Pope Center: Why So Much Intolerance of Speech on College Campuses?

George Leef, of the Pope Center, discusses the familiar list of The 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech: 2016, and then offers his analysis of the causes of the upsurge of intolerance:

New attacks on free speech occur almost daily, so there is no question but that FIRE will have many colleges and universities to consider when it compiles its list of the worst schools of 2016.

Why do we see such hostility to free speech on college campuses, though? Why the haste to silence or punish people just for having said something? Colleges have always been contentious places—remember the Vietnam era?—but things have dramatically changed in recent years.

One reason why is that mid-level university administrators now hold so much power to control speech and behavior through speech codes and anti-harassment policies. As GMU law professor Todd Zywicki explained in this article, those people seldom have any strong attachment to unfettered discussion, but do have a strong preference for a campus with as little turmoil as possible.

Another reason for the increasing hostility to free speech is that far more faculty members than in the past think that free speech is actually bad. Those people, found overwhelmingly in the humanities, social sciences, and especially all the rather new identity studies programs, see their mission as changing society far more than enlightening young minds and encouraging them to search for truth. For them, free speech that might cause students to question their deep beliefs is unwanted.

Finally, many students arrive on campus already dedicated to various social causes and are so certain of their righteousness that they regard anyone who disagrees as an evil person who deserves to be silenced. Instead of advocating academic freedom, they insist on “academic justice,” which means controlling what may be said on campus—as one Harvard student wanted.

Free speech won’t return to its vital position until our schools again teach students that the only civilized way to deal with people who disagree with you is through rational discourse, not through silencing or punishing them.

We have long pointed out that “diversity” initiatives, which often involve restricting speech, are a dandy way for administrators to expand their bureaucratic empires with more and more “diversity” bureaucrats. These bureaucrats, of course, have no commitment to robust debate and discussion, but are committed to making the campus comfortable for politically correct identity groups.

Add these bureaucrats to intolerant members of the faculty, and you have a really toxic brew.

Marquette Students Ignoring Climate Survey

An e-mail from Kimberly A. Newman, Executive Administrative Assistant in the Provost’s office:

The Climate Study Working Group seeks your help in getting more students to complete the Marquette University Climate Survey. As of today less than 10% of our undergraduate and graduate students have taken the time to complete the survey, falling short of what we need to get the pulse of students’ experiences and observations of life at Marquette. And with a new President and Provost, what information students provide will go far in setting priorities for the future of Marquette.

Faculty are then asked to encourage students to take the survey. Students should be assured, for example, that even if they are Freshmen and relatively new to campus their input is wanted. The survey only takes a few minutes. And further, students should be told “That by ‘climate’ survey, we are asking about what they’ve experienced and observed at Marquette and not their opinions about the weather.”

Good to get that cleared up.

Of course, if students were paying any attention, they would notice some questionable things about the enterprise. For example, Newman assures people:

All responses are anonymous. There will never be an analysis of the findings that might identify any individual who completes the survey, and safeguards have been taken to assure both confidentiality of information and anonymity of responses.

But then you have this:

Why do some demographic questions contain a large number of response options?

It is important in campus climate research for survey participants to “see” themselves in response choices to prevent “othering” an individual or an individual’s characteristics. Some researchers maintain that assigning someone to the status of “other” is a form of marginalization and should be minimized, particularly in a campus climate research that has an intended purpose of inclusiveness. Along these lines, survey respondents will see a long list of possible choices for many demographic questions. It is impossible reasonably to include every possible choice to every question, but the goal is to reduce the number of respondents who must choose “other.”

So students who are asexual or of Croatian ancestry might get alienated if they don’t see that choice in the response categories offered.

But then you have this:

How is a respondent’s confidentiality protected?

Confidentiality is vital to the success of campus climate research, particularly because sensitive and personal topics are discussed. Though the survey can’t guarantee complete anonymity because of the nature of multiple demographic questions, the consultant will take multiple precautionary measures to ensure individual confidentiality and the deidentification of data. No data already protected through regulation or policy (e.g., Social Security Number, campus identification number, medical information) is obtained through the survey….

That’s very reassuring.

But the fundamental problem with the survey is that we know perfectly well how it will turn out. The outside consultant who is doing it (one Dr. Susan Rankin) is in the business of making surveys turn out the way campus administrators want them to.

First, it will not be determined that the “campus climate” sucks for everybody. That would be bad publicity for Marquette. But it will be determined that there are “problems,” almost certainly problems for some politically correct group. It’s completely inconceivable that (say) devout Catholics will be found to face a “hostile climate” as their views are demeaned, or that males will be found to chafe under anti-male sexism from feminists.

These “problems” will need to be “addressed” by more programs, more mandatory “training,” and more “initiatives.” All of which will justify the budgets and staffing of various bureaucracies at Marquette.

The game is pretty transparent.  Except to administrators at Marquette, who probably believe their own rhetoric.

[Update]

From a comment, information on the firm that is doing the survey. Is there any doubt that the “fix is in” as to how this survey will turn out?

Diktat on 8:00 a.m. Classes: Registrar Responds

We recently blogged about the demand from the Registrar’s office that more 8:00 a.m. classes must be offered at Marquette.

We noted how silly the mandate seems. Neither faculty nor students like 8:00 a.m. classes. Not only are there plenty of classrooms available at 9:00 a.m., individual departments, colleges and programs have every incentive to accommodate students who need to take a class at 8:00 a.m.

We asked Registrar Georgia McRae to explain the rationale for the policy, and she kindly sent us this statement.

Thank you for your inquiries. I understand how you and others might be confused when you see empty classrooms. Please know that I am doing research in response to your questions and will keep the provost and the deans apprised of my findings.

Second, I would like to clarify that the Course Scheduling Policy is a University policy, not a Registrar policy. The Office of the Registrar does not make academic policy, but is often charged with implementation of approved policies that pertain to its responsibilities, such as scheduling classrooms.

The following are key underlying concepts guiding the course scheduling policy and its implementation:

1. To ensure that our scheduling is student-centric: that is, more courses needed to be spread throughout the day so that students are not faced with time conflicts for needed classes.
2. We do not have an unlimited number of classrooms at the appropriate size, with the appropriate seating and with the appropriate technology during each time block of the day. This policy attempts to distribute these classrooms in an equitable way across all colleges.
3. With increased enrollment, we needed to find a way to gain classroom space, without building more classrooms. There are no resources budgeted for new classrooms in the near future.
4. To give us some flexibility to move a class, without undue hardship on other faculty, when the enrollment outgrows the room capacity, or when we encounter ADA issues. That is, if we have a few classrooms available in each time block, then we have the option to move just the one class that needs to be moved, rather than encounter a domino effect of moving 3-5 classes in order to accomplish our need.

I hope this helps you to understand that there were many considerations that went into the policy and that it was not done in haste, without considerable thought before approval and implementation.

Unfortunately, much of this isn’t really compelling. For example, enrollments. Hard economic times have produced hard times for recruiting a new Freshman class. The Freshman class that Marquette is recruiting for this coming fall appears to be about as large as the one that entered in the fall of 2009, but only at the expense of a greater “discount” of tuition (disguised as larger scholarship grants). There is no reason to think that enrollments will increase. We are, in fact, hoping they don’t decrease.

As for avoiding student conflicts: it’s boneheaded policy to try and force somebody to do something they have every incentive to do anyway. Where a real need for an 8:00 a.m. section exists, deans and department chairs have every incentive to accommodate students. But the reality is that students just don’t like 8:00 a.m. classes, and enrollments are miserable.

As for the claim that “We do not have an unlimited number of classrooms at the appropriate size, with the appropriate seating and with the appropriate technology,” the survey done by our research assistants shows that the empty classrooms were often medium-sized or large.

For example, for Cudahy (for which we have detailed statistics), looking at the classrooms that are available all day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday we find one with a capacity of 41 students, and two with a capacity of 44 each. Looking at the classrooms that are free all day on Tuesday and Thursday, we find one with a capacity of 44, one with a capacity of 41, one with a capacity of 39, and one with a capacity of 24. These are not little seminar rooms.

As for technology: not all classrooms have the latest video technology, but instructors, without any exception that we know of, get assigned to a room with the technology when they want it. And given that virtually every classroom on campus is handicapped accessible, we have trouble seeing how issues created by the need to accommodate disabilities could be causing great problems.

What we have here is yet another example of bureaucrats (and Registrar Georgia McRae may not be the one at fault) implementing something that seems like a good idea to them, all the while remaining oblivious to the actual consequences “on the ground.”

Detroit’s Union Problem

From the Wall Street Journal, an insightful article from Logan Robinson.

And yes, the problem is the United Auto Workers, but this has ramifications beyond the obvious.

It is perhaps the mode of doing business in a unionized company that remains a crippling disadvantage. The UAW is arguably the most successful industrial union of all time. But its very strength has allowed it to permeate into every aspect of manufacturing in the Detroit Three.

The collective bargaining agreement with the UAW is a heavily negotiated document the size of a small telephone book. It is virtually identical for each of the Detroit Three, owing to “pattern” bargaining, but it doesn’t exist at all in their U.S. competition, the nonunionized transplants. Not only work rules, but fundamental business decisions to sell, close or spin-off plants are forbidden without permission. That permission may come, but only at a price, since everything that affects the workplace must be negotiated.

Both the UAW and the Detroit Three maintain large staffs of lawyers, contract administrators, and financial and human-resources representatives whose principal job is to negotiate with the other side. These staffs are at all levels, from the factory floor to corporate headquarters and the UAW’s “Solidarity House” in downtown Detroit.

The collective bargaining agreements are now renegotiated every four years; in each negotiation the power and penetration of the union grows. If the company asks to change the flow of work for any reason, from cost-savings to vehicle improvements, the local union president will listen politely, and then say something like, “We can help you with this, but what’s in it for my guys?”

Typically, he will have a list of things he wants, some understandable (better cafeterias) some questionable (hire my nephew), but there is always a quid pro quo. These mutually sustaining bureaucracies exist to negotiate with each other.

In an environment of downsizing, the problem is exacerbated, as the entrenched bargaining structure causes innumerable inefficiencies. Typically each plant or warehouse is a “bargaining unit” and has a union president, who has a staff. If the company consolidates facilities, there will be no need for two presidents and two staffs. Since neither president wants to play musical chairs, they will both point to the bargaining agreement and resist consolidation. As a result, unnecessary facilities are not sold, but kept open, lit and heated, just to preserve a redundant bargaining-unit president and his team.

To anybody who knows anything much about bureaucracy, the analysis rings true. Yes, the unions are greedy and self-serving. And yes, auto executives have been incompetent. But it has been the bureaucratization that has accompanied unionization that has been fatal.

Liberal Hired for Top Marquette Administrative Position

From GOP3.COM, Daniel Suhr on a new administrator hired to work in Marquette President Robert Wild’s office.

The fellow is named Jeff Snell and his job will be “to define long-term strategic priorities of the university.” Yes, that’s vague as hell. But he’ll be another of the O’Hara Hall crowd.

Snell was chief operating officer of the Argosy Foundation. What is significant about this? Suhr explains:

Dollars to Marquette from Argosy (from 2002-2005, and later from news reports): $0.

They give lots to Stanford, Duke, Yale, Vermont, Wyoming, Amherst, and the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, but $0 to MU.

Second, we have the liberal political agenda of Argosy.

The Argosy Foundation, where Snell is COO, is for Milwaukee liberals what the Bradley Foundation is for Milwaukee conservatives. And it does lots of good work, don’t get me wrong, for instance supporting WisconsinEye and the Symphony. But it is an unabashedly liberal organization: “creating a force from the liberal side of the spectrum of even more significance than the Bradley Foundation has been on the conservative side.” The Business Journal described Argosy as a “supporter of liberal social and environmental causes,” and it is well connected to Team Doyle. Recipients of Argosy largess include Planned Parenthood, the Milwaukee LGBT Center, the Women’s Medical Fund (it pays for poor women’s abortions), Wisconsin Citizen Action, WAVE (gun control), the Feminist Majority Foundation, and a variety of environmental groups.

So is there anything wrong with hiring a liberal bureaucrat at Marquette?

It depends on how many other liberals you have.

As the conflict over the “Marquette Warriors” nickname, and the frequent censorship of conservative speech on campus shows, liberal groupthink already dominates O’Hara Hall as well as Student Development, Manresa, the University Ministry and so on.

Conservative viewpoints simply aren’t being heard in the Marquette administration, and University decisions suffer for it.

[Update]

Daniel Suhr has amended his original post with new information. Although he did a standard search, and failed to turn up any Argosy donations to Marquette, in fact, some Argosy money has flowed to Marquette:

Turns out I was wrong. Comment-leaver Greg prompted me to search MarquetteTribune.org, and it turns out Argosy has given money to Marquette to support the Institute for Human Rights Leadership. An email from the Foundation puts the support at $168,329.30. The email also noted the possibility for future partnerships between Argosy and Marquette.

To the extent those future partnerships help develop Marquette’s theatre and fine arts programs, I am for it. If Argosy supports conferences or institutes on important questions of politics and public policy that feature both sides of the ideological debate, I am for it. If Argosy supports new buildings or scholarships or (probably) endowed professorships, I am for it. In fact I very much appreciate it.

I hope, however, that Argosy does not simply pour money into funding left-wing causes, centers, and professors on campus. We have enough of those already, thank you, and they don’t need special support from foundations, they have our tuition dollars.

Moreover, I do not think that $160,000, when compared to Bradley’s $13 million plus, changes my first point at all.