Dear Editor,
The Society for Intellectual Diversity (SID) seeks to initiate a campuswide dialogue on academic freedom and whether ETSU students are experiencing professorial bias and viewpoint discrimination in the classroom.
Faculty, students and staff of this university should all be involved in determining how to appropriately address this issue on our campus. It was my personal hope that Guy Kramer’s Oct. 9 article, “Biased Professors: Group claims political bias on campus,” would accurately address our intent, but he seriously failed to represent our mission accurately to the campus community. I assure the faculty, students and staff of ETSU that SID’s intent is appropriate.
We simply seek dialogue addressing this issue and want to ensure that the culture of excellence at ETSU includes the development of scholarly virtues, an emphasis on disinterested pedagogy, and respect for the diversity of thought addressing the issues of the day. Our constitution is available to anyone interested and it clearly states our purpose for the organization.
Kramer’s Oct. 9 article regarding professor bias on campus contained several misrepresentations of SID, its mission on campus and its focus on academic freedom. First and foremost, at no point during the interview with Kramer did I state that I or our group as a whole claimed professor bias in the classroom at ETSU. In fact I said the exact opposite: that no student had ever come to me and discussed or complained of professor bias in the classroom.
Furthermore, I am the only official member of the group Kramer interviewed for this article. Dr. Paul Kamolnick is our faculty adviser. Nevertheless, Kramer chose to run the sub-heading for his Oct. 9 article, “Group claims political bias on campus,” and obviously made this claim to some of the ETSU professors he interviewed.
Dr. Melvin Page’s comment regarding SID illustrates this point, (“the sorts of generic attacks this group is making .”). I am unclear about the “attacks” that SID made on any professor(s) at this institution. Furthermore, I reiterated to Kramer through a clarification e-mail that neither I nor SID was in any way making claims that students had experienced bias in the classroom at ETSU.
Second, I also clarified SID’s view of the grade appeals process at ETSU to Kramer (in the clarification e-mail). I stated that the grade appeals process at ETSU was sufficient for grade appeals. However, our interest is not in the end result of grades, unless the grade given in a course can be shown to be the result of professorial bias or viewpoint discrimination directed toward the student.
Our immediate concern is that students who may be experiencing perceived professorial bias and abuse of their freedom to learn do not at present have a sufficient formal process for lodging complaints or grievances related to an alleged abuse and/or bias. Spectrum, the ETSU student handbook, makes no provision for students to lodge grievances of professorial bias and viewpoint discrimination before the grade appeals committee, unless a grade dispute is involved. The question then becomes, what are students to do if they are experiencing bias and discrimination in the classroom regardless of the grading process?
Third, Kramer explained, “pamphlets distributed by the SID club draw heavily from the Students for Academic Freedom.” SID has never distributed any of these pamphlets to anyone on campus. The pamphlet is not a piece of our official or unofficial literature, nor is it involved in our intent to initiate a discussion of academic freedom at ETSU. These pamphlets were created by the David Horowitz student movement, Students for Academic Freedom, of which SID is not affiliated.
As I explained to Kramer in the clarification e-mail, he was given one of these pamphlets to help him understand Horowitz’s movement and not SID’s purpose on campus. Nevertheless, Kramer misrepresented this pamphlet as official SID literature to the campus community as evidenced by the various professor comments in the article. This was inappropriate and irresponsible journalism.
Fourth, as provided in the clarification e-mail to Kramer, SID is not at present campaigning for an Academic Bill of Rights or a Student Ombudsman position. SID will only support an Academic Bill of Rights and/or formal grievance procedure to address alleged bias and viewpoint discrimination after careful consideration of the issue as it relates to ETSU.
Significant student, faculty, and staff response to this issue is first required to ascertain the potential need and value of such a proposal on our campus.
In conclusion, the main point of creating SID and sponsoring the Horowitz event was to create campus dialogue and debate around the issue of academic freedom as it relates to ETSU.
Unfortunately for all involved, Kramer’s article failed to make that point.
Christopher Strode
Interim President, Society for Intellectual Diversity

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