Horowitz' Sleeping Giant

Accuracy in Academia ^ | April 19, 2006 | Rosemarie Capozzi

[JSedreporter]

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.

[G.Mason]

“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.”

Isn't that wonderful?

And blacks are not allowed in night clubs in Moscow, Robeson's paradise.

Roll over Beetoven!

[ChiMark]

Is there a "ping list" for Horowitz. This man has a lot of courage. The vicious liberals in academe seem to strike from the shadows. They never want to come forward to openly debate
David.

[Verginius Rufus]

Actually, going on the evidence presented, the last military hero to have a school named after him was Teddy Roosevelt. Haven't they heard of the charge up San Juan hill?

[Fiji Hill]

Paul Robeson on Stalin's Russia:

Side by side, the white, the dark, the yellow
Live in peace, a richer, better life.

From the "Vast Nation, My Homeland" ("Shiroka Strana, Moya Rodnaya"), a Stalinist anthem which he sang in English and Russian.

[litehaus]

Was Robeson a contemporary of Walt Duranty? Excuse my lousy memory....

[gaijin]

Teachers SHOULD be able to politically rant. But if they assign writing topics that have call on students to give any political opinion at all, the teacher and should have NO GRADING AUTHORITY -- NONE.

At the very least, if they retain this authority, the students should be able to complete professor evaluations that have a bearing on the teacher's pay.

[Fiji Hill]

Robeson was about 15 years younger than Duranty, who was born in 1884. A college football star, Robeson became an actor and singer whose 1928 recording of "Old Man River," with Paul Whiteman's orchestra, is perhaps his best-remembered hit.

Sometime during the 1930's, Robeson turned to Communism and soon became a hard-core Stalinist. The recording that I alluded to came out during World War II, when Stalin was our ally. One of his later songs was "The Hammer Song," better known as "If I Had a Hammer," a tune intended to rouse protests during the sensational 1949 trial of several Communist Party leaders on sedition charges.