So the students are the problem?

When a professor enters a class and tells the assembled multitude that he is “a Marxist, and will be teaching this class from a Marxist perspective,” students have every right to feel cheated out of a real educational experience. Most students now recognize an ideological dinosaur when they see one, and dinosaurs are legion in academia — with most of them intent on imposing a set of views rather than conducting a free-ranging investigation of intellectual terrain with their young charges. A put-upon, self-pitying stance is perhaps appropriate to the professoriat at this moment in history.

Patrick, at 8:05 am EST on March 20, 2006

“Real"?

“The Real Bias in the Classroom”

Implying that the other bias is fake?

The headline-writer gets points for internet trolling, but loses accuracy points. The point of the study is not that professorial bias is an illusion, but that students also have political biases, and those biases color their impressions of profs.

Charles Hackney, psychology professor at Redeemer University College, at 9:00 am EST on March 20, 2006

Patrick, you fool, how is a teacher honestly announcing “I’m teaching this class from a marxist perspective” “cheating” anyone out of anything? Does an economics professor who teaches from a chicago school perspective count as “cheating?”

PG, at 9:05 am EST on March 20, 2006

Patrick

In the article, one of the findings revealed is the following: “Professors who students think are liberal are generally rated more favorably by students on whether students are encouraged to present their own viewpoints, whether grading is fair, whether the learning environment is comfortable, and whether they care about the success of students."That contradicts your attempt at smearing “most” professors. Did you even read the article?

The fact that you wrote what you did is pretty ironic, isn’t it? ;~)

sean, Grand Valley State University, at 9:05 am EST on March 20, 2006

Huntly

To summarize: I think Patrick has been discredited for two reasons. 1) If a professor really wanted to indoctrinate people he wouldn’t announce it; and 2) he doesn’t understand what Marxist theory is, anyway.

Huntly, I think you are dangerously oversimplifying, and doing some of the same things you accuse Patrick of doing. First of all, you don’t really define “conservative.” Indeed, I suspect “conservative” is a buzzword you use for any policy or legal choice that you disagree with. Assuming that there is a coherent body of “conservative” thought, in all of the above areas, other interests and philosophies have contaminated it so much, that the only way to describe the actions of the above bodies are in terms of either partisan interests or a much more complex philosophy. Like it or not, we still have 1) various social safety nets; 2) a military that accepts and promotes people of all races and colors (and I can personally attest to this – though, I will concede that in some areas there is room for improvement); 3) a military that recruits and promotes people regardless of their political preference or background (heck, I just attended a reception for the promotion of an officer who joined the military for Marxist reason that can only be described as a preference for Leninist-style egalitarianism); 4) I am wondering how you figure that politics “control” corporations, which are owned by shareholders. This is a new one on me. What about LLCs?; and 5) School boards seem to be reflective of local politics, which vary with geography.

Everyone tries to indoctrinate their own children. So what? Also, I would like to know what percentage of children is raised by nannies. (I think it is quite low, but I would be curious to where you get your ideas from.)

Larry, at 10:35 am EST on March 20, 2006

Sean, my friend

I was not berating “liberal” professors per se, however you define that, though in this context it seems to be defined according to political viewpoints as expressed in the classroom. But since 77% of the professoriat are identified as roughly “liberal,” may we suppose that a student can go through an entire undergraduate experience without ever encountering a putative “conservative” (or a simple traditionalist scholar, without a hard political viewpoint to sell)? This imbalance might skew the sampling ratio.

As for those folks who aren’t acquainted with the sclerotic Marxist perspective applied to just about everything academic (literature, linguistics, foreign language, psychology, anything to do with race, sex or sexual orientation, the various tendentious revisionist fields of study), I am surprised at you. Remember Deconstructionism and all of its related offspring? That is the sort of dinosaur philosophy to which I refer, not the typical “attend the protest rally or you’ll be marked down” approach to mentoring, which is equally unfortunate but easier to overcome.

As for those who fail to see any discrediting of Marxist analysis over the last half-century, a little free-form dance atop what’s left of the Berlin Wall (or in the main square at Pyongyang) might constitute a satori of sudden enlightment and true consciousness. But I doubt it.

And I repeat: A put-upon, self-pitying stance is perhaps appropriate to the professoriat at this moment in history.

Patrick, at 10:35 am EST on March 20, 2006

It’s about the money

There has been no empirical dispute that certain academic departments are heavily skewed toward one of the two major political parties, as opposed to approximate 50-50 splits in the sciences. Written and audio-taped proof has been provided to prove that private and public monies have paid for “intellectuals” to bloviate on their biases.

This, as opposed to a concerted effort to deal with broadly, objectively, and politely with a controversial issue (K-12 gay rights) —

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opin...itorials/2006-03-19-faith-edit_x.htm

As the Grover Furr’s of the world didn’t volunteer to teach for nothing, this is about money. If an 50% budget cut (and resulting financial exigency that it would cause) is needed to fight political bias and repression in the classroom — so be it.

There’s an old farmer’s saying about slapping a donkey between the eyes to get its attention — hey, whatever works.

R.A.S., at 10:35 am EST on March 20, 2006

“Real” bias

Charles,I believe the word “real” in the headline is intended to point to the fact that there is real evidence from this study of actual bias on the part of students in terms of ratings. This is in contrast to the evidence of mere political affiliation on the part of faculty, but with no solid evidence of bias on the part of those professors.

Buck, Big Research U, at 10:50 am EST on March 20, 2006

ideologies v. interests

Student, The very fact that you proposed to identify someone as a certain ideology indicates that you are not being indoctrinated by it. (Stephen indicates this.)

Your assertion about the police and “hiding behind administrators” makes no sense. Are you saying that professors should volunteer to be arrested for things that are not crimes? And why?

Patrick, Even though you are utterly unable to respond to specific questions posed to you, I am now quite curious as to how you define a “liberal” professor. Do you correct for the self-interests associated with being a professor. (E.g. A professor at a state university would probably support the continued existence of his employer, and a professor receiving grant money probably would want to continue receiving that grant money.) Quite frankly, there are so many issues out there, that amongst people that matter, “liberal” and “conservative” are overly vague platitudes. The above poster who feared being condemned as a “crank” hinted at the fact that most partisan interests are different than ideologies. I accepted this years ago.

But, Patrick, I don’t think you really understand what constitutes Marxist scholarship. Perhaps you can explain why the fall of East Germany meant that an assumption of Marxist legal scholarship is untrue, and which legal theorists were discredited. (If you can’t do that, your theory is completely bogus.)

Finally, to everyone out there, I would suggest that all disciplines have some ideological biases. Someone who purports to major in them should, at the very least be able to identify them. (I can do this with the disciplines that my clients consider me a master of. Can you?)

Larry, at 11:25 am EST on March 20, 2006

Interesting Implications of the Study

When you combine

“The study — which will be presented this week at a legislative hearing in Pennsylvania — ENDS WITH A STRONG CALL FOR PROFESSORS TO BE WILLING TO PRESENT IDEAS THAT MAY UPSET SOME STUDENTS. “College is not Club Med. As instructors, we OUGHT NOT TO REFINE OUR PEDAGOGY EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF MAKING STUDENTS COMFORTABLE or improving course evaluations,” write Kelly-Woessner, who teaches at Elizabethtown College, and Matthew Woessner, who teaches at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg."(emphasis added)

with

“...more students in the survey identified themselves as liberal than as conservative”

it sounds to me like the authors are advocating more conservative talk in the classroom, right? If the professors should be able to challenge students’ beliefs, and students are disproportionately liberal, then professors should be able to challenge those liberal beliefs, right?

(that’s what they are saying. I wonder if that’s what they actually intended...)

Steve

Steve, at 11:55 am EST on March 20, 2006

the myth of liberal bias in higher ed

Debunking the Myth of Liberal Bias in Higher Education

Two studies published on November 18, 2004, echo a familiar theme; “America’s colleges and universities are too politically liberal and that’s a big problem (1)!” The studies found that Democrats outnumber Republicans in university faculty positions in the humanities and social sciences by seven to one. The number is as high as nine to one at Berkeley and Stanford across academic disciplines. The least difference exists in economics (3:1) and the most in anthropology (30:1).

These studies add fuel to a fire conservatives have been sparking for years. William Buckley recently wrote a nationally syndicated opinion piece echoing the same theme (2). Last month a community college professor in North Carolina was suspended for showing the film Fahrenheit 9/11 in class (3). Students at some Texas universities have begun to create “watch lists” for liberal professors advising students to avoid certain classes (4). Groups like Students for Academic Freedom and the Center for Campus Free Speech have formed to protect students’ rights to academic freedom of inquiry against the tyranny of liberal professors. Thirteen states, apparently unaware of the meaning of the term theory, have mandated public school curricula which includes “intelligent design” and “creation science” as an alternative to the theory of evolution in biology and anthropology classes (5, 6). Most ominously, a widely publicized and cited piece, “Defending Civilization: How Our Universities are Failing America and What can be Done About It” published in 2002 by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA-which Lynn Cheney founded and chairs), is a battle cry denouncing liberal professors, their biases, and the horrendous impact they have had on America, especially in the post-9/11 world. It is clear to even the most casual observer that the “liberal institutions” of higher education and public education in our country are under attack.

And so the claim of liberal bias in higher education merits examination. Are our schools and colleges liberally brainwashing our future? Do liberal professors unduly influence students? What impact does this alleged bias have on our country? This essay examines this claim and attempts to debunk the myth of liberal academia.

1. The proof is in the pudding. The simplest response to claims of liberal bias in academia is to ask for evidence of its impact. Today we have a Republican White House, a Republican Senate, a Republican House of Representatives, a Republican Supreme Court, Republicans control the Governorship in 28 states, including the “blue” states of New York and California, conservatives dominate American business and increasingly dominate America’s religious institutions, and conservative commentators dominate our nation’s media from the neoconservative pages of the Wall Street Journal to the one-sided television coverage by Fox news to the late night rantings of talk radio. Most of the loudest critics of America’s universities received their degrees at these liberal institutions. For all the talk of the liberal socializing influences of our universities, the impacts have simply failed to materialize.

2. Studies of liberal academics sample too narrowly. It perhaps should not surprise us that Berkeley, Stanford and Harvard have many liberal faculty members. Increasingly though, this is not where most Americans receive their education. Nearly half of all students enrolled in higher education in the United States today are at community colleges, non-degree granting institutions, and business schools (7). Witness the growth of the University of Phoenix, Business Computer Training Institute, and the overwhelming growth of community and two-year colleges to see where Americans are increasingly learning. As of yet, there is little evidence or reason to believe professors at these schools will be as liberal as their Ivy League and liberal arts peers.

3. The institution of higher education is conservative. No one would deny that there are liberal professors at colleges, or even that those professors outnumber their more conservative coworkers. The influence a teacher has on students is limited though. Sure students learn something from their Marxist history teacher or their feminist literature professor, but they also learn much more significant, and more conservative, lessons at school. Students learn to compete for grades, work in teams, and produce papers and projects by deadlines, a perfect introduction to the capitalist workplace and an ideological foundation for meritocracy. Students are bombarded by Coke machines and advertisements at school, preparing them for the other side of the marketplace, consumerism. Students learn to listen to their teachers and respect authority, clear stepping stones to acceptance of hierarchy. Students learn that school costs a lot of money; there is no such thing as a free lunch. On the whole, the institutional message of education may far outweigh the instructional and curricular impact of their liberal professors (see point 1).

4. College has become job training. While colleges once focused on the liberal arts, critical thinking, and challenging conventional wisdom, many of today’s institutions of higher education are little more than vocational programs. Preparing people for the workplace hardly qualifies as liberal, radical, or reformist.

5. Liberal professors don’t necessarily indoctrinate. While evidence suggests that many professors at major universities are Democrats (does this actually qualify them as liberals?), little empirical research has demonstrated that this comes out in their teaching. After all, liberal professors may well have a commitment to reason and knowledge and scientific research (which some might call liberal values) over faith and dogma (which are more commonly associated with conservative ideologies). Of course a few anecdotes tell of Grinch-like teachers punishing students for their beliefs, but no broad quantitative evidence has demonstrated that liberal teachers routinely inflict their ideologies on their students. In any case, it is at least possible these liberal teachers don’t seek to indoctrinate, and we should give them the benefit of the doubt until evidence proves otherwise.

6. Pluralistic societies need balance. When the founders of American democracy envisioned political debate, they assumed there would be factions, different institutions or groups in society with different political, economic, and social agendas. At its best, the American polity has been the politics of balance and the politics of the center. Historically, some institutions have served as conservatizing forces, others have had liberalizing effects, and others still mediating or neutralizing impacts on America’s sociopolitical disposition. Traditionally, the military and Wall Street have played conservatizing roles, advocating hawkish foreign policy and unrestrained markets. Similarly, higher education and the media have played liberalizing roles, seeking social progress and carefully watch-dogging government. The family and religion have largely been mediating institutions, reinforcing some conservative values while championing other liberal ones. And so America worked. Sometimes democracy was messy, but fundamentally these forces played out to allow for slow, cautious, incremental, but certain change and progress. Today this dynamic has changed. Once a champion of liberal causes, the modern press has become little more than a sounding board for the economic interests of America’s conservative business institutions and a PR agency for the White House (8). Anyone who has missed the impact of the O’Reilly Factor, Rush Limbaugh, or even the now much more conservative pages of the New York Times or NBC has not been paying attention. Likewise, the country’s churches have moved several steps to the right. Evangelicalism is the fastest growing religious philosophy in the U.S. Amongst once more liberal Catholics, George W. Bush received 52% of the vote in the 2004 election compared to Kerry’s 47% (9). Even if college professors espouse some liberal agenda, they are the peanut on the left side of the scale trying to counterbalance the elephant on the right.

7. Maybe liberals are right. There is a final possible explanation debunking the myth of liberal bias in higher education, and one many conservatives fear to look squarely in the eyes. University professors, almost by definition, are the most researched, most rationalistic, most educated people in society. They represent the value of science to our society, a core American value (America’s founders, products of the Enlightenment, were as much concerned with the ability of science and reason to elevate humanity as they were democracy or individualism). Perhaps scientific rationality, examination, and rational thought simply lead people to embrace liberal ideas. It is interesting and important to note that the same political fervor which has denounced the liberals of our colleges and universities has similarly denied science and rationality when politically inconvenient (evolution, global warming, missile defense systems, longer prison sentences, affirmative action, stem cell research, etc.). Others have pointed out the consistent anti-scientific bias of the current (and conservative) administration, as scientists with findings contrary to administration ideology quickly find themselves looking for work (10). In this sense, the “problem” with our universities may not be a liberal bias at all, but rather a fundamentalist rejection of reason and science for the comfort of faith, superstition, and dogma. The great liberal theorist and third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, expressed a belief that scientific rationality yields liberal political values most eloquently, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

Even if the myth of a liberal bias in higher education can be debunked, it turns us to the question of action. What should a well-meaning professor do? Should we move further to the left to counter-balance the shift in society at large? Move right to protect our jobs so we may have what influence we may have? Argue for reason in the security that reasonable, informed people will come around to our point of view? These questions I leave up to my colleagues, scholars and academics, fully capable of using their knowledge and research to better the American condition. It is our lot, role and duty to restore some credibility and rationality to American political discourse. Let’s hope we aren’t too late.

1. Tierney, John. November 18, 2004. “Republicans outnumbered in Academia, Studies Find.” The New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/18...amp;ex=1101776677&pagewanted=all

2. Buckley, William F. November 21, 2004. “Dumb Bright Guys.” Associated Press.http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?..ucwb/20041122/cm_ucwb/dumbbrightguys

3. Smith-Arrant, Gail. November 18, 2004. “Teacher shows Fahrenheit 9/11, gets Rebuked.” Charlotte Observer.http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10210344.htm?1c

4. Brown, Steve. November 6, 2003. “Conservative Students in Texas Place Liberal Profs on Watch List.” Cybercast News Service.http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200311\NAT20031106a.html

5. Mishra, Raja. November 28, 2004. “Teaching Evolution gets Test in Court.” The Boston Globe.http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/...913.story?coll=sfla-news-nationworld

6. Sappenfield, Mark and Mary Beth McCauley. November 23, 2004. “God or Science?” The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1123/p11s02-legn.html

7. National Center for Education Statistics. 2004. “Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2001 and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2001.”http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2004/2004155.pdf

8. Alterman, Eric. 2003. What Liberal Media? The Truth about Bias and the News. Basic Books: New York.

9. CNN.com. 2004. “Election Results: America Votes 2004.”http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/...results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

10. Thompson, Nicholas. July/August 2003. “Science Friction: The Growing—and Dangerous—Divide Between Scientists and the GOP.” Washington Monthly.http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.thompson.html

David Hyde, Sociology Professor at South Puget Sound Community College, at 1:25 pm EST on March 20, 2006

“Cry Me a River”

I very much appreciate the honesty of the “Student” (Why not sign your name?) who wrote “Cry Me a River.” Clearly, this student’s cultural vision is of a system of higher education that filters out all critical thinking—especially analyses of about structural inequality. How is this end to be achieved? Promote corporate-style universities where the majority of the teaching is done by adjuncts (for example, National University in California) and see to it that critical teachers “get fired.” That is just what happened to me.

In January 2006, I was teaching a 300-level online course entitled “Cultural Diversity.” I was required to teach the course using Rothenberg’s _Race, Class, and Gender in the U.S._. The perspective of the text is equality. Consequently, students were encouraged to evaluate Republican policies and their consequences from this perspective.

One of my students felt his/her Republican values were being demeaned and complained to my Dean, Alice Sharper. Dean Sharper called me in mid-January and complained about the political content of the course. I assured her that (1) my focus on structural inequality was consistent with the pedagogy of the text which NU required me to use, (2) that there was social-scientific evidence for the text’s conclusions, and (3) that the text’s focus on structural inequality was being augmented by a highly-respected ethical perspective, namely, that found in Reinhold Niebuhr’s _Moral Man and Immoral Society_.

Subsequently, Dean Sharper required me to submit my final grades to her. Then, in a February email, Dean Sharper informed that she had removed me from the future NU courses which I was scheduled to teach. The removal was Kafkaesque. The Dean sent me a one-sentence email that said I had been “unstaffed"; she did not provide a substantive explanation for my removal.

Fortunately, NU has a grievance policy for Part-Time Faculty. However, when I exercised my rights and asked for clarification about why I was fired, the Vice President of Academic Affairs (not Dean Sharper) responded that I had no right to an appeal, because I was not removed “for cause.” Of course, this is illogical. If I was not removed for cause, then why was I removed? This question has been posed to Dean Sharper in several emails, and she refuses to answer. All I know is that, in our brief phone conversation about the complaints by a Republican student, the Dean made it clear that, because they might be offended, it is improper to ask Republican students to analyze contemporary politics from the perspective of equality.

The question of Marxism vs. anti-Marxism is a canard. The real question is whether student-"consumers” have an obligation to engage critical pedagogies which deviate from the priggish ideologies of dominant political authority. My experiences offer one institution’s answer.

The author of “Cry Me a River” celebrates the fact that I have no rights and can be easily fired. I am glad that someone is happy. My family is devastated by the fact that, after 20 years of college-level teaching, I am unemployed.

R. Leck, former NU employee, at 1:25 pm EST on March 20, 2006

Groucho Marxism

The research shows that university professors are largely ideologically out-of-touch with both students and their partents. Most profs erroneously and smugly assume this is because they are smarter than either of these groups. They are no different that alley cats and turtles — all creatures of their environment. The world of academia does not vaguely resemble that of their customers. What better philosophy than Marxism to relationize a world where leaders have little power and workers call their own shots? Much like the French students, they will shortly be ushered into the real world, where all pigs really are created equal.

Sillyone, at 1:40 pm EST on March 20, 2006

Tone?

R. Leck,

I don’t know why you were fired. Next time, perhaps you should try teaching at a college that doesn’t have a “required reading list” decided upon by the Dean, or a union, or anyone other than the individual faculty members.

Did the student approach you with her complaints before taking them to the Dean? There are ways to keep conflicts from escalating if you listen to your students the first time around.

Did you use the same tone with the Dean as in your e-mail response? I am sure that must have gone over very well.

With 20 years of experience, I’m sure you can find other opportunities. Good luck.

Student, at 2:05 pm EST on March 20, 2006

I usually begin my history class informing my students that everybody has their own biases and political views that influence what they say and don’t say. My presentation of history is flavored by my personal interests and ideology despite efforts to be as objective as possible. I require my students to complete several written assignments that require them to critically think about an issue and then clearly communicate their position and why they have reached that conclusion. They are always trying to figure out what my personal view is thinking that if they parrot me they will get a better grade. I tend to be very conservative in many areas, but I’m sure I have many students who think I a radical liberal. I do think that profs can unduly put pressure on students to conform or at least keep silent. As a TA I listened to profs make very specific political and religious comments that seemed to quash classroom discussion. In one setting several professors ridiculed the religious beliefs of a preacher who appears on TV regularly. Personally I do not agree with this preacher, but I would not demean this man’s beliefs in public. As a student and a TA, especially while pursuing my Phd. I have had the fear that the faculty would discover I was a conservative religious person.

steve, at 3:05 pm EST on March 20, 2006

Blah, blah, blah, blah

What fun. The article’s topic is bias in student evaluations of faculty. The discussion consists mostly of blowhards hollering about everything but the topic. You set a swell example for young people, comrades.

If it does anything, the article provides one more argument against student evaluations. But the best argument I’ve heard lately came from the mouth of a student. The school where I work did evaluations last week. One of my students grumbled about evaluating a teacher so far before the end of the semester. “I hate to evaluate a teacher until I’m pretty sure what my final grade will be,” he said.

Indoctrination? Please. I wish I could indoctrinate more students to do the damn homework. Smart students figure out how the game is played: Tell the teacher whatever he or she wants to hear. The teacher will applaud the student’s sound reasoning and superior critical thinking skills. It worked for me back in the 1970s, and I doubt the professorial ego has shrunk since then.

Bill Melater, a teacher tired of hot air, at 4:20 pm EST on March 20, 2006

Is bias the problem?

Besides the platitudinous observation that it is not one’s bias that counts, it is what one does about it (or what it does to you); bias is not to be avoided but reflected upon.A particular problem is the bias that passes for denotation.

For example, to paraphrase Russell Baker, who pointed out so long ago, the Press will refer to Castro as ‘Marxist President Fidel Castro said today...’but the Press does not say ‘Capitalist President George W. Bush said today....’

tlon7, former high IQ moron, at 4:20 pm EST on March 20, 2006

In my 30 plus years of university teaching experience, I’ve found that it is almost always possible both to present various ideological takes on current issues and to conduct classroom discussions in which students’ views are respected. I am a political scientist who teaches mostly political theory, along with a miscellany of other political science courses.

Here’s how I do it. I’ll present, for example, liberal and conservative views on abortion by making as clear as possible the premises from which each view operates, and how arguments are constructed. I’ve seldom had students object to these formulations, and, more positively, have enjoyed, over the years, having students say to me things like “I never really understood why conservatives (or liberals) think X, and now I do.”

Here’s a quick summary of how my approach works: Whether we’re studying liberalism, conservatism, fascism, postmodernisms, or, for that matter, Islamic political thought, I do something like this.

1. Identify presuppositions: what do believers in the view under examination take for granted?

2. Identify intentions: what do bellievers in a particular point of view intend to accomplish?

3. “Arguments:” what do believers in a particular point of view actually say (and what counts as acceptable evidence, explanations, etc.?)

4. Implications: what are the implications of a particular point of view?

For intro level courses, I may do this quite didactically. For upper level courses, I build it into my coverage of substantive matters.

So, when I cover Marx and Marxism, as I do in several courses, I provide (1) intellectual and political history of Marx and Marxism—at various levels, depending on the level of the course; (2) explain how and why Marxism became such an important intellectual force in much of the world by giving examples of Marxist analysis (One of my favorites is to look at the production of the romantic piano literature in its cultural context.); (3)sort out various recent and contemporary versions of Marxism. I have never had a student complain that I was “teaching Marxism” if by this we mean attempting to indoctrinate students.

And now I get to an unpleasant point. I have colleagues who present Marxist analyses as simple matters of fact, and who do not delve into presuppositions and the like. And this, I think, is what some students have in mind when they wail about their horrible Marxist professors.

Another unpleasant point: I do think that there is in our society at the present time a growing belief that any criticism of fundamental American institutions and beliefs is inherently subversive and unacceptable. Such subversion is assumed to be the aim of professors who present, however carefully, any point of view widely regarded as containing criticisms of a fundamental sort. I note that conservative students and those who often promote or support these students don’t bother to get upset at the criticisms of American society that could be levelled with ease from the perspectives of, say, Thomism or Platonism.

None of us in the teaching profession have any remedies for students who expect a college education to consist in nothing but a mix of vocational training and celebrations of all conventional opinions.

James Ward, at 9:05 pm EST on March 20, 2006

Get to the point

Why must some people use the comments section to write and post their own articles, many of which are longer than the original? If you want to write articles, go join the contributing staff. Otherwise, say your piece and be done!

Like so:

Students are biased. Professors are biased. Let’s call the whole thing off!

Addendum:

Your professor’s bias is irrelevant to your ability to read, discuss, understand, and learn in college. You’re a grownup, not an impressionable kid (that’s the mutual expectation, right?). You can still get an ‘A’ from a professor that you disagree with (yeah, you can). You aren’t “missing” anything by not having your views reflected in the classroom, unless, sadly, all of your education takes place in a classroom (read something or watch something or talk to someone...else). No one owes you a “balanced” (i.e. apolitical) perspective in any conversation, debate, or dialogue—that’s a myth devised by ideologues on both sides. Balance your own perspectives (or try...good luck).

Now, stop whining already and go learn something!

Jack Trades, at 10:30 pm EST on March 20, 2006

bias in the classroom

Last week, the student newspaper here at Maryland reported an incident in which a professor in a class on plant biology took time off from the topic to launch into a rant against Bush and the Iraq War. There followed a slide presentation, in which Bush appeared as a monkey.

Again—this was a course on plant biology, and the professor’s expertise is in that topic (plant biology), and that specific expertise is what gives that faculty-member the right to teach students. To teach...um...plant biology.

Does anyone on this thread care to defend this incident? No one denies it happened. Most importantly, one has to wonder at the general atmosphere on campus that would allow a faculty-member to believe that he could get away with such unprofessional behavior in a classroom. Which he has.

Arthur Eckstein, professor at U of Maryland

art eckstein, professor at U of Maryland, at 1:00 pm EST on March 21, 2006

No, Mr. Eckstein, I it would be irresponsible to defend (or condemn) such an incident based only on a newspaper report. Besides the general credibility of the article, there are a few open questions: 1) how long was spend doing the “bashing”; and 2) was any member of the die-hard GOP indoctrinated into hating Bush. Personally, I think more time is wasted discussing sports, which, in my opinion have no place at all in higher education, but to many politics is the same sort of frivolous activity as sports.

Larry, at 4:20 pm EST on March 21, 2006

De facto, tired of paying for crap

Lar .. yes, this has been beaten to death .. IMHO, reasonable persons (not lawyers or academics) would say, de facto, the academy is the largest contributor to one of two major political parties.

Further, the other major political party — which pays for 50% of academia — doesn’t find amusing, the “Bush Is An Idiot” in-class media. So, they’re doing something about it — trying to control their share of the funding.

Does anyone think, if the roles were reversed, the Democrats wouldn’t do the same thing? Heck, look what happened to Larry Summers — and he was a Clinton Democrat.

There’s no tenure for academic funding. Any time, those funds can be reduced or zero’ed. So pontificate and whine until 2468 AD — you don’t control the money train and never will.

R.A.S., at 7:30 pm EST on March 21, 2006

But is the problem real?

It’s true that many undergraduates would rather have their convictions confirmed than be challenged to think. It’s true that many of them try to guess what their professor thinks, hoping that by voicing the similar opinions, they will improve their grades. (These tend not to be A students.) And once every few years, I do see an instance of faculty rating a student, or a junior colleague, slightly higher than they otherwise might because they agree with them politically. (These faculty do not tend to publish in competitive journals.)

Generally speaking, though, the kind of indoctrination and punishing-for-beliefs some members of the public seem to believe happens in universities, just doesn’t. There is too much basic work to do, for one thing, and not much time for politics and ‘indoctrination’. More importantly, indoctrination, ‘ideology’, etc. aren’t what scholarship are about!

Academics are mainly interested in rational inquiry. This is what universities are for, and most faculty, whatever their politics, know this. They are at the university for that reason.

So, thank you, Mark Grimsley, for your post. You say what most well trained academics would say on the question of that hypothetical Marxist professor. I’m quoting you, since the thread has gotten so long.

Here’s Grimsley speaking, folks:’But let’s say a professor did decide to teach from an explicitly Marxist perspective, and said as much. What’s the problem here? To begin, it’s truth in advertising—students understand clearly what they’re getting into. Second, Marxism is one of the most important ideological and intellectual movements of the past century and a half, and any educated person should have some exposure to it. Third, the bankruptcy of the Marxist project as a political revolutionary movement doesn’t detract from the potential value of Marxist analysis, particularly given how greatly that analysis has grown in sophistication and nuance over the decades. Fourth, being exposed to an idea doesn’t mean being asked to agree with it. And finally, no instructor ever enters a classroom without some kind of intellectual framework that has implicit if not overt political implications. I myself am a military historian working in what usually gets tagged as a “traditional” field, and I know for a fact we have our full share of political assumptions, most of them simply smuggled into the discourse.’

Professor Zero, at 7:30 pm EST on March 21, 2006

Whining and Rudeness

‘Student’ says:

‘It’s people like you who get fired from your lowly adjunct jobs for shooting off your mouth about how students should “go work for daddy.”’

How does ’student’ know that Huntly, to whom he directs this, is an adjunct...or a faculty member of any kind? Who does ’student’ think he is to be speaking this way? Does ’student’ support him/herself? Does s/he support anyone else? How are his/her grades?S/he doesn’t seem to write too well, or think too clearly.

In this thread, the angry, whining tone is taken by those who accuse faculty of ‘whining’ (or of having ‘problems’). I don’t find it in the article itself, or in the words of the faculty members who have written in.

Several of those who’ve written in to complain about the terrible, liberal professors do not seem to have actually read the article, nor understood the thread.

Leslie Bary, at 8:15 pm EST on March 21, 2006

The importance of the anecdote

My point was of course not that it WAS a TA or that e-mail#2 proved it but that your posting represented the matter as very definitive, when there is almost nothing that can be gleaned from the UM article with any confidence. What is so upsetting and maddening about this kind of thing is that the uncritically-minded read the post or hear about the case and then add it to their mountainous collection of anedotes/evidence of the takeover of the university by the leftists, when many of us at the university wonder how much of the rest of the evidence is equally spurious. Esp. given that we live in a hurried time of newsbites and shorter and shorter attention spans, such evidence will be examined less often and taken as fact by anyone already so inclined. Then the discussion is over. There certainly are individuals who are monsters, but this happens everywhere (in the catholic church, in democratic and republican administrations, in the stands at the little league game, etc.), and is not thereby representative of each institution.

PhilosophyProf, at 9:50 pm EST on March 21, 2006

Scholarship, scope, focus

Art, Women’s Studies is a cross-disciplinary field, not a philosophy. There are a lot of different feminist theories. If you take courses in WS, you’ll be exposed to a lot of different topics and approaches. It’s a bit like other majors, really: major in English, and yup, you will have to take a lot of courses with professors who think language and literature are important. Biologists may be the worst, since they tend to believe in evolution. They think there is a scientific basis for this belief, and they’ll try to convince you of it, too!

On ‘balance’ and scope in lectures: a lecture is only so many minutes long. I cannot cover, for instance, all forms of poetry in a lecture for the sake of ‘balance’. I may have to concentrate on one author. I could also concentrate on a single form, such as the sonnet, or poetry written in a single year, say 1901, or poetry written in a single country. I’ll still have to select materials and examples. It just isn’t possible for one person to cover everything, all at once. Or should I assign you a 1001-page paper every week, so you can try?

;-)

Professor Zero, at 4:25 am EST on March 22, 2006

When details are not given, credibility decreases

RAS, Quite frankly, I don’t think that academics have that much disposable income to donate to either political party (and I only vote for relatives if they are running for office). Most seem to be scraping for enough money to make their car payments, yet alone max out on contributions to a candiate or a Pac.

I don’t really understand what the hoopla is about. I never belonged to a political party, but if I did, I would find it quite silly that someone thinks that they could convince others by saying “Bush is an idiot.” I mean, come on, is that the best one can do?

Quite frankly, I think that belonging to a political party, much less having an emotional connection to one is quite immature. Real people develop relationships with decision-makers, not cheer like it is a baseball game.

Professor Ekstein, I am not denying or confirming the story. I don’t know enough to form an opinion. But, I would like to know who was really hurt by it (and if it really happened.) In particular, I would like to know the name of the professor (if this can’t be provided, I will conclude that the story is made up) and the date it happened. Somehow, because no name is given, and people are protesting quite a bit, I don’t think we are getting the whole story. But, unlike the tales of woe regarding the FBI and students, I care even less about this.

Larry, at 4:25 am EST on March 22, 2006

Let’s get academic!

College Teacher, a reasoned opinion isn’t the same thing as a bias. Professors are hired precisely because they have the former.

R.A.S., ‘the basics’ (e.g. remedial English) aren’t what a university education is for: there are academic entrance requirements.

On an earlier comment, about the Spanish conquest and Iraq—it’s a point commonly made, sometimes for purposes of engaging audience by drawing a parallel with something current, and sometimes to explore the comparison, which does in fact have some merit.

Chill, will ya? There is some very lucid commentary above, by professors from various points on the political spectrum. The shrillness and hysteria don’t seem to come from the actual professoriat.

Leslie Bary, at 10:25 am EST on March 22, 2006

1. The plant biology incident at U of M—no one denies that this happened except people on this blog. The name of the professor wasn’t given in the article. I am assuming it was a professor because that was the topic of the story in the student newspaper—professors’ behavior in class—and because the term (say) “teaching assistant” never appeared in the story. 2. My other two anecdotes I personally eye-witnessed and they occurred in 2004. 3. There may be a number of different types of feminist theory, yes, but frankly that hardly makes for true intellectual diversity being offered students. The WS Program at KSU is not a department not of WS but is explicit that it is a dept of feminist studies. You will not graduate unless you sign on to the basic paradigm. You will not graduate if you are interested in WS but oppose the basic paradigm. This is the same as saying that there are a number of different kinds of Marxist theories, but here in our Dept of Marxist Studies you have to convince us faculty that you believe in SOME kind of Marxism in order to get your degree in Marxist Studies. Would that be intellectually valid pedagogy? 4. I totally agree that getting your bias out in the open at the beginning of a course does NOT excuse you from then ramming your bias down students’ throats lecture after lecture. 5. The obligation to provide students with alternative explanations (yes, perhaps not in a one lecture, but definitely overall in a course): if I teach international-systems theory as an explanation for state expansion, I think I also have a positive OBLIGATION to teach the alternative explanations for state explansion which are widely asserted (such as unit-attribute theory), and I have a positive OBLIGATION to teach that alternatively with the strongest arguments for it possible. Not to do so would make the course pedagogically deficient, and would cheat the students of alternative explanations for them to think about. I am surprised that so many here do not see this.

Art

art eckstein, at 10:25 am EST on March 22, 2006

Art — but now we are not pointing to data but talking about interpretive background assumptions that tell us what the data are. You are assuming that in e-mail#2 the person is raising a hypothetical — “if a T.A. does such and such....” I was assuming that the person, because he/she was commenting on the particular case, was talking about the particular case, and so was referring to THE T.A. that was involved (and so revealing that it was a T.A.). I was also assuming that it would have been a total non-sequitor for the person to offer out of the blue a hypothetical about what a T.A. might do, and so I concluded that the person must have been talking about the actual case (and maybe was in the class). Any of our assumptions may be wrong here, but I thought I was using a principal of charity to read e-mail#2, as otherwise it just didn’t make sense.

On the question of whether or not anyone denies it, there is a contextual issue here. The story about the Bush-monkey incident takes up two or three lines in the middle of the paper, and so it’s not as though it’s a front-page story and that the university has not taken a stand on THAT. Also, it’s not clear from the article, and the sources, that the particular source has not been contacted, or if she refused to offer up the name of the teacher in question. If we don’t know these details, we don’t know if there has been an attempt to confirm or deny or what. Maybe there is another article on this, or maybe there is some discussion on campus, but my worry was that from the UM article in question it’s just hard to say anything specific.

PhilosophyProf, at 12:20 pm EST on March 22, 2006

Funny, from GVSU

What’s funny about Patrick’s comments above is that he comes from Grand Valley State University, a place with a fairly right-wing economics philosophy, where a discussion of Marxism, outside the history department, would be highly surprising.

But none of this is the issue. The issue is the failure of the K-12 system in the US to challenge students. They are not exposed to debate or ideas until, bang, they walk into a college class and for the very first time in their privileged, segregated childhoods, are exposed to ideas different from their own. Of course the less intellectually agile among them are threatened.

Patrick, for example, is at a school surrounded by 90% white Protestant counties, a mono-culture of conservative Christianity in which all school internet is intensively censured and voting Democratic is considered wildly left-wing. Controversial topics do not arise in the schools that feed the university. There is no intellectual practice. No discourse. When they see this in college they panic, and call daddy who calls the minister, who calls James Dobson, who calls David Horowitz.

Until we expect more from our high schools, this will continue to be an unfortunate issue.

Ira, Michigan State University, at 4:10 am EST on March 24, 2006

For some reason I have been excluded from this conversation the past two days, despite two attempts to reply to Philosophy Prof.

1. The student witness to the bashing Bush tirade from the teacher in a Plant Bio (!) class was quoted in the student newspaper, and she was named. I have no idea why Philos Prof would think she wasn’t directly contacted.

2. In addition, if you read her quote carefully, it looks like she is referring not to one unprofessional incident but to several unprofesisonal incidents that occurred over time.

Art

art eckstein, at 5:40 pm EST on March 26, 2006