"Intellectual diversity" bill introduced in state senate

With all the kickin' 'n' grinnin' goin' on at the Colorado legislature, the introduction of a bill to ensure "intellectual diversity" on state campuses kind of slipped by [added: slipped by me, anyway--see update]).

Sponsored by the hypercubic Sen. Dave Schultheis (R-Colorado
Springs--bet you didn't see that coming), the bill, S.B. 45, would require state schools to (among other stuff): "conduct a study to assess current intellectual diversity on campus"; "encourage a balanced variety of campus-wide panels and speakers"; "establish clear campus policies ensuring that hecklers or threats of violence do not prevent speakers from speaking; "ensure freedom of the press and to track any reported incidents of interference with the production and distribution of student newspapers; and to "develop clear policies on hiring, tenure, and promotion that protect individiuals against discrimination based on political viewpoint and that track any reported political viewpoint and that track any reported political viewpoint discrimination grievances."

Doesn't stand a chance, thank God, but interesting. It's already gotten a sneer-o-gram in CU's Silver & Gold Record from one "David Stahl, pediatrics":

While politicians are free to spew whatever rhetoric they please to an unsuspecting public, professors are expected to present state-of-the-art material that has undergone the process of intense scholarly review.

Like Ward Churchill.

The fact that the ideas of today's neoconservatives are not regularly presented in college classrooms is in fact the result of bias, because professors are obliged to present logical, documented, peer-reviewed and factual material to their students.

See above.

Make no mistake that Schultheis and his ilk would rather have us present the diatribes spewing forth from quasi-institutions like Colorado's Independence Institute and the national Heritage Foundation. Groups such as these publish
material written by persons not qualified to do so and the material rarely, if ever, undergoes the process of peer review.

So yes, Mr. Schultheis, our universities are biased in the presentation of course material. They are intentionally biased to weed out the mindless drivel you would like to see pass as credible scholarship.

Continue to see above. Stahl ends on a hopeful note:

Maybe with the departure of the man that has greased the wheels for the Schultheis bill, President Hank Brown, we too will see the departure of this partisan fecal matter from our institutions of higher learning. If not, then I suspect we'll be hearing from the ACLU.

Mmmm, partisan fecal matter. Expect more verbiage like this, if not the ACLU (no one expects the ACLU) as the bill progresses.

Update: The S & G R had a good story on the bill last week.