Letters from the National Campus Director

Dear Students and Supporters,

Welcome back to campus for the spring semester! We are pleased to welcome you back with the announcement of our second annual academic freedom conference which will be taking place March 3-4 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.

The conference will feature many exciting speakers and events including a debate between SAF Chairman David Horowitz and American Association of University Professors President Cary Nelson on what is probably the most important campus issue of the day – students’ academic freedom.

The conference will also feature student and Marine corporal Matthew Sanchez who took on the issue of anti-military bias at Columbia University after he was harassed and called a “baby killer” by his fellow students for proudly serving in the Corps. 

In an effort to make it possible for more students from across the nation to attend our event, we are holding this year’s conference directly following the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which takes place each winter in Washington, DC.  Conference registration is FREE FOR STUDENTS but space is limited so please register as soon as you know you will be able to attend.

At our First National Academic Freedom Conference last year, students, educators, legislators, and non-profit leaders came together to examine the growing crisis of politicization occurring in America’s K-12 schools and universities. In the months since that first historic conference, Students for Academic Freedom has achieved several substantial victories. A select committee of the Pennsylvania State Legislature found after a year-long process of hearings that not a single campus in the state provides student-specific academic freedom rights and grievance procedures. Even before the report was officially released, two major state campuses, Pennsylvania State University and Temple University, took measures to remedy this deficiency by adopting new policies which for the first time will give their students an official claim to academic freedom and will provide grievance machinery if their rights are violated.

This academic freedom policy at Penn State now applies specifically to students:

Penn State Policy HR 64: It is not the function of a faculty member in a democracy to indoctrinate his/her students with ready-made conclusions on controversial subjects. The faculty member is expected to train students to think for themselves, and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently. Hence in giving instruction upon controversial matters the faculty member is expected to be of a fair and judicial mind, and to set forth justly, without supersession or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators.

Despite these tremendous victories for our cause, grave abuses of academic freedom continue to abound on college campuses. Discussing why these abuses continue to take place and how they can be combated will be the key theme of this year’s conference.

Conference Details:

Following the conclusion of CPAC on Saturday afternoon, March 3rd, the first event of the conference will be an evening dinner reception featuring Students for Academic Freedom chairman David Horowitz and an exciting guest speaker still to-be-announced.

The following morning, Sunday, March 4th, we will be holding two morning panels and a lunchtime debate. The first panel will feature students from universities across the nation who will detail their experiences with “Faculty and Administration Harassment of Students.” The second panel, titled “Classroom Indoctrination: What Can We Do?” will be devoted to discussing tactics for addressing the campus indoctrination crisis.

The final event of the day will be a lunchtime debate on the topic “Political Indoctrination and Harassment on Campus: Is There a Problem?” between Students for Academic Freedom Chairman, David Horowitz and American Association of University Professors President Cary Nelson.

The complete conference schedule and registration information can be found at:

http://studentsforacademicfreedom.org/conference2007

Please keep in mind that times and speakers are subject to change.

Both breakfast and lunch will be provided on Sunday. The conference is scheduled to conclude at 1:30pm, so please keep the schedule in mind when arranging for your plane reservations on Sunday. Special discounted room rates at the Omni Shoreham Hotel are available on Saturday night for guests attending the academic freedom conference.

We also invite the general public to attend this event at the subsidized rate of $150.00. The conference fee includes all programs and meals, but does not include hotel accommodations.

We hope to see you at the conference!

How to Get Involved

If you’re not already active in Students for Academic Freedom, the new semester is the perfect time to start up a chapter of SAF on your campus. Deliver the message to your campus administration that abuse of students for their political, intellectual, or religious beliefs is unacceptable.

For more information on how you can get involved and start up a chapter on your campus or if you wish to report an abuse of your academic freedom, please contact me at [email protected] or at 888-527-3321. You can also find more information on our website at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org.

Yours in Freedom,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom

December 6, 2006

Dear Students and Supporters,

Students for Academic Freedom has just achieved a remarkable victory in the state of Pennsylvania. For the first time in Pennsylvania history and probably in U.S. history, students have academic freedom rights at two major universities, Temple University and Pennsylvania State University. What’s more, a select committee of the Pennsylvania Legislature charged with evaluating current academic freedom protections on Pennsylvania’s public university campuses concluded that students’ academic freedom rights are not protected and significant reforms are necessary. The following op-ed written by our chairman David Horowitz describes in detail the process that led to these momentous reforms and the duplicitous campaign launched by the teacher’s unions in an attempt to disguise their significance.

We are already taking action to replicate the model which led to these historic policy changes in other states. But the momentum to achieve this result lies with you, our student leaders and supporters.

Protecting Academic Freedom Rights on Your Campus

The recent legislative report issued by Pennsylvania’s select committee on academic freedom and the new policies adopted by Temple and Penn State in response to the committee’s recommendations offer a tremendous opportunity to push for student-specific policies protecting academic freedom rights at campus all across the nation. The existing policies on Pennsylvania’s campuses which the legislative committee just ruled insufficient are by-and-large the same policies which exist at nearly every college and university in America: they protect the academic freedom of faculty but not of students, and do not provide an appropriate grievance procedure whereby students can challenge violations of their academic freedom. 

We urge our SAF chapter leaders to use these recent victories in Pennsylvania as a benchmark for what can be achieved in your own states and schools. Examine your school’s academic freedom policies to see whether they specifically protect students’ academic freedom (in virtually all cases, they will not). Survey your fellow students about their experiences in the classroom to collect evidence that students’ academic freedom is being violated. Complaint forms specifying common types of abuses are available on our website here.

Once you have amassed a body of evidence showing that students’ academic freedom is in jeopardy, request a meeting with your college president or dean of students and ask them to adopt a policy specifically protecting students’ academic freedom such as the Temple Bill of Rights or the new policy at Penn State.

How to Get Involved

If you’re not already active in Students for Academic Freedom, please contact me at [email protected] or at 888-527-3321. You can also find more information on our website at http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/. We can help you to start a chapter of Students for Academic Freedom and bring the academic freedom movement to your campus today.       

Yours in Freedom,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom

A Remarkable Achievement for Academic Freedom in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

By David Horowitz

Now that the dust has settled on the academic freedom hearings that were held in Pennsylvania from September 2005 to June 2006, it is time to look at what was actually accomplished. According to the teacher unions, and their allies in the press, the effort was a “waste of time.” This was the editorial comment in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for example. Others found the results modest, if worthy. The Associated Press began its report by noting that the legislative Committee on Academic Freedom had urged Pennsylvania universities “to review and make students aware of academic freedom policies.” This was a corrective to the existing state of affairs in which students were generally unaware that such policies exist. If you don’t know your rights, you might as well not have them.

But this was only the tip of the iceberg of what the hearings in Pennsylvania actually accomplished.  The hearings were held over nine months at four locations – Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Millersville and Philadelphia. What they revealed was startling. Fact: all of Pennsylvania’s academic freedom provisions were written to protect professors; students in Pennsylvania did not have any academic freedom rights. Not a single public university in the Commonwealth had academic freedom provisions that applied to students.  

Administrators from five Pennsylvania universities appeared before the committee and claimed that students were already protected by the academic freedom regulations on their books. But when the regulations were actually examined by the Committee, it was evident that they applied only to professors. In other words, students not only did not know their rights, they didn’t have any. The Committee has recommended that this deficiency be corrected, and Pennsylvania universities have already stepped forward to do so.

As soon as the hearings were concluded in June, the trustees of Temple – one of the three large public universities in the state — undertook the writing of a new policy called “Faculty and Student Rights and Responsibilities.” The policy went into effect on August 1, 2006. For the first time in Pennsylvania history, Pennsylvania students have been provided with academic freedom rights. These rights are accompanied by a new grievance machinery specific to academic freedom matters, along with a system that reports abuses directly to the board of trustees.  

Shortly after the new Temple policy was announced, the faculty senate at Penn State passed its own new Policy 20-00 which states, “Students having concerns about situations that arise within the classroom, or concerns with instructor behavior in a course that violates University standards of classroom conduct as defined in Policy HR64 ‘Academic Freedom,’ may seek resolution according to the recommended procedures established under Policy 20-00, Resolution of Classroom Problems.” As at Temple, Penn State’s academic freedom policy previously applied only to professors.

Penn State Policy HR 64 is one of the most powerful statements of the meaning of academic freedom on the books. It states: “The faculty member is entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing his/her subject. The faculty member is, however, responsible for the maintenance of appropriate standards of scholarship and teaching ability. It is not the function of a faculty member in a democracy to indoctrinate his/her students with ready-made conclusions on controversial subjects. The faculty member is expected to train students to think for themselves, and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently. Hence in giving instruction upon controversial matters the faculty member is expected to be of a fair and judicial mind, and to set forth justly, without supersession or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators.” (emphasis added)

This would be powerful enough, but the policy also states: “No faculty member may claim as a right the privilege of discussing in the classroom controversial topics outside his/her own field of study. The faculty member is normally bound not to take advantage of his/her position by introducing into the classroom provocative discussions of irrelevant subjects not within the field of his/her study.”

In other words: No speeches on the Iraq War in English classes where the course matter is not about Iraq or American foreign policy. No in-class attempts to promote a political candidate during elections. No personal agendas that have nothing to do with the academic subject the students have signed up for.

The adoption of these new policies is a watershed event in the history of education not only in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but nationally as well. Pennsylvania is the first state in the nation where universities have instituted academic freedom policies that protect students as well as professors. May the rest of Pennsylvania’s universities follow the examples of Temple and Penn State, and may the nation’s universities do so as well.

Letter from the National Campus Director

Editor’s note: The following letter reports on the contents of the original report which was drafted under the supervision of Representative Gibson Armstrong, sponsor of the authorizing legislation (HR 177) for the Pennsylvania Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education of the Pennsylvania House. The Committee held four sets of hearings between September 2005 and June 2006 at locations throughout the state.  It differs from the final report in several crucial respects. The final report was the product of an eleventh hour coup by the Democratic minority on the committee and two Republicans beholden to the teacher unions and university administrators. In the final report, the entire Summary of Testimony – which is to say the actual report of what transpired – has been deleted. Also deleted is “Appendix A” which contains the new academic freedom policies adopted by Temple University and Penn StateUniversity in response to the hearings. The Committee recommendations in the final report have also been watered down. Thus every reference to “student-specific” rights has been removed. This was an attempt by the teacher unions and administrators to deny that problem existed in the higher education system before the committee was formed and to keep citizens and students from understanding the dramatic changes that have been achieved.

Dear Students and Supporters,

In an historic victory for the Academic Freedom Movement, a select committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives charged with examining the condition of academic freedom at the state’s public colleges and universities has concluded that students’ academic freedom rights are not protected in the 17 public colleges and universities in the state and that significant reforms are necessary.

The committee’s report summarizes the conclusions drawn from 10 months of hearings throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and determines “that a significant number of institutions had adopted faculty academic freedom policies, but not student academic freedom policies.”

“In many cases, institutions cited faculty academic freedom policies as applicable to students,” the committee’s report noted. “However, faculty policies are not readily available to students. Additionally, few schools that have student academic freedom policies make them readily available to students via student policy handbooks or the internet.”

To remedy the present situation the Pennsylvania committee has recommended that “Public institutions of higher education within the Commonwealth should be required to review existing academic freedom policies and procedures and establish a student-specific academic freedom policy that includes student rights and a detailed grievance procedure is readily-available.”

The Committee further recommends that grievance machinery should be provided to students which allows them to file complaints with university officials other than faculty, a measure which Horowitz called “essential” because of students’ fear of faculty reprisals.

The Committee also called on “all public institutions of higher education” to maintain records of the complaints and provide students with evaluation forms regarding the “status of academic freedom,” and to make students aware of the availability of academic freedom policies and grievance procedures during student orientation when they are also informed of non-discrimination policies on the basis of gender and race.

Finally, the Committee instructed all public universities to create an “Office of Academic Standards and Intellectual Diversity to establish clear standards of appropriate academic discourse in curricular matters and classroom discourse” and “to strengthen academic freedom on their campuses.”

In order to ensure compliance with its recommendations, the Committee report dictates that “All public institutions of higher education shall make a report of actions taken regarding the recommendations of this Select Committee to the Chairman and Minority Chairman of the Subcommittee on Higher Education of the House Education Committee no later than November 1, 2008.”

The select committee was formed as a result of the passage of HR 177, an academic freedom resolution introduced by Representative Gibson Armstrong, and inspired by the Academic Bill of Rights.

David Horowitz, author of the Academic Bill of Rights and sponsor of a nationwide campaign for academic freedom, hailed the report as a “major victory in the battle for student rights.” Said Horowitz: “We have been trying to draw attention to this deficiency in university policies for three years. Now our pleas have been heard.”

Advocating Reforms on Your Campus

The select committee’s report provides a tremendous opportunity to further the academic freedom movement, not only in Pennsylvania, but in all 50 states. The existing policies on Pennsylvania’s campuses which the legislative committee just ruled insufficient are by-and-large the same policies which exist at colleges and universities across the nation: they protect the academic freedom of faculty but not of students, and do not provide an appropriate grievance procedure whereby students can challenge violations of their academic freedom. 

We urge our SAF chapter leaders to use the Pennsylvania Report (soon to be published on our website) as ammunition to spark an academic freedom revolution in your own state. Examine your school’s academic freedom policies to see whether they specifically protect students’ academic freedom (in virtually all cases, they will not). Survey your fellow students about their experiences in the classroom to collect evidence that students’ academic freedom is being violated. Once you have amassed a body of evidence that changes are necessary, request a meeting with your college president or dean of students and ask them to adopt a policy specifically protecting students’ academic freedom such as the Temple Bill of Rights, a policy adopted this summer by Temple University in Pennsylvania in response to the academic freedom hearings held by the Select Committee.

How to Get Involved

If you’re not already active in Students for Academic Freedom, please contact me at [email protected] This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or at 888-527-3321. You can also find more information on our website at http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/. We can help you to start a chapter of Students for Academic Freedom and bring the academic freedom movement to your campus today.       

Yours in Freedom,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom

For Immediate Release

July 20, 2006
Contact: Elizabeth Ruiz
800-752-6562
[email protected]

Temple University Trustees Adopt Policy on Students’ Academic Rights

Yesterday (July 19), Temple University in Philadelphia became the first university to adopt an academic freedom policy which specifically addresses student rights and not just faculty privileges; protects students from ideological abuses in the classroom; and provides a grievance machinery to handle violations of students’ academic freedom.

Titled “Student and Faculty Academic Rights and Responsibilities,” the new policy which will take effect on August 1 of this year reflects the concerns and recommendations of Students for Academic Freedom, which has promoted David Horowitz’s proposal for an Academic Bill of Rights, and which played an important role in the academic freedom hearings of the Pennsylvania House, which were held at Temple on January 9 and 10 of this year.

The policy emphasizes that students as well as professors are entitled to academic freedom: “Freedom to teach and freedom to learn are inseparable facets of academic freedom. The freedom to learn depends upon appropriate opportunities and conditions in the classroom, on the campus, and in the larger community. The University and the faculty have a responsibility to provide students with opportunities and protections that promote the learning process in all its aspects. Students similarly should exercise their freedom with responsibility.”

Equally important is a provision creating grievance machinery for students whose rights have been infringed. The policy specifies that this new grievance procedure is distinct from existing policies for handling grading disputes, and specifically addresses the student’s right to learn, free from political harassment and indoctrination. It outlines a procedure whereby a student can take a series of informal and then formal steps to challenge violations of academic freedom within the administration hierarchy.

In a passage largely based on the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 “Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure” and the current Temple academic freedom policy outlines both the privileges and obligations that academic freedom demands of faculty in the classroom:

“Faculty are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subjects, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial (or other) matter which has no relation to their subject. The faculty member is responsible, however, for maintaining academic standards in the presentation of course materials.”

The policy further provides for a reporting system that includes the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees.

Unlike the existing academic freedom policies at Temple, the new policy will be included in the university catalogue that is distributed to all students. It has already been posted in the Policies and Procedures section of the university website so that all students will be made aware of their rights. This has been a prominent demand of the academic freedom campaign.

The policy can be found here: http://policies.temple.edu/getdoc.asp?policy_no=03.70.02

The background to the development of Temple’s new academic freedom policy is the academic freedom hearings which were held by a select committee of the Pennsylvania House at Temple this past January. These hearing were authorized by House legislation HR 177 sponsored by Representative Gibson Armstrong.

Speaking for the academic freedom campaign which had pressed for the House hearings, David Horowitz testified that Temple was in need of a grievance procedure that specifically addressing academic freedom violations: “Temple University has an Academic Freedom Policy,” he told the legislators. “It is regularly disregarded. There are no readily available or effective means for members of the Temple community to address the violations of academic freedom that occur regularly in Temple classrooms and are integral to [many] Temple courses.”

Commenting on the newly adopted policy, Horowitz said: “This policy change is an important victory for Temple students and for the University as a whole. The new policy should serve as a model to academic institutions nationwide. By establishing this policy Temple has effectively shifted institutional power in the university, bringing students into the equation for the first time.”

Students for Academic Freedom is a national movement to promote intellectual diversity and to restore educational values to America’s institutions of higher learning. The organization recommends that colleges and universities adopt an Academic Bill of Rights to ensure that these principles are respected. The Academic Bill of Rights is available on the organization’s website at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org.

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Historic Victory at Princeton

As the academic year winds to a close, we have exciting news to report from Princeton University where the entire student body voted on April 27 to pass a version of the Student Bill of Rights-the first time the Bill has faced a campus-wide referendum.

Although the vote was close (with 51.8% of students voting for the measure) the result showed that even many students not affiliated with the College Republicans voted in favor of academic freedom, proving the Bill’s ability to inspire bi-partisan support.

The success of the Student Bill of Rights can be attributed to the vigilant efforts of the Princeton College Republicans and their president, Alexander Maugeri and treasurer, Wyatt Yankus. The College Republicans papered the campus with fliers in support of the Student Bill of Rights and collected signatures to get the measure on the ballot in the campus center and dining halls.

The campaign waged by the Princeton College Republicans in support of the bill was explicitly non-partisan. Despite their best efforts to keep partisan politics on the sidelines, the College Democrats and others on campus waged a somewhat hysterical campaign to prevent the Bill’s passage.

The president of the College Democrats sent an email to her approximately 1000 members stating that “the College Democrats do not support the College Republicans’ ‘Student Bill of Rights’ and we are urging our membership to vote ‘no.'” Members of a group called “Free Exchange at Princeton”-affiliated with the national coalition Free Exchange on Campus which was designed explicitly to hinder the academic freedom movement and has repeatedly spread false accusations about our efforts-also launched an opposition campaign to defeat the Bill.

The Princeton campus newspaper, the Daily Princetonian, reported on the College Republicans’ efforts to counter these partisan attacks:

Set back by accusations of partisanship, officers implored students to read the text of the bill, which makes no specific reference to a particular political ideology. “The challenge we posed was, ‘Can you find anything in this document to which you disagree?’ ” College Republican membership chair Nicholas Cox ’08 said. “A lot of the arguments came down to the fact that [the referendum was from] the College Republicans.”

“We succeeded because by distributing copies of the Bill of Rights to every dorm room on campus, we were able to bypass all of the misinformation and slander, allowing students to see the bill for what it truly is,” Princeton College Republicans Treasurer Wyatt Yankus explained. “I take pride in the fact that the Princeton student body took a stand in defense of academic freedom and intellectual diversity.”

In a post on his personal blog, Students for Academic Freedom Chairman David Horowitz called the Princeton vote “a historic victory for academic freedom” and noted that it “a student bill of rights on academic freedom is an idea whose time has come.”

Alex Lenahan, President of the Undergraduate Student Government at Princeton, has said that he will sign the Student Bill of Rights, at which point it will be recognized as the official statement of the student body at Princeton.

The entire text of the Princeton legislation may be read here and we encourage our chapters on other campuses to adopt this resolution and introduce it or other versions of the Student Bill of Rights on their own campuses.

Passing the Torch

As the end of the school year approaches, it is crucial for those SAF leaders who are graduating this spring to name their replacements for the upcoming school year. Please send me an email at [email protected] or give me a call at our new toll-free number, 888-527-3321, to let me know who the new SAF president or contact person on your campus will be next semester. If you are planning to start an SAF chapter next fall, now is the perfect time to gather the information and materials you will need to hit the ground running next September. Just get in touch with me and I will gladly get you everything you need to get started.

Yours in Freedom,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom