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For Immediate Release
April 04, 2006
Contact: Elizabeth Ruiz
310-422-8949
Elizabeth@cspc.org
Press Conference to Announce K-12 Academic Bill of Rights
At a special press conference at 11:00am on Friday, April 7, Pennsylvania legislator Sam Rohrer will announce that he is considering legislation that would create an Academic Bill of Rights for K-12 schools in his state. Representative Rohrer is the chairman of the subcommittee on K-12 education of the Pennsylvania House. The press conference will also include the presentation of an award by David Horowitz to Colorado high school student Sean Allen whose recording of an anti-American rant by his geography teacher, Jay Bennish, created a national furor over classroom indoctrination.
This press event is part of Students for Academic Freedom’s First National Academic Freedom Conference which will take place April 6-7, 2006, at the Washington Court Hotel. The conference will also feature a debate between David Horowitz and University of Colorado-Boulder Professor Ward Churchill moderated by radio talk show host Alan Nathan of “Battle Line”.
The conference will also feature former U.S. Secretary of Education and current U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander and House Leader Jack Kingston. The conference (apart from the debate) and the K-12 press conference will be held at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, DC.
The theme of the conference is "Take Politics Out of the Classroom."
“The political abuse of our university classrooms has garnered great attention in recent years, but these violations of academic freedom are rampant in our elementary and high schools as well,” said David Horowitz, the chairman of Students for Academic Freedom. “Any political rant in a classroom is an unprofessional abuse of students. It’s time to take politics out of the classroom and put education back in.”
The Horowitz/Churchill debate will be held at 8pm Thursday evening in the Jack Morton Auditorium on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, DC on the topic “Can Politics Be Taken Out of The Classroom, and Should It Be?” Young America’s Foundation and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture are the co-hosts of the debate. FoxNews will be covering the debate on its show Hannity & Colmes and C-SPAN will be filming the event.
More information including a schedule and a list of confirmed speakers are
available at www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org. Registration for the conference
is free for students, interns, non-profit and legislative staffers, educators,
and the media, and only $75 for the general public. To register for the conference,
please contact Elizabeth Ruiz at 310-422-8949 or at Elizabeth@cspc.org. Reporters
wishing to cover the Horowitz vs. Churchill debate must bring media credentials
with them to gain entry to the debate.
David Horowitz is the chairman of Students for Academic Freedom (SAF) and Parents and Students for Academic Freedom (PSAF), both part of a national movement to promote intellectual diversity and to restore educational values to America’s institutions of higher learning and K-12 schools. The organization recommends that educational institutions adopt an Academic Bill of Rights to ensure that these principles are respected. The K-12 Academic Bill of Rights is available on the PSAF website at www.psaf.org.
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