Title: RE: Worried about "liberal" bias in the classroom?

Hi folks,
    Horowitz spoke on our campus last year, and, knowing very little about him, I went to listen.  He put together abour four anecdotes, including the "Bush is a war criminal" one, and concluded that there was a nationwide trend to intimidate conservative students.  He also went out of his way to criticize a particular class at our college, Peace Studies, as an example of what he was talking about.  This was surprising to me, as I taught that class.  He complained that no college administrators or faculty had attended the pre-talk dinner (I recalled no invitation to do so).
     During the question and answer, I asked him if he any evidence other than anecdotal, and commented that he seemed to take a very simplistic view.  He allowed that he wasn't presenting a nuanced case, and didn't counter with any better information. 
     The whole evening had a "preaching to the choir" aspect to it, as if only conservatives would be in the audience; any other type of thinking was presented with disrespect and ridicule, in my opinion.  In speaking with him some afterward, he appeared a bit more balanced.

Joe Hatcher
Ripon College
Ripon, WI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Black [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Fri 3/18/2005 10:47 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences
Subject: Re: Worried about "liberal" bias in the classroom?

On 18 Mar 2005, Christopher D. Green wrote:

> Just in case you happened to think that the "Students for Academic
> Freedom" might happen to be be a "fair and balanced" organization, see
> this article from Inside Higher Ed
> http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/03/15/horowitz3_15

Ah, yes, but Horowitz's reply is interesting as well. See
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17370

I write this without a clue who Horowitz is or what the background to
this dispute is.  But it does seem as though the professor was
pushing the envelope on that particular question.

Stephen
___________________________________________________
Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.            tel:  (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology         fax:  (819) 822-9661
Bishop's  University           e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC  J1M 1Z7
Canada

Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
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