Groups challenge 'liberal bias' on campus: lawmakers push to air conservative views.

A long-running battle may be reaching critical mass as lawmakers in several states consider measures to ensure the representation of conservative viewpoints in the classroom.

The issue gained media attention in recent weeks after David Horowitz, president of the conservative Students for Academic Freedom, touted the plight of a University of Northern Colorado student who "failed her criminology exam after she refused to explain why George Bush is a war criminal."

But Gloria Reynolds, director of Communications and Media Relations at UNC, says "the story is not as it has been repeated a number of times by Mr. Horowitz."

Reynolds told University Business that although the student did rite a complaint against her professor, she did not receive a failing grade on the exam, and the question was not represented accurately on the Students For Academic Freedom (SAF) website. Moreover, it's not Likely that the instructor, Robert Dunkley, a Life-tong Republican, would be mistaken for a liberal.

The exam contained four questions, Reynolds explains, and students were required to answer questions 1 and 2 but were allowed to choose between questions 3 and 4. The contested fourth question reads:

The American government campaign to attack Iraq was in part based on the assumptions that the Iraqi government had "Weapons of Mass Destruction." This was never proven prior to the US police action/war and even President Bush, after the capture of Baghdad, stated, "we may never find such weapons." Cohen's research on deviance discussed this process of how the media and various moral entrepreneurs and government enforcers can conspire to create a panic. How does Cohen define this process? Explain it in-depth. Where does the social meaning of deviance come from? Argue that the attack on Iraq was deviance based on negotiable statuses. Make the argument that the military action of the US at tacking Iraq was criminal.

But the attention surrounding Horowitz's unfounded charges only served to fuel the conservatives' cry that their opinions are excluded or ridiculed by Leftist professors. Groups such as SAF, Campus Watch, and Academic Bias regularly encourage students to report faculty members who squelch the conservative viewpoint in class discussions.

Meanwhile, Lawmakers in several states have proposed an "academic bit[ of rights" that would enforce political parity on campus. Variations of the bill are being considered in Maine, Rhode Island, Maryland, New York, California, Indiana, Florida, Ohio, and Tennessee. In Florida in March, for example, members of the House Choice and Innovation Committee voted 8-2 in support a bill that aims to stamp out "Leftist totalitarianism" by "dictator professors."

The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Dennis Baxley, said it would prevent professors from "a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views."

But Rep. Eleanor Sobell, one of the only two Democrats on the committee who voted against it, told University Business she sees a real danger in such Legislation. "I believe this is a university decision and not a state decision. The state should not be meddling in academic freedom affairs," she says. "There are a lot of details involved in free speech issues and viewpoints; it's very subjective."

Still, Sobell says the bill would likely move through to the Republican-dominated House where Baxley enjoyed the support of the House Leadership "for his conservative philosophy."