AKADEMISCHE FREIHEIT

Accuracy in Media, the incomparable media watchdog, recently received a report about an English professor at a large state university telling his students that there is more injustice in America than there was in Nazi Germany. This is not an isolated example of radicals who mold the minds of America's future. AIM has now founded "Accuracy in Academia," which will enlist the help of students to monitor problem courses and take up publicly such examples of brainwashing.

The timeliness of this step is evident not only from the strong and immediate response by students and faculty, but also from the outcry by the wounded hypocrites who fear public debate. "Snoops in the Classroom" cried the Fresno Bee; "Classroom Thought-Police?" the Des Moines Register. Here, then, a few events ignored by the Shining Knights of Academic Freedom:

In February 1983, the stormtroopers of Berkeley made it impossible for Jean Kirkpatrick to make herself heard and forced her to leave the lecture hall; in March she was barely able to make herself heard at the U. of Minn. over the heckling by students who, most appropriately, carried Nazi banners; in May, she was to deliver the commencement speech and to receive an honorary degree at Smith College, but had to cancel after she was informed that order at the ceremony could not be guaranteed by Schmidt Kollege. In November 1983 Caspar Weinberger was repeatedly prevented from speaking at the Law School of Harvard Hochschule (university), and a panel sponsored by the Black Law Students Association at the same training barracks refused to allow members of another law students' association to question a representative of the PLO. The reason was one well known to Europe of the 1930s: the Association was that of Jewish Law Students.

This is but a very brief extract of how the stormtroopers are enforcing Akademische Freiheit, uncurbed by their administration or faculty, and cheered by the campus press. (I am proud to be a member of University Professors for Academic Order.)

But there is worse. Scientific and other organizations, quick to denounce the South African segregationists, are resuming relations with the Soviet murderers. The ABA has reopened cordial relations with the Soviet Lawyers' association, whose "defense" counsels are puppets of the prosecution; the AMA maintains relations with their official counterparts who torture dissidents in psychiatric hospitals and instruct their students in civil defense while they applaud, for foreign consumption, the Sagan-Ehrlich line that there is no defense against nuclear attack. The Inst. of Electrical and Electronic Engineers severed relations with the Popov Society when Afghanistan was invaded and Sakharov exiled. Now that Afghanistan has become a nightmare of genocide, and Sakharov has been arrested, force-fed, drug-"treated" and not seen alive since February, the IEEE is sending delegations to Moscow to consider resuming relations. (As a Fellow of the IEEE, I have lodged a protest with its President and urge members of all such inconsistent professional societies to take corresponding action.)

The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS), too, is negotiating. In May of this year, Prof. Joseph L. Birman of City College, New York, took part in a scientific seminar of Soviet scientists, the "Moscow Science Seminar," many of whose members have been fired for their political opinions or applying to emigrate, and which has to meet in private apartments.

"Two vice presidents of the Acad. Sci. of the Soviet Union (ASSU)," reports Birman, "...let it be known that all the ASSU officers participating in the NAS negotiations were awaiting pressure from the NAS officers on Human Rights. There was no such pressure. The ASSU has interpreted the unexpected absence of Human Rights demands as a clear signal that the NAS has no interest in these matters.

[More. On Accuracy in Academia: AIM Report, August-A, 1985, 1275 K St. NW/# 1150, Wash., DC 20005 ($15/yr); "The Big Chill: A Report Card on Campus Censorship," by D. Brock, Policy Review, Spring 85 (very good, but by no means complete); UPAO address: 635 S.W. 4^th St., Corvallis, OR 97333; Prof. Birman's report was obtained by courtesy of Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, 1411 K St. NW/#402, Wash., DC 20005.]