Re: [Marxism] Witch hunt at UCLA

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/18/ucla
The New Class Monitors

In a move that some professors see as a new low in efforts to monitor their 
classroom activities, a conservative group is offering students at the 
University of California at Los Angeles money to tape lectures and turn 
over materials distributed by professors.
Related stories

While several conservative groups invite students at various colleges to 
file reports about professors, these students have not been paid. Faculty 
members at UCLA said that the pay may violate the intellectual property 
rights of professors ? and that the tactic is an attempt to intimidate 
scholars.

?Paying students to inform on professors is right out of the Stalinist 
playbook,? said John McCumber, a professor of Germanic languages at UCLA 
who is among the faculty members who have already been criticized on 
UCLAprofs.com, the Web site offering to pay for reports on faculty members.

The Web site is a project of the Bruin Alumni Association, which is working 
to encourage alumni of UCLA to hold back their donations to protest the 
actions of liberal professors. The association has been working for several 
months ? sending thousands of booklets to UCLA alumni and compiling a list 
of the ?Dirty Thirty,? those professors it finds most objectionable. 
Scholars at the top of the list earn five power fists in the group?s 
ranking system.

While there are similar groups of conservative alumni at other campuses, 
the offers to pay students ? which started less than a week ago ? sets this 
effort apart and worries experts on academic freedom.

?Asking students to spy is utterly repugnant,? said Jonathan Knight, 
director of the Department of Academic Freedom and Governance at the 
American Association of University Professors. ?It?s hard to conceive of a 
practice more unlikely to obtain accurate, useful, reliable information 
about what happens in a classroom than having to pay students for the 
information.?

Andrew Jones, founder and president of the Bruin Alumni Association, said 
that his approach to paying students would protect professors from false 
information. ?I felt we needed to professionalize the process? of gathering 
information about classroom presentations, he said. Too many reports about 
professors who focus on political issues rather than their course subjects 
?end up in a lot of he said, she said,? but having ?solid evidence? will 
prevent that, Jones said.

?If we are going to be making accusations of professional malfeasance, then 
I wanted to have real solid independent proof,? he said.

Rumors spread among faculty members Tuesday that Jones had backed down from 
his plan because the link he created to the pay plan wasn?t working. But 
Jones restored the link in the afternoon, adding disclaimers in response to 
some of the complaints. The disclaimer states that the association will not 
buy copyrighted materials, and that it will buy only tapes made with 
professors? permission. Jones also removed from the Web site a different 
list of ?targeted professors? on which his group was particularly anxious 
for information. He said that list was becoming ?a distraction.?

The prices offered are as follows:

    *      $100 for ?full, detailed lecture notes, all 
professor-distributed materials and full tape recordings of every class 
session.?
    *      $50 for ?full detailed lecture notes and all 
professor-distributed materials.?
    *      $10 for an ?advisory? that a class should be examined and 
professor-distributed materials collected.

Jones said that professors were wrong to think that he was sending students 
to spy on them. He said he was seeking students who had already enrolled, 
and who were finding themselves troubled by political discussions in the 
classroom.

Daniel Solorzano, a professor of education at UCLA, said that he found the 
new campaign ?repulsive? and that the efforts of the Bruin Alumni 
Association were designed ?to chill the campuses.? He said that material 
about him that is posted on the group?s Web site is inaccurate, and that 
he?s been torn about how vocally to oppose the group. ?I don?t want to give 
them attention, but at the same time, it?s very, very serious what they are 
doing.?

He said that the campaigns against professors represent ?a very real 
problem in the academy.?

Some professors noted that those who have been criticized on the 
UCLAprofs.com Web site include many scholars who do work in ethnic studies 
or women?s studies.

Jones said that it was ?just random? that the professors his Web site has 
focused on include many female and minority scholars. He said that he just 
started researching professors who had signed ?radical petitions? and that 
led him to many such professors. He acknowledged that he was not a fan of 
ethnic or women?s studies.

?Everyone retreats into me-search. ?I?m black so I?m going to study black 
issues.? White folks don?t feel the need to do that,? he said. Jones, who 
graduated from UCLA in 2003, said that he took a Chicano studies course 
while he was there and found it to be ?absolute intellectual rubbish.?

Adrienne Lavine, chair of the Academic Senate at UCLA, said that she 
believed in free speech for everyone ? her faculty colleagues and Jones 
alike ? although she objected to the ?snide and sarcastic tone? of his 
criticisms. Lavine, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, 
said that she has heard from several faculty members concerned about the 
new Web site and that professors were ?more upset by the idea students were 
being enticed into being paid informants.?

Lavine said that she believed Jones was encouraging students to violate 
UCLA policies on the ownership of course materials and recordings of 
lectures. And Lavine said that she feared students recruited by Jones would 
be unaware of these possible violations.

Jones said that his group has consulted lawyers and believes it is within 
its rights. He stressed that the course materials and lecture recordings 
would not be sold or published in their entirety. If legal problems arise, 
he said, ?we?ll stop? any practice that is illegal, but that shouldn?t doom 
his project.

The UCLA group is not affiliated with Students for Academic Freedom, the 
group through which David Horowitz has campaigned for the ?Academic Bill of 
Rights.? Horowitz and his supporters have frequently cited examples that 
they have obtained from students about their classroom experiences, but 
Horowitz said in an e-mail Tuesday that he has never paid for the 
information. Likewise, an official with Campus Watch, which has encouraged 
students to report anti-Israel comments made by professors, said that it 
does not pay those who provide it with information.

Jones said that while he is not affiliated with Horowitz ?in any way,? 
their efforts have similar goals. ?I?m in no position to push legislation 
nationally like he is,? Jones said. ?But my hope is that a relentless focus 
on one school can produce the same kinds of changes he is pushing for.?

? Scott Jaschik

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