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Bahu Virupaksha

Join Date 09/2004

CAMPUS WATCH AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

Neocons Threaten Faculty

One of the more attractive features of the USA is the great institutions of higher learning that flourish all over the USA. It can be said that the USA has the world's best Universities and the largest number of Nobel Prize winners and a tradition of fearless criticism. The faculty teaching in the Universities are undoubtedly the most talented and on the whole involved in their research and teaching. A open society that respects dissent is cultivated in the classrooms and lecture halls. Unfortunately, this great tradition of dissent and criticism is being undermined by as neo con vigellante group calling itself the CAMPUS WATCH. It is essentially a group that keeps watch on liberal opinion and harasses those who take an overly critical posture. At the risk of offending some liberals, I must say in all honesty that the Right wing has more tolerance for dissent than the Liberals who usually wrap themselves in a holier than thou attitude with patronising disdain for those who disagree ith them. Afterall we know better, seems to be their refrain. In spite of this caveat, the ffact must be faced square and fair:Campus Watch is going too far.

It is said that activists of Campus Watch repot back on the opinions expressed by Professors during calss room interaction. This to my mind is not acceptable. One can disagree with the Professor on any number of issues, but that should remain confined to the class room. Making political capital out of academic opinion seems to be an unfortuante development. This is all the more unfortunate since the American tradition has all along been one of openess and fair criticsm. I hasten to add that the liberal have also used coerion against those who went agasinst their ideological position. But two wrongs do not make a right.

The war in Iraq and the policy of the US with regard to the Palestine question has been most frequently cited as reasons for the decline of academic freedom in US Universities. For example, a professor at Harvard University, John Mearscheimer rote an acaxdemic analysis of the role of the Israeli lobby in the formulation of US policy toward Israel. The Campus Watch made it impossible for this scholar to teach and research peacefully. In another case a professor from Yale University Juan Cole was denied tenure because of the opinion expressed in his resarch monograph. Professor Cole is an expert on the Middle East and a well known authority on Shiaa Islam. He happens to question the wisdom of the Bush line on Iraq and for this he has been sent out of the University.

I can give many more instances of such intolerant behavior. One can say that it was the liberals in their heyday who used such techniques to harass right wing faculty. And that is true. During my stay in an American Univeristy I have seen how the liberals used to hatrass and humiliate a senior faculty who was essntially a decent right winger. Yet, I must add that things are going too far. Campus Watch is essentally making the US universities intolerant and squelching dissent and that is not democratic.

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Few things.

PFFFT!!!!!

You are so full of BS, Bahu. If professors leaned *any* direction, it is undeniably true, that most lean left.

Think about it, most of the studies are "liberal arts." i.e. Art, liberal studies, etc...

Check out F.I.R.E 's website. There is one bit in it about liberal bias in colleges.

Also, Link?

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There is a difference between open discussion and indoctination. The sooner you learn it the happier you will be. Campus watch is a watchdog outfit, not a gestapo one. And the left leaning professors are mostly in the social sciences, which with the exception of Economics, does not win Nobel Prizes (and there is some debate on whether Econ is a social science).

If it were just that the professors were liberal, that would be fine. However it is that they brook no dissent on their extreme liberal views, and that is a problem. And the one that Campus Watch is set up to air (not squash - bring out into the open). IN essence, you are a pawn of the left leaning professors. Trying to squash dissent. Is that what you really want to be? If so, we can throw you in with Col klink and just put you on permanent ignore since no amount of reasoning will get through to you that dissent is not bad, the suppression of dissent is.

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In fact I have said that they do lean in a certain direction. Yet the principle of academic freedom must be maintained. I also state that the Liberals will not concede the same freedom to their ideo.logical adversaries.

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However it is that they brook no dissent on their extreme liberal views, and that is a problem. A

I have said as much in my blog and I do accept your point that liberal Faculty are intolerant of dissenting views. I think you have got me wrong. I have said thast the liberals brook no dissent. Yet the fact remains that just because they do it "we" on the right should also respond in kind. I am opposed to any indoctrination and coercion of any kind in matters relating to higher education. In fact I will even say that there is much misuse of their position in order to air outrageous views without giving time or opportunity for opposing points of view. Even so, the principle of free exchange must be maintained.

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Yet the principle of academic freedom must be maintained.

Then you should be supporting Campus watch as that is their goal, not the suppression of dissent. Which is the goal of those who cannot debate in the arena of ideas. i.e. The Left leaning faculty of many universities (Just look at the reaction that Condi Rice and John McCain got at the New School and Princeton for their speeches - and the reception Ann Coulter got for a speech in Arizona - the demonstrable examples are too numerous to list in totality.)

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A open society that respects dissent is cultivated in the classrooms and lecture halls

This one sentence all by itself shows you need more research! Open dissent is allowed "only" if you follow the liberal guide lines! Oppose them and you can almost guarantee a failing grade for the course.

can give many more instances of such intolerant behavior. One can say that it was the liberals in their heyday who used such techniques to harass right wing faculty. And that is true. During my stay in an American Univeristy I have seen how the liberals used to hatrass and humiliate a senior faculty who was essntially a decent right winger. Yet, I must add that things are going too far. Campus Watch is essentally making the US universities intolerant and squelching dissent and that is not democratic.

I don't need to hear any more instances....personally I would like to see "proof" of these allegations.

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Oppose them and you can almost guarantee a failing grade for the course.

I have said as much. In fact I am not a supporter of the liberal faculty, as I am a civil libertarian. They must give equal time and opportunity to discuss contrary views which they dont do. So I am in basic agreement with your position. My only problem is with the methods used by Campus Watch. That is all. The sentence highlighted above may not be wholly accurate, but I have known instances of that happening. How to you remedy this situation? Certainly not by more policing of thought.

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Zoomba

Join Date 11/2002

+114

Academic Freedom is typically guaranteed by University policy and there's some that say it's an extension of first ammendment freedoms. In reality, you don't have true academic freedom until you reach tenure. The concept is to protect professors who propose unpoular research or ideas from censure by their school, or by the government. It is not to protect them from criticism or from reporting. Campus Watch, while I think they're a bit... um... zealous about the whole thing, is not censuring or blocking professors from saying what they want. They're not blocking research monies, and they're not impacting their jobs in any way.

Also, the expectation that the classroom is some holy and sanctified place where what is said can not be carried out into the wider world, or can't be fully criticized is ridiculous. Freedom of speech and expression cuts both ways, and those who criticize are not somehow protected from criticism themselves. Academic Freedom and the Freedom of Speech protect you from official censure for expressing your views, they don't protect you from the consequences of expressing them however. What Campus Watch is doing is giving some professors a taste of their own medicine.

I grew up in a Universtiy town, my father is a professor, I spent more time as a child with PHds than with other kids so I'm pretty aware of the various biases and behaviors in academia. After all those years I realized the single least understood concept in all of America is the one that is touted so often... our freedom of speech, expression and religion (with academic freedoms being a philosphical extension). In many cases, you are free to say whatever it is that you like, express any view that strikes your fancy in any you want, but those who disagree with you are perfectly within their rights to do the same thing back to you. Groups of citizens taking it on themselves to monitor people they disagree with and reporting on what professors say in a public setting isn't squashing any freedom. It's not prohibiting them from doing anything. It's just the other side of the coin on free expression.

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"Making political capital out of academic opinion seems to be an unfortuante development. "

Making academic capital out of political opinion seems to be an unfortunate development. We don't send kids to school to be indoctrinated on our dime. Education that focuses on a particular perspective is an incomplete education. If all perspectives aren't addressed, or at least as many as possible, then you aren't getting the whole story.

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I overshot my boundaries, so to speak. I apologize for that Bahu.

~L

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OK> Well said. My concern was the perceived selectivity in the whole affair.

I stand enlightened by your post. Thank you. You too seem to feel that CW can be overenthusiastic in its approach. My point was only that. I do agree that freedom of expression cannot be used to gloss political opinion, the point that Baker Street makes quite rightly.

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Well, Campus watch holds the belief that what you describe as wrong isn't a feature of yesteryear. They believe, and I think rightly so, that those people you talk about who ranted against the conservative educational establishment just grew up and became the Liberal educational establishment.

In reality I don't there there has been a conservative establishment on the instructor side in a long, long time. Granted, the trustees and benefactors of many of these schools have been, but you can go back to the 50's and see that these same 'hotbed' schools were churning out the thinkers who returned to rant in their place, a little more unabashedly each generation.

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with schools functioning like newspapers; in other words each town having a Republican and Democrat version. The same thing that happened with newspapers is happening with schools, though. One survives, the other dies, and eventually the system becomes lopsided.

That's why Fox News is so popular now. How long has it been since there was a patently Conservative, nationwide news outlet. I think they are a hypocritical for calling themselves "fair and balanced" when they obviously aren't, but that doesn't mean I don't see them as a correction in a system that favors their opposites.

I think that is all Campus Watch wants, and you and I want neither. Post graduate work will always be fraught with bias, since it is about 'breaking new ground' and formulating NEW ideas about things. At least that is the way it is supposed to be. You know as well as I do that it doesn't work that way, and you are more apt to succeed if you follow the lead of your betters.

The real damage is when these schools become engines turning out little non-questioning bots, and that is what many of them do. My history professor in college, on the first day meeting with his advisor, was asked what he thought of a particular perspective on a historical event. My professor told him that it was idiotic, and unfortunately that was the subject of the advisor's soon-to-be-published book.

Needless to say, he didn't do well there and eventually went elsewhere. When it is a political idea, it is even worse, because these schools are only handing the laurels, which will later determine the person's status, to people of their own political bent. You end up with the elite of the society all being of the same political bent.

I think once people are in graduate school they can handle it so long as they aren't punitively effected by their own ideas. The heinous end of this is the fact that this attitude has saturated undergrad and even high school educators in many places.

I think you and I agree, but we see CW differently. I think they are just batting for the folks who are outsiders in these schools. Maybe they should have gone elsewhere, granted, but sometimes you don't get to pick which Ivy League school you go to.

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There was a time when it was a rite of passage for a professor to become a footnote. After all, what better evidence that your work is appreciated than someone else quoting you?

Now we have professors who fear being quoted... My question to them is, if what they are teaching in your classroom can't stand scrutiny, shouldn't that tell them something?

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My question to them is, if what they are teaching in your classroom can't stand scrutiny, shouldn't that tell them something?

That decision should be a professional one. It cannot be left to students who have signed up for the course. It is a professional obligation to tell both sides of the story, so to speak. This is particularly true of my discipline History, and other humanities and social sciences. Justbecause a few misuse their position is not reason enough to have a coercive atmosphere in the class room/lecture hall.

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My history professor in college, on the first day meeting with his advisor, was asked what he thought of a particular perspective on a historical event. My

Just as a matter of curiosity, I wonder what that particular issue was.

When it is a political idea, it is even worse, because these schools are only handing the laurels, which will later determine the person's status, to people of their own political bent. You end up with the elite of the society all being of the same political bent.

Here you are spot on. From my own experience at Grad School I have always found the conservative professors more fair and more tolerant of dissenting ideas than liberal ones. This I attribute to the stronng strain on non conformism in American Conservatism which is being undermined by the neocons.

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