Follow up: Academic Bill of Rights under fire

The Academic Bill of Rights is coming under fire in Pennsylvania. (Click here to read the post about what the SHU CRs learned about Academic Freedom at the convention this weekend.)

The claim is that students have imposed their own biases on their teachers. Another case of "seeing what you want to see" and "hearing what you want to hear." This recent claim refutes the ideas that teachers indoctrinate on purpose.

The authors of the study say that it backs the claims of proponents of the Academic Bill of Rights that students think about � and are in some cases concerned about � the politics of their professors. But the authors also say that the study directly refutes the idea that students are being somehow indoctrinated by views that they don�t like. �Students aren�t simply sponges,� says April Kelly-Woessner, part of the husband-and-wife team of political scientists who wrote the study. Further, she adds that the study suggests that not only do students not change their views because of professors, but may even �push back� and judge professors based on politics, not merit. - via insidehighered.com

The two papers composing the research will be presented this week at a legislative hearing in Pennsylvania �College is not Club Med. As instructors, we ought not to refine our pedagogy exclusively for the purpose of making students comfortable or improving course evaluations,� write Kelly-Woessner, who teaches at Elizabethtown College, and Matthew Woessner, who teaches at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg.

Click below to read the specific "findings" of the research.

The following is directly quoted from the article "The Real BIas in the Classroom" from insidehigheredu.com:

In the research being published in PS: Political Science & Politics, findings included the following: