Kurt Smith:

"Academe at War: A Critical Look at David Horowitz's Campaign Against Academic Freedom"

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

March 30, 2007

Professor Kurt Smith, Visiting Fellow in Philosophy at Princeton University, is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.  He received his B.A. in Philosophy at the University of California at Irvine and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate University, specializing in the 17th and 18th century philosophy.  His work can be found published in several scholarly peer-reviewed journals and books.

Professor Smith has received two NEH grants for his research and is currently an elected Associate of the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.  He has presented his research at sessions of the American Philosophical Association, most recently presenting work at the Colloquium of the New England Early Modern Reading Group, co-sponsored by Harvard and Brown Universities.

Professor Smith was among those who testified at the hearings held by Pennsylvania's Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education conducted across the Commonwealth.  At Gettysburg College, he presented a paper that took a critical look at HR-177, the House resolution establishing the select committee that conducted those hearings.  Again, those hearings stemmed from, in many regards, Mr. Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights.  His article, "A Philosopher Looks at the Academic Bill of Rights," appears in a recent issue of Academe.

If you would like to view the debate with Horowitz: Click Here.   

Professor Smith appeared on the WUNC North Carolina Public Radio program "The State of Things" to speak with host Frank Stasio about academic freedom. To listen: Click Here.

This event is free and open to the public.

Location: Murphey Hall 116, 3 pm.