28 June 2007 @ 11:18AM >> Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels misrepresented by The New York Times. Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, was also quoted in the Times piece on Indoctrinate U. Here’s his reaction:

I am, to say the least, disappointed by Joseph Berger’s column in The New York Times today concerning Evan Maloney’s film “Indoctrinate U” and free speech on campus in general. I have been corresponding with Joe for several weeks, and even had lunch with him this past Friday. I had hoped that after such extensive interaction, I had demonstrated to him that a serious and ongoing free speech problem exists on campus. I also hoped that I had convinced him that taking student fee funding away from a student newspaper for printing a controversial article is censorship. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

As for the article, I don’t know which is worse: that Berger uses the single example of Vassar College’s handling of a controversial article as a tool to refute the idea that there is a serious censorship problem on campus, or that he chose to praise the outcome of a case in which the school did, in fact, punish a student publication for what would be clearly protected speech outside Vassar’s gates.

[...]

As for using Vassar as the sole counterpoint to “Indoctrinate U’s” presentation of the illiberal academy, Berger cannot claim that he did not have enough examples. At his request, I sent him links to our entire case archive, our 2006 report on speech codes, summaries of our cases at Glendale Community College, Marquette University, SUNY Fredonia, Washington State University, the University of New Hampshire, and Hampton University, as well as our letter to Mayor Bloomberg and details about the Tufts case.

[...]

Despite all of this information, my major contribution to the piece seems to be that I “acknowledged that campus freedom of expression has improved since the low points of the 1990s.” This is my opinion, but I also said: (1) that the situation on campus with regards to speech is actually worse than it appears in “Indoctrinate U”; (2) that speech codes are paradoxically more common than ever; and (3) that I think that the improvement I refer to has been in no small part the result of the attention FIRE and our co-founders Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate have been able to bring to the problem on campus.

So, yes, I am disappointed. I enjoyed meeting Joe Berger, I liked him, I appreciated his interest in FIRE’s issues, but it seems that after spending hours getting him information about the very serious problems on campus, he left our meeting on Friday believing exactly what he believed when he came into the meeting—the problem on campus just ain’t that bad. It’s a shame, too. FIRE could use the help of the Gray Lady in fighting campus censorship, but apparently we’ll have to keep waiting.

27 June 2007 @ 8:28AM >> Today’s New York Times contains a discussion of Indoctrinate U and the issue of free speech on campus.

Most of the article was spent addressing cases that weren’t in the film, rather than addressing what was in the film. The author also claims that “professors, administrators and students say the national picture is far more complicated than that pictured in ‘Indoctrinate U,’” although I don’t know how they could know that, because none of those people actually saw the film.

One of the examples cited in the article (but not the film) was the case of a student paper published by Vassar’s Moderate, Independent and Conservative Student Alliance. It was an odd selection of cases if the point was to argue that there’s more “nuance” to reality than what is shown in Indoctrinate U, because a close inspection of this case shows that it actually backs up the thesis of my film.

The paper was de-funded and shut down for a year after publishing a piece criticizing the school’s funding of special “social centers” for minority and gay students. But because the paper was eventually allowed to start publishing again—the following year—the Vassar case is presented as one in which “[u]ltimately, free speech was respected.”

Sorry, but shutting down a paper for a year is not a benign event, and it is certainly not one in which we can say “free speech was respected.” If Homeland Security shut down the Times for a year after exposing ways that we track terrorist financing, I’m sure they’d understand my position on this.

Rather than address the multiple cases in the film where people were told to see school psychologists because they had the wrong set of views, rather than address the fact that people’s academic careers were put in jeopardy for things like being registered in the “wrong” political party, this piece ignores the evidence presented in the film to set up an alternative straw man to knock down.

And when the author finally gets around to discussing cases that are actually in the film, he minimizes them by leaving out the most vital information.

One student, he says, “underwent a daylong disciplinary hearing for posting a flier.” Actually, that student had the police called on him, he was ordered to see a psychologist, he was questioned by an attorney without being allowed to have one of his own, he was threatened with expulsion, and he was “convicted” by the university for an offense that they couldn’t even define when asked.

The student’s crime? Posting a flyer which promoted an upcoming speech by an author named Mason Weaver. It merely had a picture of him, the title of his book, and the date, time and location of the event. Yet university regarded the flyers as “literature of an offensive racial nature,” and used it to railroad a student whose views they didn’t like. This case lasted 18 months and ended up in federal court before the student finally prevailed.

I think all that amounts to a tad more than “a daylong disciplinary hearing.”

To be honest, I expected worse treatment from the Times. And being written about in the Times—even negatively—is probably better than being ignored, so on the whole, I’m happy that this piece ran.

But I just wish the author addressed cases that I actually covered in the film, rather than ones I didn’t.

26 June 2007 @ 10:13PM >> A reader recently sent me a link to a very well-done simulation that shows how political mapmakers analyze party registrations on a house-by-house basis to draw district boundaries favorable to keeping incumbents in office. The process, called gerrymandering, has been used by both parties over the years, and is proof that abusing power to extend power is a corruption of character not limited to any particular party or ideology.

There are few things that have the potential to unite Americans of all political persuasions, but ending practices like earmarks and gerrymandering should be among the top—if only they got sufficient attention.

25 June 2007 @ 1:28PM >> Multiculturalism is an ideology that prefers to think of people as members of groups rather than individuals. It also rejects integration, which leads to separate communities living by their own rules within the same society. The logical result of this is that Islamic law is applied in Western nations, something that’s been happening with frightening regularity in the West lately. And according to this study, there is increasing support among young Muslims for Sharia law being implemented in Britain:

Young British Muslims are more likely than their elders to support Shari’a law and admire al-Qaida, but three-fifths of 16-to 24-year-olds say they have as much in common with non-Muslims as with Muslims, according to an opinion poll published on Monday.

The survey, entitled “Living Together Apart: British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism” and carried out by UK think tank Policy Exchange, found evidence that young Muslims held more fundamentalist beliefs on key social and political issues than those over age 55.

Forty percent of Muslims between aged 16 to 24 said they would prefer to live under Shari’a law in the UK, compared to only 17% of those over 55. Thirty-six percent of the younger group said a Muslim who converted to another religion should be “punished by death,” while only 19 percent of the older group agreed.

[...]

“There is clearly a conflict within British Islam between a moderate majority that accepts the norms of Western democracy and a growing minority that does not,” she added.

Shahid Malik, a Labor member of Parliament who is a Muslim, said, “This report makes very disturbing reading and it vindicates the concern many of us have that we’re not doing enough to confront this issue.

“For years, I have argued that the [far right] British National Party is a white phenomenon which it is up to the white community to address.

Well, extremism exists in the name of Islam, and that’s something the Muslim community has to take leadership on. It’s my view that the mainstream umbrella Muslim organizations have not risen to the challenge and don’t accept the depth of the problem that’s facing them.”

21 June 2007 @ 10:06AM >> MSNBC took a detailed took at political contributions made by reporters and found some numbers that, to me anyway, aren’t terribly surprising:

[We] identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

[...]

The pattern of donations, with nearly nine out of 10 giving to Democratic candidates and causes, appears to confirm a leftward tilt in newsrooms — at least among the donors, who are a tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation.

The donors said they try to be fair in reporting and editing the news. One of the recurring themes in the responses is that it’s better for journalists to be transparent about their beliefs, and that editors who insist on manufacturing an appearance of impartiality are being deceptive to a public that already knows journalists aren’t without biases.

“Our writers are citizens, and they’re free to do what they want to do,” said New Yorker editor David Remnick, who has 10 political donors at his magazine. “If what they write is fair, and they respond to editing and counter-arguments with an open mind, that to me is the way we work.”

The openness didn’t extend, however, to telling the public about the donations. Apparently none of the journalists disclosed the donations to readers, viewers or listeners. Few told their bosses, either.

Several of the donating journalists said they had no regrets, whatever the ethical concerns.

“Probably there should be a rule against it,” said New Yorker writer Mark Singer, who wrote the magazine’s profile of Howard Dean during the 2004 campaign, then gave $250 to America Coming Together and its get-out-the-vote campaign to defeat President Bush. “But there’s a rule against murder. If someone had murdered Hitler — a journalist interviewing him had murdered him — the world would be a better place. As a citizen, I only feel good, as a citizen, about getting rid of George Bush, who has been the most destructive president in my lifetime. I certainly don’t regret it.”

Ah yes, the fine reporter would have killed President Bush—who is just like Hitler—but darn it, that’s illegal. So instead he gave $250 to a left-wing group.

[Note: After publishing this post, a reader pointed out that the Mark Singer quote I originally cited no longer reflected the quote contained in the article on the MSNBC website. However, the Wayback Machine indicates that the original version of the MSNBC article was as I quoted it.]

There’s a longstanding tradition that journalists don’t cheer in the press box. They have opinions, like anyone else, but they are expected to keep those opinions out of their work. Because appearing to be fair is part of being fair, most mainstream news organizations discourage marching for causes, displaying political bumper stickers or giving cash to candidates.

Appearing to be fair is about as related to being fair as appearing to be pregnant is to actually being pregnant. A woman I know was once asked how far along her pregnancy was. She wasn’t pregnant. And she was not amused.

If Mark Singer had not contributed $250 to America Coming Together, he would appear to be more fair. But in the absense of that contribution, he would still be a journalist who implies that President Bush should be murdered because he’s morally equivalent to Hitler.

Sure, Singer might appear more fair, but would you trust him to actually be fair?

Me neither.

---

Related: A study on party affiliation of New York Times editorial staffers.

20 June 2007 @ 5:33PM >> In today’s New York Post, film critic Kyle Smith interviews me about Indoctrinate U, which he declares “alarming and funny.”

20 June 2007 @ 8:18AM >> As Hollywood gears up the hype machine to promote Michael Moore’s most recent political advertisement, it would be wise to remember that entrusting your health to government bureaucrats does have its risks. A look at Canada’s government-run system shows what happens to those who fall through the cracks: permanent, life-altering damage or even death.

Free Market Cure, a newly-launched website, provides some facts you might not see in Moore’s film. The site already contains four short videos covering healthcare issues, with more to come.

19 June 2007 @ 8:55AM >> The Washington Times reports that Pakistan is condemning Britain’s decision to grant knighthood to author Salman Rushdie. You may recall that Rushdie’s 1988 novel The Satanic Verses led to an Iranian fatwa being issued against him that ordered his death.

This leads to the Quote of the Day, courtesy of Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Minister:

The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body, he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the ’sir’ title.

In other words, do what we say—and don’t accuse us of being terrorists!—or we’ll blow you up.

As the Washington Times report indicates, this sentiment has some support:

In the eastern city of Multan, hard-line Muslim students burned effigies of Queen Elizabeth II and Mr. Rushdie. About 100 students carrying banners condemning the author also chanted, “Kill him. Kill him.”

Remember this next time someone tries to tell you that it is our foreign policy that creates terrorism. In reality, the Jihadists want the rest of the world to bow down before their demands.

This war will end in one of two ways: the Jihadists will be defeated, or the world will be ruled by Sharia law. Odds are, we’ll be gone long before this battle for civilization is over.

Update: More thoughts here, from Flemming Rose, the editor of the Danish newspaper whose publishing of cartoons containing images of Mohammed sparked worldwide violence.

18 June 2007 @ 8:07AM >> Last year, the British Broadcasting Corporation commissioned a report to investigate whether its coverage is biased. The report, which is now complete, has concluded that the BBC “failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff.”

London’s Telegraph reports:

The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.

It reads: “There is a tendency to ‘group think’ with too many staff inhabiting a shared space and comfort zone.”

A staff impartiality seminar held last year is also documented in the report, at which executives admitted they would broadcast images of the Bible being thrown away but not the Koran, in case Muslims were offended.

On that last point, BBC executives are simply responding to (and perpetuating) the reality that has become clear in the last few years: the amount of respect shown to a given religion is directly proportional to the amount of violence members of that religion commit when they feel disrespected.

13 June 2007 @ 4:47AM >> Yesterday, I was a panelist on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now discussing Congressional earmarks and pork-barrel spending.

As is often the case on those prime-time news shows, you go in with enough discussion ideas to fill an entire hour. And then you find yourself in a short segment with enough time to cram in a few sentences in before the music starts getting louder and the producers whisk you off the set.

So I didn’t get a chance to mention Porkbusters and their fight to bring greater transparency to government spending. Porkbusters’ current campaign is to reform the use of legislative amendments called earmarks.

Earmarks allow Congressmen to load up bills with unrelated spending items without revealing to the public who inserted them or why. Politicians use earmarks to steer taxpayer money to special interests and pet projects in their districts. And although it’s not always the case, earmarks all too often waste money on things that are of dubious value or just plain illegal.

Right now, nearly $20 billion dollars in taxpayer money is allocated each year through earmarking. Split that up among all American working-age adults, and your personal share of the earmark bill is over $100. Every year.

Using taxpayer money to do favors for supporters and act like Santa Claus to various voting blocs must be quite a tempting proposition for politicians, especially if they can be sure nobody ever finds out. And that’s exactly why the party in power—whichever it may happen to be—probably won’t be dismantling this incumbency protection racket any time soon.

Most Americans—regardless of party or ideology—understand that the current system is corrupt. So the out-of-power Republicans get a chance to sound noble and score political points even though they had 12 years to fix the problem but didn’t. And Democrats, who made such grand promises when gaining control of Congress last fall, have been reminded of how politically useful earmarks can be. When it comes to preserving the status quo on earmarks, it seems the two parties always disagree. It’s just that their positions keep flipping depending on whether they’re in or out of power.

Congressman David Obey—the Democrat responsible for shepherding earmarks through the House—has decided he’s been so overwhelmed with earmark requests that he won’t be able to make them public for months. Conveniently, he’s pledging to make the earmarks public only after they’ve been attached to bills and can’t be removed, and just before the bill comes up for a final up-or-down vote. With tens of thousands of little earmarks attached to lots of unrelated bills, the public will have no time to debate or even discover the earmarks. If particularly malodorous provisions are found in a bill, by the time enough people become aware of the problem to oppose it in any organized fashion, the voting will have already happened.

Effectively, Congressman Obey’s excuse is that because his colleagues are making so many special spending requests—some 36,000 so far this year, more than double last year’s figure—he can’t get all his work done in time. Congress routinely churns out multi-thousand-page bills without breaking a sweat, but now that taxpayers are asking for a little transparency, it’s too much effort to comply in any meaningful way. But at least Congress has the courtesy to tell us after it no longer matters.

Obey’s feeble rationale for keeping information from voters and taxpayers inspired this novel idea from Porkbusters:

To House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey:

I read with interest news reports that you may only include earmarks in last-minute, un-amendable conference reports, as opposed to amendable House appropriations bills, because you and your staff reportedly need “extra time to evaluate the 36,000-plus earmark requests members have submitted to the Appropriations Committee this year.”

You have also been quoted you as saying: “I think we have a helluva lot more ability [to root out bad earmarks] than the individual working alone.”

Chairman Obey, I share your concern about unworthy projects receiving federal funding due to a lack of careful and thoughtful evaluation, and I agree that one individual working alone would have a very hard time completing this task in a timely manner.

Therefore, I would like to personally volunteer my time to help you and your staff in evaluating this year’s earmark requests.

As you know, Internet technology has made research faster and easier than at any previous time in human history. By releasing your 36,000 earmark requests publicly, I and other taxpayers across the country could work together in a cooperative effort to determine which Members of Congress may have financial conflicts attached to their earmark requests, which local projects may be unworthy of federal funding and which may have value to the taxpayers.

Under the threat of incarceration, we fund Congress’s earmarks whether we like it or not. So it is not unreasonable to demand transparency in government spending. After all, it’s our money to begin with.

And considering that the IRS routinely subjects citizens to rather unpleasant experiences in forced transparency—tax audits—we have to ask: why is our government held to a lower standard than we are?

12 June 2007 @ 1:36PM >> Did you know that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq had ties to terrorists? It’s true!

Don’t believe me?

Just ask Al Gore. (One of the previous iterations, that is.)

12 June 2007 @ 9:59AM >> I will be on a panel discussing Congressional earmarks, pork-barrel spending, and socialized medicine. It doesn’t sound like I’ll get a chance to plug my film, but apparently Michael Moore’s new celluloid fellation of Fidel Castro will be one of the topics covered.

The show airs between 8PM and 9PM ET. I’m not sure when this particular segment will appear.

Update: The producers needed to trim some fat from the schedule, so we won’t be discussing Michael Moore or socialized medicine.

8 June 2007 @ 6:13PM >> The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is an organization that defends the free speech and free thought rights of professors and students alike, regardless of religion, ideology, or the popularity of the opinions under attack. FIRE is to college campuses what the ACLU used to be to society at large.

Greg Lukianoff, FIRE’s president, recently offered me the opportunity to post a message to The Torch, the organization’s blog:

When I came up with the idea to do a documentary about the suppression of speech on college campuses, literally the first phone call I made was to FIRE. That was before I’d ever even picked up a digital video camera, so I really had no business thinking I could make a film. A lot of people seemed to agree.

There’s more over at The Torch.

7 June 2007 @ 2:57PM >> The Washington Times covers Indoctrinate U.

3 June 2007 @ 1:39PM >> On Friday, the 20,000th person requested a screening of Indoctrinate U. And yesterday, another positive review of the film was published, this time in the Rocky Mountain News, courtesy of columnist Linda Seebach who called the film “excellent.”

I will take those two developments as an excuse to kick back and relax a bit. Posting may be light during the upcoming week. (Then again, blogging is an addiction with severe withdrawal symptoms, so we’ll see...)

Update: An e-mailer asks the current count of screening requests: 21,255 as of this writing on Sunday afternoon.