Academic Indoctrination at Penn State

From Students For Academic Freedom, a report on stifling leftist orthodoxy in several courses at Penn State.

The biggest offender: Women’s Studies, which is no surprise.

A lot of this will seem routine to any observer of modern academia, but what is interesting is that Penn State has a policy designed to protect students’ academic freedom.

For more than fifty years, Penn State University has had one of the strongest and most clearly articulated policies on academic freedom of any institution of higher learning. Known as HR 64, the policy bars Penn State professors from indoctrinating students with “ready-made conclusions on controversial subjects.” It instructs professors, instead, “to train students to think for themselves, and provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently.” It warns that “in giving instruction on controversial matters the faculty member is expected to be of a fair and judicial mind, and to set forth justly, without supersession or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators” – in other words to present students with more than one perspective on the subject.

Finally, the Penn State policy forbids faculty from using the classroom to discuss controversial subjects outside their field of study. “No faculty member may claim as a right the privilege of discussing in the classroom controversial topics outside his/her own field of study. The faculty member is normally bound not to take advantage of his/her position by introducing into the classroom provocative discussions of irrelevant subjects not within the field of his/her study.”

Of course, no policy enforces itself, and the power of leftist faculty and administrators on college campuses dictates that any policy demanding fairness won’t be enforced.

Marquette has clearly come down against academic freedom for students, refusing to recognize a chapter of Students for Academic Freedom on campus.

And departments such as English, Philosophy and Education sponsor courses that not only intend to indoctrinate students, but which are hostile to and willing to punish students who reject the view of the politically correct professor.

Students do have some recourse, however. They can go public. They can appeal to department chairs and deans.

And perhaps most important, they can report incidents of bias to us.

Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas Has Been Approved by Student Government

A small committee of Marquette University Student Government plus Kate Kusiak of the Office of Student Development met last night, and approved Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas after a brief and rather non-controversial presentation about the group by Charles Rickert, President.

It remains to be seen what the organization can accomplish on campus, especially given the fact that Rickert will graduate this May. Thus, the future health of the group depends on younger members stepping up into leadership roles.

One potentially controversial idea that Rickert mentioned at the meeting was ending the policy whereby OSD has to approve each and every piece of literature that any student group distributes on campus.

OSD certainly isn’t going to like opposition to their power, but apparently is willing to let the student group agitate on the issue.

An earlier incarnation of the group, Students for Academic Freedom, proposed attacking ideological bias on campus, and OSD made it clear that that issue was not allowed to be even raised by a student group. Or at least, by a conservative student group.

OSD Approves Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas

Marquette’s Office of Student Development has approved the Constitution of Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas.

The approval came after OSD rejected a local chapter of Students for Academic Freedom, claiming it infringed on the “academic freedom” of faculty. Students for Academic Freedom submitted a Constitution that proposed that “note and object to” bias in all kinds of activities at Marquette, including teach-ins, faculty conferences, reading lists, and speakers’ programs.

OSD believed any such criticism should not be allowed.

The Constitution of Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas is sanitized, with the sorts of free expression that OSD objected to removed.

Note the huge irony here: Marquette approved Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas with the stipulation that a whole wide range of ideas, inconvenient for ideologically biased faculty and administrators, cannot be expressed.

The organization still has to be approved by Marquette Student Government. Such approval appears likely.

Students For Academic Freedom: Trying Again As Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas

In the wake of the rejection of their Constitution by the Office of Student Development, the students who tried to organize Students for Academic Freedom will submit a revised Constitution to OSD tomorrow morning.

The document is here.

The organization will now be called Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas.

The document has been sanitized of the things that offended the OSD bureaucrats, including especially plans to criticize ideological bias in instruction at Marquette, and affiliation with the national organization Students For Academic Freedom.

It remains to be seen how OSD will react to the new application. Students for a Free Marketplace of Ideas remains a group of conservative students unhappy at the leftist bias of discourse on campus, and particularly at the stifling of conservative speech.

And OSD bureaucrats remain liberals who don’t much like uppity conservative students.

But given that the document contains none of the things that OSD claimed were unacceptable, it will be difficult for people such as Dean of Student Development Mark McCarthy to find an excuse to reject it.

Any such rejection would be an utterly bald admission of ideological bias.

Not that Marquette is unwilling to be baldly ideologically biased.

Marquette Tribune: No Free Speech For Conservatives

It used to be that one could expect journalists to favor free speech. After all, who has a more intense interest in free speech than people whose occupation is expressing themselves in writing?

Indeed, at one time journalists, in spite of their liberal political beliefs, would side with free expression even for conservatives. After all, wasn’t it all part of a single package -- free speech for liberals and free speech for conservatives?

Those days are past, and nothing shows it better than the fledgling journalists at the Marquette Tribune. On a variety of free speech issues that have arisen on campus over the last two years they have shown a consistent pattern: they have favored free speech for liberals, and supported the University when it shut up conservatives.

Let’s start with the editorial in yesterday’s paper on “The Vagina Monologues,” a feminist play that is supposedly about violence and sexual exploitation of women, but in fact promotes a broader agenda of sexual promiscuity and lesbianism. The rather vapid response of the Tribune is:

Unfortunately, sexuality evolved into a phenomenon often fraught with confusion, hurt and even oppression. As Catholics, we reject oppression and stand in solidarity against the reality of sexual violence as we are called by God to treasure and respect His gifts to us.

Understanding exactly how we as Catholics should tackle this tremendous undertaking presents a challenge - one we feel can benefit from academic exploration. The university’s recent approval of a reading of “The Vagina Monologues” offers an extremely pertinent discussion framed within the context of faith and education.

In the context of free and open discussion on a college campus, a performance (or reading) of “The Vagina Monologues” is certainly defensible.

The Tribune treats the issue of who will lead the discussion on the play, and does call for the inclusion of someone who can “represent Catholic teaching” and would “ensure adequate attention be paid to the reading’s relationship to our Catholic community.” A good idea, but mere tokenism, given the leftist slant of the panel already announced.

But is the context “free and open discussion on a college campus?” At the Tribune, it’s not.

The paper has consistently supported the University when it has stifled conservative student expression. As they admit:

Students for Academic Freedom was denied recognition as a student organization by the Office of Student Development yesterday after being drawn out for months. . . . In the end . . . we agree with the decision to deny recognition to the group. Certainly, concerns over free speech at Marquette are valid. Although students technically have no First Amendment rights here, it remains a bad idea for the university to step in and restrict speech.

Three cases from the last three years all drew public fire: Adopt-a-Sniper, the dental school blogger and the quote removed from the office door of philosophy graduate students. The university handled each case poorly; each time criticism was richly deserved.

However, we agree with the university’s end decisions in each situation and we have faith the university will continue to pursue and support academic freedom. We’re not convinced that Students for Academic Freedom would have achieved anything additional.

It’s not clear what they mean concerning the Dental School blogger. Did they favor the initial draconian punishment, or the lighter punishment that was eventually levied?

But the case of the Dental School blogger was entirely nonideological. In the three cases where campus conservatives were shut up, the Adopt-a-Sniper Republican fund raiser, the Dave Barry quote a Philosophy graduate student posted on his door, and Students for Academic Freedom, the Tribune sided with the University in shutting up student expression.

Editor Ryan Nilsson, reached for an interview yesterday, insists that any claim of a liberal bias on the Tribune editorial board is a “vast oversimplification,” and says that he is “a conservative Catholic.” He further named two other members of the board, saying that one is a Republican and the other claims to be “Catholic as hell.”

Editorial Board member Tim Horneman responded to our query on this issue with the following e-mail:

I think it would be hard to argue from reading all of our editorials this school year, that there is a strong bias one way or the other. We have at times agreed with the administration, as we did in today’s editorials; we have at other times sharply disagreed with the administration, as we did with the South Africa decision. We have sometimes supported MUSG ideas; we have sometimes opposed them. Our opinions have probably, at times, put us at odds with a large part of the student body. Other times, the students would agree with us entirely.

Our decisions in the Tuesday Tribune, as I wrote on the Tribune editors’ blog late Monday night, came after lengthy, at times contentious, discussion. To suggest we didn’t consider all sides - or that a bias one way or the other led us to simply discount some perspective - is a result that, I believe, would not be reached by a careful reading of the editorials.

We gave particular voice to Catholic concerns when we approved of a reading of “The Vagina Monologues,” with our recommendation that a theologian representing Catholic teaching be present at the forum. We acknowledged the concerns Students for Academic Freedom had over free speech, although we disagreed that a group was necessary or productive for the cause.

Simply attributing our decisions to liberal bias or conservative bias or pro- or anti-administration bias, I believe, shortchanges the consideration we put into these editorials. We have no problem if people disagree with us - in fact, we welcome them to send us Viewpoints and continue the discussion of these issues - but to simply dismiss our opinions as one-sided doesn’t do justice to the editorials we wrote or the deliberation we put into them throughout Monday.

Unfortunately, all the talk about “deliberation” and “contentious discussion” doesn’t change the fact that the Tribune has consistently come down against free speech for conservatives.

One can, of course, engage in “deliberation” and “contentious discussion” and come down in favor of free speech. We don’t doubt that the Tribune editorial board thinks that it is engaging in fair deliberation without ideological bias. We just doubt that it actually is.

A particularly egregious editorial in the Tribune supported the University on the issue of the censorship of a quote from Dave Barry posted on the door of a Philosophy Department graduate student. Philosophy Department chair James South tore down the cartoon, explaining that he had had “complaints” and that the quote was “patently offensive.” Even the liberal Journal-Sentinel took the University to task.

We discussed the Philosophy Department issue with Nilsson yesterday, and he derided concern about free speech by saying “it’s a bumper sticker” and “a lot of these things are being blown out of proportion” by bloggers and talk radio.

So that seems to be the philosophy at the Tribune. Free speech isn’t a serious matter. And least, not when conservatives want to do it.

Marquette Rejects Students For Academic Freedom: More Coverage

Marquette’s refusal to recognize the campus Students for Academic Freedom has been covered by both student newspapers, and the campus blogs.

In The Warrior, an article by Mary Ellen Burke is titled “SAF denial dampers hopes for Student Bill of Rights.” It offers a very detailed and balanced account, with the history of student government actions seeking to protect academic freedom for students, and extensive quotes from SAF president Charles Rickert, Mark McCarthy, Dean of Student Development and Vice Provost Margaret Bloom.

“You have the right to remain silent — especially if you’re a student,” Burke observes.

The Tribune has a somewhat shorter article by Lindsay Fiori titled “OSD denies Students for Academic Freedom recognition.” Given the Tribune’s editorial position opposing SAF, the Fiori article is ironically a bit more favorable toward the organization than the Burke article in The Warrior. Fiori of course quotes the usual University spokespeople, but also quotes us, and includes extensive quotes from Rickert, including some real zingers. For example:

“Today was a defeat for the free marketplace of ideas at Marquette,” Rickert said. “It’s sad universities today are no longer places of civil and reasoned debate among different viewpoints.”

And further:

“This response means that throughout the course of 18 weeks OSD clearly did not hear what I was saying because they were either not listening or were trying to frame debates in ways SAF never meant,” Rickert said. “From the moment SAF applied, OSD was only looking for reasons to deny it. They were not helpful or specific on what to modify in our constitution and took two months to even give an initial opinion.”

The blogosphere chimed in as Daniel Suhr of GOP3.COM dissected Marquette’s decision. Suhr notes that the Office of Student Development disagrees with some of the stances of the SAF national organization, and then argues:

I entirely agree that MU should evaluate the national affiliate. However, in cases when a parent organization’s agenda conflicts with Marquette’s mission, the past practice has been to simply say that Marquette’s mission takes precendence in the specific areas of disagreement, not to deny the group outright. Thus, even though both the national Democratic Party and Amnesty International support abortion and gay marriage, we have College Democrats and AI on campus. If Marquette objected to certain parts of the nationwide SAF Information Center, common practice would have been to specify that the Marquette chapter could not advocate those objectionable parts of the national group’s agenda.

But of course, “common practice” can be ignored when the real intention is to stifle the group.

Suhr goes on to take issue with a reported comment of Mark McCarthy that “The main focus of such an organization is on academic freedom, which is really under purview of faculty.” Suhr responds:

This is typical of the administrators’ mindset - students are to be babied. They bring nothing valuable to campus but their tuition dollars and butts in the lecture hall chairs. Academic freedom is of interest to everybody! SAF argues that students need the freedom to express themselves in the classroom or in assignments without fear of ideological punishment. I suppose it should not be surprising that the administration that does not see a need for a student voice on governance issues does not believe students have academic freedom.

Also on GOP3, Brandon Henak urges readers to take action to support SAF by writing Marquette administrators.

Finally, talk show host Charlie Sykes links to one of our posts on the issue, and notes the irony of the situation:

Now, this is odd.

John McAdams has the story, including the newspeak explanation by MU bureaucrats that Students for Academic Freedom is inimical to. . . . academic freedom.

A fascinating glimpse of the academic mindset.

Fascinating, but all too typical, we are afraid.

Marquette Statement on Rejection of Students For Academic Freedom

From Brigid Miller, Director of University Communication, on today’s rejection of the application of Students For Academic Freedom to become a recognized student group.

As you may know, the Office of Student Development worked with the student over a period of several months regarding concerns about the group’s proposed constitution and discussed numerous options or revisions for the student to consider. When this student decided not to amend the constitution, the office notified the student that the group would not be recognized as a Marquette student organization.

Some of the issues identified in the proposed constitution, i.e., reading lists, academic conferences and classroom speakers, are curricular decisions within the purview of individual faculty members or faculty departments. Preserving this faculty discretion is a key tenet of academic freedom.

Procedures are already in place on campus to address many of the concerns cited in the proposed constitution for Students for Academic Freedom.

This statement, which appears to echo arguments fed to Miller by the Office of Student Development, is close to bizarre.

Just reading it, one might gather that Students For Academic Freedom was asking for the right to censor class reading lists at Marquette. One might gather that the organization was asking for the right to veto particular speakers or cancel conferences they don’t like.

In reality, all they asked for is the right to criticize the University, faculty and administrators on any of these issues.

Thus, “academic freedom” to these people means not merely that they get to make the relevant educational decisions. It means they cannot be criticized for decisions they make.

Marquette Rejects Students For Academic Freedom

This was expected, but the rejection letter is here.

We just phoned Dean of Student Development Mark McCarthy, and he refused to comment, saying “let the Tribune get the story.”

We can understand why he would refuse to comment, since he and other Marquette bureaucrats have failed to articulate any coherent reason for rejecting the organization.

The rejection letter to Charles Rickert, President of the organization said:

. . . we find that a number of the programs and events proposed in your constitution and the affiliation of your group with the national Students for Academic Freedom Information Center and its programs and activities are inimical to Marquette’s committment to academic freedom.

What the organization has proposed to do, and which McCarthy clearly sees as unacceptable, is to criticize instances of liberal and leftist bias on campus.

In his discussion with Rickert, McCarthy first stressed grievance procedures available to students who feel they have been discriminated against on the basis of their political opinions.

Further, he questioned whether students are qualified to judge bias!

Quite clearly, criticizing Marquette, particular programs at Marquette and individual professors is viewed by Marquette bureaucrats as “inimical to Marquette’s commitment to academic freedom.”

In other words, “academic freedom” doesn’t include the right to claim that faculty and administrators are using their freedom in a biased way!

Committee on Faculty

McCarthy had asked the Committee on Faculty to provide some confidential commentary on Students for Academic Freedom, and that group discussed the issue for about a half-hour back in the fall.

According to William Thorn, Secretary of the Committee, the discourse quickly became side-tracked with a discussion of supposed threats to academic freedom at other universities, particular the cases of Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado and Kevin Barrett at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Members of the Committee were quite negative about any off campus group coming in and trying to critique or evaluate the curriculum or instruction at Marquette. Members said “we have an evaluation system.”

Much of the discussion involved attempted intrusion by state legislators at state schools.

One red-herring having nothing to do with Students For Academic Freedom (proposals that the official Marquette evaluations of professors be made public) got dragged into the discussion.

The commentary submitted to McCarthy was generally quite negative, although no vote was taken on the issue.

Given McCarthy’s initial negative reaction to the student group, it appears that he went to the Committee on Faculty not to seek guidance, but rather to try to enlist allies against the group.

A Threat To Academic Freedom?

Thus Marquette’s position is that having a student group on campus that will criticize individual professors, programs and the University as a whole for bias is inconsistent with academic freedom.

But we can’t imagine that Marquette would object if the Gay/Straight Alliance attacked Marquette for being insufficiently “gay friendly.”

Marquette, until recently, provided a link on the Student Government web site to something called Dogears. On this web site, students were allowed to post evaluations of professors.

The comments could be extremely negative. For example, one professor was described as a “prime example of a white elitist male.” Another was described as “extremely, extremely biased. Chooses favorites like it’s his job. Doesn’t read papers – I even turned the same one in twice to prove this.”

And of another professor: “. . . this course was very frustrating, overwhelming, boring, uninteresting, confusing, unorganized. I need more adjectives!” And of a different professor: “I believe this to be the worst class I have taken at Marquette, and that is saying a lot.”

And these faculty were attacked by name, and by students who were anonymous.

Given that Marquette explicitly allowed negative evaluations of professors to be publicly posted, it’s difficult to see why it would be a terrible threat to academic freedom to allow a particular group of conservative students to attack professors for leftist bias.

Does Academic Freedom Mean Professors Can Say Anything?

One might believe that if professors are in any way limited in what they can say in class, this is a violation of academic freedom.

But the classic formulations of academic freedom are far from giving professors carte blanche to say anything they want.

In the first place, the classic statements from the American Association of University Professors make it clear that academic freedom applies when an academic is talking about his or her subject matter. Thus an historian can espouse any conclusion about the origins of the Civil War (even a highly controversial one), but math professors don’t have the right to spout off about the Iraq War.

The same statements affirm that students should not be indoctrinated, and have a right to disagree with their professors.

For example, a 1967 statement from the AAUP says “Students should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion.”

These sorts of restrictions are most certainly still applicable, as documents from Temple and Penn State show.

There is one final restriction on what professors are allowed to say. The doctrine of a hostile learning environment precludes certain kinds of statements that are gratuitously demeaning or insulting. Of course, this doctrine can be abused, as intolerant students claim to be “offended” upon hearing viewpoints they don’t like. But it’s perfectly sensible that, in the vast majority of college classes, negative comments about homosexuality should be out of bounds. Why not equally prohibit a professor of engineering saying that “Republicans are selfish bastards?”

What should be acceptable is a professor teaching a course on sexual ethics outlining in a sympathetic and favorable way the view of the Catholic Church that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. Or a professor in a class on public policy coming down on the side of the Democrats on a particular issue.

If criticism of particular professors should be allowed it’s even more obvious that students should be allowed to criticize majors that they think are biased, or criticize Student Government if it sponsors an ideologically biased slate of speakers.

Students For Academic Freedom Would Have No Power

The most important point here is a simple one. No student organization has the power to fire any professor. Or to reduce the professor’s salary. Or to determine the content of any reading list.

All Students For Academic Freedom would be able to do is criticize what they consider to be abuses.

Anybody seeing their criticism could make up their own minds as to whether it was well-founded.

In other words, the only power the student group would have is the power to publicize what they consider to be abuses.

But college administrators don’t like publicity. They don’t like having their decisions questioned, and don’t like having a variety of derelictions and failures publicized.

And if they are liberal administrators, they especially don’t like conservatives doing it.

Students For Academic Freedom To Office of Student Development: Give Us an Up or Down Verdict

We’ve blogged about attempts of the Marquette chapter of Students for Academic Freedom to get recognized as an official student organization at Marquette.

As of last semester, officials in the Office of Student Development had made it clear to the student group that their Constitution, as written, was not acceptable. But no official verdict had been forthcoming.

Now, the organization is putting the student affairs bureaucrats on the spot by demanding an up or down ruling.

The following is an e-mail sent just this morning by the President of the organization:

From: Rickert, Charles
Sent: Mon 1/22/2007 12:13 PM
To: McCarthy, Mark; Kusiak, Katherine
Cc: Neumann, Kelly; Dooley, Jon
Subject: Students for Academic Freedom: Letter of Determination

Office of Student Development:

At your earliest convenience, the members of Students for Academic Freedom request an official determination of either acceptance or rejection by the Office of Student Development. In a previous meeting, it was stated that formal decisions are communicated through written letter. In the event of rejection, the reasons for refusal would be clearly articulated.

Students for Academic Freedom has demonstrated considerable student interest in the organization while affirming that our mission and constitution are well within the realm of rightful student organizations at Marquette University. As such, the members of Students for Academic Freedom chose to retain its original constitution for the Office of Student Development to review.

On behalf of Students for Academic Freedom, thank you for your time, effort and careful consideration. I look forward to receiving the official judgment.

Best regards,

Charles

Charles Rickert
Students for Academic Freedom

Students for Academic Freedom is a conservative student organization, that has as it’s objective to criticize leftist bias in university programs, speakers series and courses.

One cannot imagine the OSD bureaucrats minding the Gay/Straight Alliance criticizing Marquette for being insufficiently “gay friendly.” One cannot imagine they mind if the Black Student Council complains about the lack of “diversity” and demands more affirmative action hiring, more “diversity” requirements in the curriculum and more scholarships limited to black students.

So quite clearly student groups that intend to criticize Marquette and its policies can get recognized and supported by the student affairs bureaucrats.

But they are in the business of recognizing and supporting politically correct demands coming from politically correct victim groups. Letting conservative students speak is an entirely different matter.