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In 1798, the Federalist Party of a young United States issued the Alien and Sedition acts, an article of legislation aimed partly at eliminating the threat of subversive written material. The conservative Federalists viewed the rise of French-born liberalism as a poison that could taint the sanctity of American democracy. Now, some 200 years later, the benign-sounding American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), has undertaken a similarly paranoid campaign to eradicate what it perceives as “un-American” sentiment.
Following Sept. 11, the seemingly well-intentioned group claimed in its “Defending Civilization” report that, “our universities are failing America.” The report cites the names of several academics who, according to ACTA, violate the standards of American higher education and promote unpatriotic values. In this latest resurrection of McCarthyism, the ACTA has comprised the integrity of both the First Amendment's protection of free speech and their own mission statement. Established in 1995, ACTA was designed to serve as an important resource for institutions of higher learning nationwide. Its co-founders, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Lynne Cheney, purported to support academic freedom and open-mindedness in their mission statement. The aforementioned report is a clear act of hypocrisy on the ACTA’s part. It wastes no time in unleashing its vitriol upon the academic community at large, attacking professors who dare to even question the need for war in Afghanistan. It would seem that the American Council of Trustees and Alumni is not the noble association it claims to be. Its foundations lie in a rhetoric that is both intolerant and overtly nationalistic. The ACTA gives no provision for any sort of intellectual freedom. Rather, it merely attack those educators who wish to inspire free thought from their students. This
editorial comes from the Michigan Daily at the University of Michigan.
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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