Data-Gathering on Professors at UCLA Criticized

About 100 UCLA students and faculty attended a meeting Tuesday evening to object to recent efforts by a politically conservative alumni group to obtain classroom information about professors.

The crowd listened and occasionally cheered as panelists spoke of how that campaign could harm academic freedom and discourage critical thinking.

“The role of the intellectual is to be oppositional,” said professor Vinay Lal, who teaches the history of India and was among the faculty being targeted by the group. “The intellectual does not exist to rubber-stamp the decisions of the nation-state,” Lal said.

Last month, the Bruin Alumni Assn., led by UCLA graduate Andrew Jones, offered to pay students $100 for recordings and lecture notes of professors caught in what it called “indoctrination, one-sided presentation of ideological controversies and unprofessional classroom behavior.”

The association has since rescinded its offer, and Jones now asks only for volunteers.

The targeted faculty felt it necessary to address the larger issue of academic freedom, said anthropology professor Sondra Hale, who moderated the meeting. Hale also was among the teachers Jones’ group named as the “Dirty 30” it identified with left-wing or liberal causes.

Jones did not attend the meeting.