Paying Students to Spy

This is from today's Chronicle of Higher Ed -- a birk named Andrew Jones, taking his cue from our pal Horowitz, is paying students to report radical professors.

An independent alumni group formed to attack "radicalism" at the University of California at Los Angeles has offered $100 prizes to any student who turns over extensive documentation of cases in which professors show political bias in the classroom.

On its Web site, the Bruin Alumni Association says it will also offer the use of recording equipment, and students who simply pass on a tip about "a problem professor" will be rewarded with $10. To earn $100, a student would have to turn over "full, detailed lecture notes, all professor-distributed materials, and full tape recordings of every class session, for one class," and would have to obtain the professor's permission to make the recordings. A companion Web site, UCLA Profs.com, says it is dedicated to "exposing UCLA's most radical professors" and lists professors who "are actively proselytizing their extreme views in the classroom."

http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/01/2006011904n.htm

Not surprisingly, the article goes on to say, most professers listed are left of center.

What a charming country these folks must want to live in.

(Hat tip to the Professor Down the Hall.)