Against all odds, I was awake at 9 am on a Sunday morning to attend day two of the Second Annual Academic Freedom Conference. Unfortunately for David Horowitz, it seems like no one else decided to get out of bed. More than 200 people attended the start of the conference yesterday -- which, it is important to note, had an open bar -- but only 25 people showed up today, and most of them were members of panels or friends of David Horowitz. One of the panelists even chose to sleep in, forcing an embarrassing moment when Horowitz had to frantically search for a replacement speaker.
The first panel on faculty and administration "harassment" was basically an excuse for students to complain about professors who dared to express their political opinions. With a whole conference set up to combat the problem, you'd think there would be dozens of people ready to share their experiences, if not more. Horowitz, though, was only able to find eight people (including one who decided not to show up) who had anything to close to first hand experience of the issue. And even within this group, most didn't even have a real grievance with a professor, but were just reacting to rumors of liberal bias or just random people on campus:
Matt Sanchez, fighting the good fight against the International Socialist Organization, which is apparently synonymous with the administration of Columbia University.
Michael Abdurakhmanov, got into yelling match with the Muslim Students Association, blames Pace University.
Matt Ferrar, angry about the evil liberal professors that he's never had, angrier than the people who actually had these professors and who didn't feel the need to show up forth is conference.
Logan Fischer, pissed off that teachers might express their political opinions when they are not in class.
Jason Walter, skipped a class two days a week to go to ROTC training, is now angry that his professor gave him a D for the semester.
Ruth Malhotra, sued Georgia Tech because it was constraining her Christian duty to speak out against homosexuality, is now fighting the "Conservatives and Liberals Against Malhotra."
Brad Alexander, disagreed with his history teacher, who had the audacity to say that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
So, at a conference centered around the evils of liberal professors, David Horowitz wasn't even able to find one concrete and credible example of the problem. Maybe things will be better next year.
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