I don’t think this has passed yet, but it is not over. This fellow never gives up.
David Horowitz’s Battlefield Academia
The hysteria these men stirred up through largely unsubstantiated charges caused thousands of people to lose their jobs. Some committed suicide.
Flash forward 50 years: David Horowitz, the 1960s left-wing radical turned right-wing activist/provocateur and Republican political consultant, has picked up McCarthy’s baton. Disguised as an attempt to broaden free speech on campus, Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights — which aims to stifle the speech of liberal academics — has been making the rounds of state houses and college campuses during the past year or so.
In Florida, State Representative Dennis Baxley (R-Ocala) has introduced an Academic Freedom Bill of Rights after he “attended a conservative conference in St. Louis last summer where Horowitz spoke about academic freedom,” the St. Petersburg Times reported.
Baxley’s legislation, which in late March passed out of the House Choice and Innovation Committee by an 8-to-2 vote (the only two Democrats on the committee voted against it), was a broad assault on academic freedom.
Baxley was interviewed on Democracy Now in April of this year. As far as I know the bill hasn’t passed yet, but with the current radical GOP people in the Florida legislature right now it might just pass. Jeb calls Dennis Baxley a trusted friend. I believe Baxley was instrumental in putting forth Florida’s “shoot first, ask later” bill.
Conservative ‘Academic Bill of Rights’ Limits “Controversial Matter” in Classroom
ROY WEATHERFORD: Well, there are three parts of the bill that are of particular concern to the professoriat. I should mention that I am not merely speaking for the University of South Florida faculty. Throughout this legislative session, I am acting as the higher education director of the Florida Education Association, representing 120,000 education employees in Florida. And I am therefore speaking for the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, our affiliates, and the American Association of University Professors has also asked me to represent their views.
So, for the first time ever, the professoriat is speaking with one voice, and we are unanimously against the bill. The three things that it does that we think are not wise. First of all, it specifies that faculty may not introduce controversial subjects when they’re inappropriate, but it provides no mechanism or means for determining who gets to say what is controversial. Somebody, evidently, will have the right to tell us what we cannot say in our classroom, and that strikes at the very root of academic freedom. Secondly, it says that students have the right to expect that alternative views will be presented. One of the examples that Representative Baxley has used in discussing his bill is that it would be appropriate in a biology class or in a science class, for intelligent design to be taught whenever the theory of evolution is being taught. Well, first of all, that again requires faculty to teach something that they do not think is scientifically legitimate or should be in the course, and secondly, there are far more alternatives than just one. Lysenkoism in the old Soviet Union was the orthodox form of biology; would we be required to teach that as well? Would our business colleges have to teach Marxism as a legitimate business theory? There are many alternatives, not just one or two. And finally, it says that students have a right to expect these things, which presumably means that they would have the right to sue to have the rights enforced, which the bill analysis says would cost the people of Florida $4.2 million, and my wife says would be a real boon to the trial lawyers of our state.
AMY GOODMAN: State Representative Baxley, your response.
REP. DENNIS BAXLEY: Yes. I’d be happy to respond to that. First of all, the whole idea of intelligent design being taught is never something that I have advocated. I merely illustrated that I went on an anthropology class as a student and was dogmatically told that evolution is a fact. There’s no missing link. I don’t even want to hear anything about creation or intelligent design. And if you don’t like any of that, there’s the door. That kind of dogmatism is what I was addressing, not that they needed to teach — they can teach whatever they want to teach, but what the bill requires is that you give different schools of thought and not just the dogma of an individual professor. What we’re trying to achieve –
AMY GOODMAN: Creationism and evolution.
REP. DENNIS BAXLEY: I’m sorry, you run over me, but you don’t run over my opponent while he elaborates on and on. So –
AMY GOODMAN: No, no, no. I’m just trying to clarify. No, no, no, I was just trying to clarify, so you were saying in that point, because some people might not know that term intelligent design. So, you are saying that you want creationism and evolution taught in the classroom.
More in the interview. Baxley seems to equate dogmatism with what he does not believe. If he does not agree with something then it is considered dogmatism and must not be taught in our college classrooms. Isn’t Horowitz tied up with College Republicans or Young Republicans…not sure which. They are watching a lot of professors very closely here in Florida. I know some profs who have been harassed by these young village idiots who listen for every word some professors say. It is a very unhealthy situation. I think a couple of state universities in Central Florida are very much under scrutiny by this bunch.
One more little thing, Baxley was the sponsor of Florida’s Terri Schiavo bill.
A House committee approves a new end-of-life bill in hopes of having it ready for a Friday deadline.
“It is a statement of public policy that, in this culture, we don’t starve people to death,” said Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, sponsor of the bill (HB 701), waving a pile of letters from people and groups pleading to keep Schiavo alive.
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May 10, 1940 — The German Blitzkrieg armored forces invaded and occupied a neutral country, the Netherlands.
May 10, 1933 — One way the Nazis cleansed the country of “un-German” thoughts was through censorship. A “brown shirt” – member of the SA – throws some more fuel–“un-German” books– into a roaring fire on the Opernplatz in Berlin. Click pic for story.
German students gather around books they regard as "un-German."The books will be publically burned at Berlin's Opernplatz.
Berlin, Germany, May 10, 1933. National Archives
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Rep. Baxley will no doubt be standing up to insist that they cover atheism, pantheism, wicca, etc?
As for me, I don’t care what other theories they teach, just so long as they include “turtles all the way down.”
Of course…. under the “know thy enemy” section.
And what the hell, if anyone starts to actually THINK about it, we can always interrogate them until they’re back to normal….
Of course…. under the “know thy enemy” section.
I took a couple of Christian theology courses in college under just that principle — very useful for arguments, I thought. But, alas, being able to argue about Aquinas or Tillich or Berkeley has certainly turned out to be less than useful.
Especially since most theocrats don’t give a damn about theology. They’re just interested in justifying their own petty bigotry and ignorance as God’s Will.
Well, yeah… because “know thy enemy” is far more important to a certain class of believer than “know thy ownself” is. They’re sure that if I don’t agree with them I’m wrong, but they don’t have much of a clue what they themselves actually believe and even LESS of a clue what other paths might be out there. It’s kind of par for the course; because theological education, like political discourse, no longer includes explaining what you believe in a convincing manner. The focus now is on beating dissent or even analysis into submission.
It’s truly frightening when a nondescript agnostic with a history of theological dilettantism understands more about theology and mythology than those trying to convert him… and yet there it is. I no longer have these discussions in the “real world” just because it’s impossible to educate those who really don’t want to think.
When I took those classes it was back in the late sixties and there was a crush of born-agains with 10-lb crosses that drove me crazy (and drove me to take the classes); they were terribly sincere but completely disinclined to think analytically about their own beliefs. Now, of course, they are just as disinclined but even more insistent that everyone else must share their uncritical acceptance. You are certainly right that intelligent discussion is wasted on them.
Science standards are up for review here next year, and Baxley is frothing at the mouth in eagerness. This editorial from the St. Pete Times also quotes some Florida science teachers…sounds like some I taught with. Believe it or not, the Southern Baptists have such hold in Florida that people think that what they hold to their hearts as religious beliefs are indeed scientific. That is the culture here.
I left my church, and I see it more clearly now. I was a part of it. Many simply can not differientiate between what is real life and what is religious belief.
Creationism in Class…an editorial
Marcia DeMeza, a 38-year national board-certified science teacher at Lake Gibson High School in Lakeland: “I guess you could say I’m a creationist. I always tell the students human beings are awesome to me. There has to be something that designed all this.”
Tina Baker, a first-year teacher at Asbury Junior High in Clay County: “I tell them I believe in the big-bang theory, but that I believe God pushed the button.”
The state science curriculum, rooted in the testable 146-year-old theory of evolution, does not confer upon teachers the right to offer such religious beliefs as though they are scientifically based. But clearly some do just that. Just as clearly, there are some politicians, and perhaps state educators, who are eager to see that practice spread.
Then the editorial points out that 2006 is the year for review. Quotes Baxley.
These are not encouraging signs. Eight decades after the Scopes “monkey” trial, Christian conservatives are still pushing to treat religion as though it were a competing scientific theory.
More at the link. The editorial shows true concern for what might be coming in Florida. Baxley is a best friend of Jeb, and thus Jeb gives tacit approval to all of this.
I don’t claim this guy as a relative.
I would not claim him either.
This difficulty extends far beyond evolution.
Many other issues will be targeted: discussions of economic and political theory (as noted above); sexuality; parenting; education; and cultural studies. And this is just a partial list.
Actually, I’m going to stop right here, with saying just that, because I’m trying to keep my comments shorter. Maybe I’ll try a diary??
Why do you try to keep them shorter? They are very worthwhile IMHO.
It encompasses all the areas of our lives, actually.
Since we left our church in early 2003 because we were called unpatriotic, my eyes have opened like I never thought would happen.
When a person is raised Southern Baptist, father a church leader, always active….it is a heartbreak to see what has happened. I must have been such an arrogant self-righteous kid, I must have been obnoxious. And it is far worse in the churches here now. Two large ones in our city have divided.
Thanks (re comments).
As a person raised in a religion more conservative by a bit than Southern Baptists, I did not find most Baptist to be arrogant until the recent conflation of religion and politics (and I still think that many Baptists are not arrogant and do not like the direction that some of the Baptist leadership has taken – or you would not see those congregational splits).
What I did see in my church was arrogance of belief in having “the truth – the only truth”, such that those who did not believe in our particular flavor of Christianity were going to hell. I did change my beliefs over time, mostly in response to figuring out that much of scripture was directed toward the terrible behavior of the church members rather than unbelievers, and secondly, that women were considered less worthy of consideration than any male 12 and up. My particular church did gift me with training in logic, in close reading, in respect for scholarship (to a point), and in distrust of centralized hierarchy, which was rejected as unbiblical. I left that group long ago, although I retain much of their imprint on what remains of my wavering belief in a higher power.
On the other hand, (though it is off the point of this diary) I just found this rather encouraging piece about a PBS special-to-be on far right wing politics and the politics of hatred, being shown by a very conservative religious organization. Since the film is set in the context leading up to WWII, it may prove palatable enough for people to watch and begin to think, who would be turned off by a more contemporary approach:
religion and facism film
Perhaps there is hope yet, if some of the members of similar churches begin to think through the implications of what they have been told by right-wing religious leaders. In any case, I hope this special will make it to PBS nationally.