COLUMN: Support Academic Bill of Rights
Academic freedom is critical to the very survival of Utah State University as we know it. This university is funded by taxpayer dollars. The taxpayers of this state, as well as many of the donors that support this university, expect that the education we receive will be politically unbiased. They expect that the education we receive will not lean more to the political right or the political left, and that regardless of what professors believe, the students they educate will receive an unbiased education.
However, it has become clear that this is not happening. The political polarization of American universities has reached unbelievable proportions. In a recent study conducted by Students for Academic Freedom, 88 percent of university professors polled voted for Al Gore in the last election. This, in comparison to the very close electoral results, indicates a pervasive leftist bias at most American universities. It is clear that the intellectual diversity of our universities is at stake.
Many students have expressed concerns that there are professors who grade on the basis of their political and religious beliefs. I personally have had more than 10 individual students come to me to warn about a specific professor because, in the words of one student, “You’re white, male and Republican. She will fail you.”
To combat this bias, Tuesday, ASUSU Executive Council passed a resolution on academic freedom, called the Academic Bill of Rights. This resolution, if adopted by the university as a whole, will do great things to protect students and faculty members. It provides that faculty should not be hired, fired, granted tenure or promoted on basis of their political or religious beliefs. Students should be graded on their reasoned answers to questions, and not on their political philosophy.
In student activities and in the selection of speakers, the university should at least try to show there are two sides to every issue. When we as a university are bringing in speakers to talk about issues such as affirmative action, or the war in Iraq, we should remember that these are unsettled questions. There are large portions of society and academia that disagree about these issues. Yet public institutions pay for politically charged speakers to come, and expend no resources to expose students to opposing viewpoints. And I don’t mean equal resources, I mean any resources.
It is important that we as students support academic freedom. I think that this is one of the most important issues that ASUSU as a council has dealt with so far this year. Students need to become more aware of what their elected representatives in ASUSU are doing. ASUSU showed that they are willing to fight for students.
Later this semester, this resolution will be coming before President Kermit L. Hall, to give him the chance to decide the future of academic freedom on USU campus. If academic freedom is important to you, make sure that Hall knows about it. E-mail the president at kermit.hall@usu.edu and let him know you would like to see the Academic Bill of Rights adopted and implemented as official university policy. Also, e-mail your ASUSU representatives to let them know how important this is to you. Their e-mail addresses can be found at http://a-station.usu.edu/contact/. Don’t let this opportunity to support academic freedom pass you by.
Gabriel White is the ASUSU HASS senator. Comments can be sent to gkw@cc.usu.edu.