The Intellectual Responsibility of Educators

The Chronicle: ON THE CONTRARY
The Intellectual Responsibility of Educators

By DAVID HOROWITZ

In its new report, “Freedom in the Classroom,” the American Association of University Professors responds to critics of the university like myself who have questioned what we see as a growing tendency among faculty members in the liberal arts to “indoctrinate” rather than educate their students. In fact, the association evades the argument, repeats boilerplate that nobody outside the yahoo culture would disagree with, and reverses an almost 100-year-old AAUP position on academic freedom.

My views on indoctrination can be found in my recently published book, Indoctrination U: The Left’s War Against Academic Freedom (Encounter Books, 2007). With my colleagues, Jacob Laksin and Tom Ryan, I have posted over 100,000 words on the Internet analyzing the syllabi of 200 courses that indoctrinate students and violate academic-freedom regulations. Stephen H. Balch, president of the National Association of Scholars, has also written exclusively on indoctrination.

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