Free Exchange on Campus, a coalition of 23 unions, faculty and student organizations and progressive policy groups, is setting the record straight about the shoddy research and erroneous conclusions in David Horowitz’s latest book, “One Party Classroom.”
As he does in his previous books, Horowitz, an extremist right-winger, attacks public universities and claims they brainwash students and turn them against their parents and country.
In “Facts Still Count,” the coalition says Horowitz’s outlandish claims are based on misrepresentations and distortions of the work of faculty members. The report says he has used this fallacious evidence to push an agenda that has the potential to chill the free exchange of ideas on college campuses. Click here to download the report.
According to Free Exchange on Campus, whose members include the AFL-CIO, AFT and the National Education Association (NEA):
Horowitz’s agenda is nothing more than an attack on the professional integrity of college faculty and strikes at the issue of professional control and academic freedom, two pillars of higher education.
In particular, the report checks the facts that Horowitz uses to condemn public universities and uncovers how he distorts reality. For example:
* Horowitz continually uses inaccurate copies of course descriptions, intentionally omits sections of course descriptions and simply misquotes course descriptions, when claiming that a course, department or faculty member’s work is inappropriate for higher education. With a lack of accurate evidence, his conclusions fail to hold water.
* One of Horowitz’s repeated tactics involves citing the reading list of a course as evidence that it is used to indoctrinate rather than educate—typically because his representation of the reading list contains only perspectives of which he disapproves. However, in numerous examples, Horowitz’s account literally leaves out books and reading assignments that would disprove his claims.
The bottom line, according to the coalition:
Horowitz makes exaggerated claims based on faulty and distorted evidence. While the rest of the country is discussing higher education’s role in an economic recovery, Horowitz is rehashing the same old discredited story. It’s time to move on.
AFL-CIO:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/04/15/horowitzs-latest-attack-on-higher-ed-inaccurate-distorted/
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