Gregg Investigates Academic Freemon on U.S.Campuses
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg is leading a congressional inquiry to investigate whether, as college tuition costs soar across the country, the academic climate on campuses has remained free and open.
The New Hampshire Republican and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has called a series of four hearings before his committee to find out whether intellectual diversity is an “endangered species on America’s college campuses.”
In an interview, Gregg said: “I’m concerned that we’re developing a generation of people that don’t understand the basic history of the United States, especially how we developed a constitutional democracy. I’m concerned that on certain campuses there has been a failure of dialogue, that people who disagree with political correctness on the campus are not allowed to make their points, are marginalized. And I’m concerned that we’ve created an academic atmosphereá where dogma is becoming the rule of the day and indoctrination the manner to promote the dogma.”
Gregg, in a written opening statement before the second hearing held Wednesday, said: “Ultimately, this is a quality issue. While college tuitions go up and up, it’s fair to ask just what students and parents are getting for their money.”
Citing what he called a proliferation of “pet courses” – such as one called “pornography and prostitution in history” at Tennessee’s Vanderbilt University – that he said squeeze their way into curricula based on “interest-group politics” rather than academic merit, Gregg expressed concern that more traditional courses on American and European history are being replaced. But he added that it wasn’t government’s job to legislate what students should learn.
The hearings dovetail with a bill Gregg introduced earlier this year to provide grants to promote American government and civics education in U.S. schools. A committee hearing last month examined the content of the textbooks used in America’s primary and secondary schools.
“What are we teaching them about our American traditions if traditional subjects like political and constitutional history are shoved aside to make room for trendy courses designed to appeal to grievance-based politics?” Gregg asked in his opening remarks.
The committee also heard testimony from civil libertarian groups that fear that colleges and universities are infringing on students’ First Amendment right to free speech by imposing speech codes.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education ranks Dartmouth College and the University of New Hampshire among the worst offenders in the nation when it comes to vague rules that restrict students’ speech, said the group’s CEO, Thor Halvorssen, Thursday.
Both universities denied the allegations. “The foundation of Dartmouth College is that we are a marketplace of ideas and we are committed to the free exchange of all views,” said Laurel Stavis, a spokesperson for Darthmouth.
Kim Billings, a spokesperson for the University of New Hampshire called the allegation “ludicrous” and said, “Of course we support the First Amendment right to speecháif there’s one thing about a university, we all have an opinion about everything and we all listen to each other.”
On Wednesday, the foundation’s director of legal and public advocacy told the committee these speech codes are all the more disturbing at academic institutions that often claim to foster environments of free speech and open debate.
Professor David Johnson of Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York testified that he was persecuted and nearly denied tenure because his areas of expertise – political, diplomatic and constitutional history – were considered too conservative by his institution.
Gregg echoed Johnson’s concerns.
“There appears to be an increasing number of incidents in which alternative viewpoints are either silenced or ignored in the classroom – often with hostility or disdain,” he said.
