Expose ‘radical’ UCLA teacher, get $100
LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) — An alumni group dedicated to “exposing the most radical professors” at the University of California at Los Angeles is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of suspect faculty.
Well, most colleges students are always looking for a way to make a few extra bucks, right? And this is a damn sight better than selling your plasma twice a week….
Unbeknownst to most of us, there has been a quiet, yet insidious campaign to indoctrinate our young people. Liberal professors are filling the impressionable minds of our children with all sorts of ridiculous Left-wing notions, all in the name of “higher education. THANK GOD for good, god-fearing, patriotic Americans like Andrew Jones, a 2003 UCLA graduate who is selflessly determined to rid his alma mater of the evil, sinful scourge that is Liberalism.
Of course, the manner that Jones is going about his quest is nothing if not reprehensible, but this seems to bother him not a whit. Zealots are seldom concerned with things like plurality and free speech rights.
The Web site of the Bruin Alumni Association also includes a “Dirty Thirty” list of professors considered by the group to be the most extreme left-wing members of the UCLA faculty, as well as profiles on their political activities and writings.
UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale on Thursday denounced the campaign as “reprehensible,” and school officials warned that selling or distributing recordings of classroom lectures without an instructor’s consent violates university policy.
Funny; I’d always thought that college was a time for students to be exposed to different points of view, to learn how to process information and then make decisions based on that information and their values. Education depends on the free exchange of information, and, yes, opinions. You simply cannot have a system of higher education devoid of opinions…or in this case a specific set of opinions. That doesn’t mean you have to like all of the opinions, but why should one individual have the right to stage a campaign of harrrassment against those he happens to disagree with?
News of the campaign prompted former Republican congressman James Rogan, who helped lead impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton in the U.S. House of Representatives, to resign from the group’s advisory board.
“I am uncomfortable to say the least with this tactic,” Rogan, now a lawyer in private practice in California, said in an e-mail resignation made public by the Los Angeles Times. “It places students in jeopardy of violating myriad regulations and laws.”
At least two other members of the group’s advisory board, which consists of more than 20 individuals, also have quit over the group’s efforts to have students record their professors.
The group, which is not affiliated with UCLA or its official alumni association, is the creation of Andrew Jones, a 2003 UCLA graduate who said he runs the organization mostly on his own with $22,000 in private donations.
Jones is free to act as he sees fit. This being a free country and all, even objectionable speech is considered free speech…and it truly doesn’t get more objectionable than what Jones is proposing. Of course, Jones would do well to keep in mind that freedom of speech is a street than runs both ways, and what he is attempting to do is to silence voices he does not agree with. Can there be anything more reprehensible?
Jones told Reuters that he is out to “restore an atmosphere of respectful political discourse on campus” and says his efforts are aimed at academics who proselytize students from either side of the ideological spectrum, conservative or liberal.
“We are concerned solely with indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies and unprofessional classroom behavior,” Jones said on his Web site.
Jones’ site describes his campaign as “dedicated to exposing UCLA’s most radical professors” and his list of the university’s “worst of the worst” singles out only professors he says hold left-wing views.
The reality here is that Andrew Jones is a hyprocrite of the first order. He will tell you with a straight face that he is out to prevent proselytizing from either end of the political spectrum. Yeah, right…just look at his “Dirty Thirty”, and you’ll not see a Conservative on the list. The truth here is that Jones is just fine with Conservatives “proselytizing”, if that is indeed what it is. He just doesn’t want Liberals doing the same thing- and that is the textbook definition of censorship, pure and simple.
Jones said he would accept recordings only from students whose professors consented in writing to have their lectures taped. And students would be paid $100 only if they furnished complete recordings of every class session, as well as detailed lecture notes and all other teaching materials from the class.
In the climate created by Jones and his group, what UCLA professor, except for those who lean to the right, would consent in writing to have their lectures taped? Jones no doubt realizes this, and is hoping that the mere threat of being watched and exposed will “reign in” some of the more egregious violators.
Someone really ought to squash this smug SOB, but then again, sometimes it’s better for ignorance and arrogance to be allowed to run free. That way educated people can see the lunacy for themselves. While Jones and his goons no doubt look spiffy in their brown shirts and Sam Browne belts, they’re simply exposing themselves for the fear-mongers they truly are. What a bunch of maroons….
