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[pyrephox]

With little fanfare and almost no media coverage, Congress recently passed House Resolution 3077, which threatens academic freedom by imposing rules on what professors can and can't teach. HR 3077 focuses in particular on "area studies" (university programs that study international culture and politics in specific regions of the world). Proponents of the bill, warns Benita Singh, portrayed area studies programs as "hotbeds for anti-American sentiment" in order to propose "the creation of an advisory board that has the final word on curricula taught at Title VI institutions, course materials assigned in class, and even the faculty who are hired in institutions that accept Title VI funding. ... According to the language of the bill, professors whose ideological principles may not support U.S. practices abroad can have their appointments terminated, any part of a course's curriculum containing criticisms of U.S. foreign policy can be censored, and any course deemed entirely anti-American can be barred from ever being taught."

I love my country. Really I do. I'd just love it more if I lived somewhere else. Preferably some very small, inoffensive country with a name that was far too complicated for Bush to spell. At /least/ four letters long, in other words.

Comments

[cpip.livejournal.com]

Reading the bill, I'm not half as worried as this seems to suggest. The advisory board does NOT have that final word unless the Secretary of Education suggests so. The language of the bill is highly vague -- I presume Ms. Singh's concerns rest on the "advance American interests" language.

Actually, what this reads more like is, "We want to be able to tell the colleges to give us more experts in such-and-such, and to ensure that the CIA and others can freely recruit on college campuses."

But I may be misinterpreting the bill; I'm no expert.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

*hmms and rereads* This is true. The language is vague enough that I think that there is cause to be worried, but it does seem focused on giving USG sources recruitment-room.

Although I have to wonder if there's /really/ such a problem with this that a bill is necessary?

[cpip.livejournal.com]

There is. A number of colleges have disinvited the CIA and such at one point or another. This was more popular during the 1960s, when students would actively interfere with CIA recruiting efforts, but in more recent times ROTC and the CIA have come under fire.

The military, in a spat of political-correctness, also is unwelcome on some campuses (link), link).

[brianh]

AUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brianh]

Sorry, that wasn't too articulate, was it? What I meant to say was, if that interpretation (apparently by the bill's sponsor?) is correct, then this is yet another instance of how our government is currently mistaking the symptoms for the problem. If you have anti-American sentiment showing up in unprecedented levels, perhaps it's time to look at what you're doing, and what might be wrong with it. There will always be *some* people who dislike what you're doing, but if it's so prevalent you need to make a bill out of it, maybe you should focus on *why* there's anti-American sentiment, instead of trying to stifle free speech.