Academic Freedom Unaffected by PC, AAUP Glibly Suggests
Donald A Downs, The University of Wisconsin, Madison

I have been asked to weigh in on the debate regarding the nationally disseminated statement by the American Association of University Professors, “Freedom in the Classroom.” The AAUP released the statement to counter the thrust of such movements as the Student Bill of Rights, which seek to enlist outside political pressure to foster balance and ideological neutrality in class. The AAUP statement makes some valid and important points, about which I will pay due heed. Indeed, a few months ago I wrote an essay for the web page of the National Association of Scholars in which I laid out my reasons for opposing the Student Bill of Rights and similar measures. But this does not mean that we should be sanguine about the state of higher education today, and that we should eschew other means to improve our condition. Alas, “Freedom in the Classroom” is far too dismissive of problems in higher education that critics -- not unreasonably -- have raised. In particular, the statement ignores a proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room, which I will discuss below.

Let begin with a caveat that should be considered in assessing “Freedom in the Classroom.” The caveat deals with the difficulty of making credible -- let alone definitive -- assessments about the quantity and quality of pedagogy inside of classrooms. Are abuses of pedagogical standards typical, or less than commonplace? We do not know the answer to this question in any systematic sense, so we need to be careful about making generalizations. But awareness of this caveat does not mean that we should assume everything is rosy in higher education. Anecdotal and other evidence at the very least suggests that we should be concerned about the claims raised by critics, rather than dismissing them out of hand.

And many disturbing anecdotes do abound. One example is provided by Peter Wood in his critical analysis of “Freedom in the Classroom” (See Wood, Truths "R" Us). Wood could have picked any number of examples, but presented only one. I have read of countless worse examples, and have been informed personally of worse examples on my own campus, usually by very credible students. Last year I had the opportunity to look at a course reader prepared for a large introductory course for one of the largest social science majors (not political science) on a campus other than my own. Among other things, the reader depicted leading Republican members of Congress in highly slanted and ideological terms designed to prejudice students against conservatism. Even if we grant that the instructors acted within the broad scope of their right of academic freedom -- which I am prepared to consider because of the importance of the principle, and because the scope of the right must provide ample breathing space -- who could say that such a choice is beyond criticism, and that it should not be the subject of discussion and analysis?

Returning to my own campus, all of the examples have dealt with leftist professors mocking conservative ideas, principles, and actions in an ad hominem manner. And it is worth noting that many of my complaining students were themselves members of the political left who nonetheless disdained what they considered unprofessional politicization of the classroom. So there is good reason to think seriously about politicization, even if one avoids drawing sweeping conclusions. Perhaps the matter is similar to the Supreme Court’s famous assessment of obscenity: it is hard to define it and to ascertain its scope, but we know it is out there, and we know it when we see it.

The consideration of anecdotal examples raises another caveat, however. Universities teach hundreds of courses in the social sciences and humanities, so citing examples of abuse does not constitute systematic evidence. Abuses of pedagogical standards are never justified, but we need to distinguish between individual cases and systemic abuse. And should we be prepared to defend a few abuses in order to protect the broader principle? Will “doing something” about abuse open Pandora’s Box, creating new problems we did not anticipate? To answer these questions, we need more work.

“Freedom in the Classroom” does provide a useful abstract guide to help us distinguish between “indoctrination” and “education.” Indoctrination is a form of dogma. Dogmatic instructors “promulgate as truth ideas or opinions which have not been tested,” (here the statement quotes John Dewey), and they refuse “to accord their students the opportunity to contest them.” Education, on the other hand, proceeds in the spirit of critical inquiry, which can include taking a stand on a controversial question, so long as the stand is taken in a manner consistent with “argumentation and discussion” and respect for students’ “critical independence.”

This approach is fine as far as it goes; but in presenting it, “Freedom in the Classroom” fails to present or discuss any real-life examples of abuse. (As is often the case, the devil in this matter lies in the details.) The effect is to endorse the view that critics of higher education are either chasing after windmills or pushing their own ideological agendas. At times, the AAUP statement reads like a defense team’s appellate brief, making a strong case for its side while playing down the claims of the other side. For example, we hear nothing about the notorious flare-ups in the Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture Department at Columbia University a couple of years ago that prominently displayed the tension between student and faculty academic freedom. Even the noted civil liberty columnist Nat Hentoff -- who has been unyielding in his defense of professors charged with the sin of being politically incorrect -- concluded in The Village Voice that the students’ academic freedom rights were violated in that case. (I am not comfortable with this conclusion, but I acknowledge that the students’ rights were an important consideration in that case.)

But another caveat is in order at this point. While we know of many cases of inappropriate politicization in the classroom, there have also been cases in which what I consider overly-sensitive conservative students (who have sometimes been politicized in their own rights) have made damning complaints that seem out of line. This happened to a colleague of mine a couple of years ago. A conservative student accused my colleague of exhibiting a left-wing bias in the arrangement and discussion of topics in the course. The accusation was very public, and my colleague’s name was tarnished in a prominent way. Upon examination, however, it was clear that the student was the ideologue, not the professor. The tone and tactics of this accusation amounted to a replay of the tone and tactics employed by politically correct students in years past to bring down professors for harboring the wrong thoughts. History has shown that neither conservatives nor liberals possess pure virtue when it comes to respecting academic freedom. This is why both the Student Bill of Rights, inspired by the right, and the speech codes promulgated by the left are problems.

In the abstract, “Freedom in the Classroom” makes important points in section A (“Education, Not Indoctrination”) about advocacy and instruction. Instructors should be empowered to advocate normative positions appropriately in class. As the authors write, “Vigorously to assert a proposition or a viewpoint, however controversial, is to engage in argumentation and discussion -- an engagement that lies at the core of academic freedom.” The single best course I took as an undergraduate was an introductory course on American government, in which the professor took a decidedly pro-liberal-democracy stand against the many radical critics who were thriving on campus at the time. His posture was not dogmatic, and he challenged us to consider competing arguments. But he did not shy away in the least from letting us know where he stood. That same year, this conservative professor won the campus-wide award as the best teacher at the university. Students rightfully expect us to stand for something. Is this not part of what it means to “profess”?

“Freedom in the Classroom’s” major flaw, in my estimation, lies in its discussion of “balance” in section B; and the analysis of this section affects other parts of the statement. The question of balance has micro and macro aspects. At the micro level, it pertains to the choice of readings and the tone of lectures and discussions in class. The AAUP is right that instructors should be given broad discretion regarding balance. The key question in First Amendment law and policy is “who decides?” The same question is crucial in academic freedom policy. On my campus, for example, defenders of academic freedom have worked hard to protect instructor discretion from attacks mounted by various insider do-gooders pursuing political correctness.

But it is at the macro level of the balance question that “Freedom in the Classroom” ignores the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Individual discretion is important, but what if the ideological orientation of teachers in a macro sense tilts decidedly toward the left or the right? The cumulative effect of individual discretion would be ideological one-sidedness, would it not? This would be a problem even if most professors in the social sciences and humanities make an effort to avoid ideological one-sidedness (which I believe most do, at least on my campus), for the lack of intellectual and normative diversity on campus inevitably slants or distorts thinking in a variety of venues, from the classroom to faculty meetings to what is acceptable in the public forum.

Several studies have found ideological or partisan one-sidedness in many major social science and humanities departments in recent years, and this one-sidedness is clearly toward the left. We have anecdotal evidence of this effect in some classrooms (which we should consider along with the caveats raised above), but such evidence is not limited to this venue. Conservative speakers consistently find themselves besieged when they come to campus to speak, and conservative newspapers often find themselves under improper (and sometime illegal) attack.

Most recently, the Regents of the University of California (home of the putative Free Speech Movement) declined to bring former Harvard president Larry Summers in to address them because his presence might offend feminists. (Summers’ fate at Harvard is itself a telling example of campus orthodoxy having its way.) In a recent editorial, The New Republic compared the controversy surrounding Columbia University's reception of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the University of California Regents' withdrawal of their invitation to Larry Summers to speak. TNR’s conclusion about these two events speaks volumes about the political state of higher education today:

Ahmadinejad, with his pledge of genocide and sponsorship of attacks against American soldiers, arguably falls into the category of power-wielding crank who doesn't deserve any of the legitimacy that comes with such a prestigious platform. The Summers invitation, on the other hand, shouldn't be the stuff of controversy. And that Summers is the one deprived of a microphone tells you something is terribly amiss in the American academy. ("Free Larry Summers," New Republic editorial, 2 October 2007)

Last year representatives of the Minutemen anti-illegal-immigration movement were physically removed from a stage at an event at Columbia University by angry students who could not brook the idea of this group’s presence on the progressive campus. The list goes on and on. In my view, the lack of intellectual and normative diversity on campus is one of the most telling shortcomings in higher education today. We have become like country clubs for the left, and some important concepts never it make into the marketplace of ideas on campus. As Allan Bloom wrote in The Closing of the American Mind, the greatest tyranny is often the one that makes certain thoughts unthinkable, not one that overtly punishes the wrong thoughts.

Thus, when conservatives encounter the assignment of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed to incoming students at North Carolina (discussed in “Freedom in the Classroom”), they do not view this assignment in a vacuum. One could agree entirely with “Freedom in the Classroom’s” defense of this assignment as a form of “education” as opposed to “indoctrination.” But this defense would still fail to address the macro question just posed. It would be instructive to do a survey of such assignments among the leading research universities and colleges in the United States. What might we find?

In the end, “Freedom in the Classroom” was written in a vacuum that bestows an almost other-worldly atmosphere to its discussion and analysis. Nowhere is this limitation more telling than in section C of the statement, dealing with “Hostile Learning Environment.” On the one hand, the AAUP is certainly right to point out the dangers of applying this concept to protect the assumption “that students have a right not to have their most cherished beliefs challenged.” Too many conservative students are learning the wrong lessons from the era of political correctness, and are resorting to coercive measures to protect their beliefs and identities from criticism. This is yet another reason I oppose the Student Bill of Rights.

But “Freedom in the Classroom” continues the AAUP’s denial of the negative effects of political correctness and speech codes on true intellectual freedom on campus. In 1994, the organization published a statement that essentially discounted the negative effects of speech codes and related measures on academic and intellectual freedom. Many life-long supporters of the AAUP were stupefied by this position. Though codes were usually originally designed to punish true harassment on grounds of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, etc., there is substantial (if not definitive) evidence that they were often applied simply to prevent protected groups and individuals from being offended or criticized. In other words, speech codes and related policies often reinforced political and identity agendas, and reinterpreted speech critical of progressive ideologies as constituting a hostile environment. In distinguishing the new conservative use of the hostile environment concept from the previous use by the campus left, “Freedom in the Classroom” suggests that the AAUP is not about to abandon its double standard on this important matter. It will oppose the conservative use of that concept with all its might, but turn a deaf ear to abuses emanating from the other political direction.

In the end, “Freedom in the Classroom” had an opportunity to educate us on the uses and abuses of academic freedom, and to show us how academic freedom is a universal standard that can be endangered from both the left and right. But universalism is an embattled principle these days, and precious few universities promote programs that teach such common principles, focusing instead on what makes us different. “Freedom in the Classroom” reflects the AAUP’s acceptance of this reality. The AAUP could have set the record straight, and regained its position at the forefront of academic freedom politics in the United States. Sadly, that task is once again left to others.
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