“Radical” UCLA professors targeted by pseudo-alumni group — Shades of the Third Reich!
This is just to creepy to accept, no matter what kind of jerks these profs are.
An alumni group is offering students up to $100 per class to supply tapes and notes exposing University of California, Los Angeles professors who allegedly express extreme left-wing political views.
The year-old Bruin Alumni Association on its Web site says it is concerned about professors who use lecture time to press positions against President Bush, the military and multinational corporations, among other things.
The site includes a list of what the group calls the college’s 30 most radical professors.
These people should be ashamed of themselves for this action. Is this Cuba?
related link:
Andrew Jones
Godwin!
Paul, point me to that Architectural history prof who rants about Bush instead of Corbusier. That link does not lead there! Put up a link to this assertion.
The link provided by Mr. Theodoropoulos is no less hysterical than any other description I’ve yet read.
Facism is as facism does, or so I’m told. I’d say they ought to be ashamed, but shame no longer appears to have an effect on ardent adherents of the current Admninistration. I truly hope I’m wrong in that assessment…
If the Bruin Alumni Assocication is so concerned about “Bush-lambasting”, I say why not feed them a steady stream of reports, links, etc. of every instance we run across. Should keep them mighty busy. Heck, I’ll do that for free!
Follow the link Paul so kindly supplies for contact info.
I don’t know the American Constitution, but most European constitutions would not allow such a site. Not being a lawyer I don’t know just how many fundamental laws would have been broken if this were in Europe. One I am sure of, though. Our constitutions (yes, it is still plural as each country has its own) protect our right to our self-image. This means no personal information can be published about me unless I explicitly consent it, especially my image.
Besides that, the site is of such a psychological violence. It is in fact a major attempt against freedom by the use of fear and by instiling hatred. America taught the world so much about freedom and it seems like its time it doesn’t forget about one of its most important lessons: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said this, wasn’t he?
Follow the money. The Bruin Alumni Association is only a year old? Where did they come from? From the article it is obvious the public records are out there. How about a current Bruin journalist student doing a research project into this organization. Let’s find out ALL the details about who is behind it. Who are the people that donated this money. Or the people behind those people.
$100 for a student who provides lecture tapes, etc? That’s not facism, that’s just creative capitalism!
Relax. You’ll live longer.
If these profesors believe in what they are preaching, what is so bad about publicizing it? It’s not like this organization is saying anything negative about them. They should be proud of who they are.
John, I’m glad to see that you were disturbed enough by that to post it to your blog.
But why are you so surprised? Have you forgotten your history? There is nothing new about Fascism by election. Don’t you remember that Hitler and Mussolini were elected in multi-party democracies?
It’s certainly not a secret that the US has been sliding down that slippery slope for years. Freedom and liberty are stolen one small piece at a time. Welcome to George Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s post-9/11 United States of America!
Corporate America’s flirtation with Fascism goes back much further than that, although it’s not usually mentioned in public school history texts:
“A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. . . .
“Certain American industrialists had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.” – William E. Dodd, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, 1937.(1)
Anyone interested in looking into an early attempt to bring Fascism to the US ought to do a Google search for “General Smedley Butler”.
I haven’t read it in years, but maybe it’s also time to take another look at Jack London’s “The Iron Heel”.
I’m sorry – what’s facist about this?
Teacher is lecturing. Student records lecture. 3rd Party pays for the tape. 3rd party releases content of that tape to public.
Hmmm… Seems pretty democritized to me. If the teacher doesn’t want his lecture to be released without compensation, that I understand (seems more like a black-market attempt to post lectures, no?), but what exactly is Facist about the free and open exchange of ideas, whether they were spoken to a college lecture hall, or broadcasted by a third party?
Sometime, John, your twitchy knee surprises me…
Did you people read a different link that I did? They are looking for professors that acted in an unprofessional manner *regardless* of their ideology. Professors are not paid so they can rant about their political views in class. Period. We are talking about professors that go beyond cracking an occasional joke here and there.
I went to a very liberal college where every professor was uber-liberal (granted that describes most colleges), and I simply let them rant and used it to my advantage. I would slant my papers to placate the teacher’s ego and get A’s.
As an academic, this is chilling. At the same time, less professors are getting tenured.
I just went and took a look at one of the “Professor Profiles” posted on the site. Anyone who believes that “They are looking for professors that acted in an unprofessional manner *regardless* of their ideology” should just take a look. In the profile I read, the majority of the (extremely negative) opinion was based on the fact that the professor supported “liberal” causes in his private life, and that he had signed liberal petitions. Is the BAA asserting that university professors shouldn’t be allowed to sign political petitions? How about if they sign petitions in favor of conservative causes? Although they claim on the front page not to hold a particular ideology, their subsequent words belie this. If you feel that university professors shouldn’t be liberals, then by all means just say so, and give your reasons why you think that being a liberal should disqualify one from teaching in a university. Trying to obscure your true opinion with tolerant language is not only dishonest, but it says much more about your own character than that of the person you are smearing.
Why is it that professors, at a publicly-funded, state-run institution, feel threatened that the public may actually get to hear the rhetoric that they’re forcing down the throats of students? Seems fairly inncouous to me.
I mean, why should such professors feel threatened when, instead of educating his or her pupils on the topic of study they’ve signed up for, they get a steady discourse on the anti-establishment, anti-america, pro-communist agenda.
I guess it’s a little easier to stand up to a bunch of college students who you can outright fail from your course if they offer up any counter-argument than to stand up to the criticisims of the general public. It’s easy to force your agenda when your opposition has no way to redress their grievances, huh?
I’m shocked that some of the posters to this list refuse to learn from history and really believe that the US is so special that “it can’t happen here.” I suggest that they speak to one of the refugees from Europe in the 1930’s about their experience. Failing that, I would urge that they use the World Wide Web to educate themselves about what happened to democracies during the years before World War II.
There is nothing democratic about a group that offers to pay people to record their teachers’ lectures and turn them in. It’s not happening in a vacuum and is certainly not some innocent, middle-of-the-road effort to “professionalize” the teaching profession. It’s a rather obvious attempt by those of one political stripe to enlist paid informers on university campuses to put pressure on teachers who oppose the policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.
What is even scarier than the existence of the UCLAProfs.com group is the fact that so many Americans refuse to understand that freedom dies a little bit at a time. It’s very easy to get used to it when it happens that way.
Could it be that the historian was right when he said that “the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history”?
I think it is good, when I went to pitt, I had to take a Political Sceince class. First day of class the Prof made us tell him what Political party we werer (note I was the only one that was, or admited, to be a republican) and when he found out I was a *evil* republican he said “by the end of this cource I will make you a democrate”. Now tell me if that is not forcing an ideology on the students.
Also I am happy to say he FAILED on that goal, all I did was give him the ansers he wanted on the tests, so I did get an A he probably thinks I converted.
How is this different than the K-street project?
Both are devoted to putting fascists in places of authority. I can’t wait to see DeLay in stripes!
I might add in support to Paul T. that universities aren’t very democratic either and seem to come up with the most left wing extreme (for lack of a better term) sorts of silliness as to rules and credo etc.
The group that is offering to pay students to inform on their UCLA professors is not simply trying to improve the quality of university teaching. It is an organization of “conservatives” seeking to suppress opposing points of view. It doesn’t even attempt to hide this.
It has as its “president and founder” an individual by the name of Andrew Jones — who is certainly not a middle-of-the-road, unbiased investigator. Here are his credentials as he proudly boasts of them on his website (http://www.bruinalumni.com/andrew.html):
“Organized and led counterprotests to every major anti-war or pro-affirmative action demonstration on campus…
“Brought to UCLA national leaders L. Paul Bremer, R. James Woolsey, and conservative luminaries Bill Bennett, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and Dinesh D’Souza….
“Served as a campaign manager for slate of conservative students….
“Profiled in Los Angeles Times article as part of a rising tide of young conservative journalists….”
To Mr. Theodoropoulos I would point out that I am not suggesting that Jones (or anyone else) doesn’t have the right, under the US Constitution, to do this, but rather that it is Mr. Jones, with his UCLAProf.com website, who would like to limit the free speech rights of those who oppose his point of view.
I would also like to make clear that it is not my belief that the US is a Fascist state. However, that is not to state that there is no danger that it could become one. Those who would encourage the kind of activities to curtail freedom of speech that are being promoted by the Bruin Alumni Association are certainly pushing it in that direction.
Paul, F.A.I.R sucks too. SO?
And to other complainers. Hitler was never mentioned in the post!
College is supposed to teach students how to think critically. How to see all sides of a problem and weigh the evidence and arguments on all sides.
Too many professor that I had at Berkeley seem to believe that “critical thinking” is just criticizing the status quo. All or mostly one sided in its analysis. This kind of pedagogy is killing the meaning of a classically liberal education.
And this is one level below what BAA and Andrew Jones are attacking: constant and egregious rants about a professor’s political views, which have nothing to do with the subject of the class. Something that is obviously unprofessional, as opposed to just bad teaching.
The real problem is that balance has been lost in most university faculties in this country. Tenured professors are only held to account by their fellow professors, who all agree with each other. Actually, the problem isn’t that they are all liberal or not, it’s that they are loath to discipline one another and enforce standards of professionalism in their teaching, because the professor was “just exercising free speech.”
Many of these professors have forgotten the original intent of a liberal education: to enable young people to think for themselves. Now their mission is to make their students see the “truth” that they have uncovered: how evil and racist the establishment is, or whatever they think “the truth” is. Then the students get out of school into the real world, the spell their professors cast wears off, and they are left without the tools to intelligently evaluate the issues of the day.
The tragedy is that these educated members of our society then see the political debate as “us vs. them”, instead of seeing the truly important analysis that goes on below all the noise. They aren’t evaluating the debate for themselves, but just following the herd (on either side), because that’s what got them As in college.
Thanks to Paul T for taking up the mantle. I wouldn’t have the patience.
And to other complainers. Hitler was never mentioned in the post!
the “Third Reich”, John? Picture of a member of the Nazi Youth group?
Who doesn’t think of Hitler when you mention these phrases, and vice versa. Obviously that was your intent, John.
UCLA has copyrighted all lectures. That means that anyone recording the lecture would be breaking the copyright laws. Even though BAA has a notice that it would not pay for copyrighted material, how else could they get a copy of the lecture. If they provide the equipment, then I would think that they are now actively complicit in stealing copyrighted material.
As for the C Programming instructor, why couldn’t they criticize Bush and his policies? In case you haven’t noticed, time and time again on blogs on this site; COMPUTER JOBS ARE BEING OUTSOURCED. They just happen to be going overseas with the tactic approval of dubya’s administration. This is something DIRECTLY AFFECTING ANYONE GOING INTO THE PROGRAMMING FIELD.
BAA is a direct attempt to close off the public discourse of free speech. I first read about this a couple of days ago at:
http://www.rawstory.com/
Their story pointed out that several people listed at the site did not even know their names were being used. One had only spoken once to Jones several months back about something totally different. Unfortunately, their story is no longer up.
so, students who pay good money to learn, are instead infringing their professor’s “rights” by asking them to teach, rather than to spout political cant during classtime
I guess paul would rather the teachers rote some spiel put out by the administration instead of sharing knowledge and insight to the students. When I went to University, I paid to take a class taught by a specific Professor. I didn’t take classes where I thought I could dictate the curriculum or what could come out of the Professor’s mouth.
To #32 – Pat –
If I’m paying to attend a class in computer programming, classic literature, calculus, etc., that should be the focus of every lecture and presentation material provided in the class. Politics, religion and modern music preference of the professor are not my concern and I don’t want to know. It could influence my opinion of any otherwise capable instructor and detract from the learning.
If I choose to attend a modern history course, a political science seminar or even join a professor at the local pub for a discussion of world events after class, that’s an entirely different matter.
paul, you were the one who brought up the example of C Programming. I believe my analogy is relevant and apt, quite unlike most of your ranting. Your question was extreme, asinine, and unnecessary in a civilized debate.
In any school, if the teacher spends the entire class time on other areas then what the course is about then yes, the teacher should and will be disciplined by the school. Any student knows that a bad teacher is not tolerated by any school administration.
This web site is trying to stifle open comment by certain teachers. The originator of the site makes no bones about his intentions. Looking around America today, we can see example after example of the dubya administration pushing in the same direction. Did anyone think six years ago that the Justice Department could keep an American in jail for years without even bringing him before a judge? Did anyone think that the Administration would call someone a coward if they did not agree with them? Did anyone think the government would subpoena Google for it’s search records? Did anyone think the government would only allow protesters to speak well away from the event they were protesting? Did anyone think that the FBI would “infiltrate peace groups” and take down license plate numbers of those who disagree? Go back and read post #16
Ah, is this Cuba? No. But we do now live in a fascist state.
My lovely wife, an educator, mentions a different take on this. She says that if a student sold full transcripts and tape recordings of her lectures, that student would be in violation of intellectual property rights and subject to lawsuit. Me, I don’t know about that…like Presiident Bush, I wish I knew the law. But, if some of these students take up cherub-cheeked Andrew Jones on his offer, they may wind up paying more than tuition at UCLA. Maybe disgruntled students (and/or their parents) could just vote against what they see as ineffectual professors by not attending their classes (or attend a different university…Bob Jones U. might suit ’em)…or is that too radical a thought?
I’m sorry, I fail to see anything particularly disturbing about the referenced site. The site does pretend to be unbiased in its attempt to root out “unprofessional” classroom behavior. My random sampling of 4 profiles did not find a conservative in the lot. But, as Paul stated in comment #19, that could just be the result of sample size.
Paying money to students to gather his research material — sorry, but the writing style of this “alumni association” suggests a single contributor; again, I could be wrong from my small sample size — seems more the act of someone with money to burn than that of a diabolical fascist (‘you use that word a lot — I don’t think it means what you think it means’). The site’s insistence upon well documented lectures suggests a concern for either editorial integrity (ah, loosely defined) or accusations of libel.
Overall, my impression was that these were not professors whose lectures I would enjoy. But then I wouldn’t enjoy being lectured by the pompous ass that authored those profiles either.
So what’s the problem?
if the teacher spends the entire class time on other areas then what the course is about then yes, the teacher should and will be disciplined by the school. Any student knows that a bad teacher is not tolerated by any school administration.
This is the whole problem, Pat. There is no principal at a university to discpline bad professors. The academic freedom guaranteed by tenure means that the professors can only be disciplined by their peers, usually through an “Academic Senate” of all professors at each university.
This works about as well as the Ethics Commitee in Congress.
(Worse, actually, because how would a science department benefit in reputation by toning down the political correctness in the humanities departments. There is no incentive to discipline each other, lest your invoke the wrath of the PC police.)
I’d like to point out that this witch hunting started on the liberal, PC side of the spectrum first. We don’t know how BAA and Jones are going to use the evidence that they gather. Whether they will just shame professors into showing some restraint, or they will go to administrators and other professors to demand some action.
But it can’t be worse than the PC police in universities who lobby adminisrators to cancel visits by right-wing speakers. Or protest inside the auditorium and don’t even allow the right-wingers to speak. Debate and discourse can only happen if both sides can express their view, outside the classroom in seminars and speeches etc. There are more appropriate forums for free speech to occur, than in a class on an unrelated subject.
Smith, you will not find conservative ones there, a conservative prof, ya right I think that is just as rare as a Dodo.