Missouri Senate Education Committee, hearing on 25 April 2007
Testimony of David K. Robinson, Professor of History, Truman State University,
Vice-President of Missouri Conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
Mr. Chairman and honored senators:
Faculty at institutions of higher education in our state are overwhelmingly opposed to HB213. Similar bills have been introduced and defeated in twenty-eight other states over the past four years. We urge you to do the same, for the following reasons:
1. HB 213 would have the opposite effect of its stated intentions: it would curtail academic freedom and free expression by imposing restrictions on what can or cannot be taught. Academic freedom means that faculty members, who are trained to evaluate information through critical inquiry, interact with students who need to learn to do the same. Legislating someone’s idea of “balance” in the classroom will require that opinions or beliefs be given equal weight with facts and scientific theory, implying that all imaginable theories and laws have equal legitimacy, regardless of expert consensus within a discipline. The best way to assure the kind of intellectual diversity that we really need in colleges and universities is to promote academic freedom, to keep a free market of ideas alive and flourishing. This legislation would restrict that market by stifling debate and inquiry.
2. Grievance mechanisms are already in place in all Missouri colleges and universities. These procedures work well, and this legislation would harm rather than improve the grievance systems. Even the unfortunate Brooker case was satisfactorily resolved, once her administration was informed. Such cases are extremely rare, and we must not destroy the whole system in a vain attempt to save it from that rare problem.
3. HB 213 would open the learning process to partisan battles that really have no place in most classrooms. Rather than protecting students from unnecessary politicization, such oversight could well insert politics into every classroom.
4. Under HB 213, colleges and universities would incur significant costs, both in money and time. If this becomes an unfunded mandate, faculty will have less time for their important duties of class preparation, grading, tutoring, research, recruiting, etc.
5. Nationally the main proponents of such proposals as HB213 are the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) and David Horowitz, who claim to be defending students from “indoctrination,” but present precious little evidence that students are not free to follow their interests. Other states that have examined such proposals have all rejected them. In my opinion, they did so because they feared the unnecessary politicization that the so-called “Intellectual Diversity Laws” would bring to their universities. I am quite sure that Horowitz and his followers will never be satisfied until they eliminate the views that they disagree with. They are in the business of destroying academic freedom, not protecting it. Please do not help them with their destruction. Please reject HB213.