In a very agitated op-ed in today’s News & Observer, a Princeton student named Asheesh Kapur Siddique slams the proposed Academic Bill of Rights (an idea advanced by David Horowitz), claiming that it threatens free speech on campus.

I think this is a case of crying “Wolf!” when there isn’t so much as a poodle around.

Siddique claims that the ABOR would “substitute political correctness for the free exchange of ideas…by preventing faculty and students from discussing fresh or controversial ideas in class.” Furthermore, it would “curtail students’ discussion of topics deemed ‘politically controversial’ and liable to ‘offend’ a sensitive classmate.”

Siddique never cites any language from ABOR that proposes to do any of that. I’ve read ABOR and just don’t find anything like that. Professors wouldn’t be told to stop talking about current controversies and sensitive students wouldn’t have veto power over discussions any more than they do now — which is considerable.

ABOR is a response to a real problem, namely that some professors take advantage of their position and devote inordinate amounts of time to tangential or irrelevant topics. Others, while discussing relevant topics, let it be known that a student who disagrees with the professor’s point of view does so at his peril. Perhaps Siddique has no complaints about his education at Princeton, but there is a lot of evidence that many other students are upset with the politicization of classes.

It is not part of academic freedom for a professor to take advantage of his position and turn his classroom into a soapbox for him to pontificate to his students. If universities try to rein in professors who do so, that’s hardly going to stifle free speech and inquiry.