Freedom
for Me but Not for Thee
By
James Roumasset
Neither the right nor the left has had
a monopoly on censorship in education.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Huckleberry
Finn was
banned from school curricula and libraries
because it was thought to be immoral.
Later it was excluded because it was
said to be racist. The Free Speech Movement
at Berkeley in the mid 60's was a reaction
against the administration's suppression
of anti-war literature. But with the
increasing influence of former campus
radicals in the nation's colleges and
universities, the effort to suppress
speech that is judged offensive to women
and minorities was embodied in the proliferation
of speech codes. "Such censorship sent
a chill across higher education, unfairly
ruining many careers in the process." The
recent call for the firing of University
of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill
has sparked new fears of censorship from
the right. Again academic freedom appears
to be under siege from both sides.
One of the symptoms of overbearing political
correctness has been campus speech codes
that ban offensive speech, especially
that directed at women and minorities.
The interpretation of what constitutes
offensive speech was often left to the
alleged victims. In the notorious water-buffalo
remark at the University of Pennsylvania
case, this led to misguided accusations
of racism because the targets of the
remark were unfamiliar with the speaker's
culture. Invariably, it is the speaker
who is required to be "more sensitive" in
these cases.
Several court cases have struck down
overly broad speech codes. The U.S. Supreme
Court (R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 1992) found speech codes that ban viewpoint discrimination
to be unconstitutional, even when "hate
speech" was the nominal target of the
codes.
Other cases have similarly supported
free speech on campus, including Doe
v. University of Michigan, 1989 (invalidated speech code for being facially vague and overbroad), the
UWM Post, Inc. v. Board of Regents of
the University of Wisconsin System 1991 (code struck down as unconstitutional), Silva
v. University of New Hampshire 1994 ("...the
First Amendment, which does not tolerate
laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over
the classroom..."), Corry v.
Stanford 1995 (found that the Stanford code applied to speech that
could cause emotional distress but would
not incite an immediate breach of peace
nor other clear and present
danger). Even if speech is insulting and hurtful, as many found the recent
remarks of Ward Churchill on this campus,
it is not necessarily unlawful.
Despite the court victories, speech
codes are still prevalent on America's
college campuses. This
is partly because they have not been
challenged in court and partly because
they have been restructured so as to
be constitutional. Some of the codes
are ambiguous at best. For example, the
UH Student Conduct Code states that "A
student may not behave towards another
member of the University community, even
in the name of conviction or under a
claim of academic freedom, in a manner
that denies or interferes with that individual's
expression of conviction, academic freedom
or performance of
legitimate duties and functions."
The resilience of speech codes may be
related to a broader politicization of
the college experience that derives from
a concentration of faculty members on
the ideological left. Indeed college
faculties do not exhibit diversity in
political affiliation. A 2003 survey
of six major professional associations
in the Social Sciences and Humanities
found that Democrats outnumber Republicans
by at least 3 to 1 (Economics) and as
much as 30 to 1 (Anthropology). Studies
of voter registration rolls uncovered
the following ratios of Democrats to
Republicans: Cornell, 24:1; Brown University,
18:1; University of Colorado, 23:1; UCLA,
16:1; University of Maryland, 6:1; Syracuse
University, 25:1. A more comprehensive
study was done by matching the faculty
lists of Stanford and UC-Berkeley with
voter registration rolls in surrounding
counties (www.NAS.org).
Berkeley came in at 445 to 45 (10:1)
Democrats to Republicans with Stanford
at 276 to 36 (8:1). Among assistant and
associate professors, Republicans are
outnumbered 31:1.
It has been speculated that this lack
of balance is simply because those on
the ideological left are disproportionately
attracted to academics, not because of
any discrimination. Rothman et al. (2005)
show, however, that controlling for professional
achievements and personal characteristics,
conservatives and Republicans teach at
lower quality schools than do liberals
and Democrats.
The climate of political correctness
has several manifestations. The recent
faculty censure of Harvard President
Larry Summers is indicative. In January,
Summers agreed to make some provocative
and unofficial remarks at a National
Bureau of Economic Research meeting.
His topic was the low incidence of women
in tenured positions in science and engineering
at top universities and research institutions.
In addition to the well-known discrimination
and socialization hypotheses, Summers
provided two more. One was the higher variance (not
the mean) of scientific and mathematical
aptitude among men that leads to a larger
pool of men at the highest (and lowest)
aptitudes. Moreover, among men and women
with the highest aptitudes, Summers noted
indications that men were more likely
to maintain the level of commitment required
for high-end jobs. He then indicated
that further research might well disprove
his hypotheses. Judging from the subsequent
apologies and the likelihood that Summers
will resign and be replaced by a "politician," it
appears that political correctness has
won the day.
The curriculum of higher education is
alleged to be politicized and guilty
of substituting indoctrination for the
disciplined pursuit of knowledge. General
education requirements have exploded
to the point where the core is unrecognizable. Following
the lead of Stanford ("Ho Ho Ho, Western
Civ has got to go") and other mainland
institutions, UH replaced its requirement
of Western and Eastern Civilization with "Global
and Multicultural Perspectives," which
aims to provide students with "a sense
of human development ... through the consideration
of narratives and artifacts...."
The cost of political correctness is
not necessarily that students become
ideologically warped or anti-American
for life. Indeed college graduates are
marginally more likely to be Republican
than Democrat and significantly more
likely to be independent. Rather
it is the opportunity lost for learning
through the disciplined application of
reason and evidence. Instead students
often focus on gaming the system. Douthat
(2005) describes his own experience at
Harvard. One of his illustrations concerned
the requirement to write a 10-page paper
on a pair of artifacts from the early
American West without doing any research
on the cultures represented. Douthat
had a dilemma. "How could I eke out ten
pages when I knew nothing about the provenance
of the weapons or the significance of
their markings? The paper was pathetically
easy to write - not despite the dearth
of information but because of it. Knowing
nothing meant I could write anything.
I didn't need to do any reading, absorb
any history, or learn anything at all.
[He artfully sprinkled his essay with
references to capitalism, violence and
male domination.] ...the paper got an A."
Public institutions of higher learning
must be accountable to the principles
of academic freedom. If a student sports
a t-shirt declaring "Bush = War Criminal," that
is protected by freedom of speech. But
requiring criminology students to "make
the case that Bush is a war criminal" is
not protected by academic freedom. The
standard for practices regulating academic
freedom in higher education is the 1940
Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom
and Tenure, which
was based in turn on the AAUP's 1915
Declaration of Principles. As these documents
and subsequent applications make clear,
academic freedom is conditional on the
disciplined uses of evidence and reason.
The Statement also enjoins instructors
to "set forth justly, without suppression
or innuendo, the divergent opinions of
other investigators." These principles
have been broadly adopted by more than
150 colleges and universities.
Showing Michael Moore's Farenheit
9/11 in biology class on the eve of the 2004 elections
is not protected under these guidelines
for academic freedom. Instructors' freedom
to teach is conditional on the stricture "not
to introduce into their teaching controversial
matter which has no relation to their
subject." Moreover,
such activities are unlawful under
political patronage laws regarding
the use of publicly funded facilities
and institutions.
At the very least, the
climate of political correctness has
a chilling effect on academic inquiry
and creates a hostile environment for
intellectual pluralism. Without
political diversity, how can there
be diversity of thought? Can we really
afford to designate some questions,
e.g. regarding differences across race,
gender, and sexual orientation or about
Hawaiian sovereignty, as too inflammatory
for investigation?
There are signs that the general public
is growing suspicious about their tax
dollars being used for political ends
and demands for more accountability are
inevitable. One
particular movement has led to legislation
being introduced in 14 States calling
for an Academic Bill of Rights. The
Academic Bill of Rights (ABR) would abridge
neither free speech nor academic freedom.
Indeed it is essentially a more succinct
version of the AAUP Statement, especially
those portions that its author and the
Students for Academic Freedom believe
are widely violated on campuses today.
Legislative proposals to implement the
Rights have come under extensive criticism
by going beyond the AAUP Statement and
the actual Academic Bill of Rights (SAF,
2003). For example, legislation introduced
in Ohio would prohibit "persistently
introducing controversial matter into
the classroom." This resulted in accusations
of McCarthyism (http://collegian.kenyon.edu/article.php?id=2491).
Horowitz himself may have contributed
to the confusion by suggesting that the
ABR would require department personnel
committees to record their minutes and
subject them to the oversight of "duly
authorized authorities" and that individual
syllabi would have to be balanced, calling
to mind a similar oversight requirement.
Increased vigilance is required to promote
a learning environment that promotes
intellectual diversity. When our colleges
and universities ignore their own principles,
they are not serving the general public.
But if the Academic Bill of Rights is
a restatement of principles articulated
in the AAUP Statement as embodied in
faculty handbooks across the nation,
additional legislation would appear unnecessary.
The cure for political bias in higher
education is not likely to lie in more
rules. To paraphrase M. Scott Peck, the
road to community passes through verbal
chaos; civility and collegiality cannot
be reached through repression. And as
Judge Learned Hand wrote, "Liberty lies
in the hearts of men and women; when
it dies there, no constitution, no law,
no court can save it."
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