Indoctrination, Not Education: Rampant Radicalism in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

    The solution is quite simple, if a little time-consuming.  We must call, write or email UCLA’s decision-makers (listed at the bottom here) to demand that the Chancellor immediately appoint an oversight committee on GSEIS, one composed both of GSEIS and UCLA insiders, as well as respected outsiders who can offer balance and a critical (unaffiliated) eye.  

     The committee will inevitably take a certain degree of control from administrators like Dean Aimee Dorr.  This is an unfortunate outcome, but a necessary one.  GSEIS leaders have shown themselves to either have no control over the school’s faculty and operations, or no interest in addressing even the most obvious abuses.  If they will not take action, we must.

     This committee must be empowered to receive and act decisively on reports from current and former students detailing abuses they have suffered.  The committee will also conduct wide-ranging reviews of GSEIS faculty teaching practices, areas of study, and general school operations.  Faculty hiring and promotion practices must be given a close scrutiny, with a particular eye to determining how the school’s faculty came to be so grossly ideologically imbalanced. 

     Tough questions must be asked: are qualified students being dissuaded from pursuit of GSEIS study because of teaching practices, faculty viewpoints, or general GSEIS operations?  How did GSEIS end up with a 54:4 Democrats to Republicans ratio?  Does the faculty or the student body contain a single conservative thinker, and if they exist, in what ways have they been constrained from expressing their views in class discussions, assignments, or other venues?

     The committee must also ask whether the political advocacy inherent in Freemen teaching and educational philosophy is in fact legal under state and federal law, and in either case, whether it is proper that a vast majority of all GSEIS classes are taught from this ultra-fringe perspective.  As a state entity, UCLA has a duty to serve the interests of all California citizens.  The pursuit of narrow, politicized passions like “critical pedagogy” most certainly does not fulfill this obligation.

     Given the inevitable hue and cry that will meet this proposal, we alumni, donors and friends of UCLA must remember that academic freedom is a right that is balanced by obligations.  Academic freedom is not, and will not be, the sole province of the professor. 

     A close review of GSEIS faculty, teaching practices and general operations does not infringe on anyone’s rights; rather, it protects the right of students to be free from indoctrination, and of California residents to have a say in how their tax dollars are spent.  If UCLA refuses to honor this reasonable request, we must and will turn our voices to the University of California Regents and to the state legislature itself.  This cause, and the future of GSEIS and UCLA, are too important to do any less. 

Suggested Contact List

    Please contact one or more of the following UCLA officials to express concern with the Dori Kozloff lawsuit and the general atmosphere of political radicalism, intolerance and imbalance at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies: