Max Entman, president of external affairs of Duke Democrats, said in "Academic freedom pledge to circulate" (Sept. 26, 2005) that the problem of academic bias has been inflated. He stated that some liberal students are penalized for their views by conservative professors. These incidents should be as much an issue as the concern with the overwhelming liberal bias on our campus.
Because conservatives have led the way in the fight for academic freedom, this movement has been misrepresented as one against liberal professors and universities. In reality, academic freedom seeks an open classroom environment where students are free to pursue their education and assess different points of view, free of political indoctrination-liberal and conservative. This is not, nor should it be, a partisan agenda. This movement cannot be true to itself, nor will it be successful until all members of the academic community support and promote the open discourse of diverse political perspectives in our classrooms.
Hold your professors accountable for giving you a fair education and for providing you with material from all political landscapes. Realize what you're missing out on, what isn't being taught in the classroom. And until it is offered in our schools, seek it out yourselves.
Licia YA¡A±ez
Trinity '07
Pledge masks other goals
Students for Academic Freedom are planning to ask every Duke professor to sign an Academic Freedom pledge. The names and departments of those who do and don't sign will be made available online. According to SAF's president Stephen Miller, "signing will basically affirm [the professor's] commitment to students' intellectual rights and guarantee that their classrooms will not be used as a place for promoting a partisan agenda" (Sept. 26,2005 " Academic freedom pledge to circulate"). For any professor, supporting such a pledge might seem as benign as supporting the need for gravity in the universe.
However, the planned pledge is not benign. SAF is an outgrowth of David Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture, a well funded institute without university affiliation dedicated to spreading ultra-conservative ideas, portrayed as "balance."
With regard to universities, its tactic is to inflate and publicize rare instances of allegedly inappropriate classroom behavior by professors. Belittling the university bylaws already in place to regulate academic conduct, they create the impression that the university as a whole is dominated by left-wing academics that indoctrinate and intimidate students and stifle academic freedom. Duke is one of many universities targeted. Horowitz and his SAF followers have created a straw man (the threat to academic freedom) they then seek to neutralize. Yet academic freedom is not threatened by professors any more today than it ever was. It is, however, threatened by organizations like SFAF and by their outside supporters.
Since the modern university was founded in 1088, academic freedom has been a firewall with which universities all over the world have sheparded the development of thought and experiment from political, ideological and economic pressures of various stripes and colors. With all the shortcomings of a human institution, the university's 1,000-year-old track record on intellectual creativity is quite remarkable. Yet here it is again under attack for reasons that have little to do with the university itself and much to do with external political forces seeking control over it. This is not new, except for the misuse of "academic freedom" terminology to sloganeer against the university.
The intimidation embedded in SAF's pledge actually provides a glimpse into SAF's real nature: Such tactics bring to mind totalitarian thought police rather than academic freedom fighters. It is therefore my hope that no professor, regardless of political orientation, will sign this pseudo-pledge.
Daniele Armaleo
Assistant professor of the practice
Department of Biology
Editor's note: The limit of 350 words was waived for this letter.
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