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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2007 > April > 11 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USClimate for diversity on campuses debated
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On the face of it, intellectual diversity seems like a goal everyone in education can agree on.
But when it’s the catch phrase for a proposed law that would require Georgia’s public universities to make yearly reports to lawmakers, intellectual diversity becomes controversial.
That was apparent Wednesday when the House Higher Education Committee heard testimony on House Bill 154, the intellectual diversity bill.
Supporters said it’s needed to protect college students from being chastised, intimidated and even threatened for their dissenting points of view.
Opponents consider the proposal needless political meddling.
College students recounted incidents they said occurred because of their conservative political beliefs.
David Kirby, publisher of the Georgia GuardDawg, a right-leaning student newspaper at the University of Georgia, said his newspaper’s boxes were vandalized.
“The response from the university, I thought, was interesting,” Kirby said. “There was no response.”
Ruth Malhotra, a graduate student at Georgia Tech, said that because of her activism at Georgia Tech “simply to go to class I need police patrols.”
Tech senior Orit Sklar said in a physics class in 2004 the professor asked students their picks for president and condemned those who chose President Bush.
“There’s a pattern of censorship, an environment of conformity at Georgia Tech,” Sklar said. She and Malhotra have sued Tech in U.S. District Court over its speech rules, student activity fee and a program that includes religious discussion while promoting tolerance for homosexuality.
But Tech sophomore Sarang Shah, a member of the school’s Young Democrats chapter, said “this free exchange of ideas already is going on. Georgia Tech is about a diversity of opinions.”
University System official Jim Flowers said the intellectual diversity bill was a solution looking for a problem. “There are 62.4 million opportunities to make somebody angry” if you count all the students attending class over four years, Flowers said. But in that time, he said, only 38 incidents have been reported. “It causes me to wonder where the fire is burning.”
“I started my day at Bible study at Georgia Tech, of all places,” Flowers told the lawmakers, challenging the notion that the state’s universities are liberal bastions unfriendly to different points of view.
His comments sparked a rebuke from Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta), who called Flowers’ statements “one of the most condescending presentations I’ve ever heard, and I don’t appreciate it.”
Cooper said that at Kennesaw State University a professor called all white people racists, and a student was harrassed to the point of considering suicide.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Tom Rice (R-Norcross), said all the legislation requires is that universities file yearly reports on what’s being done to ensure intellectual pluralism.
“We’re not attempting to micromanage,” Rice said. “It’s just good oversight.”
The bill won’t advance this year, but university officials and lawmakers will discuss the issue before the next legislative session begins.
“You and I will have a direct conversation with the chancellor on this issue,” Rep. Bill Hembree (R-Winston), the committee chairman, told Rice.
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