ACTA in the News
Bias in the classroom?
March 1, 2007
Matt Franck
St. Louis TodayJEFFERSON
CITY — When a Missouri State University professor asked
Emily Brooker to sign a letter lobbying for gay adoption
rights, she refused.
Now, a House committee has backed
a bill named in Brooker's honor that would require the state's
colleges and universities to file annual reports on
intellectual diversity.
The bill, by Rep. Jane
Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, encourages universities to take
steps to foster academic freedom and a free exchange of ideas
without bias against political or religious
views.
"Students, parents and educators have a right to
expect instruction and not indoctrination," Cunningham
told a committee. "It's as simple as that."
The House
Higher Education Committee approved the bill by a 5-3 partisan
vote late Monday, after a nearly four-hour hearing in which
students and professors disagreed over whether the measure
deals with a real or fabricated threat to free
expression.
"The bill addresses a problem that doesn't
exist," said Frank Schmidt, a University of Missouri-Columbia
biologist and member of the Intercampus Faculty
Council.
Schmidt told the committee that all viewpoints
at the university are respected. He cited the fact that both
conservative political pundits and controversial artists are
invited to speak, while religious expression
thrives.
"Christianity is alive and well on campus,
judging only from the T-shirts in my class," Schmidt
said.
Schmidt and a handful of students said the bill
would invite legislators to trample academic freedom and open
the door to legislative oversight of what's taught at public
universities.
But supporters of the bill
say it's far too modest a proposal to have that effect.
They say the measure simply requires an annual report
to be filed on how campuses are creating a learning
environment that "exposes students to a variety of political,
ideological, religious and other perspectives."
The
bill then lists nearly a dozen suggested ways in which
colleges may increase intellectual diversity, such as altering
hiring practices or tracking grievances against
professors.
Brooker, who has since graduated from
Missouri State, said she lacked any recourse when she had a
disagreement with her professor over an assignment on gay
foster parents' rights.
Brooker told the committee that
she agreed to research the topic and write a paper on it,
despite her religious opposition to gay foster parenting. But
she said she refused to sign her name to a letter lobbying
state legislators on the topic.
Brooker was awarded an
out-of-court settlement last year, and her professor was
temporarily given nonteaching duties.
One of Brooker's
lawyers said the case is one of thousands unreported
nationwide.
"It is not an isolated incident but a
systematic depravation of free-speech rights," said David
French of the Alliance Defense Fund, which takes on
intellectual diversity cases.
That claim was supported
Monday by a poll prepared by the American Council on Trustees
and Alumni, a group formerly headed by Lynne
Cheney.
The poll of 652 students at Missouri State and
the University of Missouri suggested that most students on the
campuses believe their professors use the classroom to promote
their own political views and present only one side of
controversial topics.
Critics of the poll point out
that the results were different for other questions in the
poll. For example, more than two-thirds of respondents
disagreed that professors are hostile to certain political
views.
Officials from several of the state's colleges
and universities attended the hearing Monday. Of them, only
one opted to testify.
John Black, general counsel for
Missouri State, told the committee the school has responded
well to the Brooker incident. But he left it to legislators to
decide whether a new law is also needed.
"We believe we
addressed the problem when it came to our attention," he said.
"The Missouri Legislature will have to determine whether we
did it well."