Abstract
This article analyzes the origins, goals, and strategies of Accuracy in Academia (AIA), a conservative organization that emerged in the mid-1980s as an outgrowth of Accuracy in Media. AIA claims to promote accuracy in higher education but has pursued tactics such as encouraging students to report on faculty, publishing alleged errors, and recruiting volunteers to monitor classes. The discussion highlights how these efforts, framed as correcting bias, often targeted liberal faculty and created controversy by pressuring universities through media exposure and alumni concerns. A case study involving Virginia Tech illustrates how AIA campaigns, though unsuccessful in altering teaching practices, generated negative publicity and financial threats. The article situates AIA within a broader history of ideological challenges to academic freedom, warning of the risks such movements pose to faculty autonomy and the integrity of higher education.
Recommended Citation
Distler, Paul Antonie
(1988)
"McCarthyism Here We Come Again,"
Association for Communication Administration Bulletin: Vol. 65, Article 10.
Available at:
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/aca/vol65/iss1/10
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