A bill in the legislature requiring Indiana's public universities to adopt an Academic Bill of Rights will not affect Ball State's academic freedom, provost and vice president for academic affairs said.
"I don't think it means a change for Ball State," Beverley Pitts, said. "I think it grows out of a political agenda and a misconception of the way higher education works."
House Bill 1531, introduced by Luke Messer, R-Shelbyville, would have each of Indiana's public universities' Board of Trustees compile academic guidelines based on the ideas presented in the bill.
Such guidelines include grading students on their subject knowledge and not their personal beliefs and exposing students to a variety of scholarly views, according to the bill.
However, similar guidelines already exist at Ball State in the university's student code and faculty handbook, Pitts said.
"We already have a system where students have ample opportunity to express concerns they're having in the classroom and a due process for that," she said.
Forcing the Board of Trustees to create a new set of guidelines would be redundant and is something they don't typically deal with, Pitts said.
Messer declined to comment on issues regarding the bill.
The Board of Trustees hires the university president and handles fiscal matters whereas curriculum and academic issues are left up to the faculty, Randy Hyman, dean of students, said.
Although the bill's guidelines appear to prevent student indoctrination, the wording is vague, irrelevant and confusing, Hyman said.
"I don't think the issue is worthy of addressing or necessary," he said. The ideas are items that most faculty believe in anyway so it is only telling them to do something they already do, Hyman said.
The bill is derived from the Students for Academic Freedom, a national organization sponsored by conservative activist David Horowitz, editor of Front Page Magazine. The organization previously charged George Wolfe, director of the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, with endorsing liberal ideologies and having terrorist sympathies.
"We're confusing liberal politics with liberal education," Wolfe said. The idea behind a liberal education is for students to be exposed to a broad range of subjects but liberal politics deals with what is in vogue with a political party at a particular time, he said.
"David Horowitz and the Students for Academic Freedom are little more than propaganda artists," Wolfe said.
The Daily News was unable to contact Amanda Carpenter, a member of the Ball State chapter of SAF and Brett Mock, president of the SAF chapter, could not comment because he is currently an intern at the State House.
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