Mr. Horowitz created a document (The Academic bill of rights) that supposedly “efforts to protect student rights and intellectual diversity on campuses”.       Mr. Fish opposes many of the “injustices” that are afflicted upon the students as not being “injustices” at all.

Mr. David Horowitz starts out in his chronicle “In Defense of Intellectual Diversity” that the bills purpose is to codify the tradition of “the almost 100-year-old tradition of academic freedom that the American Association of University Professors has established” and to “emphasize the value of “Intellectual diversity” also “to enumerate the rights of students to not be indoctrinated or otherwise assaulted by political propagandists in the classroom or any educational setting”.  What Mr. Horowitz is saying is that he created the “Academic Bill of Rights” to insure the whole truth of education and not just the imbued half by a biased point of view.

Mr. Horowitz states that there are critics that have accused his bill of being “another right-wing plot” to stack faculties with political conservatives by imposing hiring quotas.  Horowitz then goes on in the next paragraph to say “Nothing could be further from the truth. The actual intent of the Academic Bill of Rights is to remove partisan politics from the classroom. The bill that I’m proposing explicitly forbids political hiring or firing: “No faculty shall be hired or fired or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of his or her political or religious beliefs.” The bill thus protects all faculty members – left-leaning critics of the war in Iraq as well as right-leaning proponents of it, for example – from being penalized for their political beliefs”.  By this he means that no one will be fired or hired due to their political partisanship because his bill prohibits that (it is also known as discrimination).  My question for him on this topic is: How will “Intellectual Diversity” be achieved when these bias teachers remain in that place of teaching if they still think the same and have those bias opinions?  How will you force them to change their way of thinking?  You will have to fire them because that is an installment in their brain and way of think.  You can’t take that away without taking away individuality and that sounds not only immoral but somewhat undemocratic.   

Mr. Horowitz declares that “By adopting the Academic Bill of Rights, an institution would recognize scholarship rather than ideology as an appropriate academic enterprise. It would strengthen educational values that have been eroded by the unwarranted intrusion of faculty members’ political views into the classroom.” This means that the teachers will be paid to teach the truth and not their own dirty bias opinions.  “That corrosive trend has caused some academics to focus merely on their own partisan agendas and to abandon their responsibilities as professional educators with obligations to students of all political persuasions. Such professors have lost sight of the vital distinction between education and indoctrination”, claims Mr. Horowitz. What he is saying in that last quote is that the teachers and professors have lost sight of what proper education really is and instead they are teaching their own opinions on the matter which is basically having a negative effect upon the students.

Mr. Horowitz listed the AAUP as one of the sources that he submitted his bill to for their rebuttal on it.  They stated that “the following protection for students is contained in the AAUP’s 1940 statement: “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.”” Mr. Horowitz replied “Is there a college or university in America – including the University of Colorado – where at least one professor has not introduced controversial matter on the war in Iraq or the Bush White House in a class whose subject matter is not the war in Iraq, or international relations, or presidential administrations? Yet intrusion of such subject matter, in which the professor has no academic expertise, is a breach of professional responsibility and a violation of a student’s academic rights.”   Mr. Horowitz is essentially saying that all of these colleges and universities in Americahave adopted this statement by AAUP and there are no professors that have followed by it. What says that they won’t treat his bill the same way?  Does he plan to invade the teacher’s privacy to enforce it?  Once again those microphones in a professor’s office are starting to sound just a tad unconstitutional.

In His article ““Intellectual Diversity” The Trojan Horse of a Dark Design” he says for it is now generally believed that our colleges and universities are hotbeds of radicalism and pedagogical irresponsibility where dollars are wasted, nonsense is propagated, students are indoctrinated, religion is disrespected, and patriotism is scorned.”  What Mr. Fish means by this is that that he finds it hard to believe that these professors can do all of this wrong (nonsense is propagated, students are indoctrinated, religion is disrespected, and patriotism is scorned) and still be paid for doing their jobs appropriately.

Mr. Fish says that  “they’re doing it again, this time by taking a phrase that seems positively benign and even progressive (in a fuzzy-left way) and employing it as the Trojan horse of a dark design. That phrase is “intellectual diversity,” and the vehicle that is bringing it to the streets and coffee shops of your hometown is David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights, which has been the basis of legislation introduced in Congress, has stirred some interest in a number of states, and has been the subject of editorials (both pro and con) in leading newspapers.” Mr. Fish is saying that Mr. Horowitz is taking this innocent bill and using it to manipulate universities.

In response to the topic of ideological criteria in Mr. Horowitz’s article Mr. Fish stated “It’s hard to see how anyone who believes (as I do) that academic work is distinctive in its aims and goals and that its distinctiveness must be protected from political pressures (either external or internal) could find anything to disagree with here. Everything follows from the statement that the pursuit of truth is a – I would say the – central purpose of the university. For the serious embrace of that purpose precludes deciding what the truth is in advance, or ruling out certain accounts of the truth before they have been given a hearing, or making evaluations of those accounts turn on the known or suspected political affiliations of those who present them.” Which in turn means that he agrees with Mr. Horowitz to an extent that these “truths” have been predetermined so that the students are not deprived of their education.

Some people say that that the line between the political and the academic is at times difficult to discern.  Mr. Fish says to keep these separate “the trick is to keep analysis from sliding into advocacy… it is nevertheless a line that can and must be drawn” and to draw this line, he “would go so far as to agree with Horowitz when he criticizes professors who put posters of partisan identification on their office doors and thus announce to the students who come for advice and consultation that they have entered a political space… But it is precisely because the pursuit of truth is the cardinal value of the academy that the value (if it is one) of intellectual diversity should be rejected.”  So Mr. Fish would criticize these partisan professors that cross over this “line that can and must be drawn” but, he would protect them by rejecting this “value of intellectual diversity”?

Horowitz lists among the purposes of a university “the teaching and general development of students to help them become creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic society.” Mr. Fish replies with “Teaching, yes – it is my job to introduce students to new materials and equip them with new skills; but I haven’t the slightest idea of how to help students become creative individuals… it is decidedly not my job to produce citizens for a pluralistic society or for any other.”  Mr. Fish is saying that it is not his responsibility to be a mother and teach his students right and wrong. I agree with Mr. Fish because a university is an academic facility and “Citizen building is a legitimate democratic activity, but it is not an academic activity”.

In conclusion these two men do not agree on much other than the truth. Why not just let the truth stand? Why not leave it alone and let it work its self out? There are many truths to an argument but no middle truth therefore, these two men will never completely agree because they side with opposing truths.