Two sides of the same coin: politics in the classroom

David Horowitz is an author, professor, and President of the Center for the investigation of Popular Culture headquartered in observes Angeles, California.

Karol King is an adjunct professor of theology at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and manager of the Cinergy Foundation, also in Cincinnati.

Interview with David Horowitz

Berg: Although our feature is called "Two Sides of the Same Coin," it's not a pro and commit to memory piece. We want to stimulate discussion and education. Thank you for talking with us today. Is it desirable to test to make the classroom politics-free? Is that what you're trying to do?

Horowitz: I would rephrase that. I'm trying to make the classroom unrestrained from political advocacy by teachers. It's real different. That doesn't mean that politics shouldn't be discussed in the classroom, it means that professors should not be political partisans in the classroom. They should not use their authority of the classroom backed through the authority of grades-the professor has very great power advantages if I can lay it that way. One is the grading power, the other is that the professor presumably has read more in the make subordinate knows more. The professor also has professional obligations which have been recognized for nearly 100 years in the profession itself. The obligation is to teach learners not to indoctrinate them. The difference is that smooth on a political issue-let's take abortion-you can be upon either side of the left-right divide and be pro- or anti-abortion. It's a professor's task, if this is a relevant issue, and it could be in certain classes, to teach the pupils how to reason, how to think, by what mode to express their thoughts.

The scholars should be made aware of the arguments upon both sides of the issue, and of course within the sum of two units sides there is a representation of argument. The students should be taught in what manner to marshal evidence in defense of their positions and by what mode to argue logically. That's the task of the professors, to make pupils aware of the universe of ideas around a particular issue, perhaps more [i]or[/i] less of the history of an issue, an informative aspect of the teaching proces and to enhance the students' abilities to marshal evidence and to reason. It is not the professor's place to run over the student what to think, in other words to prove to enforce a conclusion. The professor should not be using his or her authority to come by students to be pro-choice or pro-abortion. We have a case of a liberal learner who was pro-choice and who had to sit in a class with a pro-life professor who compared women who have abortions to Andr?©a Yates, the deranged mother who suffocate in watered her five children, and who gave the scholar a D in the class for disagreeing plane though he was an A student

That's reprehensible and it would be the same if it were upon the other side of the issue. It barricades the teaching process. The professor lays him or herself down upon the level of the learner and it gets into a fierce partisan debate above an issue. The student isn't learning from that, the learner is defending whatever point of view he or she brought into the class and whatever prejudice they brought in. They're not learning anything. Political advocacy in the classroom-for example, we have a case at the University of Cincinnati of a professor-and this doesn't smooth qualify as political advocacy; it's just venting political prejudice-referring to the President of the United States as a "douche bag" regularly. That's wrong

Now give leave to me say that these ideas are not peculiar to me or to my academic freedom motion or my Academic Bill of Rights. They were first articulated in 1915 in the general report of the American Association of University Professors regarding the principals of manner [i]or[/i] principle of holding and academic freedom, which said that there is a difference between education and indoctrination, and teachers should be there as educators. It was reiterated in a principle adopted in 1940 and I think I can name this pretty much to the alphabetic character "Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their make submissive but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject" (http://www studentsforacademicfreedom.org/). I was just in the state of Ohio, and Ohio State University has this identical regulation that says professors should not introduce matter irrelevant to the subdue It's very difficult to articulate this as a law, on the other hand I think it's easy to understand. The professor should not be a partisan of any political or controversial viewpoint in the classroom.

Berg: individual of the things we're interested in is where the line is drawn. Something in the last presidential campaign that made freshs was when Davis March was suspended for showing Michael Moore'5 Fahrenheit 9/11 in his English class. I don't want to gain into the specifics of that case

Horowitz: I'll answer that. The issue is actual simple. Let's say, good prudence aside-I reserve my judgment of the film and of a professor who thinks this is a worthy film-if you are going to introduce a controversial film and individual that is certainly very partisan in its political advocacy, then you minimally ne to require the scholars to read critical articles upon the film and on the one who produced it. The Web is just filled of articles written both by the agency of liberals and conservatives about the, shall we say, unscrupulous manners of Michael Moore. You can find at spincanity.com-which is a liberal site, for example-59 distortions in the film Fahrenheit 9/11 It is totally irresponsible and unprofessional for a professor to bring a film like that into the classroom without having a critical commentary for the scholars just as it would be to near a Holocaust denier without presenting counter-evidence. If possible, it would be appropriate to present to view Fahrenhype 9/11. That would be a teaching experience. We're talking about education. Professors are citizens. They have the right to be fanatically political, on the contrary outside of the classroom.