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July 21, 2005

State to scrutinize schools for liberal bias

Pitt’s senior administration plans to keep a watchful eye on a state General Assembly higher education subcommittee formed earlier this month to investigate alleged liberal bias among the state’s educators.

A resolution passed July 5 by the Pa. House of Representatives called for the creation of a committee to investigate claims by college students that professors with a “liberal bent” unfairly penalize conservative college students with poor grades.

In proposing the resolution, which passed by a vote of 108-90, Rep. Gibson Armstrong (R-Lancaster Co.) said he had amassed some 50 complaints of “intolerance” from the state’s college students.

Asked for his reaction to the formation of the committee, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg told the University Times last week, “Clearly, we did not think that the creation of any such committee was necessary. It was interesting following the debate on the House floor, which I watched to some extent on television. It was hard to determine from the exchanges on the House floor just what were the problems that would give rise to an action of this type.”

Nordenberg added that the University was prepared to cooperate fully with the subcommittee. “I don’t know what the agenda will be,” the chancellor said July 15. “But if its scope of inquiry includes both the State System universities and the state-related universities then I would expect we would be part of it.”

Nordenberg said he knew of no such instances at Pitt of the kind that Rep. Armstrong alleged. “We think that the University of Pittsburgh is operating in highly appropriate fashions. We have great respect for Rep. [Thomas L.] Stevenson (R-Allegheny Co.), who I understand is going to chair the subcommittee, but we will be keeping a close and cautious eye on the work of that subcommittee as it moves forward. We will be watching this carefully.”

—Peter Hart


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