Shedding the intellectual straitjacket

Academic freedom has often become an opportunity for radical professors to proselytize students. Now the discussion is turning to academic freedom for students: the opportunity to hear a variety of viewpoints and present their own, without faculty intimidation | Lynn Vincent

As commencement orators or their ghostwriters write their speeches for graduations next month or in early June, bookings for liberals such as Sen. John Kerry and Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen outpace those for conservatives by 2-to-1. That ratio is smaller than usual, but a coalition of conservatives and moderates aims higher: Its goal is to have more college professors teaching students how to think rather than what to think.

Activist David Horowitz, along with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and hundreds of students and professors, are asking state legislators and Congress to push back against politics in the classroom. Mr. Horowitz, who recently helped launch a campus network called Students for Academic Freedom, teamed with Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) to push a measure called the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) through the U.S. House last month.