American Association of Unprincipled Progressives

Irene Alter forwarded an excellent Mike Adams blog on Town Hall.com. Mike and I chatted a few times at the recent National Association of Scholars meeting that he describes. Over the years I have participated in a few tussles with the American Association of University Professors(AAUP), especially the former general secretary, Roger Bowen. Adams's points about the AAUP are accurate. They are full of double talk and have lied about helping conservatives for years. Cary Nelson, who participated in the NAS conference as an AAUP representative, continued the long standing policy of pretense.

Adams describes his own ordeal:

"That conclusion is based on years of bad experiences with the AAUP’s members – beginning with my first major free speech controversy after 911. Some readers may remember that the controversy began when a student charged me with libel for simply implying that her mass email blaming 911 on America was 'bigoted,' 'unintelligent,' and 'immature.'

"When the university announced that it would be necessary to read my private emails in search of evidence for this bogus libel charge I turned to the FIRE for help. No member of the AAUP contacted me about the case until one year after the incident. Curiously, when the AAUP member did finally comment on the case he claimed falsely (in an email to the entire faculty) that the university did not read my private email correspondence as I had claimed. He specifically accused the FIRE of circulating a false press release."

After giving several other examples of AAUP indifference to suppression of conservatives' speech, Adams concludes:

"The point here is not that every member of the AAUP is an unhinged bigot engaging in psychological projection. The point is that literally every time a member of the AAUP gets involved in a free speech case, the motivation is one of politics not principle. The debate always dwindles after the first AAUP 'contribution.'"

A few years ago Professor Rothman published an article showing that Democrats outnumber Republicans five to one in colleges. This was somewhat greater than other studies that found three to one. Bowen's response, as AAUP general secretary, was to slander Rothman's work. With a sample size in the thousands, Rothman's sample was better than most other social science research. But Bowen publicly and repeatedly stated that Rothman's study was flawed becase of the sample size.

Adams is courageous to stand up to university bias.