The big difference in the latest spate of horror stories about academic abuse is that they are taking place in lower grades.
Sean Allen, a 10th-grader from Colorado who made national news when he taped his World Geography teacher’s political rant, spoke from experience, “I was flooded with similar stories from students across the nation,” he said at a conference on academic freedom. “We can’t simply deal with this on a case-to-case basis, we have to get to the root of it.”
Sean firmly believes that the Academic Bill of Rights crafted by conservative author and activist David Horowitz gives students their best chance of ending political indoctrination. “This is about what is appropriate in a classroom,” stated David Horowitz at the Students for Academic Freedom’s first national convention, held last week in Washington, DC.
During a panel on the Academic Bill of Rights for K-12 education, students, legislatures, and union representatives weighed in on the subject. Horowitz pleaded with the representatives to reconsider their stand on the legislation that he created and successfully lobbied to have adopted by the Georgia and Colorado legislatures.
“If the unions take the side of protecting radical views,” claims Horowitz, “they are making the schools political.” Teachers’ unions, some of whom sent representatives to the SAF conference, are implacably opposed to the academic bill of rights.
Horowitz’ legislation promotes intellectual diversity by protecting students and faculty from the imposition of ideological beliefs. The SAF is the group founded by Horowitz to promote his academic bill of rights.
“Houston, we have a problem,” said Sol Stern, an education policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute. According to Stern there is a real need for legislation, like the Academic Bill of Rights, to end political indoctrination. He notes that in New York City where he resides, even the names of schools are politically biased.
“In Brooklyn, there are two schools named after Paul Robeson,” Stern said. “The last Republican to have a school named after him was Teddy Roosevelt.”
“The last military hero to have a school named after him was William
Tecumseh Sherman.” Robeson was an operatic baritone of the 1930s as famous for using his voice to support the Soviet Union as he did to sing arias. General Sherman successfully led Union troops on a march through Georgia in the Civil War.
Representative Sam Rohrer from the 128th Legislative District of Pennsylvania insisted, “it is time to shine a light” on K-12 education and political indoctrination. He proposed holding hearings on this matter stating, “we can no longer hope or just wish.” Rohrer also claimed, “The legislature has a responsibility to do something to end political rants in the classroom.”
“Teachers do in private what they can’t defend in public,” said Horowitz, quoting Alan Charles Kors, the founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “But this is a sleeping giant, this movement.”
Rosemarie Capozzi is an intern at Accuracy in Academia.
