Academic freedoms said to be stifled in areas beyond science

Christian Examiner staff report

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — The April 18 release of the Ben Stein documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” may be highlighting accusations of widespread censorship involving Intelligent Design, but professors and attorneys say the bias goes much wider.

“For every hole we plug, one or two pop open,” Nate Kellum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said. “We are dealing with situations all across the country.”

Kellum, who works in ADF’s Center for Academic Freedom, said the academic bias involves “any thought, any idea that would cut across the grain of the leftist view.

“They exalt the idea of tolerance,” he said. “There is absolutely no tolerance...”

“The problem with public universities today is that it’s departed largely from what it was supposed to be—a place to teach students to think, a marketplace for ideas,” Kellum said. “Instead, what we see today is more of a place of indoctrination, an incubator for leftist thought. They have very little patience for any view other than their own...”

Christians and science
Paul Nelson, a biology professor at Biola University, agrees, calling the practice “old fashioned bullying.” Nelson was among numerous academics who were interviewed and featured in the Expelled movie.

“It runs right across all the disciplines,” he said. “Dissension on some topics is just not tolerated.

Even so, he said he’s most personally acquainted with censorship involving Intelligent Design and science.

“There is a view that science and religious faith are inherently hostile to each other,” he said. “I think that is not historically accurate and reflected in the scientists that I know best in 2008. Within the current science community I know many first-rate scientists who are devoutly religious believers.”

He also cited the Christian faith of scientists he labeled as Hall of Famers: Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Louis Pasteur and Georges Cuvier...

Arrest threat
Evan Coyne Maloney, a documentary filmmaker who last year began holding screenings for his full-length work, “Indoctrinate-U,” said Stein’s movie will further elevate debate on the issue.

“The real way to fix the problem isn’t to legislate against it but to continue to expose the intolerance of intellectual freedom,” said Maloney, whose film also explores political correctness and speech codes on a wide variety of topics, including the treatment of the military, conservatives and racial and ethnic policies.

In several instances, Maloney was ordered off of university campuses under threat of arrest. In February, members of the Los Angeles-based pro-life group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, were arrested for the third time at Cypress College for distributing literature outside of a “free speech zone.” Although the earlier arrests were dismissed by the District Attorney’s office, the students have filed a civil lawsuit against the College.

“If people become aware of the situation within the schools which they are affiliated, they might not be inclined to write that check,” Maloney said. “Merely asking the questions and speaking out will rectify a lot of these situations...”

“I discovered very quickly on that there was a severe double standard on campus,” he said. “At orientation they would stress tolerance and diversity, but while I was there, there was very little tolerance for intellectual diversity.”

“It was the time when political correctness and speech code, used to stifle open debate, were bursting into the national consciousness...”

OK, someone please tell me again how todays institutions of "higher education" are teaching and NOT indoctrinating! Please tell me again how they are the true bastions of tolerance, free thought and expression. Those on the left like to SAY that they are the open-minded, tolerant, and protectors of free speech, but in reality it only applies if you agree with them.