The Academic Bill of Rights was struck down by a chorus of “no’s” during Wednesday night’s Associated Student Government Senate meeting. Before the vote, Ben Snyder, president of College Republicans and co-author of the bill, read from a prepared statement.

“Many of the objections to this bill are not based on its content but rather on suspicion of its sponsor — the College Republicans — and it’s author — David Horowitz,” said Snyder, a Weinberg junior.

Horowitz, a conservative pundit, wrote the original Academic Bill of Rights, which the College Republicans reproduced in the bill they submitted to the Senate.

“If a different group had sponsored this bill, I honestly do not believe that you would have this many students choosing to take time out of their busy schedules to attend this meeting,” said Snyder, to a room of about 70 people, including 40 senators.

After Snyder’s speech, senators had the opportunity to question him about concerns they had with the bill. Vagueness and possible repercussions in the classroom, were two issues discussed.

Darin Smith-Gaddis, an off-campus senator, asked Snyder if he could provide specific instances when professors had stifled intellectual debate in class.

“I’m not willing to give examples and the reason is very simple,” Snyder said. “From the moment we introduced this bill, the biggest criticism levied against it is that this is some sort of McCarthyist initiative and we’re going to run from one classroom to the next saying this professor is a flaming Marxist, and that’s not the goal.”

Smith-Gaddis, who voted against the bill, said it had not gone through the rigorous research process required of most legislation passed by ASG.

“In Senate, what we try to do is bring bills that are concise, that have a lot of research,” said Smith-Gaddis, a Weinberg senior. “When we bring something to the administration, what we’ve always said is that it’s been thoroughly researched, that the background is credible and that there’s support from the students.”

“As a senator, none of these questions have been answered, so everything else is irrelevant,” he said.

Mitch Holzrichter, a fraternity senator, said he spoke in favor of the bill because he believes in the academic freedom the bill represents.

“One of the things I like about it is it says the professor is not allowed to grade on the beliefs of the student, but the professor is instead obliged to grade on how justified the beliefs are,” said Holzrichter, a Weinberg senior.

“Any professor who has an opinion ought to know what the other opinion is. If they don’t, then their opinion is uneducated and unfounded,” he said.

The bill was ambiguous and unenforceable, said Ben Cherry, Weinberg ’04, a former ASG senator.

“Politically, the reputation of the university is at stake,” said Cherry. “When that reputation is based on something as flawed as I think this particular bill is, I thought it was important for me to voice my opinion as a concerned alumnus.”

Snyder, the co-sponsor, said he was glad he was at least able to introduce the bill.

“When we introduced the bill, we didn’t think it would pass,” Snyder said. “We thought it was an important issue and we wanted to spark dialogue on campus, and I think we accomplished that.”

Before the bill was brought up, Music junior Patrick Keenan-Devlin was sworn in as ASG president by outgoing president Jane Lee.

“Let us listen more than we speak,” said Keenan-Devlin, “and care more for their concern than we do our own,” .

Jordan Weissmann contributed to this report.

Reach Evan Hill at [email protected].