Monday, January 09, 2006
Smackdown for David Horowitz's Academic Witch Hunt
Historians Vow to Oppose the Conservative Campaign to Pressure Universities to Hire Conservatives
In a pointed response to the growing campaign to pressure universities to hire more conservative professors in the humanities, historians meeting in Philadelphia today said the effort smacks of McCarthyism and vowed to oppose it. They passed a resolution to put the American Historical Association—the nation’s oldest and most revered historical society—on record against the effort. [...] Ellen Schrecker, the author of the resolution, contended that Horowitz’s aim is to “give power over such matters as curriculum, course content, and faculty personnel decisions to governmental authorities and other agencies outside the faculty and administrations of institutions of higher learning.” She said this reminded her of what went on during the era of Joe McCarthy, the subject of much of her historical research. [...] Before the resolution can become official policy it must be approved by a vote of the Council of the AHA. [...] Update Sunday 1-8-06: This morning the AHA Council unanimously approved the resolution referred to below.Substitute "rightwing" for "conservative" in the headline and article. The real conservatives are as much the enemy of what Mike Malloy calls "the Flying Monkey Right" as are the liberals.
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