Criticism
A number of organizations representing a variety of political viewpoints have expressed pointed critique of both the ABOR's aims and its content.
One of the first organizations to come out in opposition to the bill was the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). While agreeing with the underlying principles of freedom, equality, and pluralism in the university community, the association said that the bill "infringes academic freedom in the very act of purporting to protect it."
Some individual academics regard the ABOR, along with the Santorum Amendment, as a threat to academic freedom. Others have suggested that the ABOR may allow students to claim discrimination when tested on evolution.
Moderate, libertarian, and conservative critics of the ABOR have asserted that it would open the door to a right wing version of the campus speech code. An article by David T. Beito, Ralph E. Luker and K.C. Johnson in the Perspectives magazine of the American Historical Association warned that the ABOR "could snuff out all controversial discussion in the classroom. A campus governed by the ABOR would present professors with an impossible dilemma: either play it safe or risk administrative censure by saying something that might offend an overly sensitive student."
The American Library Association also opposed the ABOR, with members approving a resolution stating that the Bill "would impose extra-academic standards on academic institutions, directly interfering in course content, the classroom, the research process, and hiring and tenure decisions."
A number of other groups have also opposed the ABOR, including the American Federation of Teachers, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), and others. A number of left-leaning groups, including Refuse and Resist, the AFL-CIO, SourceWatch, and more, have also expressed concern and criticism of the Bill, particularly warning against the regulatory oversight that the bill would place upon academic institutions, if passed.
Read more about this topic: Academic Bill Of Rights
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.”
—Laurence Steinberg (20th century)
“Good criticism is very rare and always precious.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)