The Nerve of Some Teachers
Here’s a very useful collection for you – links to news coverage of Florida State Representative Dennis Baxley’s proposed ‘Academic Freedom Bill of Rights.’ People like Baxley are a big help, you know? Any time I listen to Start the Week or Saturday Review and get a little cross or downcast or highstrung about the way everyone simply takes it for granted that all Americans are both stupid and insane – well all I have to do is think of people like Rep. Baxley and I realize why UK radio chatters might think that.
The Alligator gets in some good jabs.
At the Capitol, Baxley opened the council meeting by saying that personal criticism he received about the bill was a sign the government should step in to govern what university professors can say in the classroom.
And Horowitz was there to spice things up, of course. (His frequent flyer miles must be really racking up these days.)
As editor of Front Page Magazine, Horowitz wrote in a 2001 article that the theory of evolution was a political invention “to attack traditional values.”
That Darwin. Didn’t he have anything better to do than invent some pesky theory to attack traditional values? What was his problem, anyway? Was he just, like, pissed because he wasn’t born in Florida, or what?
Casting the “crisis” in higher education as a struggle between “leftist totalitarianism” and “mainstream values,” Horowitz cited anecdotes about students being marked down for disagreeing with professors in class. He divulged neither the names of these students nor their professors.
Hmmmm. For instance…like in biology class, when the professor is lecturing about DNA and a student keeps interrupting to say ‘No it’s not DNA, it’s God, what does it’? Or in English class, when the professor is leading a discussion of, say, ‘The Prelude,’ and a student keeps interrupting to say that Wordsworth wasn’t actually Wordsworth but rather Anastasia Romanov in disguise? Or in history class when the professor is lecturing on the Third Reich and a student keeps interrupting to say the Holocaust never happened? Or in astronomy class when a student keeps interrupting to say that the moon is a large paper disc five thousand feet above the earth?
I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that kind of what students go to university for? To be disagreed with? If it’s not, why do they bother going at all? Well, to get a credential, I suppose. But if the credential is really that completely divorced from this business of having existing opinions and knowledge or the lack of it disagreed with, then why bother with physical attendance? Why waste all that time and energy? Why not just go to the damn credential store and buy the credential and let it go at that?
It must happen with books, too. That’s sad, isn’t it. There the poor innocent student is, reading along, and all of a sudden she reads something that is different from what she herself thinks. Fortunately, books can’t mark people down, so the harm is smaller – but all the same. Something ought to be done about it. Stickers on the covers, maybe, that give a warning – ‘Danger: Contents may contain statements that differ from reader’s own sacred identity-fostering opinions. Read with caution. Have medications handy. Play soothing music. Breathe deeply and slowly. Stop after fifteen minutes.’
Come to think of it, there are stickers like that. So much for sarcasm. Reality keeps outrunning sarcasm, these days.
The journalist at The Alligator wrote this description in his first article on Baxley:
“‘The critics ridicule me for daring to stand up for students and faculty,’ he said, adding that he was called a McCarthyist.
“Baxley later said he had a list of students who were discriminated against by professors, but refused to reveal names because he felt they would be persecuted.”
I noted the clever juxtaposition of Baxley’s claimed accusation of McCarthyism and his mysterious list, echoing Joe’s own “I have here in my hand a list…” I was so amused I wrote Mr. Vanlandingham, who said that the juxtaposition in question jumped out at him during the meeting: In other words, it wasn’t some bit of journalistic cleverness on his part, it was right there in front of him.
Reality is outrunning irony as well as sarcasm.
“As editor of Front Page Magazine, Horowitz wrote in a 2001 article that the theory of evolution was a political invention “to attack traditional values.”
A swift search on frontpagemag.com fails to turn up any Horowitz use of the phrase “to attack traditional values”. There is one instance of the phrase, used by one “Robert Locke” in a 2001 article. I sense – let’s be generous here – misattribution at work.
“I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that kind of what students go to university for? To be disagreed with?”
Well, they will be disagreed with if they are of any other political persuation than pretty far left field. Thus, the right is fighting the universities – I fail to see what is so shocking about it.
“I fail to see what is so shocking about it.”
Then you’re not trying hard enough. Anyone can disagree with anyone (including a professor) about anything. I thought my reductio examples made it pretty obvious what is so shocking about it. Students can disagree about facts, evidence, anything at all, whether they know anything of the subject or not. Professors marking them down for that is quite often part of the job description. You may think grades and tests are a bad idea, but do you really think professors disagreeing with students is invariably a bad idea?
“but do you really think professors disagreeing with students is invariably a bad idea?”
No, but that doesn’t mean I favor not fighting leftist domination over the universities.
But my comment is about this particular bill and the rhetoric of this particular representative, who made that particular statement.
How much do you worry about rightist domination over the business schools, I wonder?
“How much do you worry about rightist domination over the business schools, I wonder?”
Not at all, of course. The left didn’t conquer the campus through fairness, and nor will the campus be recaptured through fairness.
Second of all, it should be pointed out that Horowitz is, AFAIK, not an ID type (IIRC he is a secular jew) and that the accusation along that line contained in the article is most likely either a mistake or a lie.
The ‘left’ didn’t conquer the campus at all. B&W gives groupthink a hard time, but it doesn’t confuse groupthink with war. And most US colleges don’t even have all that much in the way of lefty groupthink – they have other problems. Read Russell Jacoby’s excellent Dogmatic Wisdom on this subject.
So Dobeln, let me get this right (no pun intended). Anyone who accepts evolution theory, thinks that the Holocaust really happened, that God didn’t design us and that the moon isn’t a piece of paper is on the far left?
So what do I have to believe in to be in the centre? Alien abductions?
Dobeln rightly points out that Horowitz never wrote that evolution is a ‘political invention’ to attack traditional values (or, if he did, it isn’t Google-accessible).
However, in 2001 Robert Locke wrote in FrontPage an article entitled “Evolution Is In Trouble: What Should Conservatives Do About it?” that inter alia draws attention to the evolutionist basis of Nazism and Social Darwinism, and that contained the following sentence:
“em>Evolution has been used for nearly 150 years as a club with which to attack traditional values.“
I think that the point Locke is making is that evolutionary theory HAS at least occasionally been illegitimately used to jump from ‘is’ to ‘ought’, though perhaps I’m too charitable – the sentence could also
be interpreted as meaning that ‘evolution has EXCLUSIVELY been used to attack traditional values’.
At any rate, ‘The Alligator’ should have done its homework before making defamatory remarks about Horowitz, who is certainly not a creationist. Horowitz is a neo-conservative, i.e. a foreign policy Jacobin who will play to the creationists’ gallery if that coaxes them to support US military intervention in the Middle East in the interests’ of his own ethnic group. I suppose that explains why his otherwise excellent site contains the occasional article that highlights the ‘downside’ of evolutionary theory, hence appealing to the ‘useful idiots’ who believe in the literal truth of the bible. But AFAIK he never claimed evolution was a ‘political invention’.
I was highly sceptical about this ‘academic bill of rights’ business, and many of the arguments used by those who support it are quite worrying. However, a recent FrontPage article did give pause for thought. It provided the following link, to the web page of one Jane Christensen of North Carolina Wesleyan College, who lectures in Political Science: http://faculty.ncwc.edu/Jchristensen/. Have a look at some of the stuff she approvingly links to, which astonishingly includes articles claiming that 9/11 was the work of the CIA and Mossad, that Bush had foreknowledge of 9/11, that the 9/11 hijackers are ‘alive and well’, and that ‘5 Israelis’ were ‘seen videotaping the WTC on 911’. She also approvingly includes a picture of IRA terrorists: http://faculty.ncwc.edu/Jchristensen/images/IRA.gif and flaunts her personal political views, despite this being a faculty webpage, not a personal website. The exam essay questions she writes also blatantly contain political bias. For example, ‘Discuss the sweeping attack on democratic rights under the Bush administration and what this means for the future of democratic government in America’ is obviously a leading question.
I’m not convinced that this ‘bill of rights’ is a good idea, but let’s not think it’s all unfounded nonsense spouted by people who simply hate the Left, for in some cases there are some worrying issues that need addressing.
Ophelia asks, ‘I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that kind of what students go to university for? To be disagreed with?’ Of course, but there is a difference between having your lecturer disagree with you and having him/her preach at you, and from Christensen’s webpages, I find it hard to believe that that wouldn’t happen with her as your lecturer.
Perhaps this is a bigger problem in the US than here in the UK. During my A-level Government & Politics course (the 2 years prior to university), I was taught by openly left-wing lecturers, yet they treated us all fairly, including a loudmouthed member of the Young Conservatives, and didn’t attempt to promote the left-wing causes that outside the college they were actively involved with. At university, I had a lesbian feminist lecturer. She has some pretty radical views, yet was able to present them alongside more conservative views, fairly and calmly. She didn’t evangelise, but informed students and challenged their preconceptions, and that is quite right. Her exam questions sought to encourage students to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material, and their ability to critically evaluate it, but she certainly never attempted to use them to ‘lead’ students to an ideologically predetermined conclusion.
Universities should challenge students, but in some cases it would appear that the conservatives are right, and that a minority of academics are indeed arrogantly stepping over the line from challenging students into attempting to ideologically mould them.
It’s not always simply a case of students being upset about having their ‘sacred identity-fostering opinions’ taken apart. Sometimes it’s a case of the lecturers attempting to force *their* sacred identity-fostering opinions onto their students.
Edmund,
Absolutely. I’m not arguing that there are no crap, biased teachers out there. I’m just arguing that the Bill seems like an inherently unworkable way to deal with that. It’s hard to see how such a Bill could function without all sorts of policing and micromanagement that would make a complete hash of the way universities ought to function.
Agreed.
Horowitz is a neo-conservative, i.e. a foreign policy Jacobin who will play to the creationists’ gallery if that coaxes them to support US military intervention in the Middle East in the interests’ of his own ethnic group.
“The interests of his own ethnic group”? Excuse me? Would you like to elaborate on that?