Somehow, (CA State Senator) Morrow escaped indoctrination

[question everything]

Friday, April 1, 2005

Somehow, Morrow escaped indoctrination

By: GAIL CHATFIELD

A recent Knight Foundation survey of more than 100,000 high school students found the majority of them assign little or no value to their First Amendment rights. And probably some of those had to be reminded that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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State Sen. Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside) recently defended his academic "student bill of rights" at the campus. An idea first put forth by conservative activist David Horowitz, the proposal includes mandating that colleges hire more conservative professors (but "intellectual diversity" could also mean hiring more communist or socialist professors) and legislate what they could discuss in their classrooms.

There is a strange movement afoot. School boards in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and Kansas are legislating the teaching of creationism, or "intelligent design." Conservative activists challenge school districts and libraries to ban books such as "The Grapes of Wrath," "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "The Scarlet Letter" and Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

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Morrow attended college during the Vietnam War and believes the bad grades he earned in a political science class were because of his conservative views. He has wanted to restrict professors' "political indoctrination" of impressionable students ever since.

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Students are smarter than he thinks. One opinionated professor may not alter your life, but chiseling away at the First Amendment certainly will. If Morrow truly wants to do something to help college students, he should make sure that California colleges are funded, safe and affordable for all wishing to attend.

Gail Chatfield is a freelance writer based in Carmel Valley.


http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/04/01/opinion/commentary/23_13_223_31_05.txt