junior year referred often to his own homosexuality and made clear his dislike for Mr. Bush.

Mr. Nelson, now a graduate student at the University of Connecticut, said in an interview that the teacher frequently called on him to defend his conservative values while making it clear he did not care for Republicans.

"On the first day of class, he said, 'If you don't like me, get out of my class,' " Mr. Nelson said. "But it was the only time that fall the course was being offered, and I wanted to take it."

Marissa Freimanis said she encountered a similar situation in her freshman English class at California State University, Long Beach, last year. Ms. Freimanis said the professor's liberal bias was clear in the class syllabus, which suggested topics for members of the class to write about. One was, "Should Justice Sandra Day O'Connor be impeached for her partisan political actions in the Bush v. Gore case?"

"Of course, I felt very uncomfortable," Ms. Freimanis, who is a Republican, said in an interview.