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A controversial “Student Bill of Rights,” designed to promote differing viewpoints in academia, has been proposed in the California State Senate and is causing heated debate among educators and students about academic freedom.

The bill is sponsored by Sen. Bill Morrow, R-San Juan Capistrano, and instructs California’s public universities to include a wide range of viewpoints in classroom discussion, primarily out of concern that conservative viewpoints are often overlooked by liberal professors.

Detractors of the bill say the legislation is an assault on academic freedom and freedom of speech, and they are concerned that such a bill would provide legal justification to force conservative or religious viewpoints on students and instructors.

Last year a similar “Academic Bill of Rights” was defeated in committee in the California Senate.

Morrow’s bill, SB 5, states that students should be exposed to a variety of viewpoints and should not be discriminated against for any religious or political views they hold.

The bill says that “faculty shall not use their courses or their positions for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination.”

Both bills in California, along with similar bills proposed in 13 other states this year, have been primarily pushed by Students for Academic Freedom, a group affiliated with conservative columnist David Horowitz.

“All too frequently, professors behave as political advocates in the classroom, express opinions in a partisan manner on controversial issues irrelevant to the academic subject,” Horowitz said in a statement.

Such bills have been opposed by the American Association of University Professors because they “raise the spectre” of governmental intrusion in the classroom and the limiting of free speech, said Mark Smith, director of government relations with the AAUP.

A statement on last year’s Academic Bill of Rights by the AAUP said the bill requires “that colleges and universities appoint faculty ‘with a view toward fostering a plurality of methodologies and perspectives.’ The danger of such guidelines is that they invite diversity to be measured by political standards that diverge from the academic criteria of the scholarly profession.”

The statement went on to say, “No department of political theory ought to be obligated to establish ‘a plurality of methodologies and perspectives’ by appointing a professor of Nazi political philosophy, if that philosophy is not deemed a reasonable scholarly option within the discipline of political theory.”

A similar bill in Florida proposed by Republican congressman Dennis Baxley was approved by a House committee last month.

Baxley, who attended Florida State University, said there is a climate of discrimination in universities against conservative viewpoints and students.

“My opponents have tried to turn this into a Scopes Monkey Trial ... I’ve been called ass, buffoon, idiot ... and they haven’t even read the bill. I filed this bill to spark the debate,” he said.

Baxley said he is looking to protect students “who will be blacklisted and discredited and humiliated” for holding conservative viewpoints.

“I talked to a student here who changed her major because her professors found out she worked for (Florida Gov. Jeb Bush),” he said.

The AAUP said in a statement that such bills as proposed by Morrow and Baxley could allow government and the courts to interfere in higher education, limiting the ability of instructors to effectively teach students.

“A basic purpose of higher education is to endow students with the knowledge and capacity to exercise responsible and independent judgment.

“Faculty can fulfill this objective only if they possess the authority to guide and instruct students.”