OPINION & EDITORIAL
Political freedom necessary in university classrooms
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Also by Robert S. Hunger:
- Sen. McCarthy not just another peace freak hallucination (December 14, 2005)
- Robertson goes off deep end again (January 15, 2006)
- Political freedom necessary in university classrooms (January 23, 2006)
- Debunking myth of Madison liberalism (September 1, 2005)
- Public financing of elections wrong (January 31, 2006)
Related Stories:
- From Joe to Jones (July 11, 2001)
- Ideology in classroom vastly overstated by right (February 8, 2006)
- From one regent to the next: A word of wisdom (August 30, 2001)
- Students' rights ignored by UW (November 6, 2006)
- Fear of flying irrational, if common (September 8, 2005)
by Robert S. Hunger
Monday, January 23, 2006
Apparently Doc Brown's flying DeLorean survived the horrific train crash at the end of “Back to the Future III,” as UCLA alum Andrew Jones has apparently found a working flux capacitor and harnessed 1.21 jigawatts of electricity to travel back to the year 1955.
Mr. Jones is attempting to bring back the glory days of McCarthyism through the Bruin Alumni Association, an organization dedicated to eradicating liberal professors from the UCLA campus. A $100 reward has been offered by Mr. Jones to any UCLA student able to show evidence suggesting a professor is not responsive to conservative talking points.
What Mr. Jones is proposing constitutes nothing short of a witch hunt. If this anti-opining movement gains momentum — as many have in the past — professors nationwide will soon fear to mention anything in lecture not taken directly out of the pleasantly neutral textbook, bringing back the dark ages from a few years ago when UW had a speech code in place that crippled professors' ability to pose thought-provoking questions.
While Americans today have the sifting and winnowing skills lacking from 17th-century Massachusetts, the allegations levied by Mr. Jones can originate from a single disgruntled student's notes from a single lecture. If other professions were to follow Mr. Jones' lead and treat such rough notes as canon, we would be surprised to learn the Senate only needs 60 votes to override a presidential veto, pi is exactly three and how Teddy Roosevelt defeated the Russians in WWII. As we are all painfully aware, in our haste to keep up with a professor, students tend to misinterpret facts from time to time.
In essence, this movement says individuals need to be sheltered from opposing points of view. Professors must not express their own opinions, Jones says, because they might offend someone. If, in the middle of a political science lecture, a professor momentarily deviates from the lesson plan on the limits of presidential power to crack a joke about President Bush, he or she risks running afoul of an overly sensitive conservative student and subsequently could find his or her name on the top of Mr. Jones' blacklist.
Many of these agitators subsequently claim the situation is much more dire than a joke here or there; they believe these professors grade conservative papers more harshly than they would grade a liberal one. The problem with this paranoid reasoning is that there really is no way to prove conservatives receive lower marks than their liberal counterparts based solely on their ideology. Simply because an individual received a grade of 70 percent for arguing a flat tax would not disproportionately benefit the wealthy in any way, shape or form does not suggest the grade was a result of their politics; the rotten grade could have been justly deserved. However, faced with that situation, it is much easier to blame the low grade on an unfriendly liberal professor rather than admit to oneself the all-night kegger on Monday was not such a great idea. "It's not my fault; it's that g-ddamn commie-pinko professor!"
Obviously, professors should not indoctrinate students with their own political bias.
But it is utterly amazing that the Bruin Alumni Association (not the official UCLA Alumni group, mind you) continues to hide under the guise of wishing to improve the university when such efforts are so blatantly political in nature.
If Mr. Jones and his ragtag team of followers truly cared about helping their alma mater, they could lobby the state to increase funding to the university or solicit donations for the college.
They have instead opted to publicly condemn university professors who fail to share their ideals in a move that could only hurt the university's reputation in the long run, possibly hurting both private donations and state aid. And nobody has to remind Wisconsin residents how a state Legislature can react to a major university being on the receiving end of a negative ad blitz, as the Paul Barrows affair (among other things) has caused the state to consistently slash UW's budget.
Rob Hunger (rshunger@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism and is an at-large member of The Badger Herald Editorial Board.
Anonymous (January 23, 2006 @ 8:49am):
Yes, it must be tough for the devout academic leftist, living in constant fear that someone will censor your speech... by repeating it.
It's tough to indoctrinate all day and present yourself as an inoffensive little scholar to the rest of the world. That whole con game might be endangered if the people who foot the bills were to find out what you really do in the classroom.
That explains the vociferous hatred for groups like Campus Watch (www.campus-watch.org), which exposes the harrassment, intimidation, and indoctrination that go on in MidEast studies departments.
Anonymous (January 23, 2006 @ 10:14am):
"... this movement says individuals need to be sheltered from opposing points of view."
What a joke - students ARE ALREADY sheltered from anything opposing the liberal point of view. The liberal thought control now in place in most departments has resulted in almost all professors being extremely liberal.
PS. If the butt of a joke was some liberal icon instead of Bush would it still be OK? Or would the perpetrator be ridden out of town on a rail for hate-speech?
Anonymous (January 23, 2006 @ 10:22am):
sounds like inquiry is being trammeled elsewhere.
Sift and Winnow on, Wisconsin.
Anonymous (January 23, 2006 @ 10:43am):
I agree with your general point wholeheartedly, and as a moderate have had no problems with professors from either side of the aisle. I have run into a problem, though, and only once, with a TA several years ago when I was an undergrad. He was very openly a Socialist, told me I was a Republican on several occasions (which I think he believed was an insult and was a little weird considering I've voted for Gore and Kerry), and I got a C+ in the class, which I knew was going to happen when I devoted one of my answers to the failings of a Socialist system.
However, the evil of shutting down professors' ideologies, limiting their speech, and making them less effective professors would be far, far worse than a rogue TA here or there giving a student a C+ in comparative politics.
Anonymous (January 23, 2006 @ 12:59pm):
First off, we're old enough to hear a professor's opinion without running off being offended if we don't agree. BOTH liberals and conservatives are guilty of not listening to, and trying to eliminate other points of view. They're also both guilty of being overly sensitive on certain issues. Lets not try to pretend that either side is open minded and accepting.
Anonymous (January 23, 2006 @ 3:54pm):
I love the notion behind things like the Bruin Alumni Association and David Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights. They must think students are idiots. I mean is this guy saying that a joke about Bush will render a student incapable of learning chemistry? Or that an English professor declaring themself an athiest will convert the class? Please! People disagree, people in power will often say something you disagree with, and people are often a little offensive. But, if you don't give people the freedom to say what they want, you're going to miss out on a lot of good, thought provoking stuff.
Anonymous (January 23, 2006 @ 4:17pm):
I'm far left of the Democratic party, but I'll agree that profs shouldn't go on partisan political rantings during class, or downgrading papers because of political affiliation. But maybe profs have a certain point of view based on the extensive research they've done? Or maybe they say a certain thing that seems biased, because that's the way it is? If you have differing views than the prof, debate them in class! Open discourse only improves the educational experience of everyone in the class.
Also keep in mind that unless perfectly aligned with you, everyone will seem to be either left or right of you. If you're a socialist, everyone seems conservative; if you're a conservative, everyone seems like a socialist, that's just how it is. But to rid academia of a particular viewpoint eliminates 50% of the discourse- and I'm sure that that's what the BAA wants. If they get their way, we'll only be back here in a few years debating this again, but instead we'll be talking about conservative scholars indoctrinating students.
