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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMitch Daniels covertly set out to ban Howard Zinn’s "A People’s History of the United States"
Who's Afraid of the People's History?
A recent Associated Press exposedrawing on e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Actrevealed that in 2010, Mitch Daniels, then Indianas Republican governor, covertly set out to ban Howard Zinns best-selling A Peoples History of the United States from Indianas classrooms. Daniels had privately responded to Zinns death that year with unseemly glee; This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away, he crowed. Daniels attempted to banish Zinns book on the grounds that it was a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page
. How do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history? When Danielss education adviser replied that A Peoples History was being used in a social movements course for teachers at Indiana University, the governor insisted that this crap should not be accepted for any credit by the state, sparking a proposed statewide review of university courses designed to disqualify propaganda from Indianas curriculum.
This view of A Peoples History as propaganda was not shared by the historians who named it a finalist for the American Book Award in 1981an honor virtually never accorded to historical surveysor by the more than 2 million readers who made A Peoples History the most popular radical history in the United States during the last three decades.
As governor, Daniels seemed unconcerned that purging Zinn from Indianas educational system constituted a violation of academic freedom. But this issue emerged in the political storm unleashed by the AP story, in part because Daniels is currently president of Purdue University. Aware that trampling academic freedom is incompatible with leadership in higher education, Daniels sought to evade the issue by claiming (falsely) that he had respected academic freedom at the university level and only sought to keep Zinn out of the K-12 educational curriculum.
Upset by Danielss refusal to admit last week that he had erred in seeking to ban Zinn, dozens of Purdues faculty, including some of its most prominent historians, wrote an open letter explaining how troubled they were by his failure either to stand up for academic inquiry and exchange
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http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/whos-afraid-of-the-peoples-history/57650/
http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/in-2010-mitch-daniels-then-indiana-s-republican-governor-covertly
lordsummerisle
(4,651 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 11, 2013, 10:29 PM - Edit history (1)
It's bad enough to ban books but when you assert that ONE book is being shoved down students throats as opposed to the countless conventional texts that are out there constantly being used is beyond the pale. I posted about this as well a while back but it didn't attract much interest. K&R
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... as their president.
Say that he should stick to trying to be governor and not continue to function as Purdue's president which he has shown himself to be unqualified for.
And if that guy felt that way earlier about his book, WHY did he have to wait until after Zinn passed away to go on this warpath. Call him also what he is!
CHICKENSHIT!!!!!!