Academia: The Left vs. The Right.

I got to catch David Horowitz debate Professor Ward Churchill on C-span at George Washington University last night. It was a re-run from April 6th. It was truly entertaining and enlightening. I also really enjoyed the fact that it was not made personal in any way and was civil and on point. (transcript here)

I have to say that I love David Horowitz and I found Professor Ward Churchill's controversial paper where he questioned the innocence of many of the people killed on 9-11 as "little Eichmanns" disgusting. So I am absolutely biased here. But for the life of me I cannot understand how anyone could argue with Horowitz's main point, which is that the classroom should be free of political bias and that teachers should teach what the class is "about," not what the Professor's ideology is.

Horowitz made it clear that he believes deeply in academic freedom and even wrote a Op-Ed piece after the stir up with Professor Churchill saying that Churchill should not be fired because of his writings on the internet, because that was not in connection with his class and is free speech. I agree. But alumni have a right to retain money they would have given to the University of Colorado as well if they are offended. That is free expression.

Churchill even referred to "patriotism history" that was written in the 1950's that colored history with only a pro-American view. Horowitz agreed with him that that was totally wrong and at that moment gave the intellectual smackdown of the evening. Horowitz said that that is why it is ironic that people such as Churchill would want to do the exact same thing, only with leftwing ideology.

Churchill reminded me of every verbose professor I ever had that just droned on and on with convoluted speech, using the most words when a few would do. I tried very hard to view his points objectively. Churchill said it was impossible for a professor's political ideology not to be put forward in a classroom. That it was a professor's job to "profess." That it was the nature of the learning process. Horowitz gave example after example of leftwing politics being injected into courses that had nothing to do with politics and students harassed when they were known to be Republicans. Horowitz said that neither rightwing or leftwing ideology should be indoctrinated into students, a captive audience, but rather both sided presented fairly and the student comes to his or her own conclusion.

Who could seriously argue against that???

Well, Churchill tried, but he didn't do very well.