Critical Mass

On Saturday, the Washington Post ran a story by Princeton University senior Asheesh Kapur Siddique, who claimed David Horowitz’s proposed "Academic Bill of Rights" [the text of which can be found here] amounts to nothing less than "Thought Police in the Lecture Hall," as the piece is titled.  The ABOR, as Mr. Siddique calls it, "takes the form of student resolutions or legislative proposals claiming to protect the academic freedom of college students from ideological indoctrination by professors."  This is obviously harmful to the learning process, says Mr. Siddique, for:

The College Access and Opportunity Act, passed by the House in March and under consideration in the Senate, aims to deny federal funding to institutions -- even private ones -- that refuse to comply with ABOR's limitations on speech.

In truth, these efforts only hurt the students they purport to help. Horowitz and his backers aren't protecting our rights; they're impeding our educations. The Academic Bill of Rights would substitute political correctness for the free exchange of ideas on campus by preventing faculty and students from discussing fresh or controversial ideas in class. It would restrict what professors can teach and what students can learn.

After all, Siddique argues, "This exchange between teachers and pupils lies at the heart of liberal education."

But ABOR's backers argue that professors presenting new ideas might "indoctrinate" or offend students. Their bill denies us the right to evaluate the merits of ideas and arguments for ourselves by banning "political" or "anti-religious" speech from classrooms.

A point which needs to be made here is that the actual wording of the ABOR on this notion of political and religious teaching in the classroom says:

Exposing students to the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints on the subjects examined in their courses is a major responsibility of faculty. Faculty will not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination. [emphasis added]

There is obviously a difference between banning political and anti-religious teaching outright and preventing it from being used for propaganda purposes; however, where would the line be drawn?  That is the dangerous question.  What would that mean, say, for private schools like mine that receive public funding through scholarships and grants, but which are expressly Christian?  Sure, we try to offer a number of courses that look at opposing viewpoints, but our course work is centered on Christian theology.  Under the ABOR (or more specifically, under legislators' understanding of the ABOR) would we have to choose between our funding and our beliefs in order to avoid "indoctrination" accusations?

What is interesting is how Horowitz’s argument is lost upon Siddique:

College students are much smarter and more capable of distinguishing between propaganda and informed opinion than Horowitz and his supporters think. We have a right to learn about any issue our knowledgeable professors deem important to our intellectual growth. This proposal would curtail students' discussion of topics deemed "politically controversial" and liable to "offend" a sensitive classmate. [. . .]

No disgruntled individual has a right to inhibit everyone else's ability to learn. [. . .]  And a student who puts forth an unpopular argument in class or on an assignment should not be disparaged by an instructor or given a bad grade.

This is exactly what Horowitz is saying, explicitly, in the Academic Bill of Rights!  As has been mentioned before, the ABOR states "Exposing students to the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints on the subjects examined in their courses is a major responsibility of faculty."  Moreover, another point says "While teachers are and should be free to pursue their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, they should consider and make their students aware of other viewpoints. Academic disciplines should welcome a diversity of approaches to unsettled questions."  The point is to make sure that professors do offer a multiplicity of viewpoints, not simply one.  It is a rejection of the idea that something should be thrown out simply because it might offend someone (say, a Dave Barry cartoon on an office door) in favor of several views.  And the ABOR overtly argues for students to be "graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs;" not on the basis of their opinions or the teacher's political standing, as was one student to whom Horowitz points.

What Siddique is arguing against is apparently the same thing Horowitz is arguing against; the difference is the perspective one comes from in joining the argument.  Horowitz is obviously a conservative; Siddique is apparently a liberal, having interned for The American Prospect, a self-avowed "authoritative magazine of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics."  Basically, one is arguing against the other simply from a political standpoint, rather than because of ideological differences on this particular subject; the end goal remains the same.

However, Siddique does have a more substantive argument, though as far as I can tell it is one of practice rather than of policy.  In allowing legislators to determine what is and what is not allowable under the ABOR, the government is getting another foot in the door on controlling education.  I think our public education system shows us that that has not worked out so well in the past; legislative oversight of education always frightens the libertarian side of me, though I do want congressmen to think about the money they are throwing at schools with such wild abandon.  Nothing in the wording of the ABOR, that I have seen at least, points specifically to legislative oversight; instead, it seems to focus on what schools should do, with little mention of how that should be enforced.  Horowitz is pushing it before legislators, though, in addition to the school officials who hold sway over university policies.

Consider as an example the following story from Campus Watch, a right-leaning organization dedicated to exposing the abuses of Middle Eastern studies in North America.  Campus Watch reports:

Earlier this month, the folklore department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison sponsored an event billed as "9/11: Folklore and Fact."

Held in the university's social sciences building, two leaders in what is known as the "9/11 Truth"—Kevin Barrett and James Fetzer—came to discuss their notion that 9/11 resulted not from the actions of al Qaeda, but from a Bush Administration conspiracy. As Barrett has claimed on many occasions, he doesn't "believe, but knows that 9/11 was an inside job."

Barrett was not simply a guest speaker, but a professor in Islamic studies at UWM as well.  Campus Watch argues that "Considering this event was sponsored and hosted by an institution that is funded by taxpayer dollars, the residents of Wisconsin have plenty to be angry about," but school officials back Barrett, mainly falling into one of three categories.

The first group basically argues for free speech, asserting that since the "university is a place for ideas," what he teaches does not matter.  Truth is inconsequential, so long as freedom of speech remains.

The second group argues against legislative oversight for universities, even if they don’t agree with Barrett’s views.  As one professor put it, "Once [the state legislators] get their foot in that door, how we're going to extract it I have no idea. I don't know if I'd say we stand by the guy, but we stand by the process."

The third group has some combination of the two, saying that while they might disagree with what Barrett is teaching, they uphold his right to teach it, as long as he does so responsibly; and letting law-makes have their say would only make the situation worse.

But not everyone at UWM supports the university’s position.  Take Marshall Onellion, a member of the Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights (the president of which, along with several other members, supported Barrett).  Onellion argues against Barrett, not on the basis of his political ideology alone, but for the impropriety of his place in the classroom.  "In almost any other discipline [. . .] They'd regard the guy as a fruitcake," Onellion said.  He continued:

"It has nothing to do with [Barrett’s] intellect; it's his passion. Any person who sincerely believes that the U.S. government plotted September 11 is entitled to his beliefs, but he's not entitled to pretend to possess an objectivity that he clearly doesn't have. Just as I wouldn't hire a Holocaust denier to teach a course on twentieth century European history, I wouldn't hire Barrett to teach a course on Islam. They'd be incapable of objectively going through the events. The analogy is precise."

As the writers of Campus Watch say, even in the name of free speech, some things should be too obviously extreme to be considered valid on campus.

This last is probably the camp I fall into.  I don’t particularly want more government involvement on campus, but I do want a correction to overwhelmingly left-leaning slant in most universities.  Perhaps the Academic Bill of Rights is based on a post-modern conception of truth, as Stanford University’s Dr. Graham Larkin argues, in the sense that it is asking for multiple sides of an argument to be presented and to let the student decide what is true.  But what it is asking is for the liberal education movement to accept its own doctrine, to allow real free speech to prevail, rather than only that which is politically correct.  Conservatives want their opinions to prevail, as do any people who hold an opinion as truth; but more so, conservatives want a chance to be heard on a fair basis, that students can decide.

In all this allowing of argument, I hope common sense can prevail.  Some things are simply too far out there to be considered valid, as I said above.  In this exchange of ideas, let’s hope that some people are actually looking for truth, rather than simply for an idea they like.  I'm not sure I want the Academic Bill of Rights to go into effect, but I'm not totally opposed to the idea either.  What is important to me is the search for truth; that is, as the ABOR notes in its first section, one of the the central purposes of the university, and one that has been often overlooked in recent days.