Something really disturbing happened to my father's wife recently at Santa Rosa College in California, and I've excerpted his email to me about it here. It seems to be part of a larger national effort to drown out diversity. Hopefully the blogsphere can get hold of stories like this and flush these weasels out into the open:
Friday an incident at Santa Rosa Junior College invaded our life, in this way; Late that day after the buildings were empty, someone posted flyers on the faculty offices of ten professors, mostly in the social sciences...& including [my father's wife, a professor there]. The flyer had a big red star at the top and consisted solely of the text of an obscure anti-communist section of the State educational code.(scroll down for complete text...you'll be surprised) It was signed: "Anonymous Students of the SRJC"
There has been a flurry of meetings, and statements issued, and the Channel 50 news came out to interview people. The 'Anonymous' ones surfaced and are... the 'College Republican Club'. Even after revealing themselves, they have not offered a single substantive example of how the ten professors were observed "inculcating communism." Although some professors on that list have discussed critical theories about the system, or have said something anti-Bush...some were unable to think of anything they'd said in teaching English that could be considered "Left". The Republican Club will only say that they are "getting reports from other students". Now it seems that professors have to assume that there are people monitoring their thinking and trying to taint them with negative publicity that would harm their standing... for example in a tenure review.
A little research into the "College Republicans" reveals a wide-ranging effort to expose & intimidate "liberal" & "left"professors. David Horowitz and Lynne Cheney figure prominently in this national effort. Here's where they "report" on the incident: http://www.collegegop.org/PressReleases/index.cfm/ID/27.htm The first posting of this was more gloating & lurid: instead of "Operation" as the title, they called it "Operation Red Scare" Then here's the more radical junior G-men: http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/ Sample the heading: "How to research faculty bias"
The Faculty Senate is taking up the issue of intellectual freedom this week and demanding the College take a stand...they are also looking into the history of this education code section and seeing if it can be repealed in the legislature. The way this was done, with stealth at first and with the star so prominent, was very much in the brownshirt tradition of the last century. A lot of things come to mind when walking down a corridor of academic offices and seeing 'stigma' postings on individual doors identifying Heretics. [the text of flyer is in Extended Entry].
-Arne
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