By Bruce Kauffman  

PUBLISHED: March 23, 2005 at 3:00 AM PST 

SAN MARCOS —— About 300 people, many with their mouths gagged to protest potential censorship —— gathered at Cal State San Marcos on Tuesday to debate whether a proposal called the “student bill ofrights” would promote freedom on campus or curtail it.

The measure, Senate Bill 5, filed Dec. 5 by Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, aims to put into state law that students be graded solely on “reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge” of the subjects being studied, among other things.

The audience, filling the stairs that overlooked a mezzanine just up from the flag poles at Craven Drive, heard Morrow say that state campuses need a law to stop professors from haranguing and intimidating students who disagree with them —— indeed, stop professors from using their teaching authority to “indoctrinate”the students.

“If you are harassed and harangued,” Morrow said, “you can’t learn.”

Stanford University art and art history professor Graham Larkin, a vice president of the California chapter of the American Association of University Professors, told the crowd the bill wasso deeply flawed that it would serve only to retard the vigorous pursuit of knowledge in the state’s institutions of highereducation.

LuAnn Wright of San Diego, from a group called NoIndoctrination.org, said there has been professorial abuse, but principles are already in place at many campuses that preserve therights students and faculty. Those principles need to be dusted off, re-examined and applied, she said.

Said Morrow of the bill, “It simply recognizes the obvious … and that is that students, at 18 or 20 years old, don’t have all the life experiences of a former Marine and legislator (like me) … and experience leads to wisdom.”

Said Larkin, “What is it about professors’ thoughts that our speech has to be monitored, while journalists’ and politicians’ free speech does not?”

Wright said that students around California are reporting being”ideologically browbeaten, intimidated, harassed, exploited, or forced to endure inappropriately politicized courses,” and added that some professors take freedom for a “license to hijack courses to promote personal, social or political crusades.”

As for the official positions on the bill from students and faculty, both have spoken —— and said no.

The faculty-governing organization on campus, the Academic Senate, is backing the resolution of its statewide body opposing” any attempt, made in the name of academic freedom, to quell open discussion of controversial material.”

The student government, Associated Students Inc., resolved that systems of checks and balances that already exist on campus arepreserving freedom and curbing abuses. The students also said theyfelt disrespected by a suggestion in the bill that they are not mature enough to avoid being easily swayed.

On Tuesday, Morrow said he would be glad to remove the offending language. The measure now reads, “… teachers should not take unfair advantage of a student’s immaturity by indoctrinating him or her with the teacher’s own opinions …”

“These are public schools,” Morrow said of the California State University, the University of California and the state community colleges that the bill would affect. “Even the faculty works forthe people of the state of California.”

Larkin, the Stanford professor, said that enforcement would be miasmatic. “Who is it exactly to say where to draw the line?” he asked, noting that the bill lacks “any arrangement” for implementation and for naming the arbiters who decide when ”objective instruction” becomes “indoctrination.”

A hearing on SB 5 is scheduled before the state Senate’s Education Committee on April 20. A similar bill that Morrow filed in February 2004 died in that committee by a 9-2 vote.

Views on both sides could be heard Tuesday from the students.

One of those who wore a gag, Cheyenne Barr of the Progressive Activists Network, said it sounded as if the bill’s insistence on balanced presentations in class meant that ethnic studies professors would be bound to show how racism is not only bad, but that it’s good, too. “Teaching biology as evolution,” she added,” would mean equally teaching biology as Adam and Eve.”

Senior Stephanie Fairbanks said what that professors talk about in class is a “breath of fresh air” compared with the warring, ill-informed views she gets from media and political partisans.

“I’m here to learn what they’ve learned,” she said of her teachers, “To have someone from outside the university censor aprofessor is offensive.”

Another senior, Faye Floyd, said students may feel that disagreeing with a professor could result in lower grades, but she has not seen that happen. “It’s about being able to be a critical thinker and support your arguments that you’re being graded on,” she said. “We all have a right to say whatever we want in a classroom.”

But Ashley Stuart, a junior who serves as president of theCollege Republicans, had a different view and, she said, it springs from her own experience. She said a professor took a dislike to her after she skipped a class to attend the Republican National Convention last year. It was not about missing class, Stuart said, but about being a Republican.

She worked hard in the class, she said, and felt she earned a ”B” but was given a “C.” “My grade was affected for being a Republican,” Stuart said. “I’m supporting this bill because it supports free speech.”

Contact Bruce Kauffman at 760-761-4410 orbkauffman@nctimes.com.