ACTA's Must-Reads

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The year in campus activism

Mother Jones magazine has released its top ten episodes of campus activism during the past year. There are some good picks on the list--Princeton students received top honors for "Protest of the Year" with their theatrical filibuster against Senate filibustering--though the list itself is unsurprisingly stacked with examples of activism devoted to progressive causes. University of Michigan students are praised for "keeping Michigan in Kerry country" with their voter registration campaign last fall, students at Michigan's Calvin College are praised for protesting a commencement address delivered by George Bush, two Stanford students are mentioned for founding a "student-run think tank modeled after their campus' own Hoover Institution, but without all the right-wingers or buckets of cash", and so on.

Mother Jones's choices are predictable, and they are also the magazine's prerogative. At the same time, the one-sided list does cross the line. Weighing in at number nine:

Unjust Desserts This year witnessed a rash of on-campus pie-ings of notable conservatives. At the Quaker Earlham College, an unpacifistic religion major pied William Kristol and issued a manifesto, "Why I Threw the Pie." Pat Buchanan got gooped at Western Michigan University and David Horowitz was handed an excuse to decry "fascists" after he was splattered at Butler University. A University of Arizona student claiming membership in the tastelessly titled "Al Pieda" nearly hit Ann Coulter with a cream pie, making the half-baked claim that he was "throwing the pie at her ideas, not at her."

There is a difference between "protest" and "assault." Mother Jones neglects to mention that the salad dressing thrower was charged with a misdemeanor for disturbing the peace, and could have faced assault charges if Buchanan had wanted to press them. Neither does the magazine mention that the Earlham student who hit Kristol with the pie was suspended and faced a possible sanction of expulsion. Nor does the magazine mention that the student and local Tucson man who threw pie at Anne Coulter were arrested and charged with assault and misdemeanor, as well as a class 5 felony charge of criminal damage for ruining the muslin stage backdrop. Moreover, in chuckling over the incidents as if they were the charming and spirited acts of irrepressible activists, the magazine encourages student protestors to stoop to similar behavior in the future. Maybe as far as Mother Jones is concerned it's not assault--or even poor form--when the targets are conservative speakers.

Posted by acta online on August 30, 2005 at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

Thinking harder about bias in academe

Every few months someone issues a new study indicating how politically one-sided American professors are. Last year, ACTA issued a report of its own. Every few months, too, liberal academics who are happy with the institutional ideological status quo respond to these studies by rising to their own defense. And, every few months, the public is treated to an embarrassingly illogical and self-serving set of non-arguments from those defenders of the indefensible.

Makers of such non-arguments include Duke philosophy chairman Robert Brandon, who, upon learning that only 8 of Duke's 150 humanities professors are registered Republicans, said, "If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire." They include UCLA professor John McCumber, who has said that "a successful career in academia, after all, requires willingness to be critical of yourself and to learn from experience," and has opined that these essential attributes are "antithetical to Republicanism as it has recently come to be." They also include UC-Berkeley professor George Lakoff, who claims that the reason there are so many leftists in the academy is that "unlike conservatives, they believe in working for the public good and social justice, as well as knowledge and art for their own sake."

Those examples--and there are many more--are gathered by Brooklyn College history professor KC Johnson, who has put together an excellent essay on academics' sorry history of self-aggrandizing excuses for why they shouldn't have to define the lack of intellectual, pedagogical, and political diversity among college and university professors as a problem. Johnson methodically dissects the non-arguments that have been offered in defense of a biased academy, and offers lots of revealing quotes and informative links along the way.

His conclusion is a challenge: "No academic administration has made the creation of an intellectually and pedagogically diverse faculty its primary goal. ... Such an initiative, of course, would encounter ferocious faculty resistance. But it would also, just as surely, excite parents, donors, and trustees. If successful, an institution that made intellectual diversity its hallmark would encourage imitation--if only because other colleges would face the free-market pressures of losing talented students and faculty. So, the question becomes, do we have an administration anywhere in the country willing to take up the cause?"

Good question--one boards of trustees might bear in mind when hiring (and firing) college and university presidents.

Posted by acta online on August 26, 2005 at 08:34 AM | Comments (0)

NCAA backs down

The NCAA has agreed to allow the Florida State Seminoles to compete in post-season tournaments, despite its August 5 ruling that teams with "hostile" and "abusive" Native American names, mascots, and imagery will be banned from championship competition. The decision comes in the wake of statewide uproar in Florida, where the Seminole tribe has long given its blessing to FSU's teams, even helping design the Chief Osceola mascot.

Yesterday, the NCAA removed FSU from its list of eighteen schools whose teams will be banned from tournament play if they retain their names and mascots, and then issued a loaded statement essentially suggesting that the NCAA knows better than the Seminole tribe what is and is not offensive to it: "The N.C.A.A. executive committee continues to believe the stereotyping of Native Americans is wrong," said senior vice president for governance and membership Bernard Franklin. "However, in its review of the particular circumstances regarding Florida State, the staff review committee noted the unique relationship between the university and the Seminole Tribe of Florida as a significant factor." Franklin went on to add that "The N.C.A.A. recognizes the many different points of view on this matter, particularly within the Native American community. ... The decision of a namesake sovereign tribe, regarding when and how its name and imagery can be used, must be respected even when others may not agree." There is a lot that is strange about this comment, but perhaps the strangest thing is the suggestion that only Native American tribes can decide who gets to use their name or represent them. Unless a tribe has trademarked itself, this is a nonsensical statement, one made all the more so by the fact that the NCAA has already designated itself as an organization empowered to adjudicate which college sports teams can and cannot use tribal imagery.

FSU won its appeal with the NCAA because it had the backing of both Florida and Oklahoma Seminoles. But the NCAA has warned that simply having tribal support is not enough to guarantee a successful appeal, since it is "the NCAA's responsibility to ensure an atmosphere of respect and sensitivity for all who attend and participate in our championships."

Posted by acta online on August 24, 2005 at 06:48 AM | Comments (4)

Churchill jury is out

The Denver Post reports that the University of Colorado's initial investigation of ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill has been completed. A committee spent the summer reviewing several charges of professional misconduct that have been made against Churchill; it presented its findings last Friday to a group of professors who are now charged with determining whether this preliminary investigation should be escalated into a full-scale investigation that could result in serious disciplinary sanctions for Churchill. Churchill will be issued a copy of the preliminary report, and will have an opportunity to respond to it before the panel makes its determination. The panel will annouce its decision by the end of the month; a fuller investigation of Churchill could take another five months.

UPDATE 8/23/05: Churchill's lawyer has informed the press that the panel dropped two of the charges against Churchill and referred seven more for additional investigation. Those charges that have been flagged for additional investigation center on whether Churchill's work involves plagiarism and other serious misrepresentations of fact. The committee dismissed charges that Churchill mischaracterized himself as a Native American.

Posted by acta online on August 22, 2005 at 04:50 PM | Comments (0)

Hamilton election results

The results are in, and the four dark horse alumni candidates for Hamilton College's Board of Trustees have all been defeated. The election was hotly contested, as the procedural rules governing candidates' campaigns appeared to favor the three candidates who were nominated by the college's alumni association and to disadvantage the independent alumni candidates whose platforms were highly critical of Hamilton's governance procedures. Hamilton College Alumni for Governance Reform says that it is encouraged by the fact that its candidates received 36% of the vote, despite "the explicit prohibition of contact data or reference to any hard copy reference or on-line resources in the 100 word statement of candidacy," "3 mass mailings in support of the incumbency," and "a phone campaign of unknown duration."

Posted by acta online on August 18, 2005 at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

Illinois trustee stands up to NCAA

Controversy continues to rage about the NCAA's recent decision to ban Native American nicknames, mascots, and images from its championship events. Florida State is determined to keep its "Seminoles" nickname and its Chief Osceola mascot--both of which have the blessing of Seminole tribes in Florida and Oklahoma. FSU is preparing an appeal, and has announced its readiness to sue the NCAA if the appeal does not succeed.

Now the chairman of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees has taken a firm stand. Responding to NCAA president Myles Brand's USA Today op-ed characterizing the use of Native American team emblems as "hostile and abusive" and describing the ruling as a "teachable moment," Lawrence Eppley writes that "the (NCAA) Executive Committee's uninformed use of inflammatory rhetoric does not create a 'teachable moment.' Instead, it retards meaningful discussion and debate on an important issue, especially in the communities of the 18 institutions branded by the NCAA as politically incorrect." Speaking not for the Board, which has yet to respond formally to the ruling, but for himself, Eppley went on to suggest that "there are better ways of 'initiating discussion on a national basis' than to decree that the traditions of 18 member institutions, many which are rooted in reverence and decorum, are 'hostile and abusive.'"

Eppley's aim, as he explained to the Chicago Tribune, is to highlight how the NCAA's language is too loaded to foster the sort of discussion it claims to invite: "My point was not pro-Chief or con-Chief. ... It was Chief-neutral. My point is: What's the point of the rhetoric?" Illinois, whose "Fighting Illini" mascot is Chief Illiniwek, is among those eighteen institutions named by the NCAA, which has yet to define precisely what it means by "hostile and abusive." And that is Eppley's point: The NCAA is using inflammatory language to cover over its own inadequate understanding of the mascots and nicknames it targets. In the case of Illinois, the NCAA has ignored both the origin of the name "Fighting Illini"--which is historically separate from the adoption of Chief Illiniwek as mascot, and which has nothing to do with Native Americans--and a 1994 Office of Civil Rights ruling determining that neither the mascot nor the name created a racially hostile environment at Illinois.

Those who have studied the damningly slippery language of campus speech codes will recognize in the NCAA's decision to enter the business of adjudicating which mascots and nicknames are and are not hostile and abusive the self-defeating hubris of the institition that has assumed the mantle of moral arbiter. Sensitivity cannot be imposed from above without creating a mockery of the very tolerance it is intended to create. The NCAA case is no exception. Realizing that the NCAA had entered the business of politically correct censorship and manipulation, the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has asked the NCAA to include animals in its sensitizing endeavors. In the process, PETA has unwittingly exposed the logical fallacy at the heart of the NCAA ruling--that "hostile" and "abusive" are whatever the organization wants them to be, and can be defined according to the prerogatives of whatever pressure group exerts the most force. Last week, PETA wrote to Myles Brand asking the NCAA to prevent the University of South Carolina and Jacksonville State from using the "Gamecocks" nickname because gamecocks "are named after the birds used in cockfighting, a hideous 'blood sport' that, like spousal abuse, bank robbery and driving while intoxicated, is illegal in both South Carolina and Alabama." (By contrast, PETA approves of teams such as the Oregon Ducks and the Baylor Bears, which "highlight the power and beauty in the natural world.")

Florida representative Tom Feeney--who wryly notes, as an Irishman, the absence of NCAA concern over the potentially traumatic effects of Notre Dame's "Fighting Irish" nickname--has mockingly observed that in this request, PETA is operating entirely within the logical parameters laid out by the NCAA: "For once, I believe that PETA, at least on the level of logic, is correct. If the NCAA has to protect offended Native Americans ... by God, PETA ought to advocate for the protection of every organism in the animal kingdom." Feeney is being facetious, but the NCAA would do well to consider carefully the deeper implications of his comment. Having annointed itself as an athletic arm of the academic thought police, the NCAA has just made an enormous--and potentially unending--amount of work for itself. More to the point, it's work that cannot be effectively, efficiently, or even logically well done.

Posted by acta online on August 17, 2005 at 07:59 AM | Comments (1)

Multiculturalism meets hostile environment

Virginia Tech presently faces a fascinating dilemma. Having contracted with King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia to deliver a six-week-long development seminar to 60 Saudi faculty members, Virginia Tech administrators decided to offer the seminar in sex-segregated sessions to honor Saudi pedagogical practice. A Tech spokesperson outlined the reasoning thus: "This is the way they teach their courses over there, and this is the way they wish their courses to be taught over here." In other words, a combination of multicultural sensitivity and a commitment to customer service underwrites the decision to segregate the workshop by sex. For the past month, the visiting Saudi students have been taking single-sex courses on distance learning, web design, and English.

But there are problems with this. John Rosenberg notes that the question of sex-segregated courses has already been decisively addressed in Virginia: "Not so long ago the Commonwealth of Virginia got in a bit of trouble for segregating its male and female military cadets into separate programs, one at the Virginia Military Institute (for males only) and one subsidized at the private Mary Baldwin College (for females). The Supreme Court finally integrated VMI." One wonders whether--and upon what terms-- Virginia Tech's segregated Saudi course would stand up to a similar challenge. One also wonders how, in the face of that ruling, Virginia Tech justified its decision to accept $246,000 in exchange for designing and implementing such a program. Perhaps Virginia Tech understands itself as a private contractor in this instance--despite the fact that it is a public university--and reasons that on that basis its decision to run the courses is legally unproblematic.

But there is another problem, too. On Tuesday, a Virginia Tech professor filed a complaint with the school's equal opportunity office claiming that the decision to offer sex-segregated classes to the visiting Saudis creates a hostile environment for women. So far, the university's response has been to equivocate. One the one hand, it acknowledges that single-sex classes are out of line with university policy. On the other, it says it has to honor its contract with the Saudis. Provost Mark McNamee issued an apology Tuesday, stating that the classes would continue to be held as planned, but that the university would be more aware the next time it negotiates a contract of this sort.

Virginia Tech's Office of Equal Opportunity is investigating the complaint.

Posted by acta online on August 11, 2005 at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)

Changing of the guard

As the fall term approaches, boards of trustees across the country are cleaning house.

In Colorado, the Adams State College board of trustees has announced plans to fire its president, Richard Wueste, for being difficult to work with and for mismanaging funds.

In Tennessee, the board of trustees of the historically black Knoxville College has fired its president, Barbara Hatton. Informing her that she had "alienated every constituency of the college," the board of the struggling, financially strapped school terminated a leader who had ceased to lead. "You have consistently and habitually ignored and failed to carry out directives of the Board," the trustees informed Hatton in her termination letter; Hatton had also apparently consistently failed to perform essential duties such as paying the college faculty--in May, twelve faculty members sued the school for back pay.

In Washington, American University trustees have hired non-university-affiliated auditors and lawyers to review the school's books. University spokepeople are tightlipped about the nature and extent of the investigation, but the Washington Post notes that questions have been raised in the past about president Benjamin Ladner's use of his expense account to hire a chef, a "household assistant," and an assistant for his wife, who volunteers as a university fundraiser.

In Massachusetts, Quincy College's governing board has fired president Sean Barry for misuse of foundation funds, for failing to teach his classes, and for concealing a "payroll scandal."

And in Kansas, Barton Community College trustees have fired president Veldon Law in the wake of a scandal involving three former men's basketball coaches. The ex-coaches are currently awaiting trial on charges of federal fraud.

The Barton College case exemplifies hard-nosed institutional accountability in action. Though Law was not involved in the coaching scandal, he knew his job was in jeopardy when the problems arose last year. "I did everything in my power to rectify the situation," Law said. "But there have been individuals on the board and in the community that felt the buck should have stopped with me." Trustee Robert Feldt confirmed this, stating that "the board has lost confidence in the president," and that "the board believes the president is accountable for the unlawful conduct of employees of the college."

Posted by acta online on August 09, 2005 at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)

Academic freedom for me, but not for thee?

Writing for Cliopatria, KC Johnson reports on the latest chapter in Brooklyn College's ongoing difficulties comprehending the concept of free inquiry. Johnson, whose tenure case was nearly derailed by the petty politicking of colleagues who defined his principled willingness to speak his mind as "uncollegial," is himself Exhibit A in BC's troubled and unpromising learning curve, but the other exhibits are striking, too. They include the history department, which voted last spring to appoint outspoken ideologue Timothy Shortell to the post of chairman, with no apparent regard for the manner in which such an appointment would compromise the school (Shortell eventually withdrew his candidacy). They also include the School of Education, which has been engaging in the risky and inappropriate business of assessing the competence of aspiring teachers by way of their political leanings (when Johnson exposed this practice at InsideHigherEd.com last spring, he received a letter from a group of ed school faculty and administrators admonishing him for publicly criticizing the school and--even more peculiarly--justifying that admonition in the name of academic freedom). Read his response here.

In his current coverage of Brooklyn College's serial administrative missteps, Johnson focusses on the Clarion, the monthly publication of CUNY's Professional Staff Congress. Dedicated to the theme of "Academic Freedom Under Attack at CUNY," the issue features the astonishingly insular comment from historian Ellen Schrecker that the "system" of academic freedom "only works if the men and women who enforce the norms of the academic profession are academics themselves." If the Clarion spread is any indication, the CUNY system as a whole is in need of pointed training about the value of intellectual and procedural transparency in academe, about the importance of genuine debate among thoughtful people who don't all think the same way, and about the travesty that is committed when public institutions of higher learning behave as though theirs is and ought to be a closed shop, immune to public criticism and even, on occasion, above the law.

Posted by acta online on August 08, 2005 at 04:26 AM | Comments (0)

What doesn't kill a university ...

... makes it stronger. Or that's what the University of Colorado at Boulder would have the public believe. Boulder's interim president, Hank Brown, announced Tuesday that the university is entering a new era of accountability. Rocked by recent scandals centered on athletic recruiting violations and ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill, UC is eager to prove that it is a responsible and respectable institution--or, at least, that it is doing what it needs to do to become one. State money will no longer be used to serve alcohol at official functions, Brown announced. Ten jobs will be cut from the office of the president, which will save the school upwards of one million dollars a year. The charges against Ward Churchill are being taken seriously, and he is the subject of a detailed review to determine whether he has indeed committed academic fraud. The football recruiting program has been overhauled to ensure that alcohol and sex are no longer used to attract prospective athletes. The university, which is presently undergoing a number of policy audits, will work more closely with state offices to build better relationships. Brown even surrendered his private campus parking space.

Brown is replacing former Boulder president Elizabeth Hoffman, who resigned last March in a storm of bad publicity. He aims to inspire confidence and a positive outlook on the institution's future: "This is a renewal," he said at Tuesday's staff convocation. "2005, for all of us, will be a renewal." So far, he has people convinced: Rod Muth, Faculty Council chairman at CU-Denver, told the Post that "People will be inspired by his resoluteness;" regent Cindy Carlisle praised Brown because he "recognizes the problems and has a desire for accountability and transparency."

Time will tell, and how the university handles the results of the Ward Churchill investigation, which should be drawing to a close any time, will be a real test. But things look good so far. Brown announced plans for a new "open university" policy yesterday; the policy would enable members of the public to gather information about the university without having to resort to the Colorado Open Records Act.

Posted by acta online on August 05, 2005 at 03:50 AM | Comments (0)

ACE's non-statement

At InsideHigherEd.com, ACTA president Anne D. Neal parses the Statement on Academic Rights and Responsibilities recently issued by a coalition of education associations, among them the American Association of University Professors, the American Council of Learned Societies, the College Board, the NCAA, and the American Council on Education. Ostensibly intended as a ringing endorsement of academic freedom, the statement purports to address accusations that the contemporary academy is hostile to intellectual diversity and the free exchange ideas by stating a series of philosophical positions: that American higher education institutions are themselves diverse, dedicated to a variety of missions and purposes; that colleges and universities "should welcome intellectual pluralism and the free exchange of ideas" and that they should conduct debate in an atmosphere of "openness, tolerance, and civility"; that neither students not faculty members ought ever to be "disadvantaged or evaluated on the basis of their political opinions"; that not all ideas are of "equal merit" and that academic ideas should be held to the standards of the disciplines from which they derive, and judged accordingly; and that government should respect the independence and autonomy of higher education institutions.

Neal finds the statement lacking. She argues that it amounts to a series of platitudes and that it attempts to address a serious problem by merely seeming to address it:

The declaration acknowledges that "intellectual pluralism" and "academic freedom" are principles widely shared within the academic community. Yet there is nary a nod to the hundreds of widely-publicized cases of political pressure in the classroom that prompted the controversy in the first place.

For years, the higher education establishment has denied that there is a problem and engaged in a series of unpersuasive rationalizations to avoid facing the obvious facts. Roger Bowen of the American Association of University Professors has called studies about faculty political imbalance "wrongheaded" and claimed political affiliations of professors are of little consequence in the classroom. John Millsaps at the University of Georgia agreed: "we have no evidence to suggest that students are being intimidated by professors as regards students' freedom to express their opinions and beliefs." And Lionel Lewis in a recent issue of Academe went so far as to argue that political one-sidedness doesn't matter because college has no impact anyway. Nowhere did they argue that students will get a better education if they are exposed to a variety of viewpoints and learn to think for themselves.

Numerous surveys, reports, and case studies documenting the politically monolithic character of the faculty have mounted. A recent student survey by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni shows that many students believe they will be penalized if they have a point of view that differs from their professors.

Faced with this mounting evidence--and a growing number of state legislators who have begun holding hearings and passing resolutions--the higher education establishment figured it would be best to have a quick conversion, endorse intellectual "pluralism," and then go back to business as usual. The strategy is obvious: give lip service, get it out of the papers, do nothing.

Those claiming victory are right in that the first step to recovery is to admit that you have a problem. However, the ACE statement does not admit that there is anything more than a PR problem: "these issues have become public controversies." It does not address whether there is a lack of intellectual diversity or whether there are any victims of political intolerance at all.

Neal goes on to note other failings in the ACE statement. It fails to define "intellectual pluralism" while suggesting that the First Amendment might mean "different things to different people." It is paralytically vague in its failure to mention the mechanisms by which campuses institutionalize a particular orthodoxy, such as speech codes, one-sided panel discussions, newspaper theft, and the shouting down of speakers. It fails to outline a credible means by which complaints of ideological bias or political discrimination may be addressed. And, finally, the statement does not finally even stand by its own statements, concluding rather lamely that the points it raises are not hard and fast principles, but, rather, hypotheses that "deserve to be stated affirmatively as a basis for discussion ... on campuses and elsewhere."

Neal concludes with a damning question: "If they did not admit a problem, and did not define the goal of intellectual pluralism, and did not propose or even hint at specific ways to achieve intellectual pluralism, and really only proposed some discussion topics, what did they say?" The answer is a resounding nothing. Those who are concerned about the present political tilt on America's campuses should not be assuaged by the false reassurance of the ACE statement. It is in every way a document devoted to guaranteeing the continuation of business as usual.

Posted by acta online on August 03, 2005 at 06:59 AM | Comments (0)

The personal is the political--and then some

Nathaniel Nelson, a political science major at the University of Rhode Island, describes his disturbing experience in a course called "Political Philosophy: Plato to Machiavelli." Required for the major, the course is billed as covering "major political philosophies from Plato to Machiavelli and their influence on such key concepts as justice, equality, and political obligation," but what Nelson found was that the course was more an education in professorial foibles than in political philosophy. According to Nelson, the very first words the professor addressed to the class were, "My name is Michael Vocino and I like dick." Weston goes on to detail how frequently--and how disruptively, Vocino injected his sexuality and his politics into the classroom, painting a scenario in which, over the course of the semester, Vocino's unsolicted off-topic commentary frequently veered into the zone of harassment.

On the first day of class, for example, Vocino reportedly asked Nelson point-blank if he is "queer." On other occasions, he used class time to compliment Nelson's legs, told Nelson he thought he was "hot" and asked him if that made him uncomfortable. According to Nelson, Vocino encouraged him and other male class members to "make out" with one another and then report on what it was like; he also made a point of inquiring which of his students were sexually active, and of challenging those who were not to become so. Nelson argues that Vocino's provocative behavior was intended to shock his conservative students and even to urge them to abandon their beliefs for more radical and, by his lights, more acceptable ones.

One day, for example, Vocino asked Nelson and another conservative student to stand in front of the class and explain why they are Republicans; at other times, Nelson was commanded to explain what "your Bible" has to say about hot-button issues like abortion, homosexuality, and war. Positioned as a politically and socially conservative spokesperson by a professor who treated conservative beliefs as beneath contempt--Vocino once asked Nelson to explain to the class why Christians "hate fags"--Nelson writes that over time he "began to feel hated within the classroom." Nelson's list of Vocino's infractions goes on, culminating in an account of how, in response to a general invitation to any interested class members to attend a Thanksgiving service with him, Vocino agreed to go on condition that Nelson return the favor by visiting a gay bar with him. Eventually, Nelson complained to the chair of the political science department, who responded appropriately to his concerns. Vocino was reprimanded and suspended from teaching, and Nelson was given the option of filing a formal complaint against Vocino for discriminating against him. Weston did not file the complaint, believing that the matter had gone far enough; he was advised to report Vocino if he attempted to make contact with him.

Since then, things have gone the way they tend to do in the harshly politicized climate of contemporary academe. Vocino has not been in touch with Weston, but he has attacked him in print, responding to a column Weston wrote for the student paper (mostly about Terry Schiavo's "right to life," but making some pointed statements about how America's "support" for homosexuality--which he glosses as "the leading cause of AIDS"-- is destroying the "sacred institution" of marriage). Vocino responded by describing him as the "face of hate," claiming that views such as those expressed by Weston "cause murder, beatings, humiliation and more for LGBT community members."

This time Nelson did file a complaint against Vocino, but got nowhere, and rightly so--there is a difference between the kind of harassing behavior Vocino engaged in as Nelson's teacher and the virulent but fully protected expression he engages in well beyond the classroom as a critic of Nelson's ideas. The difference appears to be lost on Nelson, however, who ends his column on a note of disappointment that nothing could be done to punish Vocino for criticizing his views, especially since the "backlash" he experienced after writing his column was severe.

Nelson seems unclear about the difference between harassment, which, if his report of Vocino's classroom behavior toward him is accurate, he absolutely experienced, and vociferous criticism that is protected by the First Amendment. Nelson has the right not to be treated as a sexual object or an ideological pariah by his professors, but he does not have the right not to be criticized by those he offends--just as they do not have the right not to be criticized, and thus offended, by him.

Both Nelson's experience and his recounting of it are symptomatic of some of the most basic confusions animating campus life today. In his uncertainty about what kinds of speech are and are not protected, Nelson exemplifies a campus culture where words and deeds are not carefully distinguished from one another (so that words are often understood as "weapons" that "wound"), and where words that genuinely harm (by harassing pointedly, repeatedly, consistently over time; by making tolerance of that harassment a condition of keeping a job, or avoiding a bad grade) are frequently equated with words that merely offend. According to FIRE's Spotlight, a tool for tracking speech codes and individual rights violations on campuses across the nation, the University of Rhode Island has speech codes on the books that confuse precisely these matters, and in that sense, Nelson's own confusion makes perfect sense.

Posted by acta online on August 01, 2005 at 05:15 AM | Comments (1)