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Accuracy in Academia

	A few years ago, Reid Irvine, a conservative publicist,
started a publication called Accuracy in Academia.  Irvine
is also the publisher of Accuracy in Media, which specializes
in complaining about liberal or pro-Soviet bias in American
newspapers and TV.

	The announced purpose of Accuracy in Academia was to
expose leftist bias in college and university courses and to
complain about professors using their courses for political
indoctrination.  The announcement gave rise to complaints that
Accuracy in Academia was a threat to academic freedom, that its
complaints would result in witch hunts in which professors would
be fired for their views.  Even Sidney Hook deplored Accuracy
in Academia, expressing this fear.

	My own immediate opinion was that there could be no
objection to Accuracy in Academia per se.  Anyone has a right
to allege bias in anything.  That's part of freedom of speech.
Defending academic freedom has to take the form of opposing
actual attempts to fire someone, or, more delicately, deny
him tenure.

	There was some flap on BBOARD, and I announced my
intention to subscribe to Accuracy in Academia's publication
Campus Report and eventually report my opinion.  It's this.

	Their Campus Report has a substantial component of
complaint about indoctrination in courses.  For example,
the 1988 June issue has an article entitled "Racism in
Black Studies" about a course taught by the chairman
of the Black Studies Department of the City College of New York,
Dr. Leonard Jeffries.  The article is based on articles published in
the CCNY student newspaper by a white student who took Jeffries's
course.  The articles in the CCNY newspaper reported various
extreme anti-white statements and statements that whites were
biologically inferior to blacks in various ways.

	Their Campus Report (not Stanford's publication of the same name)
interviewed Jeffries and reported his explanations and denials.
It reported some inconclusive administrative activity related
to the complaints about the course.  It wasn't clear whether
the administrators contemplating acting against the professor
or against the student who complained or against the student
newspaper that published the complaint or any of the above.

	The have published similar complaints about feminist
extremism and left wing anti-U.S. political indoctrination.
When they complain against indoctrination, it often takes
the form of complaints against requiring students to take
actions implementing the professors' political opinions.

	In my reading of Campus Report, I have never seen them
advocate administrative action.

	However, I was surprised to discover that the main
thrust of Accuracy in Media was a defense of academic freedom.
The situation as they report it, and as I believe it to be,
is that various countercultural beliefs are so strong in the
academic world, that they can and do interfere with the
academic freedom of people who oppose them.

	The other two front page articles in the June Campus Report
are entitled "Black Studies Prof Purged" and "Male Purged in Women's
Studies".  The first refers to the Black Studies Department at the
University of Massachusetts kicking out Professor Julius Lester for
criticizing the late James Baldwin, black novelist, for defending
Jesse Jackson's use of the phrase Hymietown for New York City.  Lester
had been in the Department for 17 years, and his views had changed.
In particular, he converted to Judaism, and when he was kicked out
of Black Studies transferred to Judaic studies.

	The second article  article refers to a male student
kicked out of a women's studies course for being "hostile" and
"disruptive".

	Campus Report also refers to Dartmouth students suspended
for arguing with a black professor.  As for Stanford, it reports
on the attack on Hoover, the forced retirement of Glenn Campbell
and the argument over Western Culture.  I find myself in agreement
with them in all these points, especially with an article by
Thomas Sowell defending Hoover.  Sowell is a black, conservative
social scientist and newspaper columnist, who is a Senior
Fellow at Hoover.

	Maybe Accuracy in Academia might be a threat to academic
freedom if the right had some power in the academic world, but it
doesn't act that way now.  Instead it is a defender of academic
freedom, since the left has the power.  I believe Hook has also come
to this opinion.

	I'll leave the 1988 June issue in the CSD lounge.
There's lots more worth reading in it.