There was a bit of humor, a little laughter and lots of fancy words in the first of what will be several national debates that took place between David Horowitz and Ward Churchill on the George Washington University campus Thursday evening.
Horowitz emphasized that teachers have no right to express their opinions in the classroom and that in all his years of being a student he never heard political opinions in the classroom. Today "we must take politics out of the classrooms," he said.
Churchill said politics cannot be taken out of the classroom. "Politics in a classroom is unavoidable." He said everyone has opinions and that "there is no truth. We are all working on the basis of opinion." He said American universities are based on German universities that were built on science, which ultimately led to the point that "higher learning is necessary and beneficial to society in all its dimensions - therefore, those with the knowledge to profess, not to be professionals, but to know and be able to coherently profess what they deeply believe and to explain why they cannot be fired for political reasons."
According to Churchill, "There is no consensus; there is no homogeneity; there is no truth."
Perhaps the funniest exchange of the evening was when Churchill said, "You're rowing with one oar," to which Horowitz replied, "It's a big oar."
