Without free speech, there is no America.
42
"...a course that examined white identity called “The Problem of Whiteness” "
Trying to imagine the response if my university offered "The Problem of Blackness" or "The Problem of Homosexuality".
Trying to imagine the response if my university offered "The Problem of Blackness" or "The Problem of Homosexuality".
133
What's the matter with Wisconsin?
66
When you feed at the public trough Professor you have accountability to the people who pay your salary - the tax payer. Get used to it.
61
And this is exactly how true "political correctness" works: the rules are set by the politically empowered AGAINST those who do not have power. It is a way of enforcing on everyone only those ideas that are acceptable to the ruling party. All other ideas are actually punishable through loss of money or position etc.
71
As a reader of NYT from elsewhere, I've noted that NYT loves finding fault with places other than NY.
I've often wondered why the NYT does not clean up its own back yard and mind its own business.
How useful it would be for the other imperfect states to learn by NY's example that has been led to perfection by NYT's fine instruction of what is right and what is wrong.
Old Jimma from the Old Country
I've often wondered why the NYT does not clean up its own back yard and mind its own business.
How useful it would be for the other imperfect states to learn by NY's example that has been led to perfection by NYT's fine instruction of what is right and what is wrong.
Old Jimma from the Old Country
27
What these legislators could use is a little education.
It might help to say check out the Wikipedia article on Nazi Book Burnings. There is a list of what types of literature got consigned to the flames.
Seems like a lot of the ideas the Nazis didn't like are pretty much the ideas the Republican legislators don't like.
So my message to the legislators is why let your narrow minded views be limited to stuff like homosexuality, race, and gender issues! Get an education! Wise up! Expand your horizons! There's so much more you can prohibit, demonize, censor! Foreign authors! Decadent art! American history books that don't glorify slavery, capitalsim, and war! Philosophy!
Get to work!
It might help to say check out the Wikipedia article on Nazi Book Burnings. There is a list of what types of literature got consigned to the flames.
Seems like a lot of the ideas the Nazis didn't like are pretty much the ideas the Republican legislators don't like.
So my message to the legislators is why let your narrow minded views be limited to stuff like homosexuality, race, and gender issues! Get an education! Wise up! Expand your horizons! There's so much more you can prohibit, demonize, censor! Foreign authors! Decadent art! American history books that don't glorify slavery, capitalsim, and war! Philosophy!
Get to work!
70
The hypocritical conservative dialog fits nicely here. Government intrusion when it suits your social purpose Otherwise it's BIG GOVERNMENT that needs to be curtailed. Strap in folks.
58
These state legislators are simply taking a page out of Hitler's Nazi playbook: When you want to crush opposition, this is how first to do it. If you don't drool the party line, you're out!
49
I grew up in the days of McCarthy and HUAC.
There never was a golden age of free speech in America. http://isreview.org/issue/80/different-kind-teachers-union
My college physics teacher was blacklisted, and had to leave the country.
If you want free speech, you have to fight for it.
You fight for it by organizing -- as Bernie Sanders showed us how to do.
There never was a golden age of free speech in America. http://isreview.org/issue/80/different-kind-teachers-union
My college physics teacher was blacklisted, and had to leave the country.
If you want free speech, you have to fight for it.
You fight for it by organizing -- as Bernie Sanders showed us how to do.
62
I support anyone that may be screaming at the top of their lungs what I might ( or anybody else ) reprehensible. That is free speech. That is what the founding fathers envisioned. As long as there is no libel, slander or direct calls to harm, then have it, Say what you want or teach what is fact. ( all sciences and realities included )
Silencing free speech in the classroom is as abhorrent as the NY TIMES moderation team not allowing us to comment on it.
You don't say ...
Silencing free speech in the classroom is as abhorrent as the NY TIMES moderation team not allowing us to comment on it.
You don't say ...
29
Two U of Oklahoma students were expelled within 48 hours due to a videotape made outside of class in which they rapped about blacks being lynched. It was condemned all the way to Joe BIden. Black OK lawmakers also got involved. Black students demanded tons of compensation despite the incident happening off campus and it being dealt with swiftly. If these were two black students rapping similar things about women or gays no one would have taken notice.
Anytime a black person claims racism the whole world comes to a stop and the extortion begins.
On the other hand anti-Semitism is rampant, especially among black leftists and Muslims. The same students and administrators who go bonkers over the most minor slight towards blacks, Muslims, illegal immigrants, and transgendered either ignore it or are apologists for it. It would not be hard to ask if the same language directed towards blacks, Hispanics or Muslims would be tolerated. But no one does because constantly liberals are tolerating the intolerable when it comes to anti-Jewish attitudes. The idea that the behavior of Jews or Israel makes this hostility warranted is laughable considering there is much greater barbarity committed by Muslims and blacks and any hint of derogatory attitudes leads to swift outrage and condemnation.
Anytime a black person claims racism the whole world comes to a stop and the extortion begins.
On the other hand anti-Semitism is rampant, especially among black leftists and Muslims. The same students and administrators who go bonkers over the most minor slight towards blacks, Muslims, illegal immigrants, and transgendered either ignore it or are apologists for it. It would not be hard to ask if the same language directed towards blacks, Hispanics or Muslims would be tolerated. But no one does because constantly liberals are tolerating the intolerable when it comes to anti-Jewish attitudes. The idea that the behavior of Jews or Israel makes this hostility warranted is laughable considering there is much greater barbarity committed by Muslims and blacks and any hint of derogatory attitudes leads to swift outrage and condemnation.
68
Am I the only one whose immediate reaction to this column was "well, let's see what happens to Professor Moynihan now"? How dangerous and sad, which is, of course, his point.
19
The rhetoric of that title "Who's Really...?" implies that it is only one or the other. It can be both. And both are bad.
33
Comparing smallpox and cholera, we could agree that both are bad. Idiotic state legislator right wing ideologues ("the rapture will happen in our lifetime," "gays are cursed by God") and knee jerk leftists ("all men are rapists", "Israel is a Fascist state," etc.) meet in the same stupid, anti-free speech place- American universities. Hopefully, the recent presidential election has taught us that American idiocy is rampant.
32
I'm glad that class was scrapped. Can you imagine a professor offering a class called "The Problem of Blackness." Those who are "politically correct" should not forget the golden rule.
63
Who will judge incidents like this as politically correct?
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2017&mm=01&dd=06&a...
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics.php?yyyy=2017&mm=01&dd=06&a...
2
Donald Moynihan is wrong.
Not everything should be taught in college.
Teaching a course on the problem of Whiteness does not belong in college just like a course on the problem of blackness would.
Telling the school to cancel it was correct
This doesn't mean it can't be discussed or written about in the class room or outside of it.
This is therefore not about the freedom of speech.
It is about the fundamental idea of what being educated means as that is why we have colleges.
There are many ideas that should not be taught in school but should be discussed in private or public.
Teaching a course on race that is only is being taught to polarize people's feelings on race isn't about education and therefore should not be given but it should be discussed in and outside of the classroom .
It is only when discussion or writing about a idea is prohibited is the right to free speech being limited and that is happening in many colleges.
There are many schools where you are labelled a racist if you support Israel's right to defend themselves from attack and prohibit you from discussing it.
This is true with other ideas as well.
Try being pro Trump or pro business or pro life.
It's the liberals who want to take the freedom of speech from you and they don't even know it.
Not everything should be taught in college.
Teaching a course on the problem of Whiteness does not belong in college just like a course on the problem of blackness would.
Telling the school to cancel it was correct
This doesn't mean it can't be discussed or written about in the class room or outside of it.
This is therefore not about the freedom of speech.
It is about the fundamental idea of what being educated means as that is why we have colleges.
There are many ideas that should not be taught in school but should be discussed in private or public.
Teaching a course on race that is only is being taught to polarize people's feelings on race isn't about education and therefore should not be given but it should be discussed in and outside of the classroom .
It is only when discussion or writing about a idea is prohibited is the right to free speech being limited and that is happening in many colleges.
There are many schools where you are labelled a racist if you support Israel's right to defend themselves from attack and prohibit you from discussing it.
This is true with other ideas as well.
Try being pro Trump or pro business or pro life.
It's the liberals who want to take the freedom of speech from you and they don't even know it.
50
The author had better be looking over his shoulder. The Republican state legislature is gaining on him, looking for another faculty scalp.
21
Maybe we should send a copy of Orwell's 1984 or Huxley's Brave New World to the GOP thought police. Then again, maybe they read them and took the wrong message from the books - that controlling thought makes the population docile as a good thing. That sounds about right for the narrow-minded GOP. They haven't had a new idea since Reagan and continue to support many of his same wholly disproven ideas.
26
These state legislators are taking moral relativism to its most extreme limits.
14
this article seeks to dismiss the "PC" crowd. They, like the legislatures mentioned, are a threat to freedom on campus. The author has obviously not been harassed or threatened by these students (like so many others have).
16
No, otherwise it would be training, and not education.
4
More hypocrisy from The NY Times. Listen, when a conservative is invited to speak at the commencement ceremony for a major liberal US University, the The NY Times can complain. Rutgers University still bears the shame of its ugly example involving Condaleeza Rice. That is threat.
47
I would have respect for Wisconsin exploring the problems of whiteness if at the same time they took a hard look at the dysfunactional aspects of African American culture
53
This is a joke. Every attempt to center discussion away from the strong leftist bias on campus is met with a shrill article in the New York Times, like this one.
It would be useful for liberals to look up the definition of liberal. Leftists are not liberals.
It would be useful for liberals to look up the definition of liberal. Leftists are not liberals.
37
Moynihan's opinion piece comes within days of the passing of Nat Hentoff. This column and Hentoff's 1992 book Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee remind us that attacks on free expression frequently come from both left and right.
23
I guess a marketplace of ideas is only as good as the people who own the cash register.
24
I will be ok with a course titled "The Problem with Whiteness" when we also have one titled "The Problem with Blackness". My guess is that Moynihan would not be so receptive to the latter course.
33
Wow - some comments about university professors seem based on pure imagination. As a tenured professor, I spend 10 hours a week in classrooms with students. I have had between 160 - 550 students per semester; I learn their names, read their papers, and grade their exams. Whoever imagines reading 500 papers in 10 hours . . . never knew any teacher. Tuition is $1,200 to take a class with me; my classes generate between $384,000 to $1,320,000 revenue per year. My salary is 6-22% of tuition revenue that I generate, which is 16% below average in my discipline. Salaries are cut to hold down costs.
I advise 40 students, serve on hiring committees for administrators and faculty, observe for new faculty (i.e. accountability), create computer-based class materials, run a research lab, write programs for experiments, mentor students to do research presentations at national conferences, serve on university committees for dealing with student conduct problems, go with recruiters to community colleges to talk about our program, write recommendation letters for graduating students, etc.
I teach in a disciple that requires licensing. Professional organizations set guidelines for education and state boards test and license our graduates. Yet some uninformed commenters say there is no accountability. Come spend a week at work with me - then tell me why I need to be accountable to someone who only "imagined" what a university professor does. Then I'll do the same for you.
I advise 40 students, serve on hiring committees for administrators and faculty, observe for new faculty (i.e. accountability), create computer-based class materials, run a research lab, write programs for experiments, mentor students to do research presentations at national conferences, serve on university committees for dealing with student conduct problems, go with recruiters to community colleges to talk about our program, write recommendation letters for graduating students, etc.
I teach in a disciple that requires licensing. Professional organizations set guidelines for education and state boards test and license our graduates. Yet some uninformed commenters say there is no accountability. Come spend a week at work with me - then tell me why I need to be accountable to someone who only "imagined" what a university professor does. Then I'll do the same for you.
58
Both sides seem to miss an important point in connection with this story: nobody is forced to enroll in any of the courses being discussed. No state taxpayer nor any of their children have any reason to worry about the content of these courses. If no students ever find the courses worthwhile, this will be reflected in reviews of the professor's scholarly achievements, and his or her employment will ultimately be in jeopardy. Unless, of course, the professor has tenure, but that's another story that ultimately does have some bearing on the question of political meddling in academic affairs.
12
As someone who was threatened in writing by a state university, shortly after I graduated summa cum laude, not to communicate with anyone there for any purpose by any means ever (other than the author of the threat), I daresay the US does have free speech issues in higher education! Obama's US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights didn't have problems with such threats being made, and I don't expect Trump's will be any different.
5
It's been shown that the "Golden Age" of the American university was from about 1945 to 1975, when the returning GI's and their kids democratized the schools, student bodies, and curricula. With Sputnik, a wave of interest in science and math enriched the schools once again, and with Vietnam "free speech" issues did, too. Minority issues and non-heterosexual issues came and changed much again.
My question to loyal democratic American parents and legislators is this: What's not to like about candor and debate? I think the radicals on campus need to be asked the same question. Let's not shut down free exchange of ideas by tightening wallets or the meaning of "free".
My question to loyal democratic American parents and legislators is this: What's not to like about candor and debate? I think the radicals on campus need to be asked the same question. Let's not shut down free exchange of ideas by tightening wallets or the meaning of "free".
20
I am all in favor of freedom of speech. I am also in favor of a periodic review of courses for academic merit. There is some danger inherent in that, but its an exercise that needs to happen. I am curious whether a course that is entirely focused on the pathologies of minorities should be allowed. The subject matter is relevant.
23
The ruling junta in Wisconsin is comprised of people whose affection for the University is limited to its men's football and basketball teams. Everything else that goes on there is seen as the dabbling of effete liberals in research and teaching that is either irrelevant to the state's economy or an active affront to the sensibilities of the state's "hard-working taxpayers," who, it goes without saying, do not live in Madison. They do not even respect nationally-renowned scientists researching climate change, having deep-sixed a report produced in collaboration with the state's Department of Natural Resources (whose website was recently stripped of all references to "climate change," by the way). No one should expect them to tolerate professors or courses who dare to suggest white privilege is a problem or that men should consider what more there is to masculinity than hunting and pickup trucks.
29
Conservatives are demanding safe spaces where their own political correctness can rule.
These conservatives experienced a series of traumas in the 60s and 70s, and like any childhood trauma event, development stopped at that point.
Now they have their party in power at the state levels, namely the TeaParty, and their man, Trump, is now POTUS.
We are in for a crazy ride.
They are in mass psychosis and will be acting out. Bigly. Badly.
These conservatives experienced a series of traumas in the 60s and 70s, and like any childhood trauma event, development stopped at that point.
Now they have their party in power at the state levels, namely the TeaParty, and their man, Trump, is now POTUS.
We are in for a crazy ride.
They are in mass psychosis and will be acting out. Bigly. Badly.
24
This is absolutely no different than any tin dictator communist government. No different whatsoever.
6
It used to be called a liberal-arts education; it's no longer liberal. Abuse of students via politicized curricula exists everywhere, and this professor is disingenuous to deny it. To be clear: Identity politics is the opposite of humanism, and humanism is the bedrock of our civilization. Yet the current curricula are anti-Humanistic; they deny that learning happens among equals, where a disadvantaged person is an intellectual equal. Prof. Moynihan would do well to study the way Mr. Trump's victory was prepared by his own ideologies: Power as a Virtue, the End of Truth, and Ethical Relativism.
8
It's a bit late for Professor Moynihan to complain about the politicization of our campuses. His complaints bizarrely focus on state legislatures that are finally waking up to the disgraceful appeasement by university administrations of pampered cry-bullies and organized identity lobbies.
But Moynihan is mum about the elephant in the room -- the federal government's silent takeover of our campuses. Long, long ago, the liberal professoriate surrendered academic freedom without even a whisper of protest. Now the feds. routinely use the threat of withholding federal contracts in order to minutely regulate campus life. A recent example is the Obama Education Dept.'s diktat to virtually every campus in the country of the standard of proof it must use in its disciplinary proceedings on sexual violence. Where was Moynihan's solicitude for academic freedom then?
Or take the way the Federal Government has mandated race and gender-conscious hiring and promotion policies on every college in the land. I would guess that most Americans despise such policies and the identity politics that drives them. Where were the defenders of academic freedom then?
Can Moynihan point to a single college president in the US who dares to oppose federally-mandated diversity policies? A result is a massive ideological uniformity in the leadership of our campuses. Is that healthy for free speech and academic freedom?
Before he complained, Moynihan should have cast the beam out of his own eye.
But Moynihan is mum about the elephant in the room -- the federal government's silent takeover of our campuses. Long, long ago, the liberal professoriate surrendered academic freedom without even a whisper of protest. Now the feds. routinely use the threat of withholding federal contracts in order to minutely regulate campus life. A recent example is the Obama Education Dept.'s diktat to virtually every campus in the country of the standard of proof it must use in its disciplinary proceedings on sexual violence. Where was Moynihan's solicitude for academic freedom then?
Or take the way the Federal Government has mandated race and gender-conscious hiring and promotion policies on every college in the land. I would guess that most Americans despise such policies and the identity politics that drives them. Where were the defenders of academic freedom then?
Can Moynihan point to a single college president in the US who dares to oppose federally-mandated diversity policies? A result is a massive ideological uniformity in the leadership of our campuses. Is that healthy for free speech and academic freedom?
Before he complained, Moynihan should have cast the beam out of his own eye.
26
What is about to happen to our national government has already happened in Wisconsin over the last several years of the Walker administration. The article failed to mention another egregious exercise of censorship here in good old heartland USA: The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources was recently ordered by to remove climate change from its mission, programming, and documents and reports. That move was accompanied by firing most of the scientists from the department. We are entering a tyranny of forced stupidity.
35
That is frightening...when government actively participates in denigrating and surpressing science. I expect that from corporations, but governments should be held accountable when they try to do this
15
The thuggish attitude of these legislators has nothing took do with"free speech;" rather, it's a blatant power play to restrict speech to toe their line.
16
If Don is entitled to free speech in the White House, why shouldn't the professors/taxpayers he works for also be.
8
Start banning the teaching of ultra-conservative economic theory in state run schools, then watch the right suddenly demand their academic freedom! Conservatives have always been hypocritical about the meaning of "freedom" in general. To a typical republican politician, the "free market" only applies to the free flow of money. Stray an inch from conservative notions of what your religious belief, sexual orientation or economic philosophy should be and they won't just want to argue with you, they'll do everything in their power to silence you. Constitution be damned!
24
And let's not forget the Koch and other right wing money that attempt to get universities to set up their version of politically correct departments, buying them with dark money. See Jane Mayer's book by the same name.
10
Once again glad I live in and my daughter goes to college in California, where state government shares my values.
11
This is rich: the professor is complaining because other people are complaining that their views are forbidden on campus.
Something has to be done: the professor has the right to impose his view on campus and nobody can criticize him. After all, everybody knows that Academy has fallen into the alt-right clutches long ago, and left opinions can only be whispered in your best friend's ear.
Something has to be done: the professor has the right to impose his view on campus and nobody can criticize him. After all, everybody knows that Academy has fallen into the alt-right clutches long ago, and left opinions can only be whispered in your best friend's ear.
7
Wisconsin looked like it was on the mend after having gifted us Joe McCarthy. They even produced the best - Senator Proxmire. We were fooled. The current governor Walker and his cronies will not allow us to forgive Wisconsin of its past.
11
Safe spaces, identity politics, micro-aggression, trigger warnings, political correctness, free speech violations... all available as part of your child's exceptional college education for only $60K a year!
And then we sit and wonder why we as a country are sinking in student debt while all the high paying jobs go to foreign educated people from China, Russia, India who focused on, you know, those less important topics like math, programming, physics, chemistry and engineering.
And then we sit and wonder why we as a country are sinking in student debt while all the high paying jobs go to foreign educated people from China, Russia, India who focused on, you know, those less important topics like math, programming, physics, chemistry and engineering.
15
I'm usually leaning liberal, but some of these university programs, even by European standards, really look like inappropriate overreach to me. Although I don't agree with the conservative agenda in general, I can absolutely relate to their concerns here.
Topics like 'masculinity' are absolutely worth reflecting upon (and who wouldn't do that in their 20s anyway), but why would this need to be officially embodied and promoted so prominently? This is what students want talk about privately. A good curriculum might encourage them to do so. But in fact it's very personal. Making this part of their curriculum could indeed set them under pressure. This remotely reminds me of the indoctrination in the former USSR and East Germany.
Sorry liberals, it really hurts how you - which I greatly support - shoot yourselves in the feet all the time.
Topics like 'masculinity' are absolutely worth reflecting upon (and who wouldn't do that in their 20s anyway), but why would this need to be officially embodied and promoted so prominently? This is what students want talk about privately. A good curriculum might encourage them to do so. But in fact it's very personal. Making this part of their curriculum could indeed set them under pressure. This remotely reminds me of the indoctrination in the former USSR and East Germany.
Sorry liberals, it really hurts how you - which I greatly support - shoot yourselves in the feet all the time.
27
I respectfully disagree with Mr. Moynihan. Most college faculty and administrators espouse a liberal, "politically correct", agenda. That agenda, supported by "speech codes" and the like, is frequently stuffed down the throats impressionable students to the point that opposing views and speech are suppressed. The well deserved backlash underway to reverse this trend and provide students with a more balanced and tolerant educational environment is long overdue.
25
Why does this surprise anyone? These same hard right wing ideologues and religious extremists have been legislating forced, fraudulent "scripts" for physicians, and essentially practicing medicine when it comes to women's reproductive health care. Those scripts include all kinds of patently false claims about cancer risks, the evils of contraception, fetal pain, etc. and force women to under go pointless, invasive and expensive ultrasounds at their own expense, in order to shame and impede them from accessing fundamental health services. These people neither respect nor acknowledge any boundaries, not to mention separation of church and state, and intend to establish a Christian theocracy in this nation by legislative fiat. That they are similarly invading state university systems should surprise no one at this juncture. Science, our endangered environment, women's health, LGBT and civil rights, freedom from religion, and more are in their Crusade-like crosshairs, and no one should underestimate the profound carnage they will leave in their dogmatic wake. 1/9/17, 11:20 AM
23
This seems very similar to the Jefferson County (suburban Denver), Colorado School District where two members of the School Board wanted to require that only "Good Things" be taught in AP American History. That would be code for: Nothing about Slavery; Civil Disobedience protests; or the social impact Income Equality. The students rightfully went out on strike--Civil Disobedience--at a number of high schools, and several middle schools.
It was interesting the the young people could see the idiocy of sticking one's head in the sand. Some of the students were even chanting: "History should not be a Mystery!" There have been many great nations in history that became irrelevant, and second class, due to complacency. It's their past and their future: let the students know!
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
It was interesting the the young people could see the idiocy of sticking one's head in the sand. Some of the students were even chanting: "History should not be a Mystery!" There have been many great nations in history that became irrelevant, and second class, due to complacency. It's their past and their future: let the students know!
https://thetruthoncommonsense.com
20
After reading a number of reactions to free political speech, government sponsored education, and research that confirms truths some people don't want to hear, I am beginning to understand that we have become a nation holding back time, and opportunities for a future where we as a nation can find truth, reconciliation and redemption about unjust and inhumane public policies that have not only hurt this nation's people, but people around the globe. We are no longer a nation of people seeking enlightenment, establishing liberty for all. We are afraid that those of us who have had unearned privileges and powers will lose that power if we don't continue to oppress all speech and learning of our failures and the paths to enlightenment and liberty for all.
15
Speech is like virginity: it is either there or not. I think that the Professor makes a mistake by treating things anecdotally and should look at the broad sweep of the transmission of ideas on campus.
I note, after a perhaps too cursory examination o the U. Mad required courses, that "Ethnic Studies" is required but that there is no specific requirement for American History or Civics. If so, that is an unfortunate lapse and one that, on it's face, is divisive. Perhaps U Mad is a proponent of free speech and the free interchange of ideas. But to do that you have to be very careful of the framework that you establish for that exchange. If there are rules, stated or otherwise, overseen by a bureaucrat who has power over the speaker then there is no freedom of speech.
I note that some commenters have seized upon the the notion that freedom of speech is, ipso facto, the freedom to insult. Yup. That is it exactly. When you don't like my ideas you may well feel insulted and that is tough. Then show me how I am wrong. Do you think that my condemnation of Honor Killings or female genital mutilation denigrates a particular group? OK, tell us why, in detail. That is the way to shut me up. Platforming or otherwise censoring me (by using the hateful expression "hate speech") tells me that I am correct since you cannot rebut.
Frankly, this op-ed triggered me. There should have been a warning. Where is that Play Doh?
I note, after a perhaps too cursory examination o the U. Mad required courses, that "Ethnic Studies" is required but that there is no specific requirement for American History or Civics. If so, that is an unfortunate lapse and one that, on it's face, is divisive. Perhaps U Mad is a proponent of free speech and the free interchange of ideas. But to do that you have to be very careful of the framework that you establish for that exchange. If there are rules, stated or otherwise, overseen by a bureaucrat who has power over the speaker then there is no freedom of speech.
I note that some commenters have seized upon the the notion that freedom of speech is, ipso facto, the freedom to insult. Yup. That is it exactly. When you don't like my ideas you may well feel insulted and that is tough. Then show me how I am wrong. Do you think that my condemnation of Honor Killings or female genital mutilation denigrates a particular group? OK, tell us why, in detail. That is the way to shut me up. Platforming or otherwise censoring me (by using the hateful expression "hate speech") tells me that I am correct since you cannot rebut.
Frankly, this op-ed triggered me. There should have been a warning. Where is that Play Doh?
10
How does one possibly defend a course titled "The Problem of Whiteness” to taxpayers (partially) funding the university? What parent thinks this is a good use of their money to send their kid to college?
17
Professor Moynihan demonstrates how afraid he is about the thought police by refusing to name who's really guilty of this attempted purge of liberal professors: Republicans. Professor Moynihan names the state legislators who have attacked professors, but keeps very quiet about which party they're affiliated with.
Sad. It's Republicans, Professor. Speak the truth.
Sad. It's Republicans, Professor. Speak the truth.
4
Free speech on college campuses is permitted only for those who voice liberal views and those who do not must remain silent. Conservative college professors and students fear for their jobs and grades if they reveal they are conservative. I stopped giving money to the universities in which I attended due to their progressive left-leaning ways and now donate to the Catholic channel, EWTN. They are getting a lot of money now. Money talks and if it affects the colleges bottom line, their pocketbook, things will drastically change.
14
The states are bound by the first amendment, too. Where is the litigation strategy to prevent the states from infringing on the rights of the students to hear ideas which they wish to hear?
2
There is no Constitutional right to hear speech, only utter it.
6
What about the poor students who are forced to endure the diatribes of these professors?
10
So soon after the death of the model defender of protecting the right to the speech we hate, the great Nat Hentoff, we should all be pushing for eliminating ALL censorship of speech, from any point on the political spectrum, on campus and off. The problem with trying to stifle things like anti-Semitism, for example, is that you open the door next time for people on the right to censor speech you might support. Hentoff was as opposed to speech codes restricting "hate speech" as to speech codes forbidding "communism." So should we be.
6
Nothing new here.
This is precisely what Ronald Reagan did as Governor of California (1966) in what did to the University of California in 1966 after the "People's Park" affair. He "stacked" the Board of Regents and single-handedly destroyed the greatest public University in the US.
This is precisely what Ronald Reagan did as Governor of California (1966) in what did to the University of California in 1966 after the "People's Park" affair. He "stacked" the Board of Regents and single-handedly destroyed the greatest public University in the US.
10
Cal is still recognized as the best public university in the US. It has been hurt by budgeting issues that occurred long after Reagan was governor. Stop the melodramatics.
9
White supremacists want academic protection to utter "but blacks are inferior" in a room full of black students. But they protest that it's terrible, awful, unfair political correctness to teach that blacks AREN'T inferior.
These are fascist principles. These are the boots that will march on all of us, if we do not stop them. Allowing a privileged class the absolute privilege to define their own reality, along with all of ours, is how it starts.
These are fascist principles. These are the boots that will march on all of us, if we do not stop them. Allowing a privileged class the absolute privilege to define their own reality, along with all of ours, is how it starts.
20
"These are fascist principles. "
LK, this is exactly correct. This is what is going on. This is what people of good conscience, in politics, press, education, everyday people, are trying to avoid saying (fascist) while still trying to defeat or deflect them.
It's not working.
Job one of a fascist state is to turn inside out and upside down the meanings of laws, words, concepts, and turn them to their own fascist goals. There's been whole books written on the subject.
This is why the right-winger's complaints about free speech, PC, freedom of religion, anti-abortion stance, more, are all really the same argument; It's all really taking away someone else's rights with whom they disagree.
And they have their own PC, of course. It's not pretty.
LK, this is exactly correct. This is what is going on. This is what people of good conscience, in politics, press, education, everyday people, are trying to avoid saying (fascist) while still trying to defeat or deflect them.
It's not working.
Job one of a fascist state is to turn inside out and upside down the meanings of laws, words, concepts, and turn them to their own fascist goals. There's been whole books written on the subject.
This is why the right-winger's complaints about free speech, PC, freedom of religion, anti-abortion stance, more, are all really the same argument; It's all really taking away someone else's rights with whom they disagree.
And they have their own PC, of course. It's not pretty.
11
What would be the purpose, in a college setting, of an essay on gay men's sexual preferences? Was there a required essay on women's sexual preferences? Or one on ... let's say aging congressmen's sexual preferences?
14
I don't know what the academic department was in this case, but when I was in college, in the early 1980s at Harvard, the psychology department featured many courses touching on all aspects of human sexuality.
You don't study human sexuality by sticking a fig leaf over it first. Wisconsin's Republican legislators need to grow up. Among other things.
You don't study human sexuality by sticking a fig leaf over it first. Wisconsin's Republican legislators need to grow up. Among other things.
14
You do know that people study sexuality, right? That it's a "thing"? Did you ever hear about Kinsey? Why is sexuality not a subject of study like any other aspect of human existence?
9
I believe what this essay implicitly and perhaps by accident doesn't recongnize, is the fact that 'The Victors' always write history. In this case it is the ruling political class of the time, that strongly influence the tone and expectations through funding, placements, etc..
Whether the millions of people killed in Iraqi war is written about the same way in Russia, in Iraq and the U.S. is certainly different. What we teach our kids about it perpetuates our views and perhaps justifications - whether through the inane political correctness, or through the recent repulsion to it... the themes of the day will work their way into the content being taught at schools.
Whether the millions of people killed in Iraqi war is written about the same way in Russia, in Iraq and the U.S. is certainly different. What we teach our kids about it perpetuates our views and perhaps justifications - whether through the inane political correctness, or through the recent repulsion to it... the themes of the day will work their way into the content being taught at schools.
6
When guns became legal (i.e. mandatory) on Texas campuses I could say to myself, "Well, that's not really part of the United States." But Wisconsin? That's right here in the heartland. I feel threatened.
13
As one can see from this piece, we've reached the point where there's no longer any need for the writers to identify the political party of these deniers of democratic freedoms. They're Republicans. Always Republicans.
15
The control of most state legislatures by troglodyte Theocrats of the GOP leads naturally to control of education. Most Americans don't put these matters high on their list of concerns. That is a major mistake.
17
I cannot overemphasize how phenomenally moronic it is to lend any public or official credibility to any narcissistic twit's id-based opinion of what God would think if it were them.
9
Yes you can, because you yourself are that moronic twit, just too vainly blind to realize it.
4
College should be a place where ideas are explored, and thoughtful discourse encouraged. Yes, that sometimes means challenging ideas, but that's what education is all about.
10
Politically correct speech is not the same thing as truth and falsehood.
Being polite and respectful get thrown under the politically correct bus
too often. Colleges are there to educate the students and not to indoctrinate them. If there is something to learn then teach about it. And I'm not talking about manners.
Being polite and respectful get thrown under the politically correct bus
too often. Colleges are there to educate the students and not to indoctrinate them. If there is something to learn then teach about it. And I'm not talking about manners.
11
What is clear is that the Right Wing has always been fearful of universities, and seeks to make them either to conform to their anti-intellectualism or silence them.
19
Political Correctness is no longer a danger. It has already destroyed democracy and free speech in the U.S. by provoking the backlash you mention.
If guns are permitted on campus and radical reactionaries carry them to intimidate students and professors, nothing is stopping the students and professors from responding in kind.
Dan Kravitz
If guns are permitted on campus and radical reactionaries carry them to intimidate students and professors, nothing is stopping the students and professors from responding in kind.
Dan Kravitz
5
Actually, there is. Greg Hampikian, who teaches at a state university in Idaho, wrote a satirical oped, published in the NYT, "When May I Shoot a Student?" I thought it was very funny, but it landed Professor Hampikian on the Professor Watchlist. I checked the Professor Watchlist. Most of the faculty on it are there not for anything that they did, but for their opinions. It is a Blacklist meant to intimidate.
10
A pox on both their houses. Excusing limits on free speech because one kind is allegedly worse than the other is madness. We need a robust discussion of all issues. Period, end of story.
15
Sorry, Oliver Wendell – – some things are just plain worse than other things.
The determination often hinges on which party has more power to inflict real damage.
See, e.g., the impotent "racism" that Black Lives Matter is accused of versus the sometimes deadly racism of disparate treatment of black people versus white people by law enforcement.
The "power" of a bunch of overwrought college kids griping about Halloween costumes in no way equals the power wielded by an anti-intellectual know-nothing like Scott Walker to pull the plug on entire areas of academic inquiry at what was once one of the nation's leading public universities.
The determination often hinges on which party has more power to inflict real damage.
See, e.g., the impotent "racism" that Black Lives Matter is accused of versus the sometimes deadly racism of disparate treatment of black people versus white people by law enforcement.
The "power" of a bunch of overwrought college kids griping about Halloween costumes in no way equals the power wielded by an anti-intellectual know-nothing like Scott Walker to pull the plug on entire areas of academic inquiry at what was once one of the nation's leading public universities.
11
> At the University of North Carolina, the board of governors closed a privately funded research center that studied poverty; its director had criticized state elected officials for adopting policies that he argued amounted to “a war on poor people.”
A research center should produce scholarly work. I am not familiar with "a war on poor people" being in the style guide.
The research center has clearly crossed the line from research to political activism. Once you have crossed that line, you may not cry 'foul' when your opponents use political power to defund you.
Stick to academic research and let others draw the political lines from the results.
A research center should produce scholarly work. I am not familiar with "a war on poor people" being in the style guide.
The research center has clearly crossed the line from research to political activism. Once you have crossed that line, you may not cry 'foul' when your opponents use political power to defund you.
Stick to academic research and let others draw the political lines from the results.
34
Lest we forget North Carolina is the First Fascist State of America, and btw the research center you're referring to is privately funded. I guess free speech is only free when it agrees with you, right?
11
In 2005 I witnessed this horror show at my alma mater, the University of Colorado, when a professor wrote an incendiary essay on international perceptions of the US and its foreign policy. The Republicans in the legislature and the Republican governor called for his immediate termination, obviously in fear that state tax revenues were funding the infusion of anti American thought in vulnerable young minds. What an insult, not only to the students and their ability to think for themselves, but to the institution of free speech. The university leadership, in an act of pure cowardice, threw the professor under the bus, fearing a funding backlash. Everybody was vindicated when the ensuing witch hunt showed the professor was guilty of unrelated misconduct. Under any other circumstance this should have played out on a national stage, hopefully with the correct resolution - increased funding, for the courage of a university to stand up for academic freedom and free speech. Instead, it just faded away as a win for conservative paranoia.
8
Thank you for this. I teach at state schools and while they are still very good, troubles are no doubt massing, from a moved to canned syllabi and required textbooks at some some institues of higher learning, particularly community colleges, to a real fear that guns may be allowed in the classroom. The days of reading Reading Lolita as an example of a completely other culture are long gone.
7
The facility closed by the right wing legislature North Carolina was privately endowed and did not take one dime of University or taxpayer money. Part of the shock was their "war on poor people" was said with a straight face.
"Amid broader budget cuts here in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, without warning or explanation, tried to yank all the state funding for a renewable energy research center." Right, Gov. Walker, send the research elsewhere so that state can help create the jobs that will come from such projects. No wonder your your job creation record stinks.As long as the Packers keep wining, maybe no one will notice.
"Amid broader budget cuts here in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker, without warning or explanation, tried to yank all the state funding for a renewable energy research center." Right, Gov. Walker, send the research elsewhere so that state can help create the jobs that will come from such projects. No wonder your your job creation record stinks.As long as the Packers keep wining, maybe no one will notice.
9
Since you brought it up, you've got to root for someone since the Browns and Bengals did sooooo well. Not to mention Ohio State.
Cry me a river. Government email is paid for by taxpayers and taxpayers are entitled to know what professors or any other publicly paid employee is using it for.
8
I'd love to see the syllabus for "The Problem of Whiteness." And we wonder why Wisconsin became a red state this time around? As a white male, I have felt disfavored since the early 1970s. I'm all for equality of opportunity. But that's not what we have. White males feel prejudice against them. Don't tell us we don't. And don't use our tax dollars to indoctrinate society against us.
15
I'd love to see the syllabus for "The Problem of Blackness", but we know that no college would ever allow such an offensively titled course to be taught.
6
I have no lived for a good long time. Many years ago when the Soviet Union still existed, I head a joke about freedom of speech. An American visitor to Moscow during the Brezhnev years tried to persuade his host of the great advantages of U.S. democracy. "Listen," he said, "in the United States, I can call President Nixon an idiot, and nothing will happen to me." "Big deal," responded his host, "I also can call President Nixon an idiot, and nothing will happen to me, either." I has always been unpopular speech that needed protection. Dino does not seem to understand this difference between a democracy and a totalitarian state.
2
Dino, that fact that you feel it doesn't mean it's real.
6
The author is woefully out of touch. Any institution that would ever seriously entertain the idea of microaggressions is very flawed, and many do. As an example of how seriously flawed academia is Melissa Click, a University of Missouri professor who asked for “some muscle” to remove a student journalist from a campus protest was hired by Gonzaga after being fired by the University of Missouri. Additionally, the The American Association of University Professors urged the University of Missouri to reinstate her after her firing. A generally pathetic state of affairs unacknowledged by the author.
JD
JD
14
These state legislators' attempts to demonize the UW empower the misconception among state conservatives that their children are somehow being corrupted by liberal professors. Among the narrow minded, a liberal arts education, which simply means exposure to a wide range of perspectives, is viewed as a threat. In truth, the UW stands as a firewall against bigotry and ignorance. As a Wisconsin resident and UW alumnus I am ashamed of the state legislature's attempts to censure freedom of thought.
13
Education is not a proper function of government. Allowing govt to select the ideas and thinking methods taught to students is an important early part of tyranny. Abolish all socialist...uh, "public" schools now. Capitalism will provide vastly better education for the individual values of paying parents. Parents can choose Aristotle or transgenderism for their own children, not other parents' children. The recent increase in private universities, despite Progressive attacks, shows that people want an alternative to scholarly mindlessness.
5
Ah, Mr. Grossman, where did you go to school? An educated, informed populace is essential to a democracy. The right wing has been attempting to undermine our democracy for years. And they have been doing it in part by a war on education. Deny the voters education and they become easily manipulated. The virtual destruction of meaningful public education in many parts of the country, is one reason so many people were able to be duped into believing the fake news that tainted the recent election. Be careful what you wish for. The ignorant masses of the Middle Ages were responsible for burning wishes, killing Jews, and starting the crusades. We don't want to do away with education as a priority and go back to those days. But if the right wing has its way, that is where we are headed.
13
Well, Stephen, since the government represents the people, you don't think the people have a right to choose to have their children educated? A couple of hundred years ago, it was like that: only the children of aristocrats - or slave masters - received an education under exactly the system you propose. Stephen, you need an education!
9
You must be for home school indoctrination, then. Or indoctrination by the Texas board of education.
2
The Dems lost the national battleground and the battles have moved to the states.
Yes, gerrymandering had been done by both parties in the past. But the extremeness now is unprecedented. The Dems will soon vanish from all gov. if something is not done about gerrymandering.
I wish the Supreme Court would step in on all the Constitutionality of this again. When people in power rewrite the rules so they lock in the power for themselves, it will be the end of our democracy.
Yes, gerrymandering had been done by both parties in the past. But the extremeness now is unprecedented. The Dems will soon vanish from all gov. if something is not done about gerrymandering.
I wish the Supreme Court would step in on all the Constitutionality of this again. When people in power rewrite the rules so they lock in the power for themselves, it will be the end of our democracy.
72
Well, the universities of bring some of this on themselves. "The Problem of Whiteness?" What kind of a dean would allow such an openly racist class? If some white person introduced a course called "The Problem of Blackness," there would be riots from coast to coast in this country and demands from black citizens to arrest and jail the instructor on charges of promoting hate speech, and the dean of the college would be forced to resign for promoting racism.
13
When state legislatures try to intervene in the offerings and debate at a university, it's always a bad thing. Thus the famous protest 50 years ago against NC's "speaker ban law."
But students and professors are also slow to realize the implications of academic freedom. That basic principle states that an institution of higher education can invite anybody to speak, including the head of the KKK or of the American Communist Party. Listeners don't need to agree with a speaker, but they need to honor the principle that any view may be entertained and given a courteous hearing (however faulty or repugnant).
That neither state legislatures nor the students and professor at colleges honor this principle is a sign of our increasingly divisive society.
But students and professors are also slow to realize the implications of academic freedom. That basic principle states that an institution of higher education can invite anybody to speak, including the head of the KKK or of the American Communist Party. Listeners don't need to agree with a speaker, but they need to honor the principle that any view may be entertained and given a courteous hearing (however faulty or repugnant).
That neither state legislatures nor the students and professor at colleges honor this principle is a sign of our increasingly divisive society.
10
Nice piece. In order to prevent white-power patriarchy from taking control of our institutions, we must stand against it, in part by speaking out constantly like this. Instead of simply requesting sane approaches, though, we should demand them, and insist upon them, and force the issue if need be. We may be nigh for a new '60s.
4
So, your slogan is, " down with the White Hegemony"?
4
Joe- are you a rapidly aging hippie? Are you saying the 60s were sane? Really?
4
Sadly, funding for virtually all government funded institutions has become politicized by Republican lawmakers. The first that I became aware of this was in the 1990’s when Republicans, urged by their evangelical base, threatened severe cutbacks to public radio, the primary rival of evangelicals for radio airwaves and the donations they generate. They succeeded. Next was funding for the NEA, which occasionally sponsored art that some in the Republican base found offensive and critical of organized religion. That succeeded as well. Attacks on public universities, and all public schools, are relentless, as are attacks on programs performing scientific research. Expect research on climate and biodiversity to end soon.
14
Professors forcing their political and social agenda into curriculum is just has bad as politicians and legislation doing the same thing. The 'PC movement" or whatever you'd like to call it has significantly veered away from a desire to use more thoughtful or 'polite' speech. It has become the Left's McCarthyism. It's not just about using the correct terms its about allowing discussion only about specific topics, framed in specific ways, from only one specific view point.
The State legislature is tasked with efficiently managing State money in way that works in the best interest of residents and taxpayers. They need to walk a fine line between ensuring that funds will be directed towards resources that will help provide the best possible education for students while not impeding on an open learning environment filled with diverse thought.
Do I think they may be some valuable takeaways from a course on "The Problem of Whiteness", sure. But do I think that course is the best use of tax dollars? Probably not.
The State legislature is tasked with efficiently managing State money in way that works in the best interest of residents and taxpayers. They need to walk a fine line between ensuring that funds will be directed towards resources that will help provide the best possible education for students while not impeding on an open learning environment filled with diverse thought.
Do I think they may be some valuable takeaways from a course on "The Problem of Whiteness", sure. But do I think that course is the best use of tax dollars? Probably not.
10
Disagree after going to school at one state university (On Wisconsin!) and working at one in another state. Legislators have WAY more power than professors. The legislators and governor can close a department in an instant. Researchers at a university find that a big employer in the state produces a product that pollutes the environment? Cut the funding to the academic department. Professor makes a statement, based on research and analyzing data, that affects a big wig in the state? Make life miserable for the prof until they move to another university or enter private industry. Don't like what tenured professors are saying? Decimate the teaching work force and increase use of adjuncts whose pay make them eligible for EBT so they are afraid to even make a peep against what the government wants. Yes, professors have a lot of power over individual students, but in the grand scheme of things, legislators can be much more dangerous to free thought and speech.
13
I've been out of academia for a while, but what I found among my colleagues was not "liberal indoctrination" but a desire to have students understand WHY they believed certain things
Whether a student's unexamined opinions come from AM talk radio or the World Socialist Weekly, a good professor asks, "Why do you believe that? Are there other ways of looking at that issue? If so, why haven't you looked at them?"
Academic writing requires the writer to examine a question, to look at representatives of existing research on the topic, to play devil's advocate with each of them, and to present evidence that leads to a conclusion. A professor who lets a student get away with referring only to right-wing sources or only to left-wing sources is not doing a good job.
To people steeped in unquestioned conventional wisdom, such an approach reeks of "indoctrination," but in fact, it's the polar opposite of indoctrination.
Whether a student's unexamined opinions come from AM talk radio or the World Socialist Weekly, a good professor asks, "Why do you believe that? Are there other ways of looking at that issue? If so, why haven't you looked at them?"
Academic writing requires the writer to examine a question, to look at representatives of existing research on the topic, to play devil's advocate with each of them, and to present evidence that leads to a conclusion. A professor who lets a student get away with referring only to right-wing sources or only to left-wing sources is not doing a good job.
To people steeped in unquestioned conventional wisdom, such an approach reeks of "indoctrination," but in fact, it's the polar opposite of indoctrination.
30
Free speech and science based on empiric evidence must be allowed to teach unimpeded by narrow-minded politicians, with their own agenda of prejudices. Remember when teachers had to go to Court, when conservative republicans demanded, out of sheer ignorance and religious zeal, that 'creationism' be taught, side by side, in a science class? As absurd as it sounds, it can happen again, and it must be fought against. Another issue is trying to push for "guns in School', a dangerous idea only a crazy loon could entertain. Judging by having Scott Walker as governor of Wisconsin doesn't help a bit; he chose to leave college for politics and could not possibly appreciate the value of higher learning; remember when he cut the budget foe higher education to favor a sports team instead? Ignorance is arrogant, as it assumes knowing something out of fiat, and embraces prejudices and even discrimination. Those that embrace teaching as their 'calling' must not allow politicians to impose dubious changes to satisfy their ego.
1
This article makes an important point: those who decry political correctness the most are hypocrites who exercise political correctness the most. It's part of their strategic weapon, "the best defense is a good offense," and is manifest in their campaigns of misinformation and disinformation.
6
Aside from the fact that so many of them are in power and can do so much harm, I would think it hysterically funny that conservatives are so insecure that they must shut down people and institutions who disagree with them. We're talking about people who want guns to be allowed in college classrooms, for goodness' sake, and they get their knickers in a twist over studies on white privilege and how government policies affect poverty.
The obvious answer is that somewhere, deep in a hidden corner of the conservative reptile-brain, is a little spark of awareness that tells them they lost every single battle of ideas going back to the Italian Renaissance. They are the most frightened little people I've every run across.
They are also very dangerous. Our nation has never in my lifetime been in more peril.
The obvious answer is that somewhere, deep in a hidden corner of the conservative reptile-brain, is a little spark of awareness that tells them they lost every single battle of ideas going back to the Italian Renaissance. They are the most frightened little people I've every run across.
They are also very dangerous. Our nation has never in my lifetime been in more peril.
8
"I would think it hysterically funny that conservatives are so insecure that they must shut down people and institutions who disagree with them."
If you omit the word "conservatives", you can recycle the same sentence to qualify any breed of Liberal. To "Shut down", specifically, has been very popular in BLM and other leftist protests recently. Quite ironic, isn't it?
If you omit the word "conservatives", you can recycle the same sentence to qualify any breed of Liberal. To "Shut down", specifically, has been very popular in BLM and other leftist protests recently. Quite ironic, isn't it?
7
No sympathy here. Professors at colleges seem to think they can do what they want and the students or the state have to cough up. If they want to push personal agendas, they should do it on their own dime. It's time to cut colleges courses down to the subjects we need, ending all "fine arts" and "social studies" departments, and reducing the student population to those with real ability and commitment, not just those looking for another four years of high school. Academics for the academically able - all others work retail.
5
The professor's very pertinent article is a prime example of the necessity of tenure. It isn't to retain poor instructors, a problem that is often the fault of poor administrators. It's to protect those who have to teach evolution to the children of conservatives.
10
The outcome of tenure inevitably turns into retaining "poor instructors", because once a person knows they can never ever be fired, human nature kicks in.
3
Yet none of these multicultural courses really serve as an effective replacement for the knowledge the academy used to impart.
By all means teach students' minds in their senior year in trans dimensional basket weaving and the hidden costs of racism in food packaging, but you have to arm them to think these things through first.
Teaching kids that effectively going "lalalalalalalala" and putting their fingers in their ears makes the bad people who say the bad things go bye bye is not serving anyone. You want to prove someone is wrong and a racist homophobic bigoted islamophobe? Learn to prove it without using any of those words. Learn to think!
Yes, politicians tinkering with curricula is foolish. And yet in other areas like banning college attempts at creating "speech codes" they are eminently necessary.
Complaining that political overreach makes its way onto campus to restrict free speech while propping up thoughtless courses and insane social sumptuary regulations on campuses is a sure fire recipe to do a spit-take.
Colleges should be places to debate ANYTHING freely so long as everyone is coming to the mind games armed with the same basic tools. It's not a gross exercise of occidental privilege to insist everyone be able to use basic logic to make a point instead of throwing temper tantrums until they get their way.
By all means teach students' minds in their senior year in trans dimensional basket weaving and the hidden costs of racism in food packaging, but you have to arm them to think these things through first.
Teaching kids that effectively going "lalalalalalalala" and putting their fingers in their ears makes the bad people who say the bad things go bye bye is not serving anyone. You want to prove someone is wrong and a racist homophobic bigoted islamophobe? Learn to prove it without using any of those words. Learn to think!
Yes, politicians tinkering with curricula is foolish. And yet in other areas like banning college attempts at creating "speech codes" they are eminently necessary.
Complaining that political overreach makes its way onto campus to restrict free speech while propping up thoughtless courses and insane social sumptuary regulations on campuses is a sure fire recipe to do a spit-take.
Colleges should be places to debate ANYTHING freely so long as everyone is coming to the mind games armed with the same basic tools. It's not a gross exercise of occidental privilege to insist everyone be able to use basic logic to make a point instead of throwing temper tantrums until they get their way.
10
I would like to officially register that I am offended by a course called "The Problem With Whiteness". I feel victimized by the existence of such a course and I'm pretty sure something bad will happen to me because the course exists. I would feel better if two new courses were added to offset my victimization. I would like to see "The Problem With Brownness" and "The Problem With Blackness" added to the courses offered. That way we can all be offended or all not care.
15
The author should have warn you that the trigger word,"white", would be used in this article. I'm glad that you made use of the "safe place" that the Times makes available to all of us in the comments section.
9
I just finished the book, Dark Money, by Jane Mayer and the Koch brothers host two summits every year to raise millions of dollars to fund think tanks, institutes, to influence young citizens in thinking that benefits and doesn't threaten their bottom line. Scott Walker the governor of WI very definitely has direct interest in shutting down alternative energy education and the Pope family in NC does definitely not want poverty reduction in their state. With the goal of all three branches of federal government held by their party complete, several of their donors now in cabinet positions, and no politicians in that party standing up to them except for Kasich and Boehner, the American people are now going to have to fight for what was once taken for granted.
6
Assuming there is academic viability to a discursive course, one in which the primary intention is to explore controversial issues, and there is a sufficient registration to support it, such a course should be permitted, PC or not PC, because that is not the question. No safety, no warnings, no nothing but the freedom of expression and opinion, (hate speech not permitted).
thankfully state legislators are attempting to limit the left wing Stranglehold on publicly paid for colleges that essentially have become indoctrination centers for left wing policies.
the worries of this author would be taken seriously if it were not a fact that conservative speakers are shouted down or not invited 2 most colleges in the entire country. if he were more honest his greater concern would be the totalitarian grasp that current universities have on intellectual diversity.
the worries of this author would be taken seriously if it were not a fact that conservative speakers are shouted down or not invited 2 most colleges in the entire country. if he were more honest his greater concern would be the totalitarian grasp that current universities have on intellectual diversity.
4
Public education at all levels continues to be the victim of publicity seeking political operatives who control funding. Teachers lack the money and, with the smears on educational organizations, the power to protect their schools from whatever whim or prejudice puts the politician on a righteous soap box. The loss to the development of critical thinking and true understanding of civic responsibility is evident in today's politics. For those who love teaching it is a wearying battle. They need support.
4
Many readers want to reduce education to its nuts and bolts. Great thinkers ask questions and those questions have often caused them great harm. Think Galileo. In France, the great figures of the Enlightenment worked and thought while surrounded by bigots and and small minded people and at the risk of their own safety. Who's to know what a student will take away from a particular course? A well-rounded education includes all topics, not just math and engineering.
4
I consider myself a liberal progressive secular humanist. Having thought about this topic, I believe that we should strive for blind justice.I'm all for sensitivity training, alternate points of view and free speech on campus. I don't believe in changing the law to offer special protections to any group. Special laws for special groups are patently unfair and require exploration of the victim's life and perpetrator's motives that simply should be foregone. I am confident the Dylan Roof case can be a capitol murder trial without enhancements, for example. Democrats loved the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act as a protection for Muslims. How's that working out?
4
Special laws for special groups, e.g. "Hate Crime" laws, are also patently unconstitutional and are a clear violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
1
I suggest the professor and the Wisconsin State legislature review the Constitution. After the Civil war the 14th amendment was passed. In 1925 the Supreme Court essentially extended certain rights, including speech to include the States based on the 14th amendment.
Perhaps a class on the Constitution, Civil War and extension of rights by the Supreme Court during the 20th century should be included at the University of WI. Perhaps tenured professors and legislators should be required to attend.
Perhaps a class on the Constitution, Civil War and extension of rights by the Supreme Court during the 20th century should be included at the University of WI. Perhaps tenured professors and legislators should be required to attend.
2
The very last thing that the Republican Party as it is currently constituted wants is a well and broadly educated electorate. Education broadens people's understanding of the world and of the varieties of human nature and cultural development that is different, and often radically different, from the student's own life and experience.
People who can think logically and critically are able to see the emperor's lack of clothes. Today's "conservatives" cannot allow that as it would expose their own glaring lack of interest in anything but their own personal political power.
People who can think logically and critically are able to see the emperor's lack of clothes. Today's "conservatives" cannot allow that as it would expose their own glaring lack of interest in anything but their own personal political power.
4
Thank you, Professor Moynihan. My experience precisely. I read about "trigger warnings" and the like and wonder what they are talking about. I don't see any of this supposed "political correctness gone amuck"at my university nor do I hear about it from colleagues elsewhere.
We have allowed the right to define the narrative. Republicans are not, in fact, concerned with free speech, any more than they are concerned with women's health. They are interested in controlling what students think and believe, and want their own version of political correctness to be all that students hear. For historians like myself, having students read different points of view, weighing logic and evidence will continue to be vital. Unsophisticated students and their parents often assume that we always endorse the viewpoint of every book we assign. We need to make clear in our classes that this is not the case, and not what we are doing.
And the next time someone complains that "All College Professors are Liberal" ask them if they know any smart, hardworking young conservatives who want to get a Ph.D and want a life of scholarship and teaching. Of course not. They want to make money. And they don't want to be told how to do their jobs. They want to be telling us how to do ours.
We have allowed the right to define the narrative. Republicans are not, in fact, concerned with free speech, any more than they are concerned with women's health. They are interested in controlling what students think and believe, and want their own version of political correctness to be all that students hear. For historians like myself, having students read different points of view, weighing logic and evidence will continue to be vital. Unsophisticated students and their parents often assume that we always endorse the viewpoint of every book we assign. We need to make clear in our classes that this is not the case, and not what we are doing.
And the next time someone complains that "All College Professors are Liberal" ask them if they know any smart, hardworking young conservatives who want to get a Ph.D and want a life of scholarship and teaching. Of course not. They want to make money. And they don't want to be told how to do their jobs. They want to be telling us how to do ours.
7
Amen, these greedy conservatives need to keep themselves out of the curriculum-policing business if they intend to have any claim at all as protectors of free speech against censorship. Given their history and the fact that there are like a million conservative legislators now, I'm sure at least a few of them won't fail to disappoint. The Jon Stewart segments could be glorious if he were still on the prowl.
But, to answer the call of the question - the people really placing limits on free speech are the people who are actually placing limits on free speech. For the love of all that is holy, you all need to stop cranking out these gen-ed "critical of whiteness" courses, and for heaven's sake stop making them mandatory. If someone is interested in gender or racial studies - fine and God bless. But it's an intellectual scandal how influential that point of view has become at our colleges, seemingly only because decision makers are afraid of protests, and all it's doing is pressuring kids to talk "right". They're clamping down on these kids at the worst possible time and venue.
But, to answer the call of the question - the people really placing limits on free speech are the people who are actually placing limits on free speech. For the love of all that is holy, you all need to stop cranking out these gen-ed "critical of whiteness" courses, and for heaven's sake stop making them mandatory. If someone is interested in gender or racial studies - fine and God bless. But it's an intellectual scandal how influential that point of view has become at our colleges, seemingly only because decision makers are afraid of protests, and all it's doing is pressuring kids to talk "right". They're clamping down on these kids at the worst possible time and venue.
2
"Political correctness" seems a matter of either exaggeration or distortion--and a charge which seems intended to avoid serious discussion. Anyone who wants to counter PC talk can keep right on addressing the issues.
State legislators who preach free speech and who practice course control are an old story. Citizens who complain about about "liberal" faculties are citizens who really do not like the idea of education and prefer conservative indoctrination. Both must be taken seriously enough to protect higher education, but their views are easily exposed as "political correctness" according to a conservative standard.
State legislators who preach free speech and who practice course control are an old story. Citizens who complain about about "liberal" faculties are citizens who really do not like the idea of education and prefer conservative indoctrination. Both must be taken seriously enough to protect higher education, but their views are easily exposed as "political correctness" according to a conservative standard.
4
To take the point further, it's absurd that a large corporation has personhood and a right to free speech exercised through unlimited funding of political campaigns while university professors, students and student newspapers don't when they talk about issues like global warming, lgbt rights, or civil rights.
Why is a corporation allowed unlimited "speech" in the form of huge campaign contributions, while individuals are silenced by governors or legislators. We're living in an upside-down world folks and it's geared towards consolidating power in the hands of the wealthy and the powerful. I fear it's only going to get worse.
Why is a corporation allowed unlimited "speech" in the form of huge campaign contributions, while individuals are silenced by governors or legislators. We're living in an upside-down world folks and it's geared towards consolidating power in the hands of the wealthy and the powerful. I fear it's only going to get worse.
7
And pressure from the legislature is not the only pressure. After Indiana University organized a "gathering" to express "support for all members of the IU community" in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, a significant donor apparently became upset. Note that most so-called state universities now receive less than 20% of their operating budgets from the State, and to make up revenue loss over the years, they have increased tuition and sought more private donor support. They should really be called "semi-state" or "private-state" schools.
4
Having spent the last 30 odd years until retirement as an employee at a state university in a conservative state, I can attest that legislators attempting to dictate curricula is not a new phenomenon. Those who express concern about the academic soundness of courses focusing on subjects like gender, sexuality and race should consider two things: first, classes such as these are usually electives, meaning no student is forced to take them to obtain a degree unless they happen to have chosen to major or minor in very specific fields; second, the rationale behind offering such courses is to encourage students to consider new ideas, examine what they already believe about a topic, and think critically about both. As a friend who teaches introductory biology tells his students who have been raised in religious traditions which deny Darwinism, "Thoroughly understanding an idea which you have been taught is wrong is a good thing since it provides more ammunition for argument. You don't have to believe in evolution to pass this class but you do have to prove you understand the concept."
14
Clearly, to threaten educators with economic ruin if they do not curtail their ideas and research, and to put guns in their faces—I'm just shaking my head. How is this reality not the biggest issue of our time? The takeover of the highest institutions of knowledge and information, authority and expertise with a show of force. If a muzzle and a gun are not evidence of totalitarianism—what is?
Alarms. From sea to shining sea.
Alarms. From sea to shining sea.
9
Just to add some historical perspective, don't ever think that there once was some kind of Golden Age at universities when free speech, the freedom to teach what you want prevailed and where one could research what was important without consideration of the political consequences.
It has been an ongoing battle all the way, even at places stereotyped as bastions of liberalism. When I first arrived at Berkeley in the 1960s there wasn't a single book on Marx or Marxism in the university bookstore. No such courses were being taught there, as repressive McCarthyism had silenced all that. Later, then governor R. Reagan had no difficulty at all imposing his view of political correctness on campus.
It is important to note that in one respect this always has been an asymmetrical battle: when was the last time you hear of a state legislature trying to impose a liberal or left-leaning agenda on a university program?
Oh, and please give up the notion that liberalism prevails among faculty, for whatever reason you believe this might have occurred. The gargantuan faculties of commerce and business that are eating up more and more university resources are bastions of right wing thought. So, in fact, are the physical sciences. Medical and biological science faculties are not exactly full of social radicals.
It has been an ongoing battle all the way, even at places stereotyped as bastions of liberalism. When I first arrived at Berkeley in the 1960s there wasn't a single book on Marx or Marxism in the university bookstore. No such courses were being taught there, as repressive McCarthyism had silenced all that. Later, then governor R. Reagan had no difficulty at all imposing his view of political correctness on campus.
It is important to note that in one respect this always has been an asymmetrical battle: when was the last time you hear of a state legislature trying to impose a liberal or left-leaning agenda on a university program?
Oh, and please give up the notion that liberalism prevails among faculty, for whatever reason you believe this might have occurred. The gargantuan faculties of commerce and business that are eating up more and more university resources are bastions of right wing thought. So, in fact, are the physical sciences. Medical and biological science faculties are not exactly full of social radicals.
13
Best to keeps one's nose clean of politics to pursue a science career. The lords don't like political scientists.
3
I've taught at private institutions for years. Never once used nor received a request for a "trigger warning" or a "safe space." Which doesn't mean that those can't be useful tools in certain pedagogical contexts.
The actions of a tiny minority of students who are exercising their right (and their obligation) to explore the complicated conjunction between social justice and inquiry through noble, if occasionally misdirected, advocacy work have been hyped up by the right-wing stupidity machine and made out to be some kind of national epidemic.
It's all. In. Their heads.
The actions of a tiny minority of students who are exercising their right (and their obligation) to explore the complicated conjunction between social justice and inquiry through noble, if occasionally misdirected, advocacy work have been hyped up by the right-wing stupidity machine and made out to be some kind of national epidemic.
It's all. In. Their heads.
3
You're the second teacher here to use the "no one's ever asked me for a trigger warning or a safe space"--presumably to dismiss it as a real issue. Or maybe you are the same one repeating himslef. Of course, while doing so, you also throw in a (nebulous) defense of it! And to dismiss it based on your claimed experience is ultimate evocation of anecdotal evidence to make a point. We know from readily available evidence that these demands do happen and affect actual policies and procedures in the classroom.
2
"They lecture students that a higher education experience means listening to challenging perspectives, even as they ignore or actively support the erosion of the structural conditions that allow such speech."
I believe that's a textbook example of hypocrisy.
Politicians have always meddled in scientific institutions though. This was a core lesson in my theoretical training. From Socrates to Galileo to Einstein and beyond, politicians will attempt to interfere with academia. That's a fact. Sometimes the intrusion is positive. Public funding for climate research for instance. Other times the intrusion is negative. The current Wisconsin debacle seems like an adequate example.
The funny thing is: Despite all the liberal bashing, colleges and universities represent one of our more conservative social institutions. Academic and scientific knowledge doesn't change in a hurry. Unless you invented a new transistor or something, expect the debate to continue for decades if not forever. Even technology has a healthy dose of ethical skepticism.
That's part of a professor's responsibility. To impart a margin of uncertainty on our understanding of knowledge. How do you know the sun revolves around the Earth? Before you go saying the Earth revolves around the sun though, can you prove it? The trick is to manage the political intrusions tactfully. In the broad scheme of things, most legislators don't last long. Stay the course but don't drink the hemlock either. This too will pass.
I believe that's a textbook example of hypocrisy.
Politicians have always meddled in scientific institutions though. This was a core lesson in my theoretical training. From Socrates to Galileo to Einstein and beyond, politicians will attempt to interfere with academia. That's a fact. Sometimes the intrusion is positive. Public funding for climate research for instance. Other times the intrusion is negative. The current Wisconsin debacle seems like an adequate example.
The funny thing is: Despite all the liberal bashing, colleges and universities represent one of our more conservative social institutions. Academic and scientific knowledge doesn't change in a hurry. Unless you invented a new transistor or something, expect the debate to continue for decades if not forever. Even technology has a healthy dose of ethical skepticism.
That's part of a professor's responsibility. To impart a margin of uncertainty on our understanding of knowledge. How do you know the sun revolves around the Earth? Before you go saying the Earth revolves around the sun though, can you prove it? The trick is to manage the political intrusions tactfully. In the broad scheme of things, most legislators don't last long. Stay the course but don't drink the hemlock either. This too will pass.
1
To make a point here because there has been a question about charter and parochial schools in Wisconsin.
Yes, parochial schools, yes, religious schools, are paid over $7,000 per student from taxpayer money, per voucher. No, I am not writing about charter schools. These are parochial, religious schools.
Parents apply and income guidelines are permanently established. Income guidelines are never required again once the children are accepted for voucher.
Parents can move on to increase their income by thousands and thousands, yet the taxpayers will still pay to religious, parochial schools vouchers for that family of kids to go to parochial, religious schools which are part of the voucher system.
True.
Yes, parochial schools, yes, religious schools, are paid over $7,000 per student from taxpayer money, per voucher. No, I am not writing about charter schools. These are parochial, religious schools.
Parents apply and income guidelines are permanently established. Income guidelines are never required again once the children are accepted for voucher.
Parents can move on to increase their income by thousands and thousands, yet the taxpayers will still pay to religious, parochial schools vouchers for that family of kids to go to parochial, religious schools which are part of the voucher system.
True.
2
Cry me a river Professor Moynihan, why is it free speech and expression are only a problem when it's your (Academia) free speech and expression? Let a conservative voice your concerns and we have an obvious racist/facist/Nazi out to control the world. Most adults know the difference between education and indoctrination, being able to think and reason versus reguritating leftist claptrap that has only produced misery in the real world. Most 18-22 year olds are vulnerable to the age old siren song of the unfairness of it all until they live in the real world for a while and realize their tenured Marxist sociology professor who "works" less than 6 months a year for a measly 150-200k a year was selling them a bill of goods and who actually owns white privilege. Indoctrination is not free speech or education, it's only propaganda with one politically correct purpose.
3
Hear, hear! I've taught at the public flagship university for nearly 35 years, and Professor Moynihan's description rings true here as well. One feature I would add: assaults on free speech aren't limited to external players. Sometimes the most devastating are those conservative faculty members (yes, contrary to popular wisdom, the professoriate is not uniformly liberal) who take it upon themselves to challenge the rights of other faculty to speak freely. I've had my email vacuumed up in one of my colleagues' spurious lawsuits, and it is a harrowing experience. I might also add that some of Wisconsin's problems with their legislature resulted from the consulting work of a political science colleague here at OU, who sold himself to the Republican Party of Wisconsin for $300 per hour, helping to define new legislative districts after the last census. Hypocrisy about free speech is doubly hurtful when it is found among the very people it affects.
4
In New York we have to add to this assault on free speech recent rules that require the state to withdraw any state support for any state entity or contractor that supports the BDS movement. Regardless of how one feels about Middle East politics in general, or the BDS movement, it is unprecedented for the state to declare that resources will be allocated based on one point of view and those having a different view will be punished.
While this edict hasn't been enforced yet, as far as we know, the chilling effect is obvious. Can an adjunct discuss this issue in the classroom without getting fired? Will a student group that may support BDS have their funds withdrawn? Will a faculty member have their travel allowance to an academic conference withheld because the academic panel they are on espouses the 'wrong' view on BDS?
We simply don't know the answer to those questions, and that's precisely the problem with these efforts to legislate speech. For many the risk of challenging an obvious First Amendment violation is too great.
What we all should hope for is that all sides of these issues realize that free speech is more important to university life, to education and to our democracy than scoring points on anyone's particular political agenda.
While this edict hasn't been enforced yet, as far as we know, the chilling effect is obvious. Can an adjunct discuss this issue in the classroom without getting fired? Will a student group that may support BDS have their funds withdrawn? Will a faculty member have their travel allowance to an academic conference withheld because the academic panel they are on espouses the 'wrong' view on BDS?
We simply don't know the answer to those questions, and that's precisely the problem with these efforts to legislate speech. For many the risk of challenging an obvious First Amendment violation is too great.
What we all should hope for is that all sides of these issues realize that free speech is more important to university life, to education and to our democracy than scoring points on anyone's particular political agenda.
1
These classes are symptomatic of absolutely nothing. They are not responsible for a claimed unreadiness of college graduates to enter the work place. They have no impact on majors such as engineering, mathematics, any of the sciences, business and more.
While it is possible to have one of these classes as part of say - a sociology or psychology major - they are not the whole or even part of the core curriculum.
From my wife, who is an executive at a large energy company, I hear that a lack of writing and communication skills is perhaps the biggest issue with new college grads. These courses have nothing to do with that either. These classes are unimportant in the larger scheme of things. They do, however, provide convenient hot buttons for legislators to press and fire up the base.
While it is possible to have one of these classes as part of say - a sociology or psychology major - they are not the whole or even part of the core curriculum.
From my wife, who is an executive at a large energy company, I hear that a lack of writing and communication skills is perhaps the biggest issue with new college grads. These courses have nothing to do with that either. These classes are unimportant in the larger scheme of things. They do, however, provide convenient hot buttons for legislators to press and fire up the base.
3
The behavior of legislators noted in the article is a sign of the deterioration of what is called conservatism in the United States. It used to be that true conservatives and true liberals could agree on free speech that did not threaten an immediate breach of the public peace. Now, however, conservatism has come to mean the suppression of speech that self-proclaimed conservatives do not like or with which they do not agree.
I hasten to add that liberals can also be intolerant of speech that questions their premises or disagrees with their conclusions--there is some validity to the idea that what is labeled political correctness can limit the expression of ideas. But, whether for good or ill, self-described conservatives have more power in society just now.
I hasten to add that liberals can also be intolerant of speech that questions their premises or disagrees with their conclusions--there is some validity to the idea that what is labeled political correctness can limit the expression of ideas. But, whether for good or ill, self-described conservatives have more power in society just now.
2
There is a pragmatic view that seems to be missing here. At my state university, courses will be cancelled if they don't meet enrollment thresholds--typically 20 students undergrad and 10 for grad courses. I agree that idiotic intervention from legislators, driven by demands of usually ignorant constituents, is vulgar. However, although courses are dreamed up by profs, their viability is driven by student popularity. If Dr. Moynihan's university persists in staffing courses with extremely low enrollment, that is indeed wasteful. If, however, these courses (whose rigor we assume) are indeed popular, legislators and their hatchet men need to wake up and ask why their future constituents hold interests and beliefs beyond their ken and why they should not be accommodated. Curiosity and prudence get along well on campus via this simple mechanism, and suppression of either by the incurious and the imprudent just drive students to a different institution.
3
Maybe the less said is better in this case. Instead of 120 semester hours of coursework, students should be required to take at least 144. This is just one additional three-hour course. For instance, let's say a student is interested in environmentalism and wants to get pre law kind of "policy" degree to work at some idiotic enviro big green nonprofit after useless law school. This fictitious student is more or an arts and letters type, than a STEM nerd. This made-up student, though, is extremely smart. So instead of taking yet another dumb policy course about some stupid issue - allowing for yet more navel gazing time - our gifted and talented budding environmentalist would be required to take the full suite of environmental geology, chemistry, biology and physics. Plus fundamentals of environmental engineering. No, my fake student I'm drawing here would not be allowed to transfer AP high school chemistry for "hard science" requirement fulfillment. She or he would have to slog through organic chemistry, physical chemistry, transport and fate of chemicals in the environment and impacts to human health, bio-geology, geo-geology, fluid dynamics as it pertains to climate systems, etc. On top of that, course work on the fundamentals of the engineering process including planning, design, construction and operations. All this would be in addition to course requirements for a policy degree. Maybe one called: Environmental justice vis a vis impacts to the LGBTQ community.
2
"If you truly believe that a university should be a place where people are empowered to pursue a fearless sifting and winnowing of ideas and evidence.." This concept seems to have disappeared from America.
This all starts at the K-12 level as I experienced teaching science in archaeology, at UC, Berkeley. Over 23 years of teaching this class, I would poll my students, mostly California K-12 graduates, on whether they discussed evolution in their high school biology or other science classes - virtually none had that experience, and this is in California. My late mother-in-law, was a high school English teacher in northern California, and I asked her what was happening. She said that it only takes one irate parent to stop the discussion of evolution or any issue in a high school class. Administrators are too frightened to do the right thing, and this is in California.
This is just one example of why we now have 31 states controlled by these Republican clowns, and most who want to eliminate liberal education in America. Few get an education that allows them to think critically. So, it's not surprising that Wisconsin legislators, most of whom were poorly educated, forcing ideology on the academy. We have created a country full of poorly educated voters who cannot think critically and are intellectually lazy. My parents with high school educations were better educated than Americans today. We have failed our people, and are reaping what we've sown.
This all starts at the K-12 level as I experienced teaching science in archaeology, at UC, Berkeley. Over 23 years of teaching this class, I would poll my students, mostly California K-12 graduates, on whether they discussed evolution in their high school biology or other science classes - virtually none had that experience, and this is in California. My late mother-in-law, was a high school English teacher in northern California, and I asked her what was happening. She said that it only takes one irate parent to stop the discussion of evolution or any issue in a high school class. Administrators are too frightened to do the right thing, and this is in California.
This is just one example of why we now have 31 states controlled by these Republican clowns, and most who want to eliminate liberal education in America. Few get an education that allows them to think critically. So, it's not surprising that Wisconsin legislators, most of whom were poorly educated, forcing ideology on the academy. We have created a country full of poorly educated voters who cannot think critically and are intellectually lazy. My parents with high school educations were better educated than Americans today. We have failed our people, and are reaping what we've sown.
7
Lest people get hung up on the really dumb PC issues and the really dumb legislators, we all might reflect a bit on the salient point raised by Mr Moynihan.
Students and faculty can protest on campus to promote their PC orientation while officials can pass laws to restrict free speech, including criticism of the officials.
That is the issue we should be concerned about.
There should be no question in any thinking person's mind that the PC movement has undermined the scholarly credibility of too many colleges and universities. That trend, combined with the disturbing tendency of same institutions to value administration over teaching, value their status as NFL / NBA minor leagues over teaching, and the lowering of academic standards is self destructive to be sure.
But not nearly as destructive as legislators who are far more interested in maintaining political power than in governing. Their destructive potential is a far greater threat to our way of life than the PC movement on campus. Such subjects as climate change, national economic policy (trickle down!), creationism, Texas school system of teaching history (seriously, workers or slaves?), are but some of the areas where politicians have forced their political dogma into educational fabric of our country.
Given their track records, politicians are more likely to push our country down the road of Russian or Chinese political correctness than our PC students are likely to push us into social anarchy.
Students and faculty can protest on campus to promote their PC orientation while officials can pass laws to restrict free speech, including criticism of the officials.
That is the issue we should be concerned about.
There should be no question in any thinking person's mind that the PC movement has undermined the scholarly credibility of too many colleges and universities. That trend, combined with the disturbing tendency of same institutions to value administration over teaching, value their status as NFL / NBA minor leagues over teaching, and the lowering of academic standards is self destructive to be sure.
But not nearly as destructive as legislators who are far more interested in maintaining political power than in governing. Their destructive potential is a far greater threat to our way of life than the PC movement on campus. Such subjects as climate change, national economic policy (trickle down!), creationism, Texas school system of teaching history (seriously, workers or slaves?), are but some of the areas where politicians have forced their political dogma into educational fabric of our country.
Given their track records, politicians are more likely to push our country down the road of Russian or Chinese political correctness than our PC students are likely to push us into social anarchy.
4
Right wing ideologues in government all over this country are trying to limit academic freedom, while using the time honored tactic of diverting attention away from their actions by accusing the left of doing so.
Free speech has no place in authoritarian societies, and authoritarianism is a characteristic of conservative ideology. Lip service is given to defending free speech when the right wants to defend hate speech and fake news, but they have no qualms at stifling freedom of thought and speech when they consider it to be too liberal.
That said, one consequence of liberalism being marginalized by the left and demonized by the right, is that progressives aren't nearly so commited to defending the right to free speech as they used to be. I see few people out there on the left or the right doing much to truly defend free speech when it goes against their own beliefs.
I would like to see a rebirth of commitment on the left to defending free speech rights (and other rights guaranteed undr the Constitution). Because if we don't, they will disappear.
Free speech has no place in authoritarian societies, and authoritarianism is a characteristic of conservative ideology. Lip service is given to defending free speech when the right wants to defend hate speech and fake news, but they have no qualms at stifling freedom of thought and speech when they consider it to be too liberal.
That said, one consequence of liberalism being marginalized by the left and demonized by the right, is that progressives aren't nearly so commited to defending the right to free speech as they used to be. I see few people out there on the left or the right doing much to truly defend free speech when it goes against their own beliefs.
I would like to see a rebirth of commitment on the left to defending free speech rights (and other rights guaranteed undr the Constitution). Because if we don't, they will disappear.
3
> I would like to see a rebirth of commitment on the left to defending free speech rights (and other rights guaranteed undr the Constitution).
When Leftists lose political power, .they will return to glorifying free speech.
When Leftists lose political power, .they will return to glorifying free speech.
2
State universities are uniquely valuable institutions in a democracy. This was recognized in the Morrill Act that founded land-grant universities and was the basis of the Wisconsin Idea, a relationship to the state that the Wisconsin legislature, to its shame, is now dismantling. Legislators see what universities DO but don't understand what they ARE. Yes, they are engines of expertise and innovation. Business incubators abound and patents are harvested by university research offices, to the benefit of the bottom line. But they are also where civic culture and deeply held values are debated and negotiated in public space. The turmoil of ideas is a necessary component of this and the humanities lie at the heat of that vital agitation. So, it's no surprise that the humanities come under special scrutiny, the kind of examination that is suspicious of the interplay of ideas and intolerant of outcomes that cannot be quantified. The educational process, Jonathan, cannot escape politics, depending, of course, on what you consider politics to be. Empathy, the ability to articulate and defend ideas, the willingness to negotiate difference in civic discourse -- these are inextricably bound up in the way that a society decides who can speak, who has value, how resources are allocated. Politics. As exhibit "A" in the evidence for the need for MORE, not less, unfettered education I give you the legislatures that undercut the genius of this public system, uniquely ours.
9
As a parent of two current UW students and two others who are recent graduates of the UW system, I am grateful for those classes which forced them to examine the perspectives of those different from themselves, even if it was sometimes uncomfortable. I am grateful for the friendship they experienced from students and professors from all over the world and the country and every single new idea they pondered. I wish our legislators, state and national, would stop playing games with language and start doing their jobs and do something productive to make this world better. Maybe they could start by taking a class or two in tolerance and diversity.
11
I'd like to speak about this as a student attending a very liberal private college. It's been my experience thus far that no student on campus, conservative, liberal, or otherwise, has complained about the use safe spaces, the awareness of microaggressions, or other measures that are typically viewed as censoring free speech. In fact, most have found those measures to be beneficial, encouraging people to still speak their opinion but in a more compassionate and empathetic way; it tends to prevent the escalation of disagreements into name-calling and other tactics.
I also find that classes such as "The Problem of Whiteness" are criticized simply for their name and not for what the class is actually going to teach. When I read the title of the class, I don't see it as a course designed by a leftist to attack white students and insist upon white guilt, but as a course designed to make students look critically at a culture that tends to put itself above criticism. We as a country do not like discussing our mistakes; I've seen that throughout all of my education thus far. It's important to criticize our handling of race relations, of gender discrimination, of new ideas about gender identity and sexuality. Just because those tend to be causes championed by the left does not mean it's liberal propaganda and thus unworthy of learning more about. I find it disgraceful that lawmakers are attempting to censor those topics simply because their feelings on the matter differ.
I also find that classes such as "The Problem of Whiteness" are criticized simply for their name and not for what the class is actually going to teach. When I read the title of the class, I don't see it as a course designed by a leftist to attack white students and insist upon white guilt, but as a course designed to make students look critically at a culture that tends to put itself above criticism. We as a country do not like discussing our mistakes; I've seen that throughout all of my education thus far. It's important to criticize our handling of race relations, of gender discrimination, of new ideas about gender identity and sexuality. Just because those tend to be causes championed by the left does not mean it's liberal propaganda and thus unworthy of learning more about. I find it disgraceful that lawmakers are attempting to censor those topics simply because their feelings on the matter differ.
11
Oh, please. Look at what happened at Emory. The word Trump was written in chalk on the sidewalk, and students were talking about being "traumatized" and asking for refuge from such horror and punishment of those who did it. And for a while, the administration was going along with it, until public ridicule and return of some common sense reeled it back in, to a point.
6
I watched the video by Paul Krugman on the starvation in
Madagascar.
After watching it I can only wonder why "Safe-Spaces, Cultural Dorms,
Ethnic Food Cafeterias, Gender Studies" courses are deemed so
vitally important when those children have no food or water.
Simple solution:
Let student's pay an open market rate for their classes.
If you want to offer a course - it has to be paid for by the Students.
If they want to spend their College years taking courses that have
very, very little to do with the world of employment - fine - it is
their dollar or their parent's - but don't expect me - as a taxpayer
to pay for it. I will gladly pay for the bricks and mortars but not
for courses that declare my neighbours, who live one half-step above
poverty, have any privilege because of the tincture of their skin.
Madagascar.
After watching it I can only wonder why "Safe-Spaces, Cultural Dorms,
Ethnic Food Cafeterias, Gender Studies" courses are deemed so
vitally important when those children have no food or water.
Simple solution:
Let student's pay an open market rate for their classes.
If you want to offer a course - it has to be paid for by the Students.
If they want to spend their College years taking courses that have
very, very little to do with the world of employment - fine - it is
their dollar or their parent's - but don't expect me - as a taxpayer
to pay for it. I will gladly pay for the bricks and mortars but not
for courses that declare my neighbours, who live one half-step above
poverty, have any privilege because of the tincture of their skin.
7
Had the ability to question, agitate, demonstrate, protest been missing on college campuses during the era of Viet Nam, had the esteemed Walter Cronkite not questioned the current political agenda, had all those state representatives listening to their constituents not moved from backing to contesting the war what would have happened? And for the reader who blasted college course titles as a prediction of content of courses as opposed to a method of marketing to interest an increasingly sophisticated student body, did you check the syllabus or interview anyone who has taken the class? College isn't for holding hands; it's for education, learning, questioning, exposure to new ideas and potential change.For many, exposure initiates thinking and deciding for oneself. If Americans want free speech, if we want our universities to educate our students, we have to pay attention, inform ourself with legitimate sources and speak out. Oh, and people need to vote on every level of government.
4
Limits on free speech in the U.S.?
I see no reason to believe much of any free speech exists in the U.S. and I laugh out loud when people say things like "I might disagree with what you have to say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it". Anybody should be able to observe that between political parties, corporations, religious entities, the military, think tanks, advertising, etc. there is group movement, stranglehold at the expense of the individual. Things are so bad I doubt a person could name ten independent people, let alone intellectuals, in public life not in some way affiliated with this or that prominent political party or think tank or organization...
As for life on the vaunted free internet, I do not even want to think of all the spying, manipulating which goes on. For example, I doubt this comment even goes to a webpage which is public; it would not surprise me at all if plenty of individuals are directed to fake pages where they think they are commenting, making a difference, but in actuality they are being "managed", marginalized, controlled by entities which have any number of excuses for preventing them from speaking publicly...
Free speech seems largely a myth in the U.S. today. Half the time reading comments for the NY Times it seems many are generated by machine or the same writer or people who just think alike they are so similar in style and content. Read a 1000 decent books then look at public life and tell me you are not appalled.
I see no reason to believe much of any free speech exists in the U.S. and I laugh out loud when people say things like "I might disagree with what you have to say but I will fight to the death for your right to say it". Anybody should be able to observe that between political parties, corporations, religious entities, the military, think tanks, advertising, etc. there is group movement, stranglehold at the expense of the individual. Things are so bad I doubt a person could name ten independent people, let alone intellectuals, in public life not in some way affiliated with this or that prominent political party or think tank or organization...
As for life on the vaunted free internet, I do not even want to think of all the spying, manipulating which goes on. For example, I doubt this comment even goes to a webpage which is public; it would not surprise me at all if plenty of individuals are directed to fake pages where they think they are commenting, making a difference, but in actuality they are being "managed", marginalized, controlled by entities which have any number of excuses for preventing them from speaking publicly...
Free speech seems largely a myth in the U.S. today. Half the time reading comments for the NY Times it seems many are generated by machine or the same writer or people who just think alike they are so similar in style and content. Read a 1000 decent books then look at public life and tell me you are not appalled.
1
This piece conflates and confuses freedom of speech, with academic freedom and incorrectly suggests that decisions about curriculum necessarily limits both. Freedom of speech means freedom from prosecution by the government for what is said, written, sung or otherwise expressed. It does not require that speech to be heard. And it does not protect those who offend from public or private condemnation within the limits of the law. My subjective view is that those who argue most for protection from offensive speech on campus tend to be the most intolerant of the rights of others free speech on campuses. Try taking a pro Israel position or even discussing BLM. Academic freedom refers to the ability to profess a view that is contrary to prevailing thought. Implicit in this freedom is the requirement that there is scholarly evidence to back that view; academic freedom does not protect a professor's right to teach that the earth is flat. All of which is different from curriculum decisions. Funding for public universities is limited. That being the case, it may be reasonable and necessary to prioritize some classes and majors over others. Taxpayers, who ultimately are paying for the education of others may not warmly embrace courses and majors that focus on identity politics because they tend to divide us and isolate students in silos that shut out conflicting ideas.
8
It is a good point, but the conclusion is wrong. These are Universities, places for education and RESEARCH. If we were to let taxpayers (or politicians) decide what to explore, we would not be here, interacting through a digital newspaper.
If a course has not a minimum of students, then yes, cancel it. But if there are enough students interested in the subject, let it roll. For example, I'd love for my son to take “The Problem of Whiteness”, and may be start another titled “The Problem of Hispanicness” . We are white, but cataloged as Hispanic because I was born in Argentina. So my son is treated as white by most Hispanics and as Hispanic by most whites (although he was born and raised here). A couple of courses like those would may help us undestand each other.
The truth is your discourse is similar to that judge in Texas (where I live) that is not letting people get in Court with a gun. He has ruled in favor of "open carry" several times. But not in his Court, of course! The chicken Republicans at the U.S. Congress are the same, by the way. Guns everywhere, so everybody can protect themselves! But not in my Congress!
Pathetic and hypocritical. Oh, well, what's new...
If a course has not a minimum of students, then yes, cancel it. But if there are enough students interested in the subject, let it roll. For example, I'd love for my son to take “The Problem of Whiteness”, and may be start another titled “The Problem of Hispanicness” . We are white, but cataloged as Hispanic because I was born in Argentina. So my son is treated as white by most Hispanics and as Hispanic by most whites (although he was born and raised here). A couple of courses like those would may help us undestand each other.
The truth is your discourse is similar to that judge in Texas (where I live) that is not letting people get in Court with a gun. He has ruled in favor of "open carry" several times. But not in his Court, of course! The chicken Republicans at the U.S. Congress are the same, by the way. Guns everywhere, so everybody can protect themselves! But not in my Congress!
Pathetic and hypocritical. Oh, well, what's new...
3
This is not an either/or situation. Could it be that intrusive state politicians AND PC students are both threats to free speech?
103
"Could it be that intrusive state politicians AND PC students are both threats to free speech?"
No. Intimidation of minorities and legislation prohibiting the prevention of such intimidation are not equivalent in any way.
No. Intimidation of minorities and legislation prohibiting the prevention of such intimidation are not equivalent in any way.
1
Yes, but students have a four-year term limit, usually.
1
When it comes to stifling free speech, this is nothing compared to what's happening, in both public and private colleges and universities, because of the imposition of guidelines, imposed from the outside, known as "Outcomes Assessment."
Originally developed for K-12, Outcomes Assessment requires all professors, in all universities receiving any public funds, use a standard mode of evaluation in their courses. Universities and professors are both compelled to define their "missions," "goals" and "objectives" (terms borrowed from the military, by the way) in a way that satisfies Outcomes Assessment accrediting organizations.
The brilliance of the way Outcomes Assessment leads to the oppression of free speech is that it sounds so reasonable on the surface. Legislators and the public have a right to know they're getting "results" for tax dollars for student loans, right? But because Outcomes Assessment places the entire onus for learning on faculty, and faculty evaluation rests in part on student and administration evaluations, faculty increasingly "teach to the test."
The result is the rise of conformity. The great American system of higher education that produced innovative graduates across all fields is being replaced by the stifling European system that produces only cog-like bureaucrats.
P. S. This full professor, with more than 30 years of teaching behind me, speaks from experience.
Originally developed for K-12, Outcomes Assessment requires all professors, in all universities receiving any public funds, use a standard mode of evaluation in their courses. Universities and professors are both compelled to define their "missions," "goals" and "objectives" (terms borrowed from the military, by the way) in a way that satisfies Outcomes Assessment accrediting organizations.
The brilliance of the way Outcomes Assessment leads to the oppression of free speech is that it sounds so reasonable on the surface. Legislators and the public have a right to know they're getting "results" for tax dollars for student loans, right? But because Outcomes Assessment places the entire onus for learning on faculty, and faculty evaluation rests in part on student and administration evaluations, faculty increasingly "teach to the test."
The result is the rise of conformity. The great American system of higher education that produced innovative graduates across all fields is being replaced by the stifling European system that produces only cog-like bureaucrats.
P. S. This full professor, with more than 30 years of teaching behind me, speaks from experience.
155
@Emile, I agree with your comments. Reading my endless official emails it seems that the campus is increasing run by or for the education departments (which are designed to educate K-12 teachers) or the social work department.
3
Thanks for this--my sentiments exactly. I'm going to share it with my colleagues.
This also occurs in healthcare today. Patient freedom of choice and random influences are now largely irrelevant as government bureaucrats justify their existence by inventing new HIPAA rules each year.
1
We are hammered with remarks about political polarization in this country. Yet recent Gallup polls say that formal party affiliation by the general population is at near historically low levels--yet there are ideological splits that give the appearance of being written in stone.
But of all groups, who are the most hyper-partisan: legislators. So Mr. Moynihan makes an obvious point. These people are likely to put partisan considerations above all else. Public institutions should be concerned and be prepared to resist their state legislators under select circumstances. This will, no doubt, make for some difficult choices. But simply allowing the construction of or obeying edicts intended to foster legislative partisan agendas does nothing to foster a climate of learning. One persistent difficulty is that so many will choose to view these issues through partisan lenses.
But of all groups, who are the most hyper-partisan: legislators. So Mr. Moynihan makes an obvious point. These people are likely to put partisan considerations above all else. Public institutions should be concerned and be prepared to resist their state legislators under select circumstances. This will, no doubt, make for some difficult choices. But simply allowing the construction of or obeying edicts intended to foster legislative partisan agendas does nothing to foster a climate of learning. One persistent difficulty is that so many will choose to view these issues through partisan lenses.
9
Universities Professors want it both ways (or many ways their way). They want lack of fiscal accountability, tenure (or the protection from job accountability), the freedom to teach anything they want with no constraints. Yet, they reject accountability from the legislature or the very people that underwrite the institution. I happen to disagree with the WI legislature but universities that are funded by the state will have a voice from the state. The very concept of a "state" institution is somewhat bizarre. If the state wishes to redirect state tax $ to individuals to provide higher education, then provide each person a voucher that they can use at any higher ed institution and then spin off the state schools from any direct subsidy from the state. BTW - eliminate tenure so that faculty can be held accountable
9
Your proposal is wrong-headed. We don't need vouchers in elementary ad secondary education. We sure do not need it at the university level. Americans want to attend private schools? Pay for them or apply for scholarships. Period. And providing higher education is certainly not "redirecting state tax $;" it is investment spending-- in the citizens, in research at the U level, in the future.
1
faculty with tenure are still evaluated by thier administrators and are still held accountable.all tenure does is to slow down the dismissal process. a tenured professor can only be dismissed for "cause " if a professor is not teaching or is teaching an unpopular subject, students can stop signing up for the classes.
1
and be sure those vouchers can be used at out of state schools and trade schools. This will add the important element of competition.
1
I am completely in favor of free speech.
If a professor wants to assign a paper on gay men's sexual preferences, assign away.
And if someone--even a politician--has complaints about that assignment, they are free to complain.
You can't say you have the right to say whatever you want but people can't complain about what you say.
If a professor wants to assign a paper on gay men's sexual preferences, assign away.
And if someone--even a politician--has complaints about that assignment, they are free to complain.
You can't say you have the right to say whatever you want but people can't complain about what you say.
16
Legislators and all citizens are free to complain as they wish. However, speech is one thing. Cutting funding and dismissing faculty, quite another.
6
The problem arises over who has the power and that is the legislators. As far as I'm concerned they have every right to their free speech, just not to the ability to shut down free speech from campuses.
2
The concern is not that legislators are complaining, it's that they're threatening to pull funding as a mechanism to control what is taught and researched on campus.
2
This is the key difference between public and private institutions. At a private institution, a faculty member who teaches a course called "The Problem with Whiteness" would be evaluated by other faculty, who would assess the depth and quality of the student assignments, review the samples of the student work, evaluate the rigor of the grading and other feedback given to the students, and compare all of this to the academic standards of their particular field. In other words, faculty at private universities know that they will be evaluated on the quality of their work. Faculty at a public university, however, can expect to be subjected to periodic waves of politicized scrutiny from conservative legislators who are looking to score political points and cut the education budget.
The same conservatives who say that, of course, faculty at state institutions should be subject to political limitations when private school faculty are not would be outraged at the suggestion that a private school education is superior to a public one. But that's exactly what happens when private school faculty are free to create rigorous, engaging, thought-provoking courses about controversial issues that interest students, but state faculty cannot.
The same conservatives who say that, of course, faculty at state institutions should be subject to political limitations when private school faculty are not would be outraged at the suggestion that a private school education is superior to a public one. But that's exactly what happens when private school faculty are free to create rigorous, engaging, thought-provoking courses about controversial issues that interest students, but state faculty cannot.
10
This process, on full display in my adopted state of NC, is nothing less than an all-fronts effort to change our system of government into a theocracy. And we need look no further than those countries in which we have and are engaged in war to see the result. We go about our daily lives comfortable in the idea that it cannot happen here, that our time-tested institutions will endure. But, this process happens slowly, subtly, one little change, one state, at a time. One day we may awaken to find that our nation is no more.
44
The prospect of Pence taking over as president is reassuring to many Americans, as he is perhaps not mentally ill as it appears trump is. But Pence will do at a national level what individual states are attempting to do--- turn this nation into the christian nation it was never intended to be.
2
Gosh, I didn't know that college professors had it so tough. Having tenure, working 10 hour weeks all the while under the oppressive watchful eye of those viscous conservatives? The horror...
16
Not sure where you get that 10 hour a week number. I am a university professor at an elite university. I teach two classes a semester, which is a very light load. That's 6 hours of class time a week. For each class, I spend about 3 hours per day of class preparing. That's during the semester, and that's for a class I have taught multiple times. Before the semester, I spend tens of hours preparing, and if it's a new class, I spend 6-8 hours preparing for each hour of class. Then I have 2-3 hours of office hours per week, and I spend time meeting with students in addition to that, oh, and answering all their emails. Then I have to create and grade assignments, not to mention exams. Then I have that pesky committee I chair, so that's another 4-5 hours a week, and that doesn't count things like faculty meetings or other committees I am merely a member of. Then I have to do research and publish in order to get raises and retain the respect of my dean and colleagues. That's what I do all summer and all day on days I do not teach. I don't take vacations. I work all weekend. I work every night. Add it up--it's a lot more than 40 hours a week.
2
Nothing worse than being viscous--what a sticky situation.
Back in my days as a graduate student I witnessed most professors working 40+ hours/week, including nights and weekends. And this was at an elite private institution; I expect that professors at public institutions have even greater workloads. In any case, why would anyone resent the fact that a fellow human being actually has decent working conditions?
Back in my days as a graduate student I witnessed most professors working 40+ hours/week, including nights and weekends. And this was at an elite private institution; I expect that professors at public institutions have even greater workloads. In any case, why would anyone resent the fact that a fellow human being actually has decent working conditions?
4
Maybe you should read the article first. This is mere mockery without persuasion or rebuttal.
And because I had the benefit of dedicated teachers, I know the difference between "vicious" and "viscous."
I don't know any full-time professor who works a ten-hour week. You seem to think that a professor's duties encompass only time spent in class. There's a lot more to teaching, and even more to being a university professor who's expected to produce research. As for tenure, a far lower proportion of those teaching college courses are tenured than they were when I went to college in the 70s.
The article offered concrete evidence of professors whose work was defunded—in effect, shut down—by conservative legislators. If you're OK with that, just say so, and say why. If you think people who have devoted their lives to education should be demeaned and treated as having no dignity, should be made to give up their research, and should be allowed say only what you conservatives what them to say, then have the intellectual courage to state that proudly.
And because I had the benefit of dedicated teachers, I know the difference between "vicious" and "viscous."
I don't know any full-time professor who works a ten-hour week. You seem to think that a professor's duties encompass only time spent in class. There's a lot more to teaching, and even more to being a university professor who's expected to produce research. As for tenure, a far lower proportion of those teaching college courses are tenured than they were when I went to college in the 70s.
The article offered concrete evidence of professors whose work was defunded—in effect, shut down—by conservative legislators. If you're OK with that, just say so, and say why. If you think people who have devoted their lives to education should be demeaned and treated as having no dignity, should be made to give up their research, and should be allowed say only what you conservatives what them to say, then have the intellectual courage to state that proudly.
4
IMO, there should be no place for politics of any kind in educational process. Education is good, when it teaches facts and skills. Not attitudes, approaches or point of views. Otherwise, it would be propaganda, not education.
14
As a graduate of two Southern American universities in Southeastern USA, I couldn't disagree more. I was taught in the 1960s, under the concept that ideas should be fully, honestly, critically examined to rise and fall on the basis of their merits. This is core to the progress of humanity since the Middle Ages.
5
But Jonathan, you obviously don't understand that on the conservative side of the equation, evidence based facts are always under attack. Look no further than the rejection, by mainly conservatives, of the valid evidence on man made global warming, or the empirical based facts that the earth is millions of years old, not six thousand years! Conservatives are the propaganda experts in 2017, not liberals!
7
@Jonathon. Of course students need to learn facts and skills. But it's just as important for them to learn to evaluate, compare and contrast ideas and attitudes. Education is partly about learning to examine ideas and points of view. If you limit all classes to facts and skills, the student receives training, but not an education.
4
Rooting for a college football team while trying to squelch the university that team represents is more than a bit hypocritical.
11
This essay is spot on. If I had a magic wand, no pundit would write about campus speech issues unless they also mentioned the intensifying pressure from lawmakers to eliminate courses and whole programs not to their political liking. It has been absolutely dismaying to read story after story about issues (trigger warnings, safe spaces, micro-aggressions) that are quite marginal to most campuses, while seeing next to nothing reported on stories like the partisan defunding of the UNC center on poverty or the harassment of climate scientists.
Who is more likely to have the power to constrict the free exchange of ideas––20-year old activists with student debt, or elected officials who can threaten to cut university budgets if administrators don't toe the line?
Who is more likely to have the power to constrict the free exchange of ideas––20-year old activists with student debt, or elected officials who can threaten to cut university budgets if administrators don't toe the line?
237
Gov.Scott Walker, unfortunately the unfriendly neighbor to UW-Madison, appears to want to financially destroy the UW and bring it to its knees, any chance he can get. However, he may not understand he is biting the hand that feeds him, since the University, and its numerous graduates, are a vital foundation/pillar to not only Madison's but the entire state's economy.
1
Its bizarre for govt to fund education without judging what they want to fund.
1
It is most certainly fundamental to higher education to challenge perspectives. Even shock the students to force self examination and listening to those perspectives. But when I read the first example of political interference being an objection to an "assignment on gay men's sexual preferences" this isn't so black and white. Setting aside the discussion of safe spaces is it right to have no oversight of what perspectives university professors choose to challenge? Open criticism of what is being taught should also be a free speech right.
32
But you don't have the right to criticize the content of a course you know nothing about. That is like criticizing a book you never read.
1
The disinviting of commencement speakers has become much more common on American campuses and is almost always initiated by liberals. Among those who have been disinvited multiple times are George W. Bush, Condolezza Rice, and Ann Coulter. There are also a large number of speakers disinvited because of politically incorrect statements they have made in the past. There should be no doubt that liberals on campus repeatedly prevent conservatives from hearing those they support. It seems to me that after dozens of politically correct speakers that a politically incorrect one deserves a turn, but the PC crowd insists on 100% compliance.
14
Not to mention the many conservative speakers who are disinvited due to "security concerns" (as at DePaul recently), even though the security concerns only arise because of past violence and disruption by folks on the left, or who are shouted down, or assaulted with pies in the face--which the left tends to dismiss as comical not threatening or hazardous under the notion that it's the thing of slapstick.
2
Ann Coulter has no place giving a speech on any campus. One can debate Bush and Rice perhaps, but Coulter? you impeach your point when you use that know-noting as an example.
1
Leave it to a professor to lie about the threat posed by the Leftist Ministry of Truth that runs the Universities. This isn't merely about safe spaces and trigger warnings, but also about hiring committees that filter out dissenting view points, professors who punish their students with bad grades for opposing views, the uniformity of thought in so many departments, and the general chilling effect of left-wing hegemony in the classroom. The professors are in the classroom controlling the dialogue and in the hiring committee controlling who becomes a professor. The legislators are not. Time to break the model.
14
Excellent piece. And thank you for including the insanity of colleges being forced to have guns on campus. Really, what can go wrong when you mix youth, alcohol and guns? (insert sarcasm)
25
A welcome article, one that might be coupled with excerpts from the Golden Globes show of yesterday. Hugh Laurie said he was happy to be there for the last Globes event. “Three words,” Laurie predicted that would cancel the Globes: "Hollywood… Foreign… Press." Meryl Streep took it much farther, without satire. She almost wept for America and the elevation to our highest position of a man who made his audience laugh and show their teeth as he mocked a disabled reporter.
Yet, I’d suggest a review of how we describe that kind of denigration, and all the other nastiness we’ve witnessed over the past years. Moynihan refers to "the ideological agendas of elected officials and politically appointed governing boards." I get it, but I have never seen ideology in narrow tribalism or bigotry. Emotion and ignorance are what come from the guts of people with uninformed minds--whether the minds are Right or Left.
As Irishman Edmund Burke said: “Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” Our history is one of conflict between ideas and primitive feelings. For now, emotions that date to the Pleistocene are dominant.
Yet, I’d suggest a review of how we describe that kind of denigration, and all the other nastiness we’ve witnessed over the past years. Moynihan refers to "the ideological agendas of elected officials and politically appointed governing boards." I get it, but I have never seen ideology in narrow tribalism or bigotry. Emotion and ignorance are what come from the guts of people with uninformed minds--whether the minds are Right or Left.
As Irishman Edmund Burke said: “Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” Our history is one of conflict between ideas and primitive feelings. For now, emotions that date to the Pleistocene are dominant.
19
If you wonder why a class named the Problem of Whiteness is troubling just change the name to the Problem of just about anything else racial or ethnic and stand back and wait for the protests. The idea that any group of Americans are problematic is horribly offensive. Except for the far left when it comes to whites, especially white males.
20
This is so laughable. How many "professors" have conservative views? How many of them voted for conservatives? Denial is a beautiful thing.
12
Both Bush 41 and 45 attended Yale, didn't make them liberals. Bringham Young and University of Dallas are considered very conservative. Many smaller private, religious-affiliated colleges have conservative professors.
Though a PhD. is needed to be a professor, and a large majority of PhD's are liberal, and on the opposite end, the majority of those not finishing high school are conservative, there are conservative and many moderate professors across the country.
Though a PhD. is needed to be a professor, and a large majority of PhD's are liberal, and on the opposite end, the majority of those not finishing high school are conservative, there are conservative and many moderate professors across the country.
2
Why don't most university professors vote for Republicans? Some obvious reasons: the Party's pandering to ignorance and stupidity and its penchant for lying.
1
If we want Americans to think and to have discussions we need to stop pretending that safe speech is the only way to do it. However, ranting, screaming, and other actions don't encourage discussions. College, and school in general, should be a place to have discussions about society, prejudice, offensive and non-offensive language. It's the only way we have to begin to comprehend where we stand with each other and how to bridge the gaps. If politicians egos are so fragile that they cannot tolerate differences, criticisms, and uncomfortable discussions about sensitive topics they shouldn't be involved with public service at all.
There is nothing wrong with learning about how one's race grants or deprives one of certain privileges. There is nothing wrong about learning the unsavory aspects of a country's history. If we don't have these discussions or learn about these things, how will we avoid making the same or worse mistakes in our lives or in the life of America?
There is nothing wrong with learning about how one's race grants or deprives one of certain privileges. There is nothing wrong about learning the unsavory aspects of a country's history. If we don't have these discussions or learn about these things, how will we avoid making the same or worse mistakes in our lives or in the life of America?
43
> There is nothing wrong with learning about how one's race grants or deprives one of certain privileges.
Its academic fraud for "Progressives" to evade the context, collectivism. And the alternative, individualism.
Its academic fraud for "Progressives" to evade the context, collectivism. And the alternative, individualism.
1
What the author refuses to acknowledge is that BOTH groups of excessives are wrong … and excessive. Even when claiming that they are, at least on private campuses.
Citing the more entertaining examples of Sen. Nass and Rep. Murphy doesn’t alter the fact that publicly-funded institutions are not and never were sovereign powers: they must co-exist within the moral, ethical and even religious agar that nourishes the general society of which they’re a part. It has ever been thus.
If Prof. Moynihan has a serious problem with the nature and constituent elements of that agar in Wisconsin, then he should agitate at the polls for its reformulation.
However, consider …
Inquiring minds at Occidental College (L.A. -- my alma mater and President Obama’s) can earn credits by taking a course called “The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie”. At Alfred University (New York), some worthy teaches a course called “Nip, Tuck, Perm, Pierce, and Tattoo: Adventures with Embodied Culture”. Students at Prof. Moynihan’s U. of Wisconsin at Madison can take “Theatrical Fencing”. This offering from the Dept. of Kinesiology (the study of human or non-human body movement) entices students with this: "Good theatrical fencing is distinct from the art of sword craft, and is worthy of study."
I could go on for MANY increments of 1500 characters (including spaces), but readers not only get the point but I’m not actually paid to make them laugh explosively. Prof. Moynihan protesteth altogether too much.
Citing the more entertaining examples of Sen. Nass and Rep. Murphy doesn’t alter the fact that publicly-funded institutions are not and never were sovereign powers: they must co-exist within the moral, ethical and even religious agar that nourishes the general society of which they’re a part. It has ever been thus.
If Prof. Moynihan has a serious problem with the nature and constituent elements of that agar in Wisconsin, then he should agitate at the polls for its reformulation.
However, consider …
Inquiring minds at Occidental College (L.A. -- my alma mater and President Obama’s) can earn credits by taking a course called “The Unbearable Whiteness of Barbie”. At Alfred University (New York), some worthy teaches a course called “Nip, Tuck, Perm, Pierce, and Tattoo: Adventures with Embodied Culture”. Students at Prof. Moynihan’s U. of Wisconsin at Madison can take “Theatrical Fencing”. This offering from the Dept. of Kinesiology (the study of human or non-human body movement) entices students with this: "Good theatrical fencing is distinct from the art of sword craft, and is worthy of study."
I could go on for MANY increments of 1500 characters (including spaces), but readers not only get the point but I’m not actually paid to make them laugh explosively. Prof. Moynihan protesteth altogether too much.
27
Apparently Mr. Luettgen has never watched a Shakespeare play, or a Three Musketeers movie, or any form of entertainment about the times when swords were real weapons. Handling swords and rapiers on stage can be dangerous, and when done well, is thrilling to the audience. Teaching actors to handle such stage weapons safely is a highly technical matter that requires extensive training.
Would Mr. Luetten object to a theater department course on "Safe Scenery Handling" or "Electrical Safety in Lighting Systems". A course on "Theatrical Fencing" is of the same ilk, and every serious production using swords on stage relies on (often well-paid) fight coaches whose careers starts with training of this kind.
What a silly objection!
Would Mr. Luetten object to a theater department course on "Safe Scenery Handling" or "Electrical Safety in Lighting Systems". A course on "Theatrical Fencing" is of the same ilk, and every serious production using swords on stage relies on (often well-paid) fight coaches whose careers starts with training of this kind.
What a silly objection!
26
I would disagree for reasons I outlined in another short essay here. These are very different times. We have destroyed K-12 to the point where ideology has trumped (pun intended) critical thinking. Americans can no longer think critically and are intellectually lazy. Witness this last election. My parents with high school educations would never think that any subject should be taboo at a college or university. All and any subjects should be available to students. Like abortion, gay marriage, and many flash points today, if you don't like it, don't participate.
3
And you seem to judge the book by its cover. Do you know the content of these courses? Examining culture is not appropriate for college and university students? Understanding body movement is not important for those planning to work in fields that involve that movement, like physical therapy, physical education, and medicine?
Perhaps you protest too much about surface without examination.
Perhaps you protest too much about surface without examination.
1
Someone needs to resist the deterioration occurring on American colleges. This author clearly does not see the problem. There has been a dumbing down of curriculum from a focus on ideas of western civilization to a multi-cultural smorgasbord of light weight trivia.
47
@Springtime: On what basis do you determine that "the ideas of Western civilization" are inherently "serious", whereas "multi-cultural" ideas are "light weight trivia"? Having taught both Western Civilization and World History courses, I'd say that either can be done seriously and well, and equally, either can be taught as a "smorgasbord of light weight trivia": the rigor and quality are in the course design, the material chosen, and the expectations of the students. Are you saying that Juvenal is inherently serious and important to our world today, whereas the philosophical ideas of Mencius, or the Arthashastra are "light weight trivia"? On what basis?
14
There is, and always has been, a lot more to the world than Western civilization. It is not a smorgasbord light-weight trivia to study other cultures. The most advanced civilizations were in Europe or North America for well under half of human history. History started in the Middle East, Egypt, China, and India. During the period of the European dark ages, the knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome was preserved and extended in the Middle East and Chinese, Japanese, and Indian civilizations were flourishing. The European Renaissance was sparked by new ideas and technology from the East -- both the Ottomans and the Chinese. It is well worth studying the rise, dominance, and fall of these other great empires outside Europe. Other, geographically smaller, civilizations in Africa, Mexico, and Central/South America left little writing in languages that we can read, with much of their written record deliberately destroyed by colonial conquerors. There isn't as much left to study of these civilizations, but they are also worthy of study, as are the numerous North American native civilizations. Such study teaches students the diversity of the evolution of human civilizations and culture and the relationship of a people to their land.
Curious - how is multicultural material lightweight? Why is it trivia? A lack of education about the wider world is at the heart of so many mistakes we have made in the foreign policy arena, and at the root of our declining place in this world.
"On both private and public campuses, instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics ..."
Professor, surely you are aware that "race, gender, class, etc." are academic code words that are meant to hide leftist intolerance.
Professor, surely you are aware that "race, gender, class, etc." are academic code words that are meant to hide leftist intolerance.
33
Any American who maintains that "race" is an "academic code word" ought to spend a little serious time with the history of America from the early nineteenth to the early 20th centuries. Perhaps George M went to a few too many frat parties and missed going to his History lectures the following morning: he might have learned that explicitly race-based slavery, followed by explicitly race-based policies of segregation and discrimination, played a rather large role in American history.
Who knew??!?
Who knew??!?
23
Leftists hate traditional slavery because its elitist. They favor egalitarian slavery of multiculturalism, social democracy, environmentalism, feminism, etc. America's Enlightenment founders hated slavery because it violated man's independent mind and individual rights.
Ok, but all intolerance (women's rights, voting rights, gay marriage) should not be allowed on campus or in the country for that matter. You can't have it both ways, which seems to be a conservative litmus test.
1
Years ago, Florida State Rep Dennis Baxley proposed a law banning professors from expressing their political views in class. I assume it was targeting me but it didn't pass.
17
There is an old saying: "He who pays the piper, calls the tune." Do professors have free speech? On their own time and own dime, yes. In class, at work, no.
For years, academic liberals have been abusing the freedom they have been granted for their progressive pet projects. Academic Freedom, as an absolute concept, is a fiction. Legislatures are free to grant some freedoms, and should, but it is always contingent, and professors should always realize they are employees. Sorry, but this professor's complaint seems to be, "What? I can't do whatever I want?" Answer, No.
For years, academic liberals have been abusing the freedom they have been granted for their progressive pet projects. Academic Freedom, as an absolute concept, is a fiction. Legislatures are free to grant some freedoms, and should, but it is always contingent, and professors should always realize they are employees. Sorry, but this professor's complaint seems to be, "What? I can't do whatever I want?" Answer, No.
27
Those who believe that the search for truth and fearless examination of scientific and social realities should be guided by elected politicians are exactly the reason the AAUP was founded in the early 20th century. Education is not education if it serves the prevailing political mood: that is "indoctrination," and no one who practices it can claim to be an educator.
1
Well, the legislature here doesn't pay the piper any longer. In the 60s it contributed well over half the university's budget. Today that number stands at 13%. But the abbreviated tail still wants to wag the dog.
2
There is another old saying: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
1
Here in Wisconsin, legislators race to be the first one to push any button the agitates their right wing base. From the Assembly all the way to the Attorney General, they're all hoping for a Walker appointment so that they can grab the silver ring.
34
Thank you! We at UC Merced, a new research university, are being constantly harassed and targeted by conservative watch-dog groups that claim the mantle of Free Speech,but in reality only want Free Speech for white males from Middle Class backgrounds. When those of us who are progressive advocate for Intercultural Spaces, we are targeted as 'Social Justice Warriors," and worse, using the language of Breitbart news and the Alt-Right.
67
Who pays for your research, Ms. Armstrong? Do you take public funds? Certainly the University is part of the public system, and has to adhere to some restraints on what it has as course material and research.
Do what you want and say what you want, but not through the UC system, and not with taxpayer money. There are limits. You just have to acknowledge them. That's the real world.
Do what you want and say what you want, but not through the UC system, and not with taxpayer money. There are limits. You just have to acknowledge them. That's the real world.
3
In Louisiana, the state Legislators have a history of abusing academic freedom while playing to poorly educated constituents . Every few years, someone in Baton Rouge will take cheap shot at those lazy liberals who poison the minds of our youth, demanding that they account for their time. The results -- excluding a few politicians who are still on the LSU payroll (e.g. U.S Senator Cassidy), it turns out that the professsors are putting in 50+ hours a week, with many exceeding 70 hours. By then, if the attention span of the voters hasn't wandered, the same legislators will pick a sacrificial discipline, and start the sort of micromanaging described by Moynihan. It's almost as if the state lawmakers want to claim that they are educating the next generation, but they just don't have a clue.
38
American educational system is simply to create drones to work in the few factories we have left.
EVERY company in the world looks to Asia for qualified engineers and scientists. Not because they are cheaper, because they are better. Now America up till now benefitted from all that immigrant brainpower. Will it continue? Or will America be left a shell of her former glory like Russia?
EVERY company in the world looks to Asia for qualified engineers and scientists. Not because they are cheaper, because they are better. Now America up till now benefitted from all that immigrant brainpower. Will it continue? Or will America be left a shell of her former glory like Russia?
12
Nope. Not buying that.
For the most part, cheap H1b STEM workers are not the world's best, simply cheaper to hire.
For the most part, cheap H1b STEM workers are not the world's best, simply cheaper to hire.
1
What "Political Correct" has been hijacked to mean these days is "Civil", and those who advocate for a end to "political correctness" are demanding the right, even the obligation, to be patently uncivil toward their fellows. If Donald Trump can act rude, crass, boorish, in any old way toward others, we all should be just as hateful to others.
While the right-wingers claim that "political correctness" is controlling their right to call people whatever names they wish or their right to promote ignorance as truth, it is easily demonstrated that right-wing fundamentalists are the ones who seek to control others according to their beliefs. And all too often, at the point of a weapon. The real danger comes from fundamentalist exclusion of others and acceptance of hate, not the liberal acceptance of others and exclusion of absurdity claiming to be truth.
While the right-wingers claim that "political correctness" is controlling their right to call people whatever names they wish or their right to promote ignorance as truth, it is easily demonstrated that right-wing fundamentalists are the ones who seek to control others according to their beliefs. And all too often, at the point of a weapon. The real danger comes from fundamentalist exclusion of others and acceptance of hate, not the liberal acceptance of others and exclusion of absurdity claiming to be truth.
124
It's always folks on the left who seek to deny the concept of political correctness, even though we constantly see examples on campuses of the left policing against departures from liberal orthodoxy with actual speech codes and the like.
2
Civility in an academic setting should be considered a goal setting idealistic ought, not a mandated action subject to administrative sanctions.
2
Should we be wasting taxpayers money on classes like The Problem of Whiteness? Is it any wonder that ours kids are graduating College completely unprepared for the workforce? What exactly does a course load of racial, gender and sexual orientation classes prepare you for.
34
Dan M,
Given that you used a random, unnecessary capital in "College" and failed to punctuate your question with a question mark, an educated person might question your qualification for the workforce. Having said that, if you read beyond the provocative name of the course, you might learn something. A broad education is necessary to sharpen critical-thinking skills. That includes studying all sorts of topics and ideas to which one might otherwise not be exposed, often including ideas with which may will ultimately disagree - having first explored the idea.
And yes, having said that, I believe that the habit of protesting right-wing speakers on university campuses runs counter to the last statement I just made.
And, right-wing legislators in states like my own do the students a disservice when they micromanage professors by wielding the budgetary pen for teaching content they don't like. Talk about Orwellian Thought Police! A few years ago it was Ehrenreich's "Nickeled and Dimed" that brought the ire of the reprobates in Raleigh. Heaven forbid one should be exposed to thoughts about the ways in which our current economic system makes it difficult for the working poor to rise from poverty! That, however, was nothing compared to the witch hunt against the professor running the now-closed center for the study of poverty.
Given that you used a random, unnecessary capital in "College" and failed to punctuate your question with a question mark, an educated person might question your qualification for the workforce. Having said that, if you read beyond the provocative name of the course, you might learn something. A broad education is necessary to sharpen critical-thinking skills. That includes studying all sorts of topics and ideas to which one might otherwise not be exposed, often including ideas with which may will ultimately disagree - having first explored the idea.
And yes, having said that, I believe that the habit of protesting right-wing speakers on university campuses runs counter to the last statement I just made.
And, right-wing legislators in states like my own do the students a disservice when they micromanage professors by wielding the budgetary pen for teaching content they don't like. Talk about Orwellian Thought Police! A few years ago it was Ehrenreich's "Nickeled and Dimed" that brought the ire of the reprobates in Raleigh. Heaven forbid one should be exposed to thoughts about the ways in which our current economic system makes it difficult for the working poor to rise from poverty! That, however, was nothing compared to the witch hunt against the professor running the now-closed center for the study of poverty.
12
That's an easy question. To live in a diverse country and to contribute to a global economy. Wake up. It's not the 1950s any more.
8
College doesn't exist just to prepare people for the "workforce," Dan. It's more fundamental goal is to produce informed citizens who can think for themselves, which is precisely what the right wing in this country doesn't want to happen. People who can think independently are too hard for them to manipulate.
11
Are the STEM professors leaving yet? When there is no practical education left, the university system will be irretrievably broken. Next door in Michigan there are excellent state programs in engineering. Same for Purdue in Indiana, as well as great health field education in Indianapolis, and in Ohio public universities. Screw around with politics too much and the best and brightest will leave.
31
The UW Madison spent many millions of dollars trying to prevent top professors from leaving in response to attacks on the university from the WI governor and legislature. The UW Madison has been a top research university for many years and a boon to the economy of the state. Time was Republicans understood and valued that.
2
Perhaps getting the best and brightest to flee to PRIVATE schools is the goal?
Education wasn't always about just STEM. It's about the whole person being able to read and think and debate. STEM is good but we need people who can beyond just the applications of STEM. We need creative people.
2
We at the University of Colorado Boulder have also dealt with a right-wing, Republican administration. They have refused to work with the state employee union, have worked to eradicate the classified staff system which offers some job protection for staff, started a visiting 'scholar' program for 'Professors of Conservative Thought' and destroyed the employee newspaper, which used to keep staff informed of the goings-on at the legislature and on campus. Privatization is their mantra. Rural voters keep the Board of Regents staffed with a Republican majority. C'mon, Colorado Democrats. Let's fix this.
89
Sounds like they are on the right track. It's not the purpose of a university to have a politically mobilized work force with archaic "protections" for poor performers.
1
All these activities are funded by the Kochs and they do it tax free with no oversight.
There is a dangerous belief that taxpayers are somehow entitled to police the education that "their" money pays for. It is as inane as the idea that I can issue instructions on how to build a bridge just because my taxes pay for infrastructure. Higher education should be totally independent of public opinion. A majority of Americans don't accept evolution - so should we just close down all biology departments? Should we allow high-school dropouts to monitor teaching of calculus? Can Holocaust deniers barge in on a seminar about World War 2? It's not about racism or religiosity only. Ignoramuses are offended by knowledge - all knowledge. By allowing the public, through its unfortunately elected representatives, to mess with academic freedom we are opening the door to a dictatorship of the mob. Political control of academic instritutions was an integral part of Soviet totalitarianism. So is the GOP learning from its current best buddy, the former KGB officer?
255
Holocaust denies should have the right to express themselves and the school should allow them to and then tell them they are wrong both factually and morally.
1
I don't see that state legislators using their budget power (government) to coerce a public university (censor) is in any way equivalent to protests, social pressure, or media criticism of speech content. One is clearly (another) violation of these lawmaker's oaths to uphold the constitution and the others are all examples of constitutionally protected speech.
19
You really have it backwards. The legislatures have a DUTY to see that taxpayer money is used appropriately. And, no one is complaining about protests; it is the result of the protests that is the problem. People are being bared from speaking, student and professors are being disciplined or fired, university resources are being diverted to frivolous activities.
1
"In that time, no student has ever demanded that my classes include a trigger warning or asked for a safe space."
Is this supposed to be a tacit assertion that these demands are rare or don't happen at all? That's preposterous. Usually liberals scoldingly remind us that "anecdote" is not the singular of "data."
Is this supposed to be a tacit assertion that these demands are rare or don't happen at all? That's preposterous. Usually liberals scoldingly remind us that "anecdote" is not the singular of "data."
14
Professor Moynihan is delusional. Political Correctness is a virus that has inhibited free speech on college campuses. Just ask students who voted for Donald Trump or want to invite Ann Coulter to speak at their college. Also, why is that it is almost impossible to find a Republican instructor in any of the social sciences?
19
You ask why it is impossible to find a republican instructor in the social sciences? (Also, the fact you wrote instructor and not professor, is odd in itself; that you would prefer a less educated instructor to a fully educated professor.)
The reason is fairly obvious: people interested in studying the social sciences are, for the most part, not conservatives and therefore not republicans. The social sciences are part of the humanities curriculum at colleges and universities. They specifically study human societies, human history, and human development. The study of social sciences produces anthropologists, social workers, historians, and sociologists. They study all humans, not just white humans, not just rich humans, not just Americans. None of this stuff interests your average republican who primarily cares about money...making lots of it and not sharing it (based on comments by republicans online and policies proposed by republican politicians at both state and federal levels). There is no money to be earned by studying and caring about humans.
Yes, my response shows bias, but your question and comment were both biased.
The reason is fairly obvious: people interested in studying the social sciences are, for the most part, not conservatives and therefore not republicans. The social sciences are part of the humanities curriculum at colleges and universities. They specifically study human societies, human history, and human development. The study of social sciences produces anthropologists, social workers, historians, and sociologists. They study all humans, not just white humans, not just rich humans, not just Americans. None of this stuff interests your average republican who primarily cares about money...making lots of it and not sharing it (based on comments by republicans online and policies proposed by republican politicians at both state and federal levels). There is no money to be earned by studying and caring about humans.
Yes, my response shows bias, but your question and comment were both biased.
1
I majored in social sciences and taught as well in public institutions, and there was always a healthy mix of liberal and conservative viewpoints, and much friendship and lively discussion between us. This is a made-up problem, like voter fraud, or unicorns in the garden. But none of my liberal or conservative colleagues would tolerate the hate speech that Ann coulter engages in. She is poor example of conservative thought.
2
The social sciences are based on facts and research. Republican politicians and their most vocal supporters appear to relish the denial of facts and fact-based theory. In any case, professors and journalists, too, tend to be liberal, I would guess, because facts usually undercut ideology, i.e. a system of beliefs that obscures the real relationships at work in a society.
1
A suggestion to chairman heads who write the names of these courses in order to engage or entice the younger set into taking them... Why not just call the course, "sociology" or "psychology" or "modern western literature" etc,etc. like in the 60s? We had a pretty liberal education and studied radical theories without raising ire of the state legislators. No one noticed until ...hmmm
22
The problem with whiteness sounds like a bad reality show on MTV. I get that there is a need to "sell" students on a course, but this just sounds like red baiting.
That said, right wing knee jerk political correctness is running rampant.
That said, right wing knee jerk political correctness is running rampant.
I took that class, too -- The Problem of Forthrightness.
Students do not have to believe in what they are presented, only know about it and consider it. That larger concept is missing in the lock step GOP approach to gaining power over thought. It touches even the most innocuous class room information. I had a student file a formal complaint because I was anti Christian for teaching about the Greek gods portrayed on the Parthenon. Went no where back in the 1970s Michigan but today I am not so sure.
28
Ha! I had a students whose parents said he didn't do his homework because he read 'Dracula'.
I wonder how the progressive pundits would feel about a
course that examined black identity called "The Problem of Blackness"
Just curious as to whether that sort of free speech would be protected. And for the record, I'm rabid first amendment - just wondering how much hypocrisy would be showing at this point...
course that examined black identity called "The Problem of Blackness"
Just curious as to whether that sort of free speech would be protected. And for the record, I'm rabid first amendment - just wondering how much hypocrisy would be showing at this point...
30
What you don't realize, since you apparently have not taken one of those courses, is that the theory of race developed in the eighteenth century by Enlightenment thinkers focused on a concept of blackness, taking whiteness to be the universal norm. In other words, the theory of whiteness was developed simultaneously with bogus anatomical theories of explain dark skin pigmentation.
So your question is not well formulated. You miss the point.
So your question is not well formulated. You miss the point.
1
Most most larger colleges and universities have had African American Studies departments for decades.
1
"...Instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics can find themselves subjected to attack by conservative groups like Media Trackers or Professor Watchlist."
//"Attack"? Like posting a meany-pants article on a website?
"Faculty members in public institutions also have to worry about the possibility of having their email searched via Freedom of Information law requests."
//"Public" being the operative word. Don't like FOIA? GO PRIVATE.
"The ultimate audience for such trawling is lawmakers, who set the rules for public institutions."
//No! Freely elected LEGISLATORS making... LAW ("rules")? NO!
"Indeed, a Media Trackers employee whose job included writing negative profiles of Wisconsin professors recently took a position with a state senator who likes to attack universities as being unfriendly to free speech."
//Somebody said something mean on the internet!
Keep digging.
//"Attack"? Like posting a meany-pants article on a website?
"Faculty members in public institutions also have to worry about the possibility of having their email searched via Freedom of Information law requests."
//"Public" being the operative word. Don't like FOIA? GO PRIVATE.
"The ultimate audience for such trawling is lawmakers, who set the rules for public institutions."
//No! Freely elected LEGISLATORS making... LAW ("rules")? NO!
"Indeed, a Media Trackers employee whose job included writing negative profiles of Wisconsin professors recently took a position with a state senator who likes to attack universities as being unfriendly to free speech."
//Somebody said something mean on the internet!
Keep digging.
10
With GOP gerrymandering, how "freely" elected are state legislatures? Fundamental extremist alt-right or Christians are so insecure they have to force conformity. They haven't got the guts to allow a free flow of information. One might also conclude that they really don't trust their own theological beliefs. If they did, why would they be so afraid of those who chose to believe and live differently? You'd think they'd revel in their special access to what they believe is truth.
1
No, they mean professors being fired, courses being canceled.
1
"Meany-pants?" Seriously?
Perhaps you should consider further education to enable you to have an adult conversation about meaningful issues.
Perhaps you should consider further education to enable you to have an adult conversation about meaningful issues.
1
I am a free speech advocate. I don't want universities punishing students for their speech even if it involves things I find abhorrent like denigrating women. I don't want legislators meddling in what is taught it said on campus. The Problem of Whiteness sounds fascinating and if you don't understand the premise maybe it would be good to take the class and admit that those in power are in a different position than those who are not. The only " trigger warning" necessary is the one my daughters class posted: You may be exposed to thoughts and images you find disturbing, if that's a problem don't take this class.
45
The difference is that it is a class given by a public university. Tax dollars are finite and should taxpayers be funding a class that is not particularly helpful to get a job or living in society. Back when I went to school, these type of classes were called "basket weaving."
Here they are more dangerous, because to many, it seems like indoctrination, not a class to develop critical thought. And that's the crux of the matter.
Teaching critical thought or indoctrination.
Here they are more dangerous, because to many, it seems like indoctrination, not a class to develop critical thought. And that's the crux of the matter.
Teaching critical thought or indoctrination.
1
Sure if you don't take funds from the state either, or tenure. Free speech implies responsibility. Watch what happens in the liberal cocoon when someone yells fire AND THERE ISN'T ONE or disagrees with this or that liberal tenant. Invective spews forth like a firehose to drown out dissent. Underneath every polite liberal lies a murderous Stalin grasping for the power of the state to enforce liberal orthodoxy. Free speech is fine as long as they're the only ones with it.
1
I don't understand the complaints of those who rail against "political correctness". It seems that what they most don't like is to have their ability to insult people from different demographics is called into question. Or to have people from whatever background tell them their own stories in their own voices.
This thing - to feel oppressed and lash out again others because you can no longer denigrate them without getting a response from those you slur? This is a threat? To whom?
It is simply good manners to call for civil discourse and showing basic human decency, respect and courtesy in higher education and the workplace.
This thing - to feel oppressed and lash out again others because you can no longer denigrate them without getting a response from those you slur? This is a threat? To whom?
It is simply good manners to call for civil discourse and showing basic human decency, respect and courtesy in higher education and the workplace.
99
Well said. It has often seemed to me that "political correctness" is being used by the Right as code words for "common courtesy."
7
Ellen, it's "simply good manners to call for civil discourse and showing basic human decency, respect and courtesy in higher education and the workplace"-but only if that applies to everyone, not only to some people. Why is it okay to deny the humanity of men, which happens everyday on campuses throughout the country, but not to deny the humanity of women? What makes political correctness so insidious is its double standard. This undermines not only the kind of education that colleges offer but also the moral fabric of society itself.
By the way, Moynihan implicitly endorses political correctness by saying that something else is much more dangerous. But two wrongs don't make a right.
By the way, Moynihan implicitly endorses political correctness by saying that something else is much more dangerous. But two wrongs don't make a right.
3
It is a fallacy to claim that what political correctness protects people against are insults and denigration. That is a straw man argument. What political correctness also stifles and seeks to quash are legitimate arguments such as the possibility that much of the dysfunction in the black "community" is caused by the 71% out of wedlock birthrate.
3
If you can control minds, you can control votes. If you can control votes, you can control power. It is easy to control uneducated people through propaganda. The way to control the educated set is make certain ideas contrary to the power elite do not enter the minds of the impressionable young. Innovation threatens the establishment power brokers. This isn't a battle for traditional values. It's a battle to control the population. The experts at this are the Taliban. Looks like we are on our way.
168
The experts are the KGB, ie Russians. Look at the Ukraine and the disinformation campaign and the agitation to make Russian Ukraine's rise up against their Ukrainian government, one which they had been satisfied with for decades. When the Ukrainian people spoke and removed Russia's puppet, the Russians invaded.
Ah, yes. who was it who said "I love the uneducated voter."?
Hint: it wasn't a democrat.
Hint: it wasn't a democrat.
I wonder if the author would be as defensive of a class called "The Problem of Blackness." If there is any doubt this style of rhetoric is fostering a type of PC racism against white men just for being white, look to twitter. The taunts of so-called "social justice warriors" may be absent the epithets and slurs of the other side, but their sentiments are the same. We are dividing the country down racial lines. And increasingly, these opinions occupy intersections of power-- public and private universities, Hollywood, and here in the New York Times. For the millions of white Americans living in poverty, it seems a social as well as economic war has been declared on them.
Universities used to be bastions against the tyranny of the elite, the pitfalls of capitalism, and veritable social derision. Now, they are centers of nonsense, where isolated, atomized individuals rage against social slights with absolutely no sense of nuance. I should know, I attend one such university. To believe these critiques go deeper would be a grave mistake. Finally, the elite have succeeded in pitting the left against the poor, a tactic that used on the right for generations. Now comes our death knell.
Of course, conservative legislators here are not aiding the problem. It will only enrage these same universities and embolden the most vocal. They are part of the problem.
But this article misses the point entirely. Our aim must be unity, not divisiveness. And we, the left, are failing.
Universities used to be bastions against the tyranny of the elite, the pitfalls of capitalism, and veritable social derision. Now, they are centers of nonsense, where isolated, atomized individuals rage against social slights with absolutely no sense of nuance. I should know, I attend one such university. To believe these critiques go deeper would be a grave mistake. Finally, the elite have succeeded in pitting the left against the poor, a tactic that used on the right for generations. Now comes our death knell.
Of course, conservative legislators here are not aiding the problem. It will only enrage these same universities and embolden the most vocal. They are part of the problem.
But this article misses the point entirely. Our aim must be unity, not divisiveness. And we, the left, are failing.
32
This election leaves no doubt that stupid Americanse can be conned right down to poverty by the same con artists over and over again.
The left is against the poor? That's completely untrue. The right is against the poor. Take a look at Paul Ryan's agenda.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why tenure was invented. And please, no comments about my tax dollars at work. First, it is my tax dollars at work too and second, public education should not be a political football.
89
sjs: I doubt there is a way to avoid the political football. Society changes and knowledge expands, and that threatens those stuck in the past. Thus evolution and climate change, legitimate and well-illuminated aspects of nature, became enemies of entrenched minds.
1
There's a difference when a school accepts taxpayers' money.
Whether it is declaring a "sanctuary campus," or creating classes or following research, that is not in the mainstream, the school does NOT have the leeway to do what it wants, regardless of free speech laws.
Public institutions and universities that accept funding for research from the government are spending other people's money, and they are hopefully adhering to spend that money in a responsible way, and under the lens of a political influence beyond that of the institution. That's always been the history.
If they don't like the control, don't accept public money. Stop blaming politicians, who are just as fed up with the state of higher educations' shenanigans, that aren't about education, but indoctrination. The censoring and hate are towards the conservatives and anyone who doesn't buy into the ridiculous progressive nonsense about safe spaces and so on.
Maybe if the institutions stuck to the basics, and kids graduated with useful knowledge I'd be less inclined to be so harsh. But it's clear that the basics and the ability to function at a job, and in society, is also compromised. They are graduating as losers.
Stop taking public tax money and thinking it comes with no strings.
Whether it is declaring a "sanctuary campus," or creating classes or following research, that is not in the mainstream, the school does NOT have the leeway to do what it wants, regardless of free speech laws.
Public institutions and universities that accept funding for research from the government are spending other people's money, and they are hopefully adhering to spend that money in a responsible way, and under the lens of a political influence beyond that of the institution. That's always been the history.
If they don't like the control, don't accept public money. Stop blaming politicians, who are just as fed up with the state of higher educations' shenanigans, that aren't about education, but indoctrination. The censoring and hate are towards the conservatives and anyone who doesn't buy into the ridiculous progressive nonsense about safe spaces and so on.
Maybe if the institutions stuck to the basics, and kids graduated with useful knowledge I'd be less inclined to be so harsh. But it's clear that the basics and the ability to function at a job, and in society, is also compromised. They are graduating as losers.
Stop taking public tax money and thinking it comes with no strings.
18
Public money is exactly the kind that should not have strings.
5
minh z: it is the duty of institutes of higher education to think. If you want thinking that is bought, turn to the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato, or the Heritage. Fact is, too much of America's education is already bought. Witness the "graduation ceremonies" of high school football players as they celebrate their scholarships to what are no more than farm teams for the NFL.
5
And in counterpoint, perhaps you should stop being a member of the "public" and thinking that it comes with no strings. Being a true member of a community requires that we engage with -- and actual foster -- ideas and perspectives that are uncomfortable and challenge our views. Your comment is the equivalent of saying that a game of baseball needs to be played by your rules alone or that you're going to take your bat and ball and go home.
1
A state university has many goals and purposes. The one that it makes sense for the state to find is the training of the next generation of workers. Universities have another agenda of molding minds to the new social standards they are promoting, but why should the state pay for that? Taxpayers should not be on the hook to promote a social agenda, but if universities want to promote one, they should get private grants or charge students interested in learning this material.
13
Universities are not giant trade schools. They are and always have been, places of intllectual debate and advancement.
31
"Training the next generation of workers" is a very narrow way to describe the much larger mission of a University. Some of us also learn critical thinking, and some students learn valuable lessons from being exposed to a wide range of interesting and sometimes provocative ideas and perspectives. And quite a few of us taxpayers DO want to pay for that. In fact, as a taxpayer, that is EXACTLY what I want to pay for.
5
So exposure of students to new social thinking is to depend on the Koch Bros or Sheldon Adelson... or Soros? Thinking is not an agenda.
1
Serously?
A series of bills that place limit on the politicalization of fact and limiting the presentation of opinion as facts is more threatening than mandatory compliance to standard of speech. A professor can always express his opinion provided he does so as an opinion. Any member of the university community issubject to the harshest punishment possible, explusion, for expressing their opinion as opinion.
Your claim by itself proves exactly how dangerous the PC movement has become.
A series of bills that place limit on the politicalization of fact and limiting the presentation of opinion as facts is more threatening than mandatory compliance to standard of speech. A professor can always express his opinion provided he does so as an opinion. Any member of the university community issubject to the harshest punishment possible, explusion, for expressing their opinion as opinion.
Your claim by itself proves exactly how dangerous the PC movement has become.
13
Yes, seriously. Those bills that you praise do not "limit the politicalization of fact". More often, they do the exact opposite. Shutting down a research center that works on alternate energy sources? Yes, that is the politicized denial of facts. Prohibitions on research about guns and gun violence? That is the political shutting down of research, the political denial of facts. And when legislators try to shut down a class on, for example, race and gender because they don't like some of the ideas and opinions in the class? That is the very definition of the political suppression of academic freedom.
6
Outside the plans of demagogues and of lying news organizations, there is no pc movement. Just a struggling towards civilization.
4
How can a professor state an opinion as his opinion if he's no longer allowed to teach the class? And in which schools, exactly, are people being expelled for struggling to adhere to PC language?
1
Would the author support the right of a professor to teach a course called "The Problem of Blackness"? Would the civil rights bureaucracy even allow it? I think it is important to understand that while complaining about a course title can be censorship, absolutely banning a course is a much more severe form of censorship.
18
The article didn't mention simply changing course names. The politician opposed to the "Problem of Whiteness" class wanted it cancelled outright and the instructor dismissed. This wasn't a dispute about the name of the course, it was the course itself. For all of these classes and research programs, it's the content that's being banned, not the name.
I'd say that the people most in need of literal "trigger warnings" are the professors in classrooms in states (e.g. Texas) where legislators have voted to allow the students to bring guns into the classroom. Where can they get safe spaces to teach and bring up controversial subjects?
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Why single out Texas? Several states allow open carry or concealed weapons on campus.
I couldn't agree more. The UW system has been completed gutted in the last 5 years ... morale is practically non-existent, especially at smaller state schools like Oshkosh, Point, Stout, etc. At these schools in particular, there is not a strong resistance by the student body, which further hampers professor's autonomy and ability to teach freely.
15
Quit it with this tripe. You are convincing no one who doesn't already live in the liberal, PC bubble. People have eyes and ears.
13
Thanks for contributing your own tripe to this conversation. No one is convinced by your baseless assertions except those who are programmed to believe them, but keep trying.
1
As an author, I've been invited to speak at colleges across the nation. Although I consider myself a progressive, one of the most virulent verbal attacks I ever received came from a student at a small, Midwestern liberal arts college.
I've grown used to hate mail and bad reviews from far right extremists. But it was shocking to be excoriated for not being far enough to the left.
After some reflection, I realized being assailed from either political extreme was the best place to be. Perhaps that's how we should evaluate our educational institutions as well.
I've grown used to hate mail and bad reviews from far right extremists. But it was shocking to be excoriated for not being far enough to the left.
After some reflection, I realized being assailed from either political extreme was the best place to be. Perhaps that's how we should evaluate our educational institutions as well.
18
Republican my way or the highway sure has depopulated the middle ground in this pathetically bullied nation.
Someone needs to remind Steve Nass, a state senator from Whitewater, not to force political correctness, the fairness doctrine and legislative speech/thought police on the university system. I have never had any student in my classes ask for safe spaces or any other special consideration. Free speech is not muzzled or prohibited. What is asked is civility and decorum in discussion. Ad Hominem attacks are prohibited (as opposed to what politicians do in public). These rules apply equally to anyone who debates in class (Trump and most politicians would be thrown out of most of my classes). The real issue I have seen on campus is the failure of conservatives to convince very many of their stand on the issues.
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But "civility and decorum" can easily become code words for "censorship." Witness the case of Professor Jordan Peterson who is in peril of losing his job as a Professor at the University of Toronto because he refuses to use gender neutral pronouns now (since November) required of him by Federal law. His opponents call him "uncivil", but his reply (just in my view) is that the government (Liberal in this case) is seeking unprecedented power in requiring its citizens to speak words (not merely refrain from speaking offensive words). You say "Trump and most politicians would be thrown out of [your] classes". That right there is the problem. You should welcome them and engage them in civil but vigorous debate. That is what I would do with Liberal politicians in my classes (I have been a professor for 30 years). Vigorous debate is what universities are for. Both Left and Right are too quick to censor opposing views. If censorship is the answer, why are universities even needed? why waste tax dollars on an echo chamber (Left or Right)?
3
They can only get consent at gunpoint, but boy does this idiotic country enable them to do that.
We should not be too quick to lament political intervention in universities. As a Republican I look forward to political intrusion in business schools insisting that every student be exposed to socialist critiques of capitalism.b Perhaps Wisconsin will lead the way in assuring balance in the current centers of crony capitalism that characterize most American schools of business. Onward Wisconsin!
14
Yes, certainly! Onward Wisconsin!
The majority of public business schools are simply----simply---campus Business ROTC Programs, The few that try to educate thoughtful business leaders, as Wisconsin seemed to have been doing before its State jumped rightward off the cliff into a Tea Party Cup, need to be ground to dust. We need more non-thinkers, more none readers, that follow the Trump model.
Onward Wisconsin indeed.
The majority of public business schools are simply----simply---campus Business ROTC Programs, The few that try to educate thoughtful business leaders, as Wisconsin seemed to have been doing before its State jumped rightward off the cliff into a Tea Party Cup, need to be ground to dust. We need more non-thinkers, more none readers, that follow the Trump model.
Onward Wisconsin indeed.
Thank you, Mr. Moynihan. The facts to which you point will be helpful in discussions with those who post gleeful mockery of "safe spaces" on my Facebook feed as a reason to disparage higher education.
6
The GOP has, in recent years, set itself up as the anti-intellectual party. Their frequent claims that institutions of higher learning are bastions of liberal ideology may be true, but I have to wonder why their answer is not to drive for a greater conservative presence on campus. Instead of labeling the highly educated "the elite" and running on an anti-elite message, perhaps they should be holding up higher education as a worthy goal.
As to their attempts to quash ideas and research which does not fit their world view, they are consistent. They decry diversity of all kinds as a disaster to be overcome rather than a gift to be cherished and nourished. Diversity of thought is no different. In the right wing world either you think what they think or you are wrong, if not dangerous. Higher education, on the other hand, as always invited diversity of thought (if it is imperfect at times in truly making space for it). Unless the GOP changes, they will continue to try to tear down what is good and growth producing on college campuses - it simply does not fit their world view.
As to their attempts to quash ideas and research which does not fit their world view, they are consistent. They decry diversity of all kinds as a disaster to be overcome rather than a gift to be cherished and nourished. Diversity of thought is no different. In the right wing world either you think what they think or you are wrong, if not dangerous. Higher education, on the other hand, as always invited diversity of thought (if it is imperfect at times in truly making space for it). Unless the GOP changes, they will continue to try to tear down what is good and growth producing on college campuses - it simply does not fit their world view.
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I agree with you about the GOP, but the progressive left are now acting like fascists. That is worse as they are training our future generation like they run re-education camps in Vietnam. Neither are acceptable.
25
You ask "why their answer is not to drive for a greater conservative presence on campus". They have been doing just that for about 30 years. It is impossible for a conservative to land a tenure track job in the Arts and Humanities in the USA or Canada, and if you are found to be conservative the machinery to boot you out swings into motion. This is now happening even in Canada. Google Jordan Peterson, University of Toronto.
3
With all due respect, ridiculous hyperbole like this just makes your arguments seem silly. Your comparison would be rightly derided in any environment focused on teaching critical thought.
1
Enter the fact that Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker does not even have a college degree, nor any degree.
Donald Trump has picked Betsy DeVos who has no professional life in education to be the Secretary of Education except she is a hawk for taxpayer Christian conservative voucher schools.
Do you see where this is going, folks?
Donald Trump has picked Betsy DeVos who has no professional life in education to be the Secretary of Education except she is a hawk for taxpayer Christian conservative voucher schools.
Do you see where this is going, folks?
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You make Governor Walker sound like he dropped out of third grade and is illiterate.
In fact -- for some reason I do not know or understand -- he dropped out of college in his senior year, one credit short of his Bachelor's degree.
He only lacks a college degree on a technicality, and could have probably rectified this years ago if he wanted to do so.
Also: all charter schools are PUBLIC schools, and subject to laws about religious freedom and racial bias, so they CANNOT be religious schools by definition. Like many liberals, you are mixing up CHARTER schools and parochial schools. They are not the same things.
In fact -- for some reason I do not know or understand -- he dropped out of college in his senior year, one credit short of his Bachelor's degree.
He only lacks a college degree on a technicality, and could have probably rectified this years ago if he wanted to do so.
Also: all charter schools are PUBLIC schools, and subject to laws about religious freedom and racial bias, so they CANNOT be religious schools by definition. Like many liberals, you are mixing up CHARTER schools and parochial schools. They are not the same things.
12
CC:
I think maybe the comment writer is mixing up charter schools with vouchers. That is still public money which can, and does go to schools of religious backgrounds, like parochial schools.
I think maybe the comment writer is mixing up charter schools with vouchers. That is still public money which can, and does go to schools of religious backgrounds, like parochial schools.
1
In Indiana, my tax dollars DO go to private Christian schools. Note I say Christian, not parochial schools as pretty much all the religious schools funded by my tax dollars are Christion. And overall, charter schools have a mixed record, just like regular public schoools.
2
An environmentalist is someone who has already built and owns there home. Likewise, complaints from the left about incursions into their speech ignores that they've developed monocultures among faculty and administrators that tolerate only speech they agree with.
There are no incursions against right wing syllabi by the government because they don't exists. Meanwhile schools are gutting history, political science, and humanities courses of western white male, colonialists writing.
Since it's coming from within, there's no complaints. But it's happening just the same as if legislatures had demanded it.
There are no incursions against right wing syllabi by the government because they don't exists. Meanwhile schools are gutting history, political science, and humanities courses of western white male, colonialists writing.
Since it's coming from within, there's no complaints. But it's happening just the same as if legislatures had demanded it.
19
No, what they are doing is stop teaching that only white males had anything to do to build anything. That is why there is more focus on minorities and their accomplishments. And the conservatives hate anyone else getting some credit.
Opiating the brain is another popular way to cope with living in an endless nightmare of cognitive dissonance.
1
I am seeing some of the same sorts of false equivalence style arguments I was seeing in the presidential race; the "both sides have their flaws" logic that prefaced every discussion. I was never a fan of PC speech, but I do think that there is such a thing as good manners and common decency. But the forces that caused many to re-think telling ethnic jokes or making disparaging remarks about women in the name of "locker room talk" were social. They evolved over time as part of an honest discussion of ideas between people. What the author warns of here is the institutionalized censorship of certain thoughts, of points of view that differ from the world view of some who happen to be in power now. Unlike an evolution of social norms, this process comes with the ability to choke off and shout down anyone who does not conform. It's one thing to shame a lout for making boorish remarks; it is quite another to take his job away or close down her project or place of work. So, no, this is not just the same thing as the PC movement. It is entirely different, and eminently more dangerous.
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Whoa. Sometimes, there are these quaint things called "a legal system" that are involved. For instance, from the op-ed: " .. Faculty members in public institutions also have to worry about the possibility of having their email searched via Freedom of Information law requests .."
This is the same issue of HRC. That equipment and any related IP (intellectual property) are owned by the taxpayers, not the employee. As such, FOIA applies. To claim otherwise is to be somewhere between ignorant and law-breaking.
Want to send a private e-mail? Use your device. Add encryption, to annoy the Russian and Chinese communists.
This is the same issue of HRC. That equipment and any related IP (intellectual property) are owned by the taxpayers, not the employee. As such, FOIA applies. To claim otherwise is to be somewhere between ignorant and law-breaking.
Want to send a private e-mail? Use your device. Add encryption, to annoy the Russian and Chinese communists.
1
If there is any equivalence, it's on the other side, unpopular (anti affirmative pro choice, anti immigrant, gay amibivalence,) opinions would never warrant tenure. Universities a priori dismiss all opinions they find hostile & promote mono cultures.
1
totyson – Definition of False Equivalency:
A term invented by liberal elites. The ingenious term is often utilized by liberals to defend a point of view in which no other rational defense is available. It is always deployed when a gaping hole has been exposed in their argument.
A term invented by liberal elites. The ingenious term is often utilized by liberals to defend a point of view in which no other rational defense is available. It is always deployed when a gaping hole has been exposed in their argument.
2
The governor of Kentucky, with the backing of the Republican legislature, has removed the Board of Trustees at the University of Louisville. The accrediting agency (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools - SACS) has placed the university on probation which means it may lose its accreditation. The governor's actions appear to be an attempt to gain considerable political influence over management and content within the university. This is serious, folks.
89
In fact the Board was removed lawfully and based on fiscal malfeasance.
Your claim is nothing more than crocodile tears.
Your claim is nothing more than crocodile tears.
11
Except the governor did not have the authority to do what he did. Thus an injunction has been filed which stopped it. The judge said that the governor ignored state law and constitution.
3
Back to the days of McCarthy, the know nothing populist wing of the GOP has been going after intellectuals and other non-economic elites in a dumbing down of political culture. The nadir has been the election of Donald Trump, plutocrat and reality show star.
It is about making America safe for all people as long as you are white, for all religions as long as you are Christian and all views as long as you support unlimited gun rights, It is the narcissistic culture of perpetual victimhood. Anyone who has achieved anything who is not in my mirror image is un-American.
I am tired of the don't worry, they will die off eventually mentality on the left. Like any bullying behavior, it will only become marginalized when the majority pushes back and exposes it for what it is. Then like Ike and McCarthyism, the utility of hate will be rejected and normal and centrist behavior will be sought and the majority can focus on being Americans again rather than a collection of tribes.
It is about making America safe for all people as long as you are white, for all religions as long as you are Christian and all views as long as you support unlimited gun rights, It is the narcissistic culture of perpetual victimhood. Anyone who has achieved anything who is not in my mirror image is un-American.
I am tired of the don't worry, they will die off eventually mentality on the left. Like any bullying behavior, it will only become marginalized when the majority pushes back and exposes it for what it is. Then like Ike and McCarthyism, the utility of hate will be rejected and normal and centrist behavior will be sought and the majority can focus on being Americans again rather than a collection of tribes.
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But it is the progressive liberal movement that is sorting everyone into these groups and subgroups. President Obama and his administration have been dividing this country by executive fiat.
4
Tom: There is a bit of a problem here with "the majority pushing back"! The majority did not vote for Trump and look where that got us!!
Please do not link McCarthy and Eisenhower. IKE was a great American who would not be welcome in the right wing party that is today's GOP.
1
Thank you for publishing this editorial, Professor Moynihan. We stand with you.
46
In responding to the kind of shaming practiced by groups like Professor Watchlist, Julio C. Pino, a Kent State assistant professor of history, asked what kind of country we will become in the next four years. The reality is, we've apparently been in the process of becoming that country for some time now. From the the behavior of the Trumpster himself, to the attempts to ram unvetted and controversial cabinet nominees through the confirmation process to the theft of a Supreme Court seat, the leaders our neighbors have elected are already demonstrating Orwellian newspeak and doublethink in defense of their self-serving intolerance. No reason to expect that's going to get better soon.
84
As a Wisconsinite I have witnessed the deterioration of our state's spirit since Scott Walker took over in 2011.
Remember our protests when he took away unions? His Act 10. Teachers have left the state in droves. Ask local school superintendents about job position applications.....they strain to get them. It's not just unions he cut, he cut the ambition for teachers to be great here. (familiar - great?)
But in this case, it's true.
Walker and henchmen have defunded public schools and universities grand scale.
Yet they concocted a plan to hand our taxpayer money directly over to churches for voucher schools. In the next several years there will be no caps on the number of vouchers. Hey, I'm not Lutheran, why should I pay for their schools?
You think those voucher schools allow freedom of speech?
Walker and crew passed laws that to teach in public schools anything but abstinence about the birds and the bees, is unlawful!
When I used to meet University of Wisconsin young people I would think how proud I was and how fortunate they would be to have a venue to express themselves, learn in a great diverse environment that supports all ideas, be encouraged to yearn for more and more ways to make themselves aware of a great and diversified world.
Walker and group even tried to take away The Wisconsin Idea, dear to our universities. He's cut staffing, funding, ideas, research, and more.
But worst of all, he's cut our spirit. And we live it every day.
Remember our protests when he took away unions? His Act 10. Teachers have left the state in droves. Ask local school superintendents about job position applications.....they strain to get them. It's not just unions he cut, he cut the ambition for teachers to be great here. (familiar - great?)
But in this case, it's true.
Walker and henchmen have defunded public schools and universities grand scale.
Yet they concocted a plan to hand our taxpayer money directly over to churches for voucher schools. In the next several years there will be no caps on the number of vouchers. Hey, I'm not Lutheran, why should I pay for their schools?
You think those voucher schools allow freedom of speech?
Walker and crew passed laws that to teach in public schools anything but abstinence about the birds and the bees, is unlawful!
When I used to meet University of Wisconsin young people I would think how proud I was and how fortunate they would be to have a venue to express themselves, learn in a great diverse environment that supports all ideas, be encouraged to yearn for more and more ways to make themselves aware of a great and diversified world.
Walker and group even tried to take away The Wisconsin Idea, dear to our universities. He's cut staffing, funding, ideas, research, and more.
But worst of all, he's cut our spirit. And we live it every day.
214
Why is he still in office? Are there no elections?
3
"I'm not a Lutheran, why should I pay for those school?" It would appear that you know nothing of the voucher program. It allows parents the "option" to select a school that best fits their children's needs. It provides the same amount of money as the public school system receives for educating that child. If you believe that public schools are giving your child the best education for them, since there are vast amounts of excellent public schools out there, then by all means keep your child enrolled there. The thing about the voucher program is it gives a parent a choice. Funny how liberals despise the word "Choice" when it comes to education, but, love the word with other issues.
2
Sadly, what's happened in Wisconsin under Walker is only part of a larger problem besetting the country as a whole. It's called creeping rightwing rot.
2
So when speech discomforts students, they should man-up, but when speech discomforts legislators, speech should give way to a safe space for taxpayers and lawmakers. When the voters of Wisconsin pursue a parallel strategy of screening the activities of the legislature to make sure there is legitimate legislating going on, this nonsense will stop. Until then, perhaps it is time for a course about the value of free speech and the discomfiture of free speech and why legislative meddling and trigger warnings should both be anathema in a society based on ordered liberty. First on the syllabus should be Ben Franklin's quote: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
69
Make no mistake: The political Right in America's state legislatures plays the role that Stalin's goons did in the 1930s.
Unable to just purge us physically, they would make us irrelevant by destroying the Liberal Arts and what they foster--critical thinking, diverse perspectives, learning for its own sake, openness to new ideas--in order to impose their own "politically correct" orthodoxy.
Parents and students, fretting about surviving in a Social-Darwinist American economy after college, won't help very much.
Free speech may survive this assault, but it will only be a empty gesture without faculty from all disciplines to shape a broad curriculum where rigorous intellectual argument can thrive. And to my colleagues in the Sciences, who may feel secure, beware. Already in some benighted parts of our endangered Republic, you are in the crosshairs if you talk about Climate Change, Evolution, or the age of the Earth.
Unable to just purge us physically, they would make us irrelevant by destroying the Liberal Arts and what they foster--critical thinking, diverse perspectives, learning for its own sake, openness to new ideas--in order to impose their own "politically correct" orthodoxy.
Parents and students, fretting about surviving in a Social-Darwinist American economy after college, won't help very much.
Free speech may survive this assault, but it will only be a empty gesture without faculty from all disciplines to shape a broad curriculum where rigorous intellectual argument can thrive. And to my colleagues in the Sciences, who may feel secure, beware. Already in some benighted parts of our endangered Republic, you are in the crosshairs if you talk about Climate Change, Evolution, or the age of the Earth.
141
State legislatures and governors, mostly Red States, have been hugely (familiar word?) funded in the millions of $$ by the Koch Brothers and a few of their right-wing/libertarian cohorts - this has been quietly going on for quite a few years now.
Read Jane Mayer's "Dark Money"!
Read Jane Mayer's "Dark Money"!
2
The idea of the University as the free market place of ideas is being insidiously assaulted from the Right by Evangelical Republican's who place adherence to religious and Republican dogma above the cornerstone university values of intellectual freedom and tolerance. Dogma is a totalitarian concept and the mortal enemy of free expression and the equal protection of the law. Republicans in state after state, who attempt to impose restrictions on professors and educational content, have one thing in common, they are universally Evangelical Christians, who embrace the principle of intolerance, common to religious extremists world wide.
33
It's a culture war, and conservative legislatures are using every weapon they have, from bathroom bans to pulling funding funding for programs they think are turning our youth into Liberals.
You see it in states that curtail programs at Universities - and some of the Universities that have been under attack include Wisconsin, North Carolina and the University of Texas, which Rick Perry wanted to turn into a trade school. You see it when legislatures try to pull finding from AP classes that teach history in a context that the legislature doesn't value.
I am not convinced that every program needs to exist, nor that every program needs funding, But the decision needs to be at the administration's level, and the legislature should not be involved.
For a movement that got incensed by at government overreach in the Common Core, a set of standards for math and English that did not dictate curriculum or methodology, the intrusion of conservative lawmakers into actual curriculum is hypocritical. But then again, hypocrisy is the name of the game in our present politics.
People need to pay attention to what their state lawmakers are actually doing. But Americans need to be prepared for the reality that about half approve.
You see it in states that curtail programs at Universities - and some of the Universities that have been under attack include Wisconsin, North Carolina and the University of Texas, which Rick Perry wanted to turn into a trade school. You see it when legislatures try to pull finding from AP classes that teach history in a context that the legislature doesn't value.
I am not convinced that every program needs to exist, nor that every program needs funding, But the decision needs to be at the administration's level, and the legislature should not be involved.
For a movement that got incensed by at government overreach in the Common Core, a set of standards for math and English that did not dictate curriculum or methodology, the intrusion of conservative lawmakers into actual curriculum is hypocritical. But then again, hypocrisy is the name of the game in our present politics.
People need to pay attention to what their state lawmakers are actually doing. But Americans need to be prepared for the reality that about half approve.
26
Why is there any confusion about this? This article looks for logic and reason and there is none at work here. It is simply the flexing of power by officials. They do not care about safe spaces, microaggression, political correctness, family values, states rights or any other smokescreen.
They care about maintaining and expanding their own power and squashing any challenge.
They care about maintaining and expanding their own power and squashing any challenge.
239
You must be joking. The University of Colorado at Boulder spent more than $2,000,000 to fire a tenured teacher for academic fraud.
Your "powerless down-trodden" are hardly that -- what about the students, parents, taxpayers, and others who fund higher education?
Your "powerless down-trodden" are hardly that -- what about the students, parents, taxpayers, and others who fund higher education?
3
Liberals have their "safe rooms" which are a physical monument to their commitment against free speech, along with the removal of due process for students accused of sexual assault, and your excuse is conservatives are worse? The PC choke hold belongs to liberals. I don't have to go to Oberlin or Liberty if I don't like the teachers or their ideology. I have that choice. On the other hand, no one escapes the tyranny of Title IX, brought to us by the current administration in an end run around our justice system and our civil rights.
30
Title 9 is a Federal law and was brought to you by legislators in Washington, not administrators at your local college.
11
Title IX was passes as law in 1972. The current administration si
Ply applied the law as written.
Ply applied the law as written.
12
Title IX was corrupted by the Obamacrats.
2
" .. At the University of North Carolina, the board of governors closed a privately funded research center that studied poverty; its director had criticized state elected officials for adopting policies that he argued amounted to “a war on poor people" ..
Yup, plenty of "free speech" there. Those "constant critics" were free to tear down their political opponents .. just not in buildings owned by the people of North Carolina. Many of whom opposed the one-sided, non-stop political criticism of their values and beliefs.
Teaching and education is supposed to be about strong, clear-eyed understandings of the world. That does not include centers of one-sided political indoctrination.
BTW: it is UNC @ Chapel Hill. You're welcome.
Yup, plenty of "free speech" there. Those "constant critics" were free to tear down their political opponents .. just not in buildings owned by the people of North Carolina. Many of whom opposed the one-sided, non-stop political criticism of their values and beliefs.
Teaching and education is supposed to be about strong, clear-eyed understandings of the world. That does not include centers of one-sided political indoctrination.
BTW: it is UNC @ Chapel Hill. You're welcome.
15
The director of the Poverty Center, law professor Gene Nichol, has a very clear-eyed understanding of the world. He can see exactly what the N.C. General Assembly has been doing for the last six years -- cutting taxes on the wealthy; expanding the sales tax (which disproportionally affects lower income people; reducing per-pupil spending in public schools; etc. and so forth. The fact remains that legislators shut down the Poverty Center (and tried unsuccessfully to get Nichol fired from the law school) because they didn't like what he was saying. That is the definition of an attack on free speech.
12
BTW: that "privately-funded center" was funded by a former U.S. vice presidential candidate and multi-millionaire trial lawyer who was investigated by DoJ for payments made to a campaign volunteer he impregnated.
My, my, what a coincidence. Not.
My, my, what a coincidence. Not.
1
What does it matter who donated, it is who runs it that matters. Should we criticize some charity because Trump donated to it, though he has hired illegals, brought in foreign workers, practiced discrimination? And lies 80% of the time about everything?
5
I'm from Wisconsin and can attest to the Conservative Wisconsin Legislators attack of free speech on the University and its Professors. Conservatives are God fearing people. So any teachings that goes against their religious beliefs or their ideologies for Governance is evil. The best way to restore and protect free speech on college campuses is to change State legislatures. The best way to do that is to help fight and end Gerrymandering of political districts that is taking place in Wisconsin and throughout the United States. The only way extreme conservatism survives is through Gerrymandering. Secondly then stop voter suppression laws. Once this is accomplished you elect persons that believe in the first amendment and the rights of free speech to on college campuses.
336
"Gerrymandering?" Like, without LAX, HRC would have lost the country by 1.2 million?
LAX and Madison, Wisc. are free to raise their local taxes for "free bread and circuses." Others do not. Deal with that, please. Thank you.
LAX and Madison, Wisc. are free to raise their local taxes for "free bread and circuses." Others do not. Deal with that, please. Thank you.
2
Only the republicans believe in bread and circuses. We help the poor who are hurt by voo doo economics that republicans force upon them.
Oh and last I heard those people have the right to vote also, in spite of all republican attempts to stop people from voting.
A majority of people in this country support the idea that people shouldn't starve to death, should have health care, and decency. Too bad the minority doesn't like those ideas. Wait until people realize what republicans are going to do to them. I don't think your policies of letting people die will be appreciated.
Oh and last I heard those people have the right to vote also, in spite of all republican attempts to stop people from voting.
A majority of people in this country support the idea that people shouldn't starve to death, should have health care, and decency. Too bad the minority doesn't like those ideas. Wait until people realize what republicans are going to do to them. I don't think your policies of letting people die will be appreciated.
3
Urko - Pointing out that HRC would have lost the popular vote without LAX is a particularly poor way to argue that gerrymandering isn't an issue. There are over 18 million people in the LA metropolitan area. If LAX were a state, it would be the fifth largest in the country.
8
We don't need politicians to tell teachers how to get things right -- politicians get things wrong a lot more often than teachers do.
101
Perhaps the problem with The Problem of Whiteness resides more in the title of the course than its content; of course, once the provocative title provokes the content is up for review. However, I doubt that the content is being addressed at all. The legislator is whipping up a contentless frenzy over emotive language. For example, we have Multicultural Studies, not The Problem of Multiculturalism. I do not know if Whiteness Studies with the exact same content as The Problem of Whiteness would have caught the attention of the legislator, but I certainly hear the rhetorical difference between the two. Clearly, people can rightly argue that the title itself should be protected speech. However, is the aim to be provocative, or is the aim to engage in an intellectual exchange of ideas? "Problem" bespeaks a problem; "Studies" bespeaks an academic, but challenging nevertheless, course of study.
25
I assure that whatever professor NAMED his course "The PROBLEM of Whiteness" was not going to be discussing white culture or western civilization in a dispassionate and fair way.
He was going to be attacking it, and blaming it for every ill on the face of the earth. This is commonplace in higher education today.
He was going to be attacking it, and blaming it for every ill on the face of the earth. This is commonplace in higher education today.
11
Concerned Citizen: you are basing your assumption on what exactly?
On the basis of what I have seen and read, I think it likely that the professor was talking about "whiteness" as a problem insofar as
1. "race" is not objectively defined but has varied over the centuries--e.g. to mean only Northern Europeans, or Western Europeans but not Irish, or not Jews, or...whatever group the definer wanted to exclude;
2. "white culture" per se does not exist; there are various cultures that fall under the rubric of "white" depending on (1) and other criteria.
The non-academic discussion of this, yes, provocative title has largely excluded even an understanding of what "problem" means in an academic context.
On the basis of what I have seen and read, I think it likely that the professor was talking about "whiteness" as a problem insofar as
1. "race" is not objectively defined but has varied over the centuries--e.g. to mean only Northern Europeans, or Western Europeans but not Irish, or not Jews, or...whatever group the definer wanted to exclude;
2. "white culture" per se does not exist; there are various cultures that fall under the rubric of "white" depending on (1) and other criteria.
The non-academic discussion of this, yes, provocative title has largely excluded even an understanding of what "problem" means in an academic context.
7
Such courses do not attack "white culture" or "blame it for every ill on the face of the earth." My goodness. Educate yourself. Maybe you should take such a course - or simply do some research - and you'll find the reality is quite different.
2
Within constitutional limits, legislators do have a responsibility to represent the values and interests of the people who elect them, especially when they spend the money from those people on public universities and community colleges. Academic freedom is not absolute, and constitutional protections do not extend far enough, as the case law shows, to protect any professor to teach anything. When taxpayers don't wish to have their contributions directed toward divisive courses like "The Problem of Whiteness," legislators should stand up for them. And if the taxpayers don't like how they do that, and it's a big enough deal to them, they will elect other legislators the next time around.
It's somewhat a different matterl at private institutions, though complicated by the large amount of public funding most of them receive.
It's somewhat a different matterl at private institutions, though complicated by the large amount of public funding most of them receive.
12
Free speech is certainly in the eyes of the beholder.
One day it is cloaked racism. Another it is a permit to place pornography and vulgar stories into the media. And still a third day it is a take-down of some public figure, retracted long after the damage is complete.
We have no unifying ethic binding the nation; no point of accountability shared all (or, even, most) citizens. What we have is a post-modern age without a common worldview that will continue to be torn apart by warring viewpoints.
There is no longer fake news, genuine honesty, or accepted truth. There is the internet, Twitter, Facebook, and a mainstream media sensing a coming irrelevancy. What we will be left with is our own ability to moderate our own appetites for untruth.
The initial prospects are not so good. Moynihan called it "defining deviancy down", and Bork called it "slouching to Gomorrah". Rarely have two men from such different backgrounds been so on point.
Without a governor on our behavior, we are really nothing much to watch.
One day it is cloaked racism. Another it is a permit to place pornography and vulgar stories into the media. And still a third day it is a take-down of some public figure, retracted long after the damage is complete.
We have no unifying ethic binding the nation; no point of accountability shared all (or, even, most) citizens. What we have is a post-modern age without a common worldview that will continue to be torn apart by warring viewpoints.
There is no longer fake news, genuine honesty, or accepted truth. There is the internet, Twitter, Facebook, and a mainstream media sensing a coming irrelevancy. What we will be left with is our own ability to moderate our own appetites for untruth.
The initial prospects are not so good. Moynihan called it "defining deviancy down", and Bork called it "slouching to Gomorrah". Rarely have two men from such different backgrounds been so on point.
Without a governor on our behavior, we are really nothing much to watch.
21
Very well thought out, and said!
5
We have Governor Scott Walker here and he's someone we must watch very carefully.
1
I wonder whose bubble is more isolating, mine, or the author's
The shut-down and shout-down of right wing speech, disinvitation of conservo speakers, blunt and blatant imposed advocacy/ indoctrination, for lefto causes, is so pervasive, in the minds of the right, that such mitigation as the author offers
is beyond comprehension
My two schools, from ancient times, Columbia, and Michigan, are in some forefront: Columbia where the president of Iran "death to America' and death to gays, was honored, while the Minutemen were relegated to a student invitation, are examples of lopsided 'balance'
The widespread bullying of administration and faculty, at Yale, over Halloween costumes, well, a little goes along way, these are Mao-ist vandals, academic Red Guards, of China, destroying the past, in best Stalinist form, air brushing history
The taxpayers of Wisconsin can pay the piper and those who profess at odds with their paymasters (oops trigger warning) are free to vend their services where they may or can
As for weakening tenure, not weak enough, maybe federal judges should have sinecure, but not many others, tenure is to protect academic freedom, not political advocacy; borderline cases are to be resolved adversely against political values advocacy
Odd really,WI, home of progressives, LaFollete, grange, agrarian cooperatives, has come to this, I suspect, true progressives differ with this author over progress
(also Joe McCarthy, and Scott Walker)
The shut-down and shout-down of right wing speech, disinvitation of conservo speakers, blunt and blatant imposed advocacy/ indoctrination, for lefto causes, is so pervasive, in the minds of the right, that such mitigation as the author offers
is beyond comprehension
My two schools, from ancient times, Columbia, and Michigan, are in some forefront: Columbia where the president of Iran "death to America' and death to gays, was honored, while the Minutemen were relegated to a student invitation, are examples of lopsided 'balance'
The widespread bullying of administration and faculty, at Yale, over Halloween costumes, well, a little goes along way, these are Mao-ist vandals, academic Red Guards, of China, destroying the past, in best Stalinist form, air brushing history
The taxpayers of Wisconsin can pay the piper and those who profess at odds with their paymasters (oops trigger warning) are free to vend their services where they may or can
As for weakening tenure, not weak enough, maybe federal judges should have sinecure, but not many others, tenure is to protect academic freedom, not political advocacy; borderline cases are to be resolved adversely against political values advocacy
Odd really,WI, home of progressives, LaFollete, grange, agrarian cooperatives, has come to this, I suspect, true progressives differ with this author over progress
(also Joe McCarthy, and Scott Walker)
14
Despite essentially "owning" talk-radio airwaves, and numerous publications, a drum-beat of social media, a majority of state legislators, Congress, and now the Presidency, the right still claims to an oppressed "shut-down and shout-down of right wing speech" unless their views are prevalent and dominate in every venue.
19
It's that victim view of the world that some of them seem to hold. It's projection that makes them push victimhood onto women and racial and sexual minorities.
2
Possibly, this sizable threat to lively, free discourse on college campuses will prompt more academics to consider how their own research might inform and redirect our faltering democracy.
In saying this, I am not in any way agreeing with those who clearly have no understanding of the power and importance of academic freedom. But I must confess that, while teaching on a few campuses over the past twenty years, I have often wondered if too many academics are in danger of getting lost in tiny bubbles of interest that are largely irrelevant to just about everything.
So here is my hope: this new era, in which the academy is being threatened and intruded upon, will inspire more thoughtful academics to direct their minds and research to pressing questions that few could dismiss as arcane, selfy, or just plain weird. I do think this would be good-- for the academy, for our society, and for young people, who will no doubt benefit from learning from professors who are fired up and actively aiming to contribute new languages and ideas to the conversations and debates that might help us save our faltering democracy.
8
Voluntary politeness (otherwise known as political correctness) has been Trumped by legislation forbidding a scientific discussion of evolution, sexuality, and reproduction.
23
If "political correctness" were VOLUNTARY (or even polite), it wouldn't be an issue.
The whole problem is that it is NOT voluntary -- it is mandated from on high, and policed rigorously, with people who deviate even a tiny bit from the official "script" penalized heavily -- called the most awful names -- "bigot, hater, xenophobe, homophobe, racist, misogynist, fascist" and worse.
BTW: there is not the slightest evidence you could EVER produce that Trump is against the teaching of evolution in schools, or anti-gay, or anti-trans, or against birth control (which what I assume you mean by "reproduction" -- surely a man with 5 kids and 7 grandkids is not "anti-reproduction"!).
The whole problem is that it is NOT voluntary -- it is mandated from on high, and policed rigorously, with people who deviate even a tiny bit from the official "script" penalized heavily -- called the most awful names -- "bigot, hater, xenophobe, homophobe, racist, misogynist, fascist" and worse.
BTW: there is not the slightest evidence you could EVER produce that Trump is against the teaching of evolution in schools, or anti-gay, or anti-trans, or against birth control (which what I assume you mean by "reproduction" -- surely a man with 5 kids and 7 grandkids is not "anti-reproduction"!).
9
I could as easily say that political correctness is another word for confrontation. Activism is not meant as another word for politesse, on either side.
3
Concerned Citizen -
Regarding this portion of your comment "BTW: there is not the slightest evidence you could EVER produce that Trump is against the teaching of evolution in schools, or anti-gay, or anti-trans, or against birth control (which what I assume you mean by "reproduction" -- surely a man with 5 kids and 7 grandkids is not "anti-reproduction"!)." , sorry but his VP and Cabinet choices are evidence that he is all of those things.
Regarding this portion of your comment "BTW: there is not the slightest evidence you could EVER produce that Trump is against the teaching of evolution in schools, or anti-gay, or anti-trans, or against birth control (which what I assume you mean by "reproduction" -- surely a man with 5 kids and 7 grandkids is not "anti-reproduction"!)." , sorry but his VP and Cabinet choices are evidence that he is all of those things.
7
Legislators know that they face attacks from the educated individuals on college campuses and they seek to shut down those voices. Universities and colleges need to be places where everyone can speak and argue respectfully, but safely. We do not need a single voice with guns on campus blazing from its acolytes. Single voices lead to tyranny. We need respectful voices, that take a position, but listen to other positions. I am in agreement with Professor Moynihan that the example comes from the legislators. We see how legislators across the country try to drown out voices of dissent through voting laws, redistricting, and laws to undermine governors (North Carolina). If your policies are worthwhile, you have nothing to fear from dissenting voices.
34
This is what I always thought when Dinesh DeSouza invented the non-issue back in the early 90's: that the right wing, donning the role of victim, had to create a way to allow boors and malcontents to completely discard civility in public discourse, and this is what they came up with. It doesn't help that this same pool of whiners buy into the fable and elect people of limited intelligence who perpetuate the myth. And worse, administer policies to punish those exercising free speech. Legislators who do this simply wish to impose censorship and deny the public's right to decide for themselves the merits of ideas.
33
This form of state-imposed censorship occurs as well when legislators demand that public universities become more vocational/technical in their mission (without publicly admitting it), offering mostly courses geared specifically for one's "major," rather than providing the breadth and diversity of academic offerings that would give their graduates the intellectual tools to succeed in a wide array of pursuits, rather than just one specialized field.
29
Jim
That is exactly what has happened here.
Scott Walker does not have a college degree, nor any degree.
He has tried to turn our UW vocational. Sad.
With all Republican government here, this is what we live.
Now at the federal level, too. And the nominee for Secretary of Education - a Christian conservative voucher seeker. That will be education in the US.
MIMA
That is exactly what has happened here.
Scott Walker does not have a college degree, nor any degree.
He has tried to turn our UW vocational. Sad.
With all Republican government here, this is what we live.
Now at the federal level, too. And the nominee for Secretary of Education - a Christian conservative voucher seeker. That will be education in the US.
MIMA
9
Since Bill Buckley’s book God and Man at Yale (1951), the right has been trying to scare everybody, especially parents of college students, into thinking that most university professors are starry-eyed svengalis indoctrinating their students with radical leftist ideology. Their favorite ploy is to take a few isolated examples, often distorted and magnified, and imply that they are very common, if not typical.
It used to be just commentators; now Republican politicians are getting in on the act because they see this scare tactic as a way of controlling faculty, administrators, and curricula. This is why tenure is so crucial – and why some Republicans like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are trying to eliminate it.
For this reason alone, academics at state institutions – especially untenured – don’t enjoy complete freedom of speech. But there is another threat to free speech as well: the bogus complaint. All it takes is a student, colleague, administrator, or politician hearing or reading something they don’t like about what an academic said in class or in a publication to set off alarm bells and start a reputational and/or legal war against her. Even tenure offers only limited protection against this kind of oppression and aggression.
Instead of offering concrete examples – and there are too many - I refer readers of this comment to FIRE (https://www.thefire.org/). They are doing an excellent job of trying to protect free speech at American colleges and universities.
It used to be just commentators; now Republican politicians are getting in on the act because they see this scare tactic as a way of controlling faculty, administrators, and curricula. This is why tenure is so crucial – and why some Republicans like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are trying to eliminate it.
For this reason alone, academics at state institutions – especially untenured – don’t enjoy complete freedom of speech. But there is another threat to free speech as well: the bogus complaint. All it takes is a student, colleague, administrator, or politician hearing or reading something they don’t like about what an academic said in class or in a publication to set off alarm bells and start a reputational and/or legal war against her. Even tenure offers only limited protection against this kind of oppression and aggression.
Instead of offering concrete examples – and there are too many - I refer readers of this comment to FIRE (https://www.thefire.org/). They are doing an excellent job of trying to protect free speech at American colleges and universities.
370
FIRE is an example of an institution that is intellectually consistent, something I strive to be in my judgments as well. Too many people, as seen here in the comments, put party over principle. That's true on the left sadly as well as the right.
The whole point of the article--for all you partisans--was to insist that the right critics of free speech at the university (with the proviso that they're right in at least some of their criticisms) maintain that position when it comes to the speech they in turn don't like, for example research on renewables (!! Who could be against the development of technologies that ensure energy independence, right wingers? Please explain that nonsense!) But of course it is all about your guy, not the principle, isn't it? Free speech is fine and good, until YOU think it's icky, and then all of a sudden you want your safe space too.
Try to be better than that which you criticize, Republicans.
The whole point of the article--for all you partisans--was to insist that the right critics of free speech at the university (with the proviso that they're right in at least some of their criticisms) maintain that position when it comes to the speech they in turn don't like, for example research on renewables (!! Who could be against the development of technologies that ensure energy independence, right wingers? Please explain that nonsense!) But of course it is all about your guy, not the principle, isn't it? Free speech is fine and good, until YOU think it's icky, and then all of a sudden you want your safe space too.
Try to be better than that which you criticize, Republicans.
8
But even liberals THEMSELVES, especially when discussing the recent election, would proudly state that "90% of scientists are liberals....95% of college professors are liberals!"
The gist of that was to say very educated, smart people are nearly ALL politically liberal and members of the Democratic Party vs. conservatives and Republicans.
The problem with the theory presented in this article, is that almost any of us are free to visit our local state universities, and private colleges/universities, and SEE FOR OURSELVES if the atmosphere is politically left wing, moderate liberal or moderate conservative, or hard right. And I think we all know the answer to that.
The gist of that was to say very educated, smart people are nearly ALL politically liberal and members of the Democratic Party vs. conservatives and Republicans.
The problem with the theory presented in this article, is that almost any of us are free to visit our local state universities, and private colleges/universities, and SEE FOR OURSELVES if the atmosphere is politically left wing, moderate liberal or moderate conservative, or hard right. And I think we all know the answer to that.
4
In response to Ken Levy:
I fully agree with your comment, especially that a few examples are exaggerated to make it seem that there are attempts at some leftist indoctrination.
I would add only a couple of things. First, most classes have nothing to do with contemporary politics and social issues, and professors tend to stick closely to their syllabi, finding it a challenge to "cover" the material and their students' questions. Second, there is a problem with the language used by those groups trying to deal with serious social concerns, whether in classes or in campus organizations. Mostly they are used to talking to each other, and they are constantly getting push-back from some trying to limit their success. So their language gets more aggressive (combined with defensive) and more extreme than it should. When that language is picked up by politicians and the media, and taken out of context, it can then be ridiculed as being overly aggressive and extreme. And furthermore, what we have learned in this election, is that this language is taken by some poor whites (and even some wealthier whites) as intentionally belittling their own legitimate concerns and their own seemingly unfair conditions. By using more inclusive language, by not exaggerating current oppression (noting historical progress), and by not acknowledging that most have been losing out to the top 10%, their concerns will likely be heard more clearly, and the push-back will get its own push-back.
I fully agree with your comment, especially that a few examples are exaggerated to make it seem that there are attempts at some leftist indoctrination.
I would add only a couple of things. First, most classes have nothing to do with contemporary politics and social issues, and professors tend to stick closely to their syllabi, finding it a challenge to "cover" the material and their students' questions. Second, there is a problem with the language used by those groups trying to deal with serious social concerns, whether in classes or in campus organizations. Mostly they are used to talking to each other, and they are constantly getting push-back from some trying to limit their success. So their language gets more aggressive (combined with defensive) and more extreme than it should. When that language is picked up by politicians and the media, and taken out of context, it can then be ridiculed as being overly aggressive and extreme. And furthermore, what we have learned in this election, is that this language is taken by some poor whites (and even some wealthier whites) as intentionally belittling their own legitimate concerns and their own seemingly unfair conditions. By using more inclusive language, by not exaggerating current oppression (noting historical progress), and by not acknowledging that most have been losing out to the top 10%, their concerns will likely be heard more clearly, and the push-back will get its own push-back.
5
I see. Perhaps the professor could help clean the campuses of political correctness, for his part, and as for the legislatures, having fewer ideologues like the famous ex-professor Click at Missouri will assure a friendlier reception at the state legislature.
8
Distressing. But, best recognize you academics have brought this reaction on yourselves though decades of dismissing the very society that sends its kids to your day care centers. You inculcate, you do not educate - and parenthetically your day care center is among the worst offenders. So now you will reap what you all have sown. This is the usual outcome of liberal hash - a worse tasting menu of unpalatable policies, undigestable tenets and a rotten taste in one's mouth. We sure hope you enjoy the new chefs.
10
What on earth are you talking about? Universities are homes to scores upon scores of departments. They teach everything from science to nursing to accounting to economics to arts and literature.
Universities inculcate rather than educate? Why, then, in our society, is a university degree a necessary credential for innumerably many professions? Are all those professions run by "liberals" too? Medicine? Accountancy? Finance?
You sound remarkably ignorant. Like someone who hasn't the faintest idea what universities or university education are about and is just repeating what she heard someone yelling at some Trump rally.
Universities inculcate rather than educate? Why, then, in our society, is a university degree a necessary credential for innumerably many professions? Are all those professions run by "liberals" too? Medicine? Accountancy? Finance?
You sound remarkably ignorant. Like someone who hasn't the faintest idea what universities or university education are about and is just repeating what she heard someone yelling at some Trump rally.
14
Legislators who overstep the bounds of free speech are clearly a threat to academic freedom. But that does not mean that political correctness isn't also a problem. Legislators have tremendous leverage and can cause great harm. The politically correct have less leverage but can also create great harm. Legislators can intimidate and even cause able teachers to resign. As for political correctness, its message is that our side has legitimacy and your side does not. That is appropriate if irreversible harm is done by the other side. But when the other side hasn't even taken office it is contrary to personal freedom.
6
I am all for free speech. Professors who talk about homosexuality and race and gender should encourage all views and perspectives, and avoid imposing personal preferences on students. Legislators, who control funding for public universities, can decide to forgo road repair and give the money to the state university, but may or may not have or prefer to have the authority to determine which classes should be offered. It seems to me the concern for the conservative legislators has to do with the perceived or real imbalance in how public universities deal with liberal versus conservative perspectives on social/policy issues. The imbalance is a problem in that it creates closed-mindedness and potentially turn inquiry into little more than preaching. I have no idea how to deal with that, though.
1
As somebody who teaches at a rather lower level in the college system, yup.
2
When people stand up, finally, and say that it's ok to say what you want, without fear of repercussion, then we'll have free speech.
It's a very good feeling to have the confidence to speak my mind, not caring if I offend you or not(sometimes it's a bonus).
(This goes for the left and the right)
It's a very good feeling to have the confidence to speak my mind, not caring if I offend you or not(sometimes it's a bonus).
(This goes for the left and the right)
9
Keep in mind, however, that the LEFT has been very vocal in recent years that it is A-OK to have "repercussions" against those who say "politically incorrect" things -- look at the treatment of Brendan Eich, the former CEO of Mozilla. He was pushed out of a job, over his support for Prop 8 (which had been years earlier and only revealed through HACKING -- just the kind that exposed Hillary's emails!).
When people protested his treatment....we were told that "just because speech is FREE, does not mean it is free from consequences". So...as long as you literally are not JAILED, it is OK to hound people out of their jobs, boycott their businesses and vilify them in media and online....in an attempt to shut them up.
They say the true test of who has POWER In society, is to ask yourself "who is it you are afraid to offend?"
I am not remotely afraid of the Kentucky or Wisconsin legislature, nor that in my own state. But I spoke out publicly against gay marriage....I'd have people who would throw rocks in my window, and be slandered online, and even threatened with physical violence. (NOTE: this really actually happened to me.)
When people protested his treatment....we were told that "just because speech is FREE, does not mean it is free from consequences". So...as long as you literally are not JAILED, it is OK to hound people out of their jobs, boycott their businesses and vilify them in media and online....in an attempt to shut them up.
They say the true test of who has POWER In society, is to ask yourself "who is it you are afraid to offend?"
I am not remotely afraid of the Kentucky or Wisconsin legislature, nor that in my own state. But I spoke out publicly against gay marriage....I'd have people who would throw rocks in my window, and be slandered online, and even threatened with physical violence. (NOTE: this really actually happened to me.)
12
No, there is no such thing as free speech except for the government against it's citizens. Never has been nor should there ever be. Oh you can say what you want, but to expect no repercussions from what you say is ridiculous. Otherwise you are saying, only you have free speech and no one else does. And that is not how it works.
You can say something to offend, but don't expect that person not to object in any way. Because what you are asking for is a right to insult others w/o any repercussions. And you won't get that unless you pick on only the weak.
You can say something to offend, but don't expect that person not to object in any way. Because what you are asking for is a right to insult others w/o any repercussions. And you won't get that unless you pick on only the weak.
7
CC,
I obviously do not condone throwing rocks at peoples' houses. Violence is not okay, ever. But if someone calls you a "bigot" online, please understand that you haven't been "slandered." You have been accurately described. Because there is no reason to be against gay marriage (or for Prop 8) except for bigotry against gay people. And, by the way, do you not see a difference between pressure on a CEO in a corporation for holding bigoted views, and pressure by state legislatures on speech in universities?
I obviously do not condone throwing rocks at peoples' houses. Violence is not okay, ever. But if someone calls you a "bigot" online, please understand that you haven't been "slandered." You have been accurately described. Because there is no reason to be against gay marriage (or for Prop 8) except for bigotry against gay people. And, by the way, do you not see a difference between pressure on a CEO in a corporation for holding bigoted views, and pressure by state legislatures on speech in universities?
4
This is also a huge failure of the media. Where is the reporting on these daily attacks on academic freedom by the extreme right? Where are the headlines, where are the debates? This article is the first in the NYT I can remember that even addresses political interference in universities as a free speech issue. Meanwhile, there were dozens of news items and op-eds fretting about trigger warnings. It's a huge, huge failure of the mainstream media. They take their whole frame of reference from the illiberal right wing propaganda machine out of fear of being accused of liberal bias.
120
I've read plenty. But I've also been looking for them.
1
You should take a college freshman English course like the one I took, where my professor taught me that it wasn't enough to have opinions, I also had to support my opinions with facts.
If you do a Google search for (site:nytimes.com academic freedom), or use the NYT's own search, you will find hundreds if not thousands of articles you missed about political interference in universities and its consequences for free speech.
If you do a Google search for (site:nytimes.com academic freedom), or use the NYT's own search, you will find hundreds if not thousands of articles you missed about political interference in universities and its consequences for free speech.
9
ecolecon: Agreed! And this article wasn't written by a NYT journalist, it was written by a Professor!