National Association of Scholars Starts New Effort to Watch Campuses

The National Association of Scholars is asking both faculty members and ordinary citizens to monitor campuses for activities that it finds objectionable.

In a news release issued today to roll out the new effort, the group said it had recruited volunteers partly by inviting readers of Townhall.com, a conservative Web site, to take a survey designed “to learn the educational background and opinion outlook of those attracted by the concept of campus-watching.” Each volunteer has picked a college to watch and has begun “to look into whether that college conducts politicized teaching, requires ideological adherence, or sustains slights to conservative students.”

The group says the recruits also will be on the lookout for “mission statements that betray an ideological agenda and residence-life programs that include political and diversity training.” Two weeks ago, it issued a statement denouncing such residence-life programs, as well as certain approaches to diversity training, as part of a movement on campuses to indoctrinate students in leftist ideology. That statement sparked heated debate on this News Blog and was challenged in a commentary published in The Chronicle this week.

The association is calling its new undertaking the Argus Project, after the all-seeing creature in Greek mythology whose body was covered with eyes. It began recruiting its members to participate in an online posting last April. —Peter Schmidt