Sarah Schaerr

A California professor was placed on administrative leave after school officials discovered that she had forced her students to write letters to President Bush protesting the war in Iraq.

Rosalyn Kahn, a first-year adjunct professor at Citrus College in Glendora, California, gave her Speech 106 students an extra credit assignment in which they were asked to write letters to President Bush about the war. Kahn only accepted letters protesting the war; when some of her students turned in letters pledging their support for military action they were denied credit for the assignment.

Speech 106 is a required course for all Citrus College students who wish to transfer to California State University or University of California schools.

"She provided an extra credit assignment for us. She said we could receive extra credit if we wrote a letter to President Bush in regards to the war," said Gina Cantagallo, one of Kahn's students, on The O'Reilly Factor. "So I went home, did the assignment, and I came back, and I had a letter that said I supported Bush, I supported our country, I supported our troops. She looked at the letter and said, 'This is unacceptable.' I said, 'What's wrong? You said write a letter on the potential war,' and she said 'Absolutely not, I wanted you to write a letter stating you were against war and against us overriding the U.N.'"

"There was no room for dissenting remarks," confirmed Chris Stevens, a first-year student in the class. "You just had to follow her beliefs and that's what you worked with. I told her 'This isn't fair, we can't compromise our beliefs,' but then I did the assignment according to her instructions. When she said the letter had to be mailed if I wanted credit, I said, 'No, that's not OK,' and I took the letter back."

Stevens and Cantagallo brought their concerns to school administrators, but did not initially feel that they were being taken seriously. At the advice of the California College Republicans, Stevens turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for help. Pressure from FIRE helped speed the college's response to the students' allegations.

Samuel T. Lee, Associate Dean of Language Arts, heard the complaints of Stevens and Cantagallo on February 27 and spoke with Professor Kahn the following day. From his conversation with Kahn, Mr. Lee determined that she had in fact given students extra credit for writing in defense of her personal agenda. Mr. Lee then e-mailed Kahn, instructing her to cease this practice immediately and set things right with her students.

On March 6, Dean Lee gave Professor Kahn the day off and met with her students himself. In the hour he spent with them, Lee heard their responses to a list of 12 specific questions about Kahn's conduct, confirmed reports of her abuse of power as a teacher, and apologized to students on the college's behalf.

The following day, in a letter to FIRE, Citrus College President Louis E. Zellers acknowledged Kahn's inappropriate behavior. He outlined plans for apology letters to President Bush and Senator Scott, who had been the focus of a similar forced letter-writing campaign. Zellers also proposed amends to the class, and praised students for their courage in coming forward.

"We don't want to suppress anyone's right to free speech and expression," affirmed President Zellers. "I regret that students were put through this."

"From a policy standpoint, what the teacher did was inappropriate," agreed Susan Keith, a member of the Citrus College Board of Trustees.

Professor Kahn's political activism was not limited to soliciting anti-war letters to send to President Bush. According to Stevens, "The first 10 minutes of every class were devoted to her political agenda." Additionally, Kahn compelled students to sign unaddressed postcards, proclaiming the importance of part-time instructors, which she planned to address and mail later herself.

Nor was the anti-war assignment the first time Kahn pressured her students to contact a politician for credit. In an earlier letter-writing campaign, Professor Kahn asked her students to write letters to California State Senator Jack Scott protesting California budget cuts for schools supported by the state. The proposed cuts would reduce the number of college classes at state-supported schools and leave some part-time professors such as herself out of a job. In addition to opposing cutbacks, she also instructed her students to advocate introducing tenure for adjunct faculty. Kahn personally hand-delivered the letters to Scott's office.

"This just demonstrates the level of self-interest involved in the assignment," said Dean Lee of the Scott campaign.

The professor also encouraged students to visit MoveOn.org, the website for a political action group that opposed the war with Iraq. MoveOn is a member organization of Win Without War and has recently made headlines for its infamous "Daisy" television commercial, which juxtaposed images of a young girl counting daisy petals with haunting depictions of nuclear explosions. The ad goes on to suggest that war with Iraq would initiate a worldwide nuclear disaster.

"All of the letters were to somehow benefit her personally or her political viewpoints," Stevens observed.

Free-speech activists were up in arms over the incident, inundating the college with hundreds of outraged e-mails and irate telephone calls. Many called for Kahn's immediate dismissal from the college's payroll.

Kahn was placed on administrative leave with pay. Another instructor will teach her class while the college investigates the allegations against her.

"I've not received a recommendation for further action, but I'm not saying that door is closed," declared Dr. Zellers. When asked why Kahn had not been fired, he told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, "In fairness to due process, we wish to continue the investigation. We think there may be other issues that will come forth and at that time, we will take the appropriate action."

Professor Kahn remained silent in the weeks following the controversy, only telling the Los Angeles Times that the charges leveled against her were "one hundred percent lies."

"We do not believe that the instructor was given due process. We think Dr. Zellers acted precipitously and the union plans to do everything we can to protect the instructor's due process as well as academic freedom," pledged Jean Culp, Co-President of Adjunct Faculty United.

Weeks later, when Kahn finally did speak up, her statement echoed that of her union's spokeswoman. "A terrible wrong has been done to me and to the teaching profession," she claimed. Further, she alleged that she was put on paid leave "without conducting a thorough investigation and without affording me the protections of due process." Professor Kahn maintained, "All of the college's actions were taken and the conclusions reached without obtaining or requesting comment from me."

"While professor Kahn is free to hold and espouse her views on appropriate matters of public concern, it is, of course, absolutely impermissible for her or any professor to coerce students to share her political orthodoxies. This was an unconscionable abuse of classroom power," asserted Thor Halvorssen, Chief Executive Officer of FIRE.

Dr. Zellers wrote to President Bush of the affair, "It was brought to my attention that a part-time instructor at Citrus College gave an extra credit assignment to the students in her... class, requiring them to send you protest letters... Letters of support, or otherwise, were excluded... I respectfully ask that these letters be retracted. As president of the college, I want to apologize for this unconscionable affront to freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. I regret that such a thing could happen on my watch."

Students in Kahn's class will be provided with a written record of their grades and will be able to discuss disputes with both Professor Kahn and Dean Lee. To replace the now-withdrawn original extra credit assignment, they will be allowed to receive credit for an alternative assignment in which they may express any political views they wish, and will not be required to send their letters for credit.

"When fully informed of a frightening violation of freedom of conscience, the college administration responded swiftly and boldly to restore liberty and to undo the harm already done," lauded Halvorssen. "It is a great day for freedom of conscience and a great day for Citrus College. It is heartening to find a college president who defends the principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech."

Kahn also teaches classes at Pasadena City College, Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles Valley College and Cypress College. Whether students at these institutions were pressured into similar acts of protest has yet to be determined.

In the words of one columnist for Citrus College's student newspaper, The Clarion, "Apparently Kahn wasn't listening in her U.S. Government class, and missed the historical basis for this country of ours, namely that there is something more important than peace, and that is liberty."