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And I'm not sure who here actually looked up his website, but you might want to consider something. He claims to only be going after Professors who bring their strong ideology to the classroom and push it onto their students. Even though that's the claim, you're forced to wonder why his site has posted a page with a listing of what "radical" petitions various professors have signed. (Of course signing a petition against impeaching Clinton means you're a pinko!) So now professors' private actions outside of the lecture hall are subject to scrutiny as well?

Jones' claim that he just wants more ideological equality in the classroom is completely transparent. He wants to merely subject professors whose views he doesn't agree with to scrutiny and hopefully silencing.

I read http://www.uclaprofs.com/profs/kellner.html, the "Radical of the Week" and I thought they made him seem like a great guy. They thoroughly skewered their own viewpoint and revealed how mindless their politics is.

from the official site "Do you have a professor who just can't stop talking about President Bush, about Howard Dean, about the war in Iraq, about MoveOn.org, about the Republican Party, about the Democratic Party, or any other ideological issue that has nothing to do with the class subject matter? It doesn't matter whether this is a past class, or your ongoing class this winter quarter" What do they plan to accomplish after collecting people's money? Fire these teachers? Create some huge protest?

If that is all Andrew Jones wanted to do, then it is unlikely he would request:

"full, detailed lecture notes, all professor-distributed materials, and full tape recordings of every class session, for one class",

and note that

"lecture notes must make particular note of audience reactions, comments, and other details that will properly contextualize the professor's non-pertinent ideological comments."

Even private religious colleges are dominated by one or another of these Darwinist ism's, for the textbooks are written by professors in major universities. Only a handful of tiny Bible colleges, Bible institutes, and under-capitalized, high-tuition four-year colleges offer slightly less radical viewpoints.

In high school, in every academic field, the assumptions of modern Darwinism dominate the textbooks, yet only 10% of Americans admit to being Darwinists. Almost half say that God created mankind less than 10,000 years ago.

Insightful? Since when is the opinion that most belief == most true worthy of being modded insightful? Did anyone look in to what this person had to say? What sources he was quoting from?

As for the original article, when an organization's site actually uses the phrase "card carrying communist", I tend to take it with a grain of salt. It makes it fairly obvious which side is "radical" to them.

After reading what they have to say I think we have a clear cut case of pot and kettle. Nothing new, just more political partisan-politics based crying.

These Brownshirt students have brought to my attention critical academics and activists I would not have otherwise known about. The way they play these professors up is rather silly, in my view. But then, I'm twice their age, so maybe it's just an aesthetic thing on my part. Still, idealists like Douglas Kellner (http://www.uclaprofs.com/profs/kellner.html) are hardly "radical" in any sense. At least, they're no Weathermen. These academics, having a nuanced view of history and a strong affinity with common people, come across to me as concerned individuals of a Liberal mindset - like me the computer geek. Like my mother the folk artist. Like anyone concerned with the direction of our society in the midst of power abuses, rising populism, an obfuscating media, and unjustified wars.

This student group's attacks are full of cute asides, winks and nods to their compatriots: those sorts of people who think that protesting the Vietnam or Gulf Wars amounts to treason (they like to call it "treason" because it carries the death penalty). The writer makes a lot of fun of Kellner, for example, for doing what many young people did in the sixties - growing his hair, smoking weed, and rebelling against symbols of authority. (I like to remind such people that Jesus Christ himself preached open rebellion against authority, but not all these kids call themselves Christians. Still, they almost universally cite "authority" to back their views, and what better authority than the penultimate divine, right?)

As near as I can tell this student group is really just a bunch of kids who have glommed onto the extreme right-wing because it makes them feel powerful. They can go around pointing fingers at professors who are unhappy with the direction of American politics - those who refuse to applaud every time Bush tells a whopper or the corporate media cites American mythology - and count themselves among the "tough, rugged individualists" represented by such bastions of goodness as Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. They have taken the short road to authority by becoming like-minded sycophants of the Regimented Order. Instead of having a truly nuanced view of human affairs and the politics of power they have attitudes based largely on pure style founded in nothing. Toughness for its own sake. Their kind of strength requires someone else to be weak, and they've chosen professors as an easy target.

If these students had truly critical minds they would be more like these so-called "radical" professors. They would be more interested in undermining authority, taking the road of self-discovery, and after gaining some experience, perhaps taking part in the unglamorous social movement to restore social balance. They would be less interested in ridiculing professors, who have about as much political power as your friendly neighborhood bartender, and more interested in restoring honor to our representatives in Washington by freeing them from special interests that run increasingly counter to the general welfare.

Have I said anything too "radical" here?

When the majority of the best and brightest in the country all lean towards a particular political philosophy, what should that tell you? ... that the people in administration are using politics as a litmus test in their hiring practices. Either that, or they aren't as "best" as you'd have us believe.

All the people I know in academia are well-informed, widely-read, and thoughtful voters.

Whereas all the people I know in academia consider being well-informed reading a set of magazines that reinforce their current viewpoints, and pull their "party line" when it comes to voting without actually reviewing the full slate of what their politicians represent. But both cases are merely our personal experiences.

Now, if a professor were to mark down a student for expressing a different view (assuming they were able to defend their reasoning), that would be beyond the pale.

I was curious, so I actually to the website in question. It appears that they have collected statements from the professors that are quite interesting, to say the least, and certainly worthy of concern to past alumni. Now, its one thing if the alumni organization was just harping on political contrarians because they held different poltiical views; that's intimidation... teachers are citizens too, and they are free to speak whatever they wish (though we are not required to listen). However, when the teachers carried their views into the classrooms, that's when these alumni decided that enough was enough...

It's an interesting read, and it makes me glad that I did not go to UCLA.

A link to the site in question would help:

http://uclaprofs.com/

Not to be confused with the professor review site at http://uclaprofessors.com/