We already had plenty of evidence that the American Council of Trustees and Alumni is enamored with researchiness to produce the evidence they invented need to make their arguments about higher education, but now they have stepped over a line.  In a press release concerning proposed "intellectual diversity" legislation in Virginia (HB 1643), ACTA spins a tale that goes beyond "pitching an angle" to include factual misrepresentations. 

Most egregiously, they suggest that the Virginia bill is similar to recommendations passed by the Pennsylvania Select Committee on Academic Freedom late last year and that Free Exchange and others, who applauded that Committee's final decision, support, by extension, the Virginia initiative. Not true--even remotely.

As Michael Bérubé said, when asked about the fact that the ACTA press release stated that "Penn State professor Michael Bérubé, author of What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? told the media, ‘I have no quarrel with the [Pennsylvania] committee's recommendations [and therefore the Virginia bill].'"

This is the kind of intellectual dishonesty I've come to expect from ACTA, and it's good to see that they didn't disappoint. Of course, I strongly opposed the Horowitzian bill for which Anne Neal provided testimony; and I supported the Pennsylvania House committee's conclusion that higher education in Pennsylvania is not in need of any structural overhaul or legislative oversight. But if ACTA wants to claim that up is down, they do so at the cost of their credibility.

Turning the truth upside down is exactly what ACTA is doing in this amazing attempt to portray Free Exchange as supporters of the type of legislative mischief the Virginia bill represents.  Again, from the press release. 

And "Free Exchange on Campus" (why are we in quotes?)--a consortium of the American Association of University Professors, the ACLU, the American Federation of Teachers, and others--greeted the report with the comment, "Well done to all."

Of course, if you actually read the post they are quoting, you would see that it is about the fact that the Pennsylvania Select Committee actually issued a report that reflected the hearings which showed that academic freedom and student rights were well protected in Pennsylvania's colleges and universities.  We were, in fact, congratulating the Committee for not allowing the process to be hijacked by the ideological agendas of people like David Horowitz and Anne Neal, who now appear to be wedded by their mutual disregard for the facts. And here is the real problem.

The ACTA press release attempts a rhetorical, albeit dishonest, move of associating the proposed Virginia legislation with the report issued in Pennsylvania to get readers to believe that Virginia is just another state joining a nationwide movement.  Here is how they put it.

Provisions of the bill are similar to recommendations adopted by a bipartisan committee of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives late last year, following testimony by ACTA.

Unfortunately, it isn't true (and bear with me dear readers as I realize I am already rambling on as I try to untangle this web of fabrications).

Where to begin?  First, the report by the Pennsylvania Select Committee on Academic Freedom is not legislation that places requirements on colleges and universities as the Virginia bill would, but rather nothing more than a committee report with recommendations. 

Second, the reason it was bipartisan is that the Democrats and moderate Republicans (read: everyone but Gib Armstrong) recovered the report from the initial draft which was overly-influenced drafted by Armstrong, (read: mouthpiece for David Horowitz) and ensured the report reflected what happened in the hearings. 

Third, the provisions are very different.  The Pennsylvania report (PDF) basically recommends that institutions should review what they are already doing and make sure students are served and that existing policies protect their rights.  The reason for these recommendations is that the Committee heard an overwhelming amount of testimony that academic freedom and student rights were already well-protected in Pennsylvania. 

Virginia, despite the acknowledgement of the legislation's sponsor that there aren't problems in Virginia and that he also doesn't know of specific problems in other states, is considering passing legislation that would require to institutions to report on how they are addressing this undocumented problem. And the reporting requirements are not minor.  The new statute would require every institution in Virginia to report annulaly on 11 new requirements--new in the sense that they will have to go through a new bureaucratic process to report on them, not new in the sense of improvements for Virginia's students and faculty.

Ultimately, this bill is nothing more than one state legislator carrying the ideological water of, in this case, the American Legislative Exchange Council and ACTA.  Still, if I were a legislator, I would want the advocacy groups I am fronting for, at a minimum,  to not put out press releases that are inaccurate and unethically misrepresentative of the facts.

But it appears that facts are just a hindrance for ACTA.