Hmm… could this be a sort of reverse-psychology tactic? Kinda trying to see if by suggesting that there could be a price to pay for hijacking a class with “controversial” issues, you can get folks to say, “no, you have to allow unpopular views” and then the proponent says": “AHA!! So I CAN say ‘Intelligent design is as good science as Darwinism’, or ‘being gay is bad’, without consequences!”
What it does is gives neocons something to latch on to when they decide they’ve had enough of some professor. They will then sue the professor and the school for “violating” this policy, and hope the school backs down instead of fights. Which, in many cases, they will, since fighting is expensive.
KellyM, what do you mean by “neocon”? I’m pretty sure that you are confusing neoconservatives with other idealogues.
It use to involve a little common sense. There was a time when teachers were expected to teach. Math teachers taught math, English teachers taught English, etc… Allowing a teacher (paid for by the student and/or state) to use their tenure for personal political uses is wrong. It’s not free speech when the person you’re lecturing is paying for it. It’s also criminal to punish someone (via grades) because they don’t agree with you. The students are paying for a service, not for someone’s rantings.
When I was in school we had a problem with a teacher (not political, he was just an ass). The class went to the Dean, the teacher was removed.
We do. I also teach freshmen, and My Darn Snake Legs is 1,000% correct. They nod and assent to nearly anything.
Since when?
Teaching is dead.
*Man, this course is interesting!
I’ll say - I didn’t know half this stuff.*
(From memory).
I wonder if this could lead to someone challenging evolutionary theory as “opinion” rather than fact or if a creationist could claim he/she was being “punished for an opinion” in a biology class.
It could be interesting if it were to lead to a court case in which a college had to prove evolution was fact and not opinion. It would be the most one-sided case imaginable in terms of evidence but my fear is that a jury might decide to “nullify” the facts in favor of a preexisting religious bias.
Not to mention the neo-nazis who will want to be guarded from the opinion that the Holocaust actually happened. And UFO cultists who will want to be guarded from the opinion that the Pyramids were tombs for Pharoahs rather than alien landing docks. And confederate apologists who will want to be guarded from the opinion that the Civil War was about slavery.
The idea that everything can be partitioned into either political opinion or legitimate academic topics is bullshit. Political science is about political opinions. Economics is mostly about political opinions. Sociology is mostly about political opinions. English has to involve a lot of political opinions. It’s a fact. Mr. Horowitz and his traveling circus should get over it.
Been there, done that. Ever heard of the Monkey Trial? (I once played the Judge in a community theater production of Inherit the Wind.)
I think that the relavent question here is on accredidation. I mean, states are the ones that actually choose to accredit institutions of higher learning, correct? And these accredited degrees basically say that the institution has to reach certain basic standards to be an acceptable educational institution, correct?
I mean, isn’t this why Bob Jones et al. aren’t accredited?
So, especially when it comes to state-funded Universities, what’s wrong with creating stipulations like this before a state grants its accredidation or opens its check-book?
They seem to be fairly reasonable and fair requirements for schools.
No.
States license the institutions. Meaning allow them to open their doors and offer courses.
“Accreditation” is a form of peer-review performed by private entities who in turn are recognized as able to do that by the US Department of Education. The effect of Accreditation is that your units and degrees meet the standards of the “industry” and are recognized by other institutions and thus transferrable or usable as prerequisites for applying for another degree.
And it should be damn hard to hold on to the academic standards required for University accreditation if your faculty has to make sure every word out of them in front of a student is a proven, uncontroverted fact.
Just about as hard as it should be if every word has to be culturally sensitive, non-offensive, all-inclusive, and gender-neutral. Don’t think I’m oblivious to the failings from the other side.
And besides, if a Professor fails people just because of an honest difference of opinion (and that does NOT include “this whole test is invalid because evolution is false”), that’s already a violation of academic ethics just as much as if the student plagiarizes the paper. There are grievance procedures for that already (that apparently don’t work too well in many places)
For what it’s worth, I went to a certain large state university in Ohio from freshman through doctorate, and I almost never encountered anything in class that could be remotely construed as political advocacy. The three events that come to mind were (1) my Heat Transfer prof mocking an engineering major who pooh-poohed technical solutions to societal problems, (2) my Thermo prof criticizing clean-air standards, and (3) my Mechanical Design prof distributing a little screed about how profits are not evil. What’s interesting is that all three occasions were in technical classes. I don’t remember any of my humanities profs advocating anything other than “keep an open mind”, although some people do find that subversive.
Now, outside of class, I did encounter the usual crap from university-funded groups about all men being latent rapists, all white people being latent racists, blah blah blah, but that’s part of being in college.
I think this is a solution in search of a problem.
Well, I don’t have a date for you, but I’m pretty unfamiliar with the general public calling it “curriculum” when it refers to postsecondary colleges. Courses, coursework, programs of study, majors, etc, that’s what I hear used more often. Perhaps that’s a regional difference.
Hmm, I guess I was mistaken about the sources of accredidation. Then I suppose that this law certainly isn’t appropriate for private schools, but if schools are publicly funded then I think that this is an appropriate set of “Academic Rights.”
Nothing in here says that professors ought to be fired for uttering a single controversial statement. It simply states that people should have a grievance process for professors that grade unfairly or waste student’s time with perpetual screeds on whatever the hell they feel like. Frankly, professors not sitting in front of a class of 120 people and not wasting two hours of time saying absolutely nothing should definitely be in the Student’s Bill of Rights, and it has nothing to do with politics unless you consider the dog vs. cat debate a matter of political alignment. [Gah, shuddering with the memory of my Bio-Psych prof.] Again, I feel that the majority of University prof’s do an excellent job of presenting issues fairly, but there are exceptions that, IMHO, the administration often fails to deal with effectively.
Trust me, I go to CU-Boulder, I know these things. Our president, Elizabeth Hoffman, and the Board of Regents are the kings of reactionary-fuckupism and generally not doing anything without a TV camera shoved down their throat pointing out what a stupid fuckup of a decision their making.
Take Ward Churchill for example. Before the media caught on to this whole thing, I had friends in his class that said that they complained about how he would blatantly discriminate in grading essays based upon their content. Of course the administration not wanting to be distracted from fellating the football team or hiding the records of The University Foundation (a fund-raising arm of the university that is quite clearly associated with the university in spite of the school’s claim that they are a private organization with only the primary goal of helping CU-Boulder’s educational mission) did nothing until the whole event blew over when Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton college.
For christsakes, Churchill actually belives that the 9th Amendment gives the government the right to stop the Columbus Day parades in Denver. Seriously, he’s a perfect example of a self-important moronic asshole that the administration did nothing about because there were no clear signals from the people that help cut the checks for this school that such academic behavior was unacceptable.
Nothing in the linked “Academic Bill of Rights” necessitates affirmative-action for the slightly dumber potential Republican prof’s, it just sets a very basic set of requirements for how the schools professors should conduct themselves.
Abbie Carmichael:
No, liberals are about judging people on the content of their character. Identity politics is bad enough when we’re talking about “historically oppressed” racial groups, but a stubbornly-held set of opinions is not a race.
I suspect that such an interpretation might run afoul of Edwards v. Aguillard. This ruling effectively shut down “equal time” legislation, as well as the forbidding of teaching evolution, or any requirement to teach creationism.