Are you kidding? UCLA students urged to expose 'radical' professors

[dragonsnake]

UCLA students urged to expose 'radical' professors By Steve Gorman
Thu Jan 19, 8:16 PM ET


http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060120/...E0BHNlYwN0bWE-
A conservative alumni group dedicated to "exposing the most radical professors" at the University of California at Los Angeles is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of suspect faculty.

The Web site of the Bruin Alumni Association also includes a "Dirty Thirty" list of professors considered by the group to be the most extreme left-wing members of the UCLA faculty, as well as profiles on their political activities and writings.

UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale on Thursday denounced the campaign as "reprehensible," and school officials warned that selling or distributing recordings of classroom lectures without an instructor's consent violates university policy.

News of the campaign prompted former Republican congressman James Rogan, who helped lead impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton in the U.S. House of Representatives, to resign from the group's advisory board.

"I am uncomfortable to say the least with this tactic," Rogan, now a lawyer in private practice in California, said in an e-mail resignation made public by the Los Angeles Times. "It places students in jeopardy of violating myriad regulations and laws."

At least two other members of the group's advisory board, which consists of more than 20 individuals, also have quit over the group's efforts to have students record their professors.

The group, which is not affiliated with UCLA or its official alumni association, is the creation of Andrew Jones, a 2003 UCLA graduate who said he runs the organization mostly on his own with $22,000 in private donations.

Jones told Reuters he is out to "restore an atmosphere of respectful political discourse on campus" and says his efforts are aimed at academics who proselytize students from either side of the ideological spectrum, conservative or liberal.

"We are concerned solely with indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies and unprofessional classroom behavior," Jones said on his Web site.

Jones' site describes his campaign as "dedicated to exposing UCLA's most radical professors" and his list of the university's "worst of the worst" singles out only professors he says hold left-wing views.

Jones said he would only accept recordings from students whose professors consented in writing to have their lectures taped. And students would only be paid $100 if they furnished complete recordings of every class session, as well as detailed lecture notes and all other teaching materials from the class.

Jones, who also is offering to pay $50 for notes and materials only, said one student has signed up to participate and two others have expressed interest so far.

UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said the university planned to send Jones a letter warning him that faculty hold copyrights to all their course materials and that his campaign encouraged students to violate school policy.

[langal]

If it's going to help the football team get a defense, I'm all for it.

[Saint Louis]

Looking forward to the book burnings next semester.

[insane man]

color me shocked but this is one of the reasons why the professors are 'radical'

- 2002 “Jews for Peace” ad that called for an Israeli retreat to “pre-1967 borders” (signed by 13)
link

[tigermission1]

Old news, folks. Academia has been under attack for quiet a while now, and one of the most prominant efforts has been by noted radical Daniel Pipes and his personal pet project "campuswatch.com"

That has been up and running for a few years now...

[halfbreed]

Originally Posted by tigermission1 Old news, folks. Academia has been under attack for quiet a while now, and one of the most prominant efforts has been by noted radical Daniel Pipes and his personal pet project "campuswatch.com" That has been up and running for a few years now...

I'm in college now and it's not just conservatives who see it. Most of my liberal friends see the liberal leanings of most professors. However, most students don't care about the political leanings of professors or even what articles/books they publish. Hell, Robert Jensen was one of my teachers and I enjoyed his class despite our vastly differing viewpoints.

What I disagree with is the professors from both sides who want to use their positions of power to indoctrinate stdents either way. College should be an opportunity to form your own opinions and not have them bashed into you by professors. Most profs get this but its the ones that don't that worry me (on both sides).

[tigermission1]

Originally Posted by halfbreed I'm in college now and it's not just conservatives who see it. Most of my liberal friends see the liberal leanings of most professors. However, most students don't care about the political leanings of professors or even what articles/books they publish. Hell, Robert Jensen was one of my teachers and I enjoyed his class despite our vastly differing viewpoints. What I disagree with is the professors from both sides who want to use their positions of power to indoctrinate stdents either way. College should be an opportunity to form your own opinions and not have them bashed into you by professors. Most profs get this but its the ones that don't that worry me (on both sides).

Understood. However, as a college student and a grown adult, no one is forcing you or any other student to be 'indoctrined'. Professors certainly do have liberal leanings, but as a conservative myself, I
took that opportunity as an undergrad student to debate my professors and give them a hard time. If anything, it made my experience more enjoyable.

The real problem is that students need to understand that college is NOT high school and your instructors are not required to be 'fair and balanced', as long as they afford students an environment in which they can profess their own views on issues without being fear of intimidation from the professor or fellow students.

IMO, the problem is many college kids don't understand that part...

[halfbreed]

Originally Posted by tigermission1 Understood. However, as a college student and a grown adult, no one is forcing you or any other student to be 'indoctrined'. Professors certainly do have liberal leanings, but as a conservative myself, I took that opportunity as an undergrad student to debate my professors and give them a hard time. If anything, it made my experience more enjoyable. The real problem is that students need to understand that college is NOT high school and your instructors are not required to be 'fair and balanced', as long as they afford students an environment in which they can profess their own views on issues without being fear of intimidation from the professor or fellow students. IMO, the problem is many college kids don't understand that part...

I understand your point. However, when you're constantly being hammered that one way is right and another is wrong by someone who has a doctorate in a certain field, some people (on either side) may feel pressured. I don't personally and I feel sorry for those that do. The problem is there ARE some professors who make it to where their students are afraid to say anything contrary to the viewpoint of the professor. THAT is not discussion. THAT is indoctrination.

[langal]

I went to UCLA. Most profs were pretty liberal.

I remember one making fun of the Bruin Republicans. Countless instances of Republican bashing. As an Econ major - i thought that the profs in the Econ dept. were a lot more balanced. They seemed more likely to criticize particular policies - not just blurt out the typical blanket statements about racist conservatives, homophobic conservatives, ad nauseum.

That was the main problem I had with a lot of these Professor-politicos. I think most of them were just typical partisan shills - and not really free-thinking or analytical at all.

[SamFisher]

Originally Posted by langal I went to UCLA. Most profs were pretty liberal. I remember one making fun of the Bruin Republicans. Countless instances of Republican bashing. As an Econ major - i thought that the profs in the Econ dept. were a lot more balanced. They seemed more likely to criticize particular policies - not just blurt out the typical blanket statements about racist conservatives, homophobic conservatives, ad nauseum. That was the main problem I had with a lot of these Professor-politicos. I think most of them were just typical partisan shills - and not really free-thinking or analytical at all.

but what if....(hypothetically) the Bruin Republicans actually were homo-bashing morons?

Acceptable or no?

[Dubious]

A professor of arts, literature or philosophy, is supposed to challege his students to consider a wide range of opinions and think for themselves.If they only espouse the status quo or conservative line there is no opportunity for free or creative thought only wrote and regurgitation.

This is exactly why Islamic schools and the rigid, test oriented schools of the Asian cultures do not produce the creativity and innovation that the western schools have. If we let conservatism dominate our universities we will stagnate (isn't that the definition of conservatism?) Bah! why is everyone so afraid of freedom? Why are they so convinced of their righteousness? What advances in civilization were ever made by consevative thought?

[MR. MEOWGI]

Morons.

[Oski2005]

When I was at A&M, the Young Conservatives put up a "hit list" website of the most liberal proffessors at A&M.

[Mr. Brightside]

Originally Posted by Oski2005 When I was at A&M, the Young Conservatives put up a "hit list" website of the most liberal proffessors at A&M.

You should have stopped at "When I was at A&M"

[langal]

Originally Posted by SamFisher but what if....(hypothetically) the Bruin Republicans actually were homo-bashing morons? Acceptable or no?

Um the Bruin Republicans are NOT homo-bahsing morons. To equate Republicans with "homo-bashing moron" is not acceptable.

[langal]

Originally Posted by Dubious A professor of arts, literature or philosophy, is supposed to challege his students to consider a wide range of opinions and think for themselves.If they only espouse the status quo or conservative line there is no opportunity for free or creative thought only wrote and regurgitation. This is exactly why Islamic schools and the rigid, test oriented schools of the Asian cultures do not produce the creativity and innovation that the western schools have. If we let conservatism dominate our universities we will stagnate (isn't that the definition of conservatism?) Bah! why is everyone so afraid of freedom? Why are they so convinced of their righteousness? What advances in civilization were ever made by consevative thought?

Most of the advances in modern civilization are made by engineers and scientists. The very medium we use to communicate with each other is the miraculous result of a corrobaration of engineers and techicians. Concepts such as democracy or universal suffrage have been around for a long time.

While most liberal professors espouse free thought, etc. - they do not practice what they preach. I dunno. Maybe my sarcasm detector is broken here. The typical liberal professor I encountered in college was not open-minded at all and did not teach students to be free-thinkers. They wanted students to think like they did. I'm sure most conservative professors are the same way. The professors I most respect would be the ones that critique and analyze particualr policies - not make blanket statements like how all conservatives are righteous and incapable of innovation.

Your comments about Asian schools mirror some racist crap I heard from a professor once. This guy (a Euro) claimed that American and Euros were superior and more innovative than Japanese or Chinese. That while Asians were great (and in particular the Japanese) were great at emulating and perfecting manufacturing techniques - they were incapable of any innovation. It is typical for some white people to denigrate us nerdy Asians and claim that while we may be great at math tests - we're really not smart at all.

[vwiggin]

[I'm a liberal]

Other than the copyright violation stuff, I have no problems with what this group is doing. They are a private group. They are not the government, they do not run the university. If someone starts a private group targeting "racist" or "misygonist" professors, I'd be ok with that too.

The best professors, IMO, are not the ones who shy away from expressing their opinions, especially if the opinions offered cover that professor's area of expertise. These professors have PhDs and are actively doing cutting edge research. Even if I don't agree with them, I still would like to know what is the "latest spin" from the other side.

My favorite professors are the ones who openly acknowledge their bias. These professors tell you they are liberal, but they also invite intelligent arguments from the other side. They do not use their power to bully the conservative students to silence. Rather, they offer their evidence and further the discussion. At the end of the day, everyone, including the professor, learned a great deal more about the topic.

What we have to distinguish here is ideology and teaching style. There is nothing wrong with having a liberal or conservative ideology. There is also nothing wrong with expressing those ideology through your teaching. What should be attacked is the "I am right and you are wrong" teaching style of professors who only want to hammer out their points.

Those type of professors are not necessarily liberal or conservative. They are just arrogant pricks.

[gwayneco]

http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ss...l=1&thispage=2

Sham neo-Nazi finds himself between a Reich and a hard place Thursday, January 19, 2006 Jacques Pluss has accomplished the impossible. He has managed to get himself hated by everyone. Nazis, socialists, lefties, righties, academics, nonacademics -- if they have any feeling about Pluss, those feelings are negative. I may be the only person in America who appreciates what he has done. And what he has done is to single-handedly expose the myth of academic freedom in America. Pluss did this with an unprecedented -- some would say nutty -- piece of guerrilla theater that just came to light the other day. At this time last year, Pluss was a quiet and otherwise unremarkable part- time history teacher at the Fairleigh Dickinson University campus in Teaneck. Then in March, the student newspaper received a mysterious letter postmarked from a small village in Ireland. The letter alleged that Pluss was a member of a neo-Nazi group in America and was also, among other things, an Irish Republican Army member who was being investigated concerning a recent drive-by killing in Belfast. The neo-Nazis and the IRA generally don't move in the same circles, so that should have tipped off the college kids that something about the letter was a bit fishy. But then a bit of investigation turned up the curious fact that Pluss had been holding forth on an Internet radio station hosted by the National Socialist Movement. Before long, Pluss was summarily booted from his teaching post and told not to show up on campus again. Fairleigh Dickinson officials said the firing had nothing to do with his politics. The dismissal was, they said, the result of some absences that had, coincidentally enough, come to their attention at the same time they learned of his tendency to march around in a brown shirt wearing black boots. Having gotten that bit of legalese out of the way, they then went on to denounce Pluss for his political views. "It's not politics; it's hate mongering," a dean by the name of John Snyder told the Bergen Record. "It's just hatred directed at the very students he taught." When I phoned Pluss at the time, he protested the hypocrisy of the FDU faculty. Murderous leftist movements of all types are welcome on campuses all over America, he told me, but their right-wing equivalents are repressed. Back when he was a professor at William Paterson University some years ago, Pluss told me, a fellow professor had a huge hammer-and-sickle banner on her office wall. Che Guevara's a big hit among college kids these days, and Chairman Mao's not far behind, he noted. I agreed with Pluss on that point. But when he launched into a spiel about the subtle but overlooked charms of that Austrian politician formerly known as Adolf Schickelgruber, I began to think he was a few Stukas short of a squadron, if you know what I mean. It now turns out Pluss is not a Nazi; he's just a post-modernist. The other day, Pluss posted an article on the History News Network Web site (http://hnn.us/) titled "Now It Can Be Told: Why I Pretended to Be a Neo-Nazi." The episode, he writes, was inspired by the great French deconstructionists Jacques Derrida and Michele Foucault, who had insisted on "the need for the historian to 'become' her or his subject." When I phoned him yesterday, the 52-year-old Pluss said his experience, which he expects to turn into a book, has brought him even more hatred from the academics who had hated him already. "I had thought there would at least have been some more academically and intellectually oriented responses," said Pluss, whose Ph.D. in medieval history is from the highly respected University of Chicago. Meanwhile, the storm-trooper wannabes he had befriended want to do to him what Hitler did to the Danzig Corridor. They've been phoning him with death threats, he said. "They're a real bunch of misfits," Pluss said. But they're good material for a historian. And Pluss said he couldn't have gotten that material without immersing himself in the movement. "The theory behind my actions came from legitimate scholarship," Pluss said. "I thought to myself, 'Let's do a method-acting approach to the study of history and see how it works.' I chose the Nazis because they were absolutely the most obnoxious, whacky group I could find." The academics were a close second, however. Pluss wanted to test their reactions as well, which is why he mailed off that nutty letter when he was vacationing in Ireland. The FDU officials took the bait. So much for academic freedom. Pluss was not only booted from the campus but shunned by all of his former colleagues. "I knew them to be a bunch of jerks," he told me. "If they wanted to dump me for my political views, why can't they just come out and say it?" Pluss plans to write up the whole experience in the form of a historical novel. That gave me an idea. I had just read "A Million Little Pieces," that bogus memoir of drug rehab by James Frey that became a million seller. If hanging out with a bunch of bored druggies makes for a best seller, how about hanging out with a wacky bunch of nutty neo-Nazis? "I've got just one more question," I said to Pluss before he had to go. "Have you had your people contact Oprah?" Paul Mulshine is a Star-Ledger columnist. He may be reached at pmulshine@starledger.com. © 2006 The Star Ledger