Abbreviation | AIA |
---|---|
Formation | 1985 |
Headquarters | Bethesda, Maryland, United States |
Key people |
|
Revenue (2016) | $91,600 [1] |
Expenses (2016) | $116,112 [1] |
Website | www.academia.org |
Accuracy in Academia (AIA) is an American organization that seeks to counter what it sees as liberal bias in education.
AIA describes itself as a nonprofit watchdog group [2] and think tank that "want[s] schools to return to their traditional mission-the quest for truth". [3] The AIA claims to promote academic freedom and is particularly critical of what it describes as a left-wing bias in American academia. [4] The AIA characterizes such bias as liberal or communist "indoctrination", and aims to stand up for the rights of politically conservative students and faculty.
The AIA was founded in 1985 by columnist Reed Irvine as an outgrowth of Accuracy in Media.
The AIA is run by executive director Malcolm Kline. [3] Its previous executive director, Daniel J. Flynn, was the author of the book Why the Left Hates America.
The group was criticized by prominent conservative and first Secretary of Education, William Bennett, who described AIA as "a bad idea" at the time of its founding in 1986. [5]
In 1985 the American Association of University Professors claimed that the AIA is a threat to academic freedom due to the group's efforts to recruit students to report professors alleged to "disseminate misinformation". [6] Some have described the AIA as a "useful irritant". [7]
Accuracy in Media (AIM) is an American non-profit conservative news media watchdog founded in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine.
Freedom House is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, with Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt serving as its first honorary chairpersons. Most of the organization's funding comes from the U.S. State Department and other government grants. It also receives funds from various semi-public and private foundations, as well as individual contributions.
David Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and activist. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website FrontPage Magazine; and director of Discover the Networks, a website that tracks individuals and groups on the political left. Horowitz also founded the organization Students for Academic Freedom.
The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions; the lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing conservative views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) is a progressive left-leaning media critique organization based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1986 by Jeff Cohen and Martin A. Lee. FAIR monitors American news media for bias, inaccuracies and censorship, and advocates for more diversity of perspectives in the news media. FAIR describes itself as "the national media watch group".
Academic freedom is the right of a teacher to instruct and the right of a student to learn in an academic setting unhampered by outside interference. It may also include the right of academics to engage in social and political criticism.
Florida House Bill H-837, also known as HB-837 or The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights, was a proposed bill in 2005 that would have allowed students to establish lawsuits against their professors and university for perceived intolerance of the student's beliefs. The bill could have also required professors to teach concepts that may have contradicted established facts, if the concept was considered a "serious scholarly" theory.
Young America's Foundation (YAF) is a conservative youth organization founded in 1969. In 2018, the Los Angeles Times called YAF "one of the most preeminent, influential and controversial forces in the nation's conservative youth movement." Scott Walker, former governor of Wisconsin and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, became President of YAF on February 1, 2021.
Claims of media bias generally focus on the idea of media outlets reporting news in a way that seems partisan. Other claims argue that outlets sometimes sacrifice objectivity in pursuit of growth or profits.
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America is a 2006 book by conservative American author and policy advocate David Horowitz. Contending that many academics in American colleges hold anti-American perspectives, Horowitz lists one hundred examples who he believes are sympathetic to terrorists and non-democratic governments.
The Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) is a document created and distributed by a branch of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a think tank founded by the conservative writer David Horowitz. A wide range of critics, representing a diverse range of academic viewpoints, have criticized it for infringing on academic freedom and described it as promoting an ideological agenda.
Liberalism in the United States is based on concepts of unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the separation of church and state, the right to due process, and equality before the law are widely accepted as a common foundation of liberalism. It differs from liberalism worldwide because the United States has never had a resident hereditary aristocracy, and avoided much of the class warfare that characterized Europe. According to American philosopher Ian Adams, "all U.S. parties are liberal and always have been. Essentially they espouse classical liberalism, that is a form of democratised Whig constitutionalism plus the free market. The point of difference comes with the influence of social liberalism and the proper role of government."
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is an American 501(c)(3) non-profit politically conservative education advocacy organization. It advocates against multiculturalism, diversity policies, and against courses focused on race and gender issues.
Academic bias is the bias or perceived bias of scholars allowing their beliefs to shape their research and the scientific community. It can refer to several types of scholastic prejudice, e.g., logocentrism, phonocentrism, ethnocentrism or the belief that some sciences and disciplines rank higher than others.
The political views of American academics began to receive attention in the 1930s, and investigation into faculty political views expanded rapidly after the rise of McCarthyism. Demographic surveys of faculty that began in the 1950s and continue to the present have found higher percentages of liberals than of conservatives, particularly among those who work in the humanities and social sciences. Researchers and pundits disagree about survey methodology and about the interpretations of the findings.
Professor Watchlist is a website, run by conservative advocacy organization Turning Point USA, that lists academic staff which Turning Point believes "discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom." It was launched in 2016 and had listed about 200 professors by December of that year. The website erroneously claimed that Hunter Biden would "assist in lecturing a course" at Tulane University in the fall semester of 2021.
Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a non-profit advocacy group of academics working to counteract what they see as a lack of viewpoint diversity on college campuses, especially political diversity. The organization was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, and Chris C. Martin. As of 2023, Heterodox Academy had about 5,000 members.
Neil Louis Gross is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology and chair of the department of sociology at Colby College. He is also a visiting scholar of New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge. He has written several books on sociological and political topics, and also blogs for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Gross edited the American Sociological Association's journal Sociological Theory from 2009 to 2015. He previously taught at the University of Southern California, Harvard University, Princeton University, and at the University of British Columbia.
Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University is a book-length study published in 2016 and written by Jon A. Shields and Joshua M. Dunn Sr. The study explored the question of the existence of a liberal or anti-conservative academic bias in the United States via interviews with 153 professors from 84 universities who identify as conservative.
Higher education in the United States is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. Higher education, also referred to as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education occurs most commonly at one of the 4,360 Title IV degree-granting institutions, either colleges or universities in the country. These may be public universities, private universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or for-profit colleges. US higher education is loosely regulated by several third-party organizations.