Thursday, March 24, 2005

David Horowitz: Staunch defender of the beleaguered liberal academic. Whaaaaaaa ... ?


So, I guess it's time to start digging through the mountain of submissions to the Canadian Cynic "David Horowitz IS fair and balanced, and you're just a mean man!" reader challenge, where we find ... oh, dear ... none. That's pretty disappointing, given the occasional commenter who insisted (standing there, arms akimbo, tapping his foot in obvious annoyance) that it wasn't about ideology. And yes, "Robbie" sweetie, I'm looking at you.

So, let me put you out of your misery and show you how real research is done. Did conservative uber-wingnut David Horowitz ever defend a liberal against conservative harassment? Ever. Ever, ever, ever. Ever. Well, according to this article published online while the shitstorm was raging around him, we can at least give Dave credit for acknowledging that such bias exists:

At Foothills [sic] College in California, a pro-life professor compared women who have abortions to the deranged mother Andrea Yates who drowned her six children. The professor then gave D’s and F’s to students who expressed opinions in favor of abortion. Abortion is a matter that is both profoundly controversial and also emotional, and involves the deepest and most personal values. It is also a matter of opinion. It is not the task of a professor to provide his students with politically correct opinions.

[CC note: Apparently, the correct name is "Foothill", not "Foothills" but numerous people (including me) have made that mistake, so I'm just trying to reduce future confusion.]


Wow. I think we can all agree that that's pretty appalling behaviour, so I'm assuming that our buddy Dave was all over that case like Michael Jackson on a 12-year old, right? Ehhhhhh ... not quite.

You'll notice that that article simply describes a case of anti-liberal bias -- it doesn't actually claim that Dave did anything about it. So let's let Google do the work to track down Horowitz's history with this incident, by searching on the combination of the phrases "Horowitz", "Foothills College" and "abortion". That should tell us everything we need to know, right? And what do we find?

Oooooh ... not so good. Only two hits from Horowitz's Front Page Rag site (I'll ignore the others for the moment), and both of them are simply links to the article above. So, according to Google, Horowitz's entire history with this alleged incident was to ... write about it after the fact in an attempt to look fair and balanced. Attaboy, Dave. Way to stick up for the little guy.

But perhaps we're being unfair. It can't hurt to give Dave the benefit of the doubt and actually do a Google search at his very own Front Page web site, for a combination of "Foothills College" and "abortion". Surely, we'll learn more about this egregious display of rampant conservative bullying and how Dave stepped in to save the day. And Google says ... oh, dear. One hit, and it's the same damned article, coming up over and over. This is so not good for Dave's reputation as a switch hitter. But wait! We're not quite done, and I am nothing if not fair.

Regular CC readers might recognize Foothill College as the site of one of Dave's poster children for academic, liberal bias, snivelling whiner and Young Republican Ahmad Al-Qloushi (described and eviscerated back here, remember?). And remember that Dave's adoring little gnomes, the Students for Academic Freedom, were all up in arms in defending Al-Qloushi. Perhaps, then, the SAF can fill us in on the details.

As a reference point, we can first see what the SAF had to say about Al-Qloushi via the appropriate Google search on their own site, where we find ... 14 hits. Yeah, I'd say that the SAF took that case pretty seriously. And the abortion case? Apparently, not so much. So, in the end, Dave and the Students for Academic Freedom can talk the talk, but they don't really walk the walk, do they?

Please tell me none of this surprises you.

BONUS TRACK: Just follow the link from CathieFromCanada. A bill that aims to stamp out "leftist totalitarianism." But in a fair and balanced and ideologically-neutral way, I'm sure.

SLIGHTLY EMBARRASSED UPDATE: I'm not sure how this didn't occur to me as I was Googling myself into a stupor but, given the appalling lack of corroboration for Horowitz's claim, it just occurred to wonder whether this incident even occurred. I mean, we've already established that Dave just plain makes up shit about left-wing bias in academia. What's stopping him from fabricating bias on the other side of the ideological spectrum, just so he can pretend being at least moderately fair and balanced? Wouldn't it be just a hoot if this story of Dave's was bogus as well?

To which end I have just e-mailed the SAF's national campus director Sara Dogan (Sara@StudentsforAcademicFreedom.org), asking her for anything she can provide to corroborate Horowitz's claim. To wit, the surprisingly diplomatic and non-snarky request from yours truly:

In an article at your web site, "Why an Academic Bill of Rights is Necessary," David Horowitz describes a case of alleged conservative bias against pro-choice students:

"At Foothills College in California, a pro-life professor compared women who have abortions to the deranged mother Andrea Yates who drowned her six children. The professor then gave D’s and F’s to students who expressed opinions in favor of abortion. Abortion is a matter that is both profoundly controversial and also emotional, and involves the deepest and most personal values. It is also a matter of opinion. It is not the task of a professor to provide his students with politically correct opinions."

I have searched both the SAF site and Horowitz's Front Page Mag site, and have Googled on appropriate keywords, but I am unable to find any supporting proof for this claim.

Can you supply some links to corroborate Horowitz's claim that this incident actually happened? And what SAF did about it when it learned about it? Thanks.

I think we can safely say that this is a perfectly reasonable request, unusual only in that I manage to refrain from calling anyone an "asshole". Enjoy it while it lasts, and I will fer shure let you know what I hear.

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