Academic bill of rights proposed to protect diverse thought

By: BRUCE KAUFFMAN - Staff Writer | Thursday, April 8, 2004 11:14 PM PDT ∞

SAN MARCOS ---- Saying that students are too often being punished on college campuses for being free thinkers, state Sen. Bill Morrow on Thursday proposed a bill aimed at protecting academic freedom in California.

The Oceanside Republican said the measure opens a new front in a "revolutionary war" for academic freedom in the United States. He said that curbs on "honest debate" on too many campuses systematically deny California students a "full education."

Morrow, who represents parts of North County and south Orange County, said that students are being humiliated and harassed for insisting on "thinking for themselves."

Details of his proposal, Senate Bill 1335, are yet to be filed in formal language. It is set for a hearing in the Senate Education Committee on April 21, he said.

But in introducing the so-called spot bill, Morrow declared that he intends soon to file a fully developed proposal for a legislative "academic bill of rights." A similar bill is being talked about in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Among the "affirmative principles" Morrow said that he wanted to put into law was that students be graded solely on their "reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge ... (and) not on the basis of their political and religious views."

Morrow said the bill's other feature would include reading lists that provide dissenting sources and welcome diverse approaches, teaching that is not used as platforms for "ideological religious or anti-religious indoctrination," and faculty hiring and the granting of tenure with no regard to political or religious beliefs.

The bill would direct the community colleges and the California State University to adopt what Morrow called the "safeguards" of the bill and would recommend that the University of California voluntarily comply.

In a phone interview from Sacramento, Wade Teasdale, the senator's chief of staff, said the senator acted after hearing a flurry of reports of students being punished in "bizarre" ways for expressing a political point of view.

"It's not enough that they express an unpopular point of view with the professors," Teasdale said. "Sometimes it's their (the students) failure to agree with the professor's point of view that's had their status or their grades challenged."

Teasdale said the senator's office has gotten no specific complaints of curbs on academic freedom from North County's campuses ---- Cal State San Marcos, Palomar College and MiraCosta College ---- but cited examples from elsewhere.

At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, for instance, he said, an undergraduate who belonged to the college Republican club was punished for alleged "disruption" for posting a flier in a public area that some students found offensive. The flier advertised a speech by conservative black Republican Mason Weaver, who argues that dependence on the government puts blacks in circumstances that resemble slavery.

Asked for a reaction, Cindy Sabato, a spokeswoman for Palomar, said the college applauds the senator's emphasis on academic freedom. At MiraCosta, Dick Robertson, the vice president for student services, said campus policies allow for free and robust speech and that legislation is not necessary.

CSUSM spokesman Rick Moore said the university needed to study the language before commenting.

Contact staff writer Bruce Kauffman at (760) 761-4410 or bkauffman@nctimes.com.

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