Should professors instruct students in what opinions to hold?

Great Debates
1

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle rising at Washington State University after various websites shone a light on certain statements appearing in course syllabi. For example, Professor John Streamas in his syllabus for Introduction to Multicultural Literature, instructs his students to “Reflect your grasp of history and social relations by respecting shy and quiet classmates, and by deferring to the experiences of people of color.” Now according to my dictionary, defer means “to submit respectfully in judgment or opinion.” In other words, this instruction would seem to require that students not of color must accept the judgment of students of color.

Isn’t the entire point of class discussion to have different viewpoints brought up, debated, and challenged? Doesn’t the idea of the professor declaring who’s right based on skin color kind of undermine the very idea of a discussion?

There’s also this: Finally, understand and consider the rage of people who are victims of systematic injustice. James Baldwin wrote that people of color have an obligation to feel rage over this nation’s history of racism. If injustice does not fill you with rage, then perhaps you should ask yourself why.
…
Note on language: In our books we may read some words or phrases that will be, to some sensibilities, coarse or vulgar or racist. By themselves, no “mere” words are offensive. What makes a word vulgar or racist is its usage by a particular speaker in a particular context. Insensitive whites such as Glenn Beck complain that, for example, they are not allowed to say the “n” word without being labeled racist but that black men use it among themselves all the time. To “earn” the right to that word, Beck must first endure 500 years of racism.
Should a professor be declaring on the syllabus that certain of his opinions about offensiveness and rights (in the social sense) are correct? That opinions which he disagrees with are wrong? This is presented in a context suggesting that students must follow it, not that it’s merely a suggestion.
Conservative skeptics wonder why we need to study “multicultural” texts, suggesting that the only criterion for selecting books should be literary excellence. Liberals argue that, by reading the variety of perspectives afforded by writers of color, we realize that the very idea of “standards of excellence” is not universal but is peculiar to a dominant culture. Both positions are flawed. The conservative notion is flawed by the very fact that it is advanced by white people who just happen to think that the very best books and ideas come from white people—they have an investment in proving themselves superior. The liberal notion is flawed in two ways … Ishmael Reed famously wrote that “writin’ is fightin’”—that every literary act is a political act. As the struggle for gender-neutral language should have proven, language is never neutral. Even the simplest language of race is troubled.
This suggests a bit of simmering hostility towards whites and conservatives and liberals, as well as another declaration that the professor’s opinions are the only right ones. It didn’t surprise me at all to learn that this professor has previously been in hot water for hurling racial slurs at white students.

Elsewhere, Professor Selena Breikss instructs her students thatUse of racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, classist, or generally offensive language in class or submission of such material will not be tolerated. (This includes “The Man,” “Colored People", “Illegals/Illegal Aliens,” “Tranny” and so on - or referring to women/men as females or males) … Repeated use of oppressive and hateful language will be handled accordingly – including but not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and - in extreme cases - failure for the semester.
In this case, the professor tells the students not to use certain language, for instance not to refer to women and men as females and males. In fact, women are female and men are male, according to my dictionary, so she’s telling students to not use the correct definitions in those cases. This can hardly contribute to the open discussions that the professor says she wants.

Fundamentally the purpose of a class discussion is for students to learn how to discuss, as part of the process of learning how to think and communicate. A wide range of ideas and opinions should be brought up, including opinions that the professor and most of the students disagree with, even disagree strongly with. If professors declare from the outset that on certain issues which are far from settled, only one opinion is correct and that’s the one students should accept, that prevents academic discussion from fulfilling its purpose.

2

There is a spectrum between squeaky-clean “politically correct” language and the gutter language of the hate culture.

Most of the quotes in the OP seem to be asking people to avoid the latter.

What’s wrong with that? Does anyone really want to defend hate speech?

3

Terms like “illegal immigrant” or “female/male” are not gutter language by any stretch of the imagination.

4

Professors should not instruct students in what opinions to hold. They should instruct them about as many different opinions as possible, and should feel free to be biased in their own opinions, but agreement with those opinions should in no way be considered in grading.

Professors, through the authority of the school should be able to reasonably restrict the language students use so long as ideas are not restricted.

5

Words and ideas are often linked. Restrict the words that people can use and you restrict the ideas they express. At least, you make it much more difficult to express ideas.

There’s an idea that there are two genders, male and female. There are also other, contrary ideas about genders. At least until quite recently, there was a common understanding among almost all people that male and female are the only genders. Order your students to not use the words “male” and “female”–or at least to not use them according to dictionary definitions–and you make it at least difficult for those students to express the understanding of gender that almost everyone shared until recently.

6

No offence, but this seems a rather mechanical use of your dictionary in defiance of common sense. You own quote makes it clear that Prof. Streamas is not telling his students to accept the judgments or opinions of students of colour, but to defer to their experiences.

In other words, if you want to know what it is like to be black in your own society, ask the black guy and take seriously what he says. That seems like basic common sense to me.

Plus, note that Prof. Streamas is not enouraging to do this in order to improve their grasp of history. Rather, he is suggesting that their grasp of history should lead them to behave like this. They should know from their own study of history that the experiences of black people in their society (a) are different from the experiences of white people, and (b) have frequently been marginalised and overlooked.

7

Good Og, ITR, do you not comprehend that the nouns “male” and “female” depersonalize the individual being written about? The point of multicultural studies is to see people, not stereotypes. It has nothing to do with ignoring the existence of gender. If the student persists in writing material that depersonalizes the humans in question, they clearly have not grasped the concept of multiculturalism and deserve to fail the class. If multicultural studies is a strict graduation requirement, I could see a potential problem, but it would surprise me if it was. And anyway, college-level courses are not subject to first amendment freedom of speech any more than the workplace is.

8

Why no links to those “various websites” raising a ruckus? The LA Times discusses the situation:

The offending faculty seem to be more “instructors” than “professors.” And the University will be reviewing the situation to ensure that students[ “freedom of speech” is not hampered.

These courses are hardly core requirements–why would racists, sexists, xenophobes & homophobes want to take them anyway?

9

There are other words to use. If the restriction of vocabulary was so great as to prevent the expression of ideas it would be unreasonable. However that is not really the point. Students don’t have a right to express themselves any way that they want in their coursework. If it is technical coursework that doesn’t allow the use of common terminology then it is a shitty school and probably shouldn’t be accredited, but if you are talking about opinions then students have to learn how to express themselves a variety of ways and to be able to understand opinions that they disagree with.

10

I’m more concerned that, according to the latter link, most of the class’ grading consists of attendance, participation, ‘reading journals’, and making a culture-jamming advertisement. I know it’s not physics, but this isn’t even stamp collecting. Even without problem sets or the equivalent, I thought humanities courses were supposed to have piles of essays and papers to write?

11

Nah. It’s mostly to waste time between slides.

I can’t tell if this is sarcasm. What a world.

12

The first and last examples in the OP strike me as examples of professors telling students to behave in their classroom, rather than what opinions to hold – which, in general, professors have the right to do. (I doubt that “defer to” means “accept the judgment of” in this particular context, but rather “allow those students to speak, and don’t try to interrupt them or explain away what they say about their own experiences.” Note that the previous line asks students to respect shy and quiet classmates – a behavior, not an opinion.)

Similarly, asking students not to use certain language is a behavior, and the examples given are either slang terms that shouldn’t be used in academic discourse anyway, or terms that were once used but are no longer the preferred terms. (I don’t know that using “male” or “female” as a noun is the hill I’d choose to die on, but it’s certainly an error in usage that I correct when I see it in student papers: in standard, formal English, we say “a male [noun]” or “a man,” but not “a male” when referring to human beings.) It’s part of a professor’s job to teach students the appropriate vocabulary of his or her academic discipline.

The second and third examples both strike me as professors expressing their own opinions – which they are well within their rights to do – rather than telling students what opinions to hold (with the possible exception of the line “If injustice does not fill you with rage, then perhaps you should ask yourself why,” but this is pretty mild stuff). Indeed, the author of the second quote seems to be making a very deliberate choice to be even-handed by critiquing both conservative and liberal views.

13

I liked how the lady prof listed “The Man” as the first thing on her list.

Yeah, I’m sure “The Man” gets her goat the most and is used the most often. Even Dougie Howser doesn’t get bent if you call him the man.

She threw that shit in there to pretend to be unbiased and all inclusive.

14

Sometimes-instructor of record/TA in humanities classes (though not literature). A few things on that:

1.) The reading journals comprise the writing element of the course. More details might be given in class–there might be more requirements. Generally speaking, these are included to ensure that people read and understood the reading. They are the equivalent of problem sets, meant to ensure that the students understood the concepts underlying the readings. It’s hard to judge the difficulty of these, since a lot of it will depend on how they’re graded. Given that they’re due the week after, I’d hope that students are expected to incorporate elements of the lecture, and not just their initial reactions to the reading. This’ll produce about 36 pages of work throughout the semester (assuming 2.5 pages and 13 weeks), which isn’t nothing (particularly if the students are doing it properly).

2.) The culture jamming project is…complicated. I teach in media studies, and there’s a big emphasis on incorporating other mediums other than the written word into course schedules. In theory, this is great. In practice, it frequently means getting your students up to speed on whatever technology you’re going to be using, hand-holding through some parts of the process, ensuring that everyone has access to the necessary technology (in this case, photoshop), and otherwise engaging in a bunch of things that aren’t immediately relevant to the course’s topic. This often means there’s less heft to the finished product because you have to account for that time and trouble.

A lot of the difficulty of the course is going to be determined by the instructor’s grading. Some instructors will be super easy graders, which will make this course a walk; others will expect thoughtful analysis and incorporation of course concepts into each reading reflection, which is a much more difficult task. If this course is done properly, that syllabus can be sufficiently daunting for a 300-level course (though, honestly, the readings seem a bit light in some places, though the lack of full citations means that I don’t have page counts).

That being said, I’m not in that university and don’t know that professor, so who knows how the course actually is.

15

Why are the terms male/female ‘oppressive and hateful language’ but men/women is ok?

16

By using “defer”, he implies that not-of-color students’ opinions aren’t as valid, or are somehow secondary to those of people of color.

Which I’m sure isn’t what he was getting at- I think his point was more to say that black people have a perspective on race relations that the rest of us white people don’t have, and that we probably should neither presume to know what they’re talking about, or what they experience, as our experiences in the dominant group are inherently different.

But the word choice he used was unfortunate, as it implies a certain subservience or maybe lack of validity of the opinions or experiences of those people doing the deference.

And as to the men/women vs. male/female, it’s probably some of the same transgender terminology business that we see around here periodically. You know… Caitlyn Jenner is physically male, but yet a woman, kind of stuff.

17

I don’t see any reason why a prof can’t set up some ground-rules that are meant to challenge the student’s way of thinking. Let’s discuss “X” without using the terms “male” or “female” could be a useful way of seeing a subject from a different angle. It’s not like the prof is telling the kids they should go thru the rest of their lives never using those terms.

Let’s remember that the class we are talking about is “Multicultural Literature”. We’re not talking about Intro to Calculus here.

18

Sure, these professors are rent-seeking scum leaching off the beneficence of public spending who should obviously be fired.

But in all honesty, if you take a class in critical theory, this is exactly what you should expect. Every thinking student should be well aware that multiple university departments have been infected with neo-marxist garbage like this. I really doubt there’s anyone taking this class who didn’t already agree with the professor’s Orwellian speech codes.

19

I don’t know her reasoning but someone using female to refer to a woman usually means they’re one of those PUA dipshits and probably not worth listening to.

20

I guess I can see that. But what a sorry state our educational system is in if off the bat a professor has to outline her expectations to head off Seduction Community bullshit.