The UCLA Bruin Alumni Association started a Web site to single out liberal and extreme "indoctrinist" faculty using information bought from students.
UCLA students were offered up to $100 by the conservative alumni association to turn in detailed class notes or lecture recordings of professors who contribute to the "exploding crisis of political radicalism on campus" according to the Bruin Alumni Association Web site.
Andrew Jones is a member of the association and the alumnus who launched the controversial website UCLAProfs.com, which names the "Dirty 30"-an inventory of the progessive professors in question.
Jones, in an open message on the Web site, says that the "extensively researched" profiles of the Dirty 30 are proof of an increasingly radical faculty.
Mills alumna Nicole Adelle Rich, a southern California native, notes that students are old enough to be objective and aren't compelled to take a teacher's comments at face value. "What's more, though, is that they'll definitely have problems with students who don't particularly like a teacher, and then report them for things they never did or said just to get money."
"It does smack of MacCarthyism and the Red Scare," says freshwoman Lauren Gochez-Wilson. "I think that if those UCLA alumni are truly worried about political bias infiltrating the classroom, they should try to remove all bias, not just the ones that they don't agree with."
The official UCLA Alumni Association resents the flurry of publicity surrounding Jones and the Bruin Alumni Association-particularly because they have received numerous calls and e-mails from confused alumni concerned their alma mater has gone partisan, according to the UCLA Daily Bruin.
Since the story gained national coverage, Jones has allegedly retracted his monetary offer, though a section of UCLAProfs.com still encourages "generous tax-deductible donation[s]," saying "We are paying for top-quality class notes … and other materials because volunteer labor and internet anecdotes do not provide solid proof of abusive professor behavior."
