Morrow resigns from controversial association board

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer | Thursday, January 26, 2006 10:17 PM PST ∞

State Sen. Bill Morrow has resigned from the advisory board of a conservative UCLA alumni association that recently began offering students $100 each to record the lectures of UCLA professors believed to be pushing liberal views on their students.

In the wake of news reports last week about the payment offers by association president and founder Andrew Jones, some faculty members complained that the group was on a "witch hunt."

Several other advisory board members have also resigned in recent days, according to the Sacramento online publication Capitol Weekly News, including a UCLA English professor, a Harvard professor emeritus, Los Angeles-area radio talk-show host Al Rantel and former Congressman Jim Rogan.

Jones could not be reached for comment Thursday. However, on Monday, he told the Associated Press that he was dropping his offer to pay students, and instead would rely on volunteers to record lectures.

The conservative activist also said that his motive for offering to pay students was a concern about the level of professionalism among teachers at the university. He added that he made the decision to cancel his offer because it had become "a distraction from the real problem, which has been all along the issue of classroom indoctrination by UCLA professors."

In a letter earlier this week to Jones, Morrow, R-Oceanside, informed him that he was resigning from the advisory board.

Morrow said Thursday in a phone interview that the main reason he decided to quit the board was out of concern that the controversy surrounding Jones could threaten his chances of getting a bill passed this year that is designed to protect students from what he said are often left-leaning professors.

"I am not chastising Jones or the association, but my concern is what it means for the bill," Morrow said. "Our institutions of higher learning in large part are indoctrinating students."

The staunchly conservative, longtime state legislator will leave office in December due to term limits. He has announced his candidacy for the 50th Congressional District seat formerly held by Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned from office in November after pleading guilty to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes.

While he only learned of Jones' offer to pay students through newspaper accounts, Morrow said that he shares his beliefs and doesn't necessarily disagree with the idea of paying students to record lectures.

However, "if it had come to my attention beforehand, I would have suggested they (first) seek legal advice and consider the practical and political ramifications that could result, in giving fodder for the left to attack the cause."

Morrow's latest bill on the subject of college professors will mark his third attempt ---- the first was in 2004 and the second in 2005 ---- to get such a measure passed. In 2005, the state Senate's Education Committee killed Morrow's bill by a 6-4 vote.

Known as the Students' Bill of Rights, the measure had called for reading lists to reflect "diverse viewpoints"; for faculty not to use classrooms as venues for political, ideological, religious or "anti-religious" doctrine; and for campus speakers to be chosen to promote the "principles of academic freedom and ... intellectual pluralism."

Critics of the bill said that it was unnecessary and that it unfairly targeted professors.

"Why not journalists, why not politicians?" asked one teacher.

Asked how he thinks he will be able to get the bill passed this year, when he failed to do so in 2004 and 2005, Morrow said that he is now in negotiations with the University of California's Academic Senate to see if an agreement can be reached on the bill's language before he presents it to the Legislature in February.

Jones' offer to pay students to record lectures is not the only sign of what appears to be a penchant for controversy.

He has a Web site called UCLAProfs.com, "exposing UCLA's most radical professors." Profiles on more than 30 professors are published on the Web site.

One of those individuals is professor of anthropology and women's studies Karen Brodkin, who Jones describes as a radical feminist and extremist.

Reached by phone Thursday, Brodkin said she believes the reason that Morrow and other members of the alumni association's advisory board are jumping ship is because, "they are trying to distance themselves from Jones, because he is really crossing the line in ethics and morality and they don't want to be tarred with the same brush."

She added that she is familiar with Morrow's call for a student bill of rights and believes the proposal is a thinly veiled attempt to stifle university professors' ability to speak freely about what they know and believe.

"I think it's a McCarthy-like agenda to sow fear of talking and thinking freely at a time when this economy is pauperizing so many, and more and more people are asking questions," Brodkin said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426 or wbennett@nctimes.com. To comment on this story, go to nctimes.com.

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