There goes Missouri's biology standards

Awful news out of Missouri.

The Missouri House of Representatives passed a bill last week that would require public colleges to report regularly on how they promote and protect “intellectual diversity.”

While the bill still needs to pass the Missouri Senate and be approved by the governor, it's pretty bad news. It might sound fairly innocent, but in reality it's an attempt to pressure the colleges to include conservative viewpoints including "the viewpoint that the Bible is inerrant" (this is aparently a direct quote from the bill).

The bill doesn't outright force the colleges, but it's certainly inspired by the idea of forcing colleges, and it might quickly end up that way. And guess who is the inspiration - David Horowitz.

The “intellectual diversity” bill is similar to the “Academic Bill of Rights” — the brainchild of the activist David Horowitz — in that both seek to challenge what their sponsors view as liberal domination of campus intellectual discourse and what the sponsors perceive as a hostility to any ideas that don’t conform. The two measures also are similar in their repeated references to academic freedom — references that many faculty critics see as a cover for the measures’ agenda.

While the Academic Bill of Rights called for certain principles to be put in place by colleges, the intellectual diversity bills generally just require colleges to report on measures they take to promote intellectual diversity. The legislation offers suggestions for topics that the reports might include, such as “the current state” of intellectual diversity on campus, policies related to tenure and promotion, the range of ideas represented in campus speakers, policies related to teaching and course evaluations, and so forth.

I would recommend every teacher, scientist, liberal, concerned parent and every other person in Missouri to write to their local senator, and get them to vote no to the bill. If that's not enough, they should write the governor and ask him to veto the bill (if possible). This kind of stuff really needs to be stopped!