USC Daily Trojan columnist Rebecca Zak has lots of questions about how the war is being handled on her campus:

Are USC professors actually attempting to foster an environment conducive to unfettered critical thinking, or are students bouncing ferociously between the Pentagon's propaganda and the liberal agendas of their teachers? ... Are we being encouraged to think freely or to be too afraid to consider the merits of prowar arguments? Are campus liberals being lured into self-righteous and poorly thought out proclamations against the war by professors who fail to poke holes in fallacious arguments?

Consider the comments of international relations professor Laurie Brand in yesterday's Daily Trojan ("Faculty openly discuss Iraq war"): "I take encouragement from the fact that ... people in the U.S. and elsewhere have the moral commitment to peace and justice and the courage to speak out against this war."

Let's read between the lines here. People who don't speak out for peace are immoral. People who don't speak out against this war are cowards. People who support the war in Iraq support injustice. Oh, yes, and people who support the war have been, in Brand's words, "seduced by the Bush administration's lies."

Brand is clearly trying to manipulate us, not foster a critical discussion in which the valid points of both the prowar and antiwar camps are considered.

Don't get me wrong, I would be the last person to curtail free speech on campus and I think that professors should be able to express their opinions about the ongoing war.

But it's not playing fair to bill an ideological rally as a teach-in, and it's not OK to claim that you're fostering critical thinking when only antiwar opinions are represented.

Professors need to think carefully about their roles in encouraging discussion on the war in Iraq and about the unintended consequences of publicly proclaiming their views. Too often, students are being force-fed reasons to oppose the war instead of being encouraged to think on their own.

A lot of those ideologically loaded "teach-ins" are taking place around the country at the moment. Yesterday at UMass, for example, an extremely slanted teach-in featured six professors and one student speaking out against war. Among them was communications professor Sut Jhally, who argued that those who support the war are the dupes of Washington's fascistic propaganda machine:

Jhally brought up a concept mentioned by Confucius, who taught that it is necessary in controlling a people, to "rectify the language." In relation to modern times, Jhally said Confucius would be referring to controlling the media. Control of the facts that are available would most likely force people to think along very specific lines, he said.

"If you can control the categories in which people think, you can imprison them in their own imaginations."

He also compared what the current Bush administration is doing to methods that the Nazi government employed during World War II. He quoted Hermann Gheoring [sic], a member of the Nazi party to emphasize his point. Jhally, quoted, "All you have to do is tell them [the people] they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."

He said that the events of September 11, served as the propaganda that the Bush administration was looking for, and that he feels this is why the United States is at war with Iraq now.

"If Sept. 11, [2001] wasn't planned, Osama bin Ladin came along and answered his [George W. Bush's] prayers," Jhally said.

There are schools who pay some lip service to diversity of opinion on the war--but the gesture is embarrassingly weak. Duke, for example, recently invited four professors to debate the Iraq question. Gathered to "present a myriad of opinions" on the subject, one of them served as a token representative of the "prowar position" while the other three presented various perspectives against it. Even the one prowar panelist, however, was dovelike, describing his position as a "reluctant case for war." Hardly a robust exchange of views--and hardly meant to be.

It's especially irritating that these professors give themselves credit for "courage." Where's the courage in stating a position that will be applauded by the vast majority of your professional superiors and peers?

For a professor to be "antiwar" takes about as much courage as for a businessman to be in favor of economic growth.

Incredibly similar situation here at Columbia. See link above for incisive editorial about the "Teach-In" here at Columbia. More than one professor has assumed (in class) that the class is unanimously anti-war, using rhetoric such as "We must seize the rhetoric back from the right," and "I can't believe the anti-war protestors out there on College Walk," and "How many of you went to the anti-war rally? I was there," not for a minute stopping to consider the possibility of perhaps strongly ambivalent, or supportive, or even moderate stances. It's both discouraging and intimidating. My feeing is that professors, clearly in a position of authority, ought to promote critical discussion and DIALOGUE rather than dogmatic affirmation of their side.