Megan Little's Instructor Page

As a student myself in Robert Jensen's J310 class this semester, I have seen him in action first hand each Tuesday and Thursday during his lectures. Even though it is early in the semester, I have not heard him once try to force his beliefs on any student. In fact, he challenges students to argue points made in class by himself, video interviews, and any text that is discussed in class. I find him to be very open and willing to hear each student that speaks out during class. It is always encouraged that we voice our opinions and let our stance on a situation be heard. In an interview that was linked to the course readings, Jensen states that if Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights were to be taken seriously, it would first hit hard in the McComb's Business school. This point was brought up also by a student in "The Firing Line-Opinion" article. These both are ways that take Horowitz's belief in the Academic Bill of Rights and change the direction towards an area he did not cover himself. Horowitz attacked professors clearly, but did not seem to make it too far after that.

Another student mentioned Horowitz's complete failure to interview students that had these professors (Cloud and Jensen) before he denounced them in his book. As I read through some of these articles, I came across one student who wrote in defense of Professor Dana Cloud. This student stated clearly that she may not have the same views as Cloud, but she respected her greatly as a Professor and considered her to be at the top of her own list of phenomenal professors she has encountered while obtaining college credit hours. She also mentioned that Professor Cloud never forced her own beliefs on students and always made discussions open to all points of view on issues discussed in class.

It is obvious that the claims made about Horowitz's book being ill-researched are true to the extent that students who have these professors do believe they are not trying to indoctrinate their beliefs throughout their course. If this book came with polls and statistics of people who considered each of these professors to be indoctrinating their political views throughout the course, it would be more credible. Unfortunately, it does not and these are just observations off syllabi from various courses. This is where Horowitz can be counter attacked and his argument against Professors such as Cloud and Jensen can be dismissed. He failed greatly to obtain solid facts about these professors himself. I wonder if he ever sat in a class debate during a lecture of one of the mentioned professors on his "dangerous" list? I seriously doubt it, but if he did, a personal observation of each of the professors on his list should have been included.

a. Longaker accuses Horowitz of committing the same crime he opposed in his own article: emphasizing one side of an argument without mentioning the other.
~Horowitz claims that “courses in rhetoric don’t address their proclaimed subjects” while failing to mention the basic principles of rhetorical theory Longaker claims are covered in all classes.
b. Longaker makes a hasty generalization of college syllabi when he says any college student knows the syllabi is a mere preview of what will be covered in the course. In reality, college syllabi are very diverse and range between single pages and large packets.
c. Longaker mentions Horowitz’s lack of educational degree but fails to acknowledge Horowitz’s other applicable degrees or lack thereof.
d. Longaker uses the argument that Horowitz is trying to trick the general public in order to make money to appeal to people’s emotions. He wants people to feel like they are being tricked into enhancing Horowitz’s monetary success if they agree with his article. This argument supposes that Horowitz does not care about students, which is ironic because the teachers who impose their beliefs on students do not care about their wellbeing either.
e. Longaker is careful not to discredit conservative critics altogether because then he too would appear one-sided. If he left out the comment about some conservative critics being legitimate, he would significantly lose credibility and discredit his own platform.
f. Longaker’s last comment about giving Horowitz an F and suggesting that the reader should also is intended to appeal to the reader’s emotions and remind the reader of the teacher’s authority. He encourages the reader with a team mentality: join our team, not his.

This argument against Horowitz, written by Quintanilla, is not effective in convincing it's reader of it's ideas. First of all, Quintanilla employs childlike tactics such as slander, calling Horowitz "a despicable person" and saying he is on "the side of the devil." These statements, instead of bringing the reader to agreement, give the reader pause while they consider how immature and extremely biased the writer is. While the writer does make several mature, valid points (like how the students are "not little school children"), the extremist nature of his personal attacks against Horowitz far outweigh the credibility of a few of his arguements.
While Quintanilla makes her position very clear, she does so in a manner that is convincing no one of this position. I would not have made this argument; a writer would be wise to, instead, go easier on the personal attacks and stick to just the facts. By presenting facts in accordance with their position, writers appear much more credible and less biased to a given reader. The strong bias present in Quintanilla's article makes it impossible for a reader not to second guess her [Quintanilla's] motives.

By reading 2 responses, Ms. Young's and Mr. Longaker's, I can see the contrast in writing, and Young becomes more believable.
While Longaker makes clear points concerning Horowitz's lack of real research and hands-on investigation, Young gives readers the option to agree or disagree by presenting the Honor Roll List and the Watch List. By condoning Horowitz's actions though, Young should have possibly given her own experience, or example of indoctrination happening at this point. It would have made for an even more believable argument.
The last sentence in Longaker's argument was fascinating. I'm interested in what he actually meant by "I'd give him an 'F'," because if he would issue an F based on solely the argument and not the grammer, structure, and writing, he is no better than the professors who are accused of indoctrination.

I read Dana Cloud's response to Horowitz and I thought she used good rhetoric in her rebuttal. She states how Horowitz is an "attack dog" and how he is full of cynical ideas and does not want students to think for themselves. She even gives a quote used by Horowitz at one of his lectures, which she attended, how he referred to Oprah Winfrey in an improper way (it was written in the rebuttal...I'd rather not say) and that racism was no longer a problem within the United States. His comment alone questions his credibility. I really like how Dana Cloud states that yes she is an activist, but outside of the classroom, and how even the most conservative students enjoyed and faired rather well in her class.

I read the article about YCT Creating A Professor Watch List. I think that the list that the chairman was trying to create is nothing different than pica prof. When a student uses pica prof they are able to look at a teachers grades from the previous semester and decide whether or not they want to take their course. If the teachers grades are mostly B's and above, the student is more likely to take the class rather than if the grades were mostly C's. The YCT was doing nothing different when they were trying to create a list of teachers that were teaching too biased. They were merely getting the opinions of other students that attend the University of Texas and taking their word for it. They also gave students that thought some teachers taught too conservative the opportunity to write that teachers name on the list as well. Therefore, the article about the YCT is harmless because each side was given an opportunity to give a teachers name to be put on the list.

I read Dana Cloud’s response to Horowitz and found a lot of important facts that he has clearly left out of his arguments. She titles her piece “Horowitz an attack dog for the right” which seems very accurate since he is out only to bash the progressive educators of today. In reading Cloud’s response, I think she did a good job of discrediting Horowitz by pointing out that we “don't see Horowitz calling on the McCombs School of Business to hire a labor leader or the economics department to hire enough Marxist economists to balance out the curriculum.” She is proving the point that Horowitz is being bias in his actions, since he never focused or talked about professors who are too conservative. I think Cloud made some excellent points in her response, especially when discussing the difference between critical thinking and indoctrination. She points out that the classroom is one of the few places where students “may be exposed to points of view not available in many mainstream outlets” and that all of us students can think for ourselves and have been encouraged to do so. I think that Dana Cloud has made some excellent arguments against Horowitz’s accusations and has showed the reader that although she may be an activist, she is only a Professor in the classroom.

I liked this response because Longaker is a teacher in one of the accused departments, so the reader can already expect that he might take Horowitz’s claims more personally than just anyone. Therefore, I was not surprised to find an ad hominem argument in the third paragraph of the response. I liked that he chose to close his response with giving Horowitz’s article an F. It is somewhat ironic that this is exactly the response Horowitz would expect since he claimed that people were being graded down if they wrote from an oppositional viewpoint in certain classes. The first two paragraphs of Longaker’s response refute the arguments Horowitz makes that support the “two universities” theory. Logos is the main focus of the first paragraph, since he states clear facts, such as “no such interdisciplinary degree exists.” The second paragraph is more of a focus on what Horowitz should have done to make his argument more valid, since he “doesn’t carefully investigate the classes or the people that he maligns.” He did a very good job of painting a really negative picture of Horowitz as both a person and as a claims maker. Overall, I think that the combination of ethos and logos in Longaker’s response greatly outweighs the “two university” article’s methodology. Horowitz messed with the wrong guy.

The author, Jon Pearson, claims Horowitz is a hypocrite, and the evidence given in the original article does not have enough merit to uphold a legitimate argument. Pearson heatedly and sarcastically portrays Horowitz as a debauchery of democracy throughout his rebuttal. Though Pearson seems passionate, he may lose some credibility though his sarcasm. This attitude towards Horowitz could be found more acceptable with a calmer perspective; however, more serious points made in the midst of this mockery contain greater persuasive effects. Pearson writes, “The University’s role in that society is to promote dialogue and discussion of even unpopular points of view” to express his definition on how he believes an institution should operate. Later, he suggests the University’s policies and procedures as a solution to refuting grades that are less than acceptable. Finally, Pearson attempts to thwart the “conservative agenda” with cocky remarks about the schools “Marxist” educational programs.

In reading this response to Horowitz's article I saw that Longaker made a point that Horowitz never spoke to students or any other faculty members. He never sat in on a class or did any in-depth research. All he did was look at a syllabus; and as Longaker states, any student knows that a syllabus does not even come close to explaining what will be happening in class. Yes, Horowitz may have creditability as an author, but he does not have enough evidence to fully make a claim about these classes if he has never experienced one himself. Longaker makes a good point by saying this because teachers may be more liberal but Horowitz himself has never seen or spoken to anyone that has said to be indoctrinated by a UT faculty member.