The not so silly part is the campaign by conservatives to steer funding towards conservative causes by convincing donors that their money will go to liberal commy pinkos with gay husbands if they don't make their contribution to some specifically "academic" entity like ...the Mercatus Institite.

Chris thanks for writing about this stuff. You're absolutely right to emphasize peer review and faculty governance as what they are -- democracy in action. THats what the right really hates about academics -- we are our own bosses, many of us without even a union they can blame it on.

And the results speak for themselves -- where after all does these conservatives send their kids for college? Places with strong research programs and traditions of faculty governance ...like Yale and U of T.

Personally I think this legislation has ZERO chance of being adopted as currently drafted.  Before you say "oh my poor naive little friend, this is the State that not only banned gay marriage but anything that attempted to approximate gay marriage", I would say that it is precisely this over reaching hubris which will doom this legislation.  One thing that is easy to miss is that this applies to private institutions as well as public institutions.  Not even David Horowitz believes that the academic "bill of rights" should apply to all private institutions.  With Antioch and Oberlin (among others) being located within the confines of our cozy little state it is easy to see why conservatives would salivate at the opportunity to stick it to those commies.  The fact of the matter is those institutions and other "liberal" institutions could adopt the required language on their campuses if forced to.  On the other hand, could God's Bible College (for example) commit to hire faculty without regard to the faith of the potential hire?  Could the Josephinum (or any seminary) commit to have its faculty refrain from using its courses for purposes of religious indoctrination?

Horowitz has said that he views the introduction of legislation on this topic as a means to opening dialogue with University administrators.  I think that such a dialogue with Horowitz or legislators should be rejected out of hand (because the discussion will continue until the Universities' admit their sins and completely capitulate) and instead focus should be turned to defeat of this imminently defeatable proposal. (Note, I think there are merits to the language of the proposal and I think schools should not turn a blind eye to actual discrimination by professors toward students or colleagues but much of what these people cite as persecution does not strike me as such.)

So here is my road map (if I had a say) to how to defeat this for the public institutions:

1. Make sure that the language relating to private institutions remains.  This may be tough to do because it will be so easy to get rid of.  

2.  Get some prominent faculty and or Trustees to come out and talk to about how it is unnecessary because the campuses already have policies in place to deal with these issues.  (In Colorado, the author of the legislation actually contacted the institutions in advance to see what policies were in place.  Such approach is unneccessary in the land of one party rule.)  In addition, these faculty members or trustees should talk about how it will be difficult to attract or retain quality professors when other institutions you are trying to compete with don't have the same perceived problems.

My apologies for the length of the post

I am so exhausted by the continual criticism of so called liberal bias in academia.  I will freely admit that most of my colleagues are Democrats.  However, rarely does politics enter in to the classroom.  This may not be the case in other departments, but then again, we are dealing with adults (by this I mean the students) not young blank slates that are unable to form their own opinion.  I wouldn't send my kid to Bob Jones, why is it a big deal if there are a bunch of liberals at Berkeley?

Many of them spend much of their time wishing students were less apathetic. How bout some of them get off their butts and do a little organizing?

1.  Let the Republicans regulate what content can be covered in school regarding political content.  IE math teachers have no business talking politics at length in their class they are math teachers.

2.  Stop regulating religious content specifically evolution vs creation where only one view is legal in schools but the other view has cartblanche to say  it is right.

3.  Hope that now that the republicans are in power they will play nicer than we did.  If you look at this from their perspective its just playing by the same rules...We regulate conservative religious speech they want to regulate liberal athiest speech.

But for now:
can someone local to this joker get him on camera, ask him where HIS ass went to college. If he went, then why ain't HE a liberal? genetics? No, he was allowed to think for himself; college just gives you the tools to think and the rest is up to you (pity many don't take it further).
if he DIDN'T go to college, then what the hell is he talking about and how would he know anyways?

These guys specialize in provoking professors to respond with their personal political opinions and then embarrass the institution through their 'biased' teaching. You might have heard of student supporting this group bring video cameras into the classroom and hiding them while they try to get the professor to say something political. Like other posters have said, allowing the government to regulate the content of the classroom is an ugly, anti-American practice. We're hoping that Horowitz decides it's time to come after a student government! Usually he just goes after the instituion that's impregnating the student body with liberal ideology. Now it's the students protecting our right to a good education. Bring it on, Horowitz!

Check out his pyscho website at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org.