Bill of restrictions

If you're not alarmed at the College Republicans' proposed bill of "rights," keep reading. The measure may have enough signatures to be brought to referendum but only because its right-wing proponents haven't been straight about their true intentions.

If the College Republicans were honest, they would call their proposal a bill of restrictions. It is nothing short of an attempt to deny academic freedom and free speech to Princeton's students and faculty.

Surprised? Perhaps you have not yet read the proposal, which the College Republicans have failed to publicly release. Their "Student Bill of Rights" (SBOR), obtained by Free Exchange at Princeton, is indistinguishable in both language and content from the "Academic Bill of Rights" being rammed through state legislatures across America by ex-communist turned right-wing provocateur David Horowitz.

Like Horowitz, the SBOR's backers want to intimidate Princeton's professors from fulfilling their pedagogical responsibility: teaching according to their knowledge and abilities. Its proponents hope to keep new and challenging ideas out of the classroom (they single out "anti-religious indoctrination") and force in ideology instead. But a tiny cabal of close-minded conservatives shouldn't deny the majority of Princeton's undergraduates an education that expands our horizons by exposing us to fresh, and even controversial, material.

The SBOR's proponents demand that professors represent all views equally in every subject. Princetonians value hearing multiple viewpoints in class. According equal weight to every view on a topic, however, is neither feasible nor sensible. Should your ECO 101 professor have to "balance" her course by devoting half the semester to teaching Marxist economics? Should your EEB 211 instructor be bullied into elevating faith-based Biblical creationism to the level of empirical Darwinian science? Coercing faculty into devoting a set amount of time to teaching theories that all their years of study have refuted, which is exactly what this measure aims to instigate, would be akin to forcing Copernicus to teach that the Sun revolved around the Earth.

If your beliefs are so fragile that you would accuse any professor who presents an opposing viewpoint of "indoctrination," they aren't worth holding at all. The College Republicans' bill would create a hostile, combative environment in our classrooms, inhibiting everyone's ability to learn.

We came to Princeton to begin a lifelong quest for knowledge in fellowship with like-minded students and faculty. It would be a crime to stifle that free exchange of ideas because of partisan politics. Asheesh Kapur Siddique writes on behalf of Free Exchange at Princeton. He is a history major from Chevy Chase, Md., and can be reached at siddique@princeton.edu.