Outspoken conservative author and activist David Horowitz has been fighting against liberal bias for decades. His fight will continue at Duke Tuesday when he speaks in Page Auditorium at 8 p.m.
Horowitz chose Duke to be the first University where he discusses his new book, The Professors: 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America-which includes miriam cooke, professor of Asian and African language and literature, and Fredric Jameson, professor of comparative literature and Romance studies.
C-SPAN will be broadcasting the event.
The book is a part of Horowitz's campaign to reform American academia through his Academic Bill of Rights, which is a set of rules meant to ensure that professors do not attempt to indoctrinate students.
Horowitz said the Academic Bill of Rights aims to prevent professors from discriminating against students with different political views-a problem that he said plagues the University. "Duke is the prime example of the intellectual corruption in America," said Horowitz on why he chose to come to Duke. "Its departments simply serve as recruitment for the radical left."
But Horowitz's campaign to reform academia at Duke has hit a major obstacle. President Richard Brodhead reaffirmed his opposition to Horowitz's proposed Academic Bill of Rights Monday. Horowitz and Brodhead are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss liberal bias.
Brodhead said he is against adapting the bill because it creates an opportunity for the government to regulate intellectual life of universities. "You won't find a bigger supporter than me of the right to free expression," Brodhead said. "But one can fully support this value without supporting particular steps proposed to protect it."
Junior Stephen Miller, president of Duke's chapter of Students for Academic Freedom and a Chronicle columnist, met with Brodhead Friday to discuss the Academic Bill of Rights. He said Brodhead's lack of support is unfortunate.
"There's this perception the Academic Bill of Rights would enforce some sort of intellectual orthodoxy," Miller said. "It's actually meant to protect students from the intellectual orthodoxy and inappropriate behavior from professors in the classroom."
In the fall semester, Miller distributed to professors a pledge affirming their adherence to the Academic Bill of Rights. It was met with resistance from faculty. "Horowitz will reveal how bad universities such as Duke have become," Miller said.
Horowitz gave examples of problematic disciplines at Duke, describing the Women's Studies program as a "feminist party with nothing to do with scholarly study." He added that "black studies is a political party that is racially motivated and [the professors] are a bunch of Marxists."
In The Professors, Horowitz notes specific examples of conservative students being oppressed by radical professors around the nation, including a professor who required students to write essays on the final examination about why America's presence in Iraq is "criminal" and another who called Christians in the classroom "moral retards."
Sophomore Serge Reshetnikov, who identifies as a conservative, said his Writing 20 professor in a course about economic globalization only encouraged discussions on "how corporations are evil" and refused to here anything but liberal views.
Many lawmakers have seen promise in Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights. It has legislative support in more than 15 states, including North Carolina.
State Republican Senator Andrew Brock proposed the Academic Bill of Rights legislation last year and expects it to be voted on in 2007. "A lot of people see this legislation as politically motivated," he said. "I don't see it as political. It is meant to ensure students get the best education."
Brock's legislation shares similar wording to Horowitz's bill of rights. It states that students "shall not be discriminated against on the basis of their political, ideological or religious beliefs" and also mandates that faculty present scholarly views other than their own.
Roger Bowen, director of the American Association of University Professors, said Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights reveals his lack of knowledge about academia.
"Horowitz is not an academic," Bowen said. "He should not be passing judgement on something he doesn't understand."
Bowen said Horowitz wants administrators and government officials to make judgements on whether a certain professor would be appropriate, rather than departments selecting their own faculty.
"He believes that the government should monitor the classroom," Bowen said. "He thinks we should be teaching how the government wants us to."
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