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ACTA urges NKU to drop speech code

After Northern Kentucky University professor Sally Jacobsen led her students in the unconscionable and illegal destruction of a student group's anti-abortion display, NKU won national praise for suspending Jacobsen and coming down hard on the side of free speech. But, as this blog noted, NKU's ringing endorsement of free expression did not match the university's actual policies. Now ACTA has brought this contradiction to the attention of NKU officials, urging the NKU Board of Regents to bring university policy into line with the principles of free inquiry and open debate.

According to a press release issued yesterday by ACTA, NKU's Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities actually encourages exactly the sort of behavior the university has recently repudiated:

...existing university policies still inhibit the free exchange of ideas on campus. NKU''s Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities currently prohibits "harassing, annoying, or alarming another person" and "making an offensive coarse utterance, gesture or display, addressing abusive language to any person" as "misconduct" that is "subject to disciplinary action."

Such a policy, said ACTA, encourages the sort of behavior Jacobsen and her students displayed. "It not only sends the message that NKU students and faculty have a right not to be offended, but also raises the erroneous expectation that offensive expression should be punished and removed," ACTA said.

This is a great opportunity for NKU to prove its commitment to free speech and to set an example for other colleges and universities with similarly restrictive policies.

Posted by acta online on April 27, 2006 at 07:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Activism for credit at Berkeley

NoIndoctrination.org announces a course offered this spring at UC - Berkeley:

This spring UC Berkeley is offering "Ethnic Studies 198: The Prop. 209 Project." (In 1996 California voters passed Prop 209, which prevents the state, including UC, from giving preferential treatment based on race, sex, or ethnicity.) The course description states students will analyze data "to craft a political strategy for a successful 'pro-diversity' initiative in the State." The course findings are then to be presented to the chancellor, an outspoken critic of Prop 209. An application form for those wanting to take the course included the following: "Please describe any technical skills that would be useful in a political campaign."

UC Regents' Policy on Course Content states that the university must "remain aloof from politics ...."

The course is a "DeCal" course, meaning that it's part of a program designed to allow undergrads to design and run their own courses. It is being sponsored by Harrison Dekker, a data services librarian at Berkeley. In the past, DeCal course have centered on such subjects as Janet Jackson's choreography, Dr. Suess, civil liberties, male sexuality, and The Simpsons. Look at the current offerings here to see the range of courses and to read course descriptions.

Berkeley's DeCal program--which is short for "Democratic Education at Cal" and which claims to be the largest program of its kind in the nation--puts an intriguing spin on familiar debates about what it means to bring politics into the classroom. It's one thing when professors impose one-sided political views from within the framework of an academic course. It's quite another when students voluntarily coordinate a politicized course of their own design and invite all interested comers to join them. It's still a big question whether students should get credit for their political activities--just as it's a big question whether they should be getting credit for studying South Park or the "History and Culture of the Hookah". None seems particularly academic; all seem to be confused about the difference between the things one does on one's own time (watch TV, smoke, lobby) and the things one does, or ought to do, in an academic setting.

NoIndoctrination.org has picked up the course description of Ethnic Studies 198 as an example of Berkeley's politicized classroom -- but in the absence of a professor actively doing the politicizing, the issue shifts dramatically from ideological grounds (after all, students are just as welcome to offer a DeCal course on conservative lobbying) to more purely academic ones. Should Berkeley be allowing students to design their own courses for credit? If so, should such courses be required to meet a reasonable standard of academic seriousness if they are to proceed? Sitting at the complicated crossroads of academic freedom and free association, DeCal raises serious questions about how, in accommodating a trendy push for student-motivated learning, a university can allow students to dumb down their own curriculum.

Thanks to Mike McKeown for the tip.

UPDATE: NoIndoctrination.org has updated its site to clarify that Ethnic Studies 198 is not a DeCal class after all. Courses numbered 98 and 198 are typically DeCal courses at Berkeley, and as recently as spring 2005, Ethnic Studies 198 was offered as a DeCal course on multiracial issues. NoIndoctrination.org notes that this term, Ethnic Studies 198 "is part of the Chancellor's Diversity Research Seminars for Undergraduates and was promoted by the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education." So, despite the misleading course numbering, Ethnic Studies 198 does appear to be a professor-led course in which students get credit for politicking, and in which taxpayers fund them while they do it. The course also has an application form that asks students to explain why they want to take the course, whether they have ever won an award from an undergraduate research program, and what knowledge or experience they have of California politics. That last question sounds just a bit like a litmus test, not to mention a job application.

Posted by acta online on April 25, 2006 at 08:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Confused at Penn

At the University of Pennsylvania, members of the would-be graduate student union are sending a remarkably self-defeating message to prospective students. As high school seniors who have been accepted to Penn visit campus and tour the area with their folks, members of GET-UP (Graduate Employees Together -- University of Pennsylvania) are handing them leaflets based on a study they conducted earlier this year on who is actually doing the teaching at Penn. The study argues that only 40% of Penn classes are being taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty, and that the other 60% are taught by graduate students and a range of contingent lecturers, adjuncts, and other temporary workers (these results, it should be noted, are disputed). The ostensible purpose of the leaflet, according to one GET-UP member, is "to make them aware of how the administration treats its workers and where the resources are going. ... This is the kind of information [students] don't get from the administration ... but this is exactly the kind of information they come here for."

GET-UP has struggled for years to be recognized by the Penn administration, and the organization is by this time essentially moribund. Never popular with the majority of Penn grad students, the would-be union effort lost its momentum after the National Labor Relations Board--which once recognized the rights of graduate students at private universities to unionize--reversed its position in 2004. GET-UP's latest publicity stunt speaks to the confusion about mission and the questionable strategy that now plague the group.

Graduate student unions make their case by arguing that because grad students are doing a significant percentage of the teaching on a campus, their contributions to the overall work of the university should be recognized and treated with the respect it deserves. When arguing for larger stipends, better benefits, improved working conditions, and so on, graduate student unions use the fact that grad students do so much of the day-to-day work of undergraduate education to make a case for their value to the prestige and quality of the institution. In other words, graduate student unions must frame their criticism of university administrations within a broader compliment: the argument that graduate student labor is worthy of more respect and more remuneration is predicated not only on the supposition that graduate students do excellent work, but also that in so doing they are helping to create and maintain educational excellence at their school.

GET-UP seems to have missed that elemental point. Instead of arguing for the value of graduate student teaching to a valuable institution, GET-UP is effectively arguing that Penn is cheating undergrads by depriving them of the chance to be taught by tenured and tenure-track faculty. That argument is premised on some of the very assumptions that graduate student unions work hard to overturn: that graduate students teachers are "lesser" teachers, that their work is not "real," and that universities are cheating undergraduates when they charge huge tuitions for an educational experience that will revolve most of the time around inexperienced and implicitly inept journeymen teachers who are only a few years beyond college themselves. It's true that a large number of undergraduate classes at Penn are taught by graduate students--just as it's true at most, if not all, major universities. And it's true that this is a real problem for undergraduate education. But unless graduate students at Penn are united in the struggle to convince the administration that they should not be teaching, this is not an issue that helps GET-UP's cause.

According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, "GET-UP contends that by employing teachers who receive lower salaries than professors, Penn is cheapening its education." But it's not rational to argue that graduate student teachers, who are learning to teach as they go, who teach fewer classes than full-time faculty, and who are receiving tuition remission in exchange for teaching, should have paychecks that rival those of the faculty. What is rational is to recognize that GET-UP's irrational expectation has led it to commit the tactical equivalent of scoring a goal for the wrong team.

On its face, GET-UP's leaflet campaign is ultimately an argument against graduate student teaching, not an argument for the rights of graduate student teachers to be recognized as employees. GET-UP seems to think it is trying to use the occasion of pre-frosh campus visits to shame the university into treating grad students better, but it looks more as though GET-UP has lost track of its own agenda in the wake of its members' transparent desire to try to damage the university in the eyes of prospective students and their paying parents.

Posted by acta online on April 21, 2006 at 07:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

More on NKU

Northern Kentucky University not only has a speech code, as noted yesterday, but also curtails free speech on campus in a number of other unreasonable and unconstitutional ways. The university confines student rallies, demonstrations, and so on to a "free speech zone"--something that the courts have long agreed public universities cannot legally do. The university also compels students who wish to post flyers, protest, etc. to acquire prior approval from university administrators, a move that profoundly chills free expression by banning spontaneity and by subjecting protected student speech to the prior restraint scenario of administrative review.

NKU's student paper has been having a field day with the Jacobsen case, and this morning is running a remarkable story documenting not only Sally Jacobsen's bungling attempts to advise her students about how to evade legal repercussions, but also the confused displeasure of English professor Christopher Wilkey, who is affiliated with NKU's Institute for Freedom Studies but does not appear to understand even the most basic facts of individual rights on a public university campus:

Dr. Christopher Wilkey, an assistant professor with the literature and language department, also works as an associate for the Institute of Freedom Studies on campus. Wilkey, according to the IFS Web site, "is committed to linking much of his professional work to the work of social injustice." He is also the faculty adviser to Students Together Against Racism (STAR).

"I think that (this) speaks to the status of freedom of speech on this campus," Wilkey said. "The university needs to revisit our policies." Wilkey said the free-speech zone, which is located in front and to the left of the University Center, is half under construction, therefore unavailable to students. "There's no zone," he said. "Where can they go?"

Wilkey said there is all kinds of paperwork to be done and administrators to talk to when it comes to putting up a display on campus. He also said it's not something that can be done quickly. "Where is it that students can spontaneously address issues without going through the bureaucracy?" he asked. "And I don't mean passing out leaflets, but doing the displays. It can't be done quickly without spending hours with the administrators."

Wilkey is right about the free speech zone being restrictive -- but he shows his ignorance when he concludes that the problem is construction. He ought to know that students on a public university campus don't need a zone to express themselves, and that attempts by a university administration to confine student expression to a designated zone violate students' expressive rights.

Northern Kentucky may be hitting the right notes with its official rhetorical endorsements of free speech, but the school has several policies that both undermine those endorsements and compromise the integrity of NKU's claim to respect the First Amendment. It's nice that President Votruba has issued a statement expressing the educational importance of robust debate and competing views. But it would be nicer if he backed that up with a serious review of NKU's chilling and repressive policies on speech.

Posted by acta online on April 19, 2006 at 10:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Northern Kentucky in tight spot

Last week, Northern Kentucky University English professor Sally Jacobsen revealed her absolute ignorance of the First Amendment when she "invited" a group of graduate students to join her in tearing down an anti-abortion display of crosses on a campus lawn. Jacobsen, whose eager participation in the destruction of the cross display is pictured in this slideshow, has shown herself to be utterly befuddled by the difference between free expression and censorship, not to mention by the difference between being offended and being assaulted. "I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to," Jacobsen told reporters, adding that "Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged."

NKU has done the right thing, insofar as it's possible to do so: President James Votruba has repudiated Jacobsen's actions as violations of the expressive rights of those who erected the "Cemetery of Innocents," he has removed Jacobsen from the classroom and placed her on leave for the rest of the term (which ends next week, and which coincides with her retirement), and he has declared his willingness to cooperate with the police in pursuing charges against Jacobsen.

But while it's well and good--not to mention politic--for NKU to distance itself from Jacobsen's actions and to use the occasion of her misbehavior to trumpet the institution's support for free expression and robust debate, it's also troubling to reflect that any institution could have any professor on its payroll who possesses such thoroughly warped notions of individual rights. Jacobsen is nearing the end of her career; her ignorance is not due to naivete, but to years of consolidation. She has worked in an academic climate that does not value rights particularly, and that regularly attempts to scramble precisely the issues that confused her: campus speech codes, after all, are attempts to legitimate institutional efforts to curb offensive expression; as such, they are also a principal means by which hundreds of colleges and universities across the country send the message that if you are offended on a question of race or gender, you have been assaulted--wounded--by those offensive words, and you therefore have a right to insist that your institution prevent you from coming into contact from such offenses. It's not a big leap from those basic premises to the assumption that one's own expressive rights include the right to destroy the offensive expressions of others.

This is not to apologize for Jacobsen, but merely to note that her astonishing ignorance should be understood in the wider context of an academic culture that has quite purposefully pursued analogous lines of thought. It is also to note that, just as the current debacle at Duke must be read as symptomatic of a larger problem with college athletics, the debacle at NKU might best be read as indicative of broader, deeply disturbing trends in higher education.

In 2003, FIRE surveyed American college students and administrators to see how well they understood the First Amendment. The results were shocking--so much so that they render recent events at NKU not shocking at all. FIRE reported that

Only six percent of administrators and two percent of students correctly named freedom of religion as the freedom that the First Amendment addresses before all others. Worse yet, only 36 percent of administrators at private institutions and 50 percent at public institutions reported that their administrations took the view that religious individuals should spread their beliefs "by whatever legal means they choose." Students were similarly intolerant of those who would communicate their religious views: only 32 percent of all students surveyed believe that religious people should use any legal means to spread their beliefs.

Students and administrators were also asked whether, under current U.S. law, a religious student group that believes gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender behavior is against Scripture is allowed to exclude those who practice such behavior. As a consequence of the U.S. Supreme Court case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), a public university may not use anti-discrimination policies to dictate the leadership or membership of religious groups, but more than 80 percent of administrators were ignorant of the law. Students were more informed on this issue, with 40 percent drawing the correct legal conclusion.

Other survey results of pressing interest include:

--24 percent of administrators believe they have the legal right to prohibit a student religious group from actively trying to convert students to its religion.

--49 percent of administrators at private universities and 34 percent of administrators at public universities report that students at their institutions must undergo mandatory non-curricular programs, "the goal of which is to lead them to value all sexual preferences and to recognize the relativity of these values compared to the values of their upbringing."

In other words, the vast majority of college officials don't really have any grasp at all of what their obligations are to the expressive rights of students. It's no wonder Jacobsen thought she had that right, too.

Worth noting: NKU may have sung the praises of free expression as a means of distancing itself from Jacobsen's actions. But NKU also has a speech code on the books, one that, ironically, speaks quite directly to the assumptions Jacobsen made about her right not to be offended. FIRE gives NKU an ominous "red light rating" for its policies on expression, noting that the school defines punishable harassment as, among other things, "making an offensive coarse utterance, gesture or display, addressing abusive language to any person." That's just about anything the beholder wants it to be--and in the case of Sally Jacobsen, it was the anti-abortion crosses dotting a campus lawn. As Jacobsen herself put it, that display was a "slap in the face" to women.

If NKU is serious about preventing behavior such as Jacobsen's in the future--if the school really wants to make good on its (legally required) promise to honor free expression--it could begin by repealing its speech code. NKU might also consider providing some much needed civic education to all faculty, administrators, students, and staff. People who know their rights and responsibilities are a lot less likely to act as Jacobsen did.

Posted by acta online on April 18, 2006 at 08:10 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Case studies in campus activism

Immigration has become the issue du jour on campuses across the country, and it's no surprise that the normative institutional stance on the issue is left-leaning--pro "immigrants' rights" (a phrase that assumes the putative "right" of illegal immigrants not to be deported or otherwise punished for being in the country illegally) and, of course, pro protest.

At the University of Pennsylvania, local rallies have been embraced in the manner one might expect of activist faculty who see their classrooms as ideological soapboxes. As Philadelphia geared up for a rally organized by the Day Without an Immigrant Coalition, at least one Penn professor pressed his students into the movement's service. "One of the marchers, Penn Asian-American Studies professor Ajay Nair, said he recommended that students in two of his classes attend the rally," the Daily Pennsylvanian reported. Nair told the DP that he's been doing his best to recruit his students to his cause: "We've also invited community folks to come and talk about immigration," Nair said. "I've been getting my classes mobilized." As one might expect, the spectacle of a professor working to "get his classes mobilized" was presented by the DP as completely acceptable practice--despite the fact that Nair's behavior is quite ethically questionable, not to mention pedagogically irresponsible. Using the classroom to promote political views is just what professors do; Nair can thus be forthright about it, and the paper can report it matter-of-factly, without surprise or comment.

At Penn State, things are playing out a little differently. Penn State is currently faced with the embarrassing problem of a College Republicans club that wishes to protest proposed legislation that, in the CRs' opinion, would essentially reward immigrants for having entered the country illegally. The College Republicans are consequently planning an "Illegal Immigration Awareness Day" that aims, like the affirmative action bake sale protests that are its agit prop ancestor, to educate by offending. The centerpiece of the event will be the "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game," which purports to "raise awareness" by enlisting participants in a contest to see who can obtain the most information about illegal immigration.

Penn State administrators are, predictably, offended in advance by the CR's plans, but they've been in enough trouble enough times with FIRE to know they have to honor the First Amendment rights of conservative students. Unable simply to censor or otherwise punish the College Republicans, PSU administrators are urging the CRs to consider whether they really want to engage in expression that will be offensive to many on campus. Their exhortations are couched in studiously careful terms that both state the university's awareness that the CRs have the right to go forward with their event and communicate a strong wish that they wouldn't.

Here's Terrell Jones, vice provost for educational equity: "As we've learned more about what was proposed, it's evident why many people would find this program offensive. ... The College Republicans certainly have a Constitutional right to conduct such an event, offensive as it may appear to some in the community. In protecting everyone's right to free expression, the University cannot censor the content of student-organized events." Jones sounds a bit wistful here -- as if he wishes PSU did have the right to censor certain student events.

Here's Vicky Triponey, vice president for student affairs: "Penn State is committed to ensuring respect for the dignity of all individuals within the university family. ... The University continues to strive for a welcoming campus community. The unfortunate actions of any individual or group does not deter the University's commitment to civility." Triponey makes it quite clear here that while the CRs have the right to proceed, they are violating the "University's commitment to civility" by expressing views that might offend others. There is a strong sense, from her statement, that while the CRs' "unfortunate actions" are showing a lack of respect for "the dignity of all individuals within the university family," the CRs do not themselves deserve to be accorded the same basic respect. To be a full member of the university "family" (a loaded term that totally mischaracterizes the proper temper and tone of campus culture), one must accept the implicit politics--and accompanying etiquette--endorsed by that family.

And here's PSU president Graham Spanier himself: "The nation's immigration policy is a legitimate topic for discussion and debate, and a university is clearly an ideal forum for such discourse. We encourage discussion on such issues. ... However, the approach initially proposed by the College Republicans, while protected by the First Amendment, was unproductive and offensive to many." It may be true that offending people is not the most productive means of promoting one's ends -- but it is also worth noting not only that the CRs have already managed to spark debate, but also that Spanier, in tacitly declaring that which offends to be "unproductive," may not be as open to debate as he says he is. If he were, he would be announcing that the CRs' protest is an opportunity to exchange views on all sides of the question, rather than deploring the CRs for choosing to broach the subject in a manner that might bother people.

Penn State admins know they can't censor the College Republicans. But they don't grasp how sad their cringing disapproval of the CRs really is. As administrators, they should be signalling the importance of debating the issues openly and robustly, no matter who raises them and how they are raised. They should not be falling back on a snobbish evocation of manners and civility to mark a student group out as mean, and therefore as somehow deviant or illegitimate.

Conversely, Penn admins might want to take notice of Professor Nair's blithe declaration of his intent to "mobilize" his classes in the service of his politics. At the very least, Nair and others who share his assumptions about the value of turning students into "change agents" ought to be reminded that this is an abuse of authority, one that almost certainly sends the message to students that their grades and good standing may depend, in some unspecified way, on whether or not they curry favor with their professors by parroting their politics.

Posted by acta online on April 13, 2006 at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

It's official: FAIR didn't play fair

FAIR's First Amendment challenge to the Solomon Amendment never made much sense. In fact, it was so nonsensical that the Roberts court mocked it when it ruled last month that the expressive rights of law schools are not violated by the government's requirement that schools receiving federal funds must allow military recruiters on campus. "The Solomon Amendment neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything," Roberts wrote. "Law schools remain free under the statute to express whatever views they may have on the military's congressionally mandated employment policy, all the while retaining eligibility for federal funds." Roberts went on to express incredulity that there could actually be any confusion about the Solomon Amendment's constitutional legitimacy. Noting that prior Supreme Court rulings have determined that high school students are capableof differentiating between speech a school is endorsing and speech a school is required to permit, Roberts witheringly remarked that "Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school."

So nonsensical was FAIR's constitutional argument, and so thoroughly dismissive was the Court's ruling, that George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf III was moved to pen a column for the Chronicle of Higher Education expressing his deep concern for not only the insularity of an academe that could seriously support FAIR's position, but also for the lack of understanding of the law evinced by the argument itself. In "When Law Professors Don't Know the Law," Banzhaf observed that the constitutional law professors who built FAIR's case "should receive failing grades in their own field," but "should probably also receive low grades in litigation. They pursued a case that has backfired -- and, in fact, now provides a constitutional green light for the government to intrude even more upon the activities of higher-education institutions."

Writing as someone who does not support the Solomon Amendment, Banzhaf did not mince words:

How could so many nationally known law professors at top law schools like those at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia Universities--and my own law school--have been so wrong in how they chose to challenge the Solomon amendment and in asserting that the statute violated the First Amendment under no less than four different constitutional theories? Every single justice who participated--liberal, conservative, and middle-of-the-road--ruled without exception that every legal theory the law professors advanced was without merit.

If all those top constitutional scholars honestly believed the arguments that they publicly presented-- that the Solomon amendment was an unconstitutional infringement on free speech and that the Supreme Court would strike it down--they were so clearly mistaken that it casts some doubt on their competence. To incorrectly predict one Supreme Court decision is not unusual, but when all of their different constitutional arguments fail to sway even one justice (and even to the point of writing a concurrence), red flags should go up.

On the other hand, if the law professors knew that their constitutional arguments had virtually no chance of being accepted by the high court, there is a certain hypocrisy in making those claims over and over again in public, including perhaps in their classes, and even a reckless disregard of the consequences of bringing a constitutional challenge that could easily backfire--which it did.

Banzhaf was right to smell a rat. His recognition that FAIR's argument was so bad that it could very likely have been made in bad faith has now received corroboration by none other than FAIR's leader, Boston College law professor Kent Greenfield. Greenfield was honored Saturday at the first annual Gay and Lesbian Legal Advocacy conference; accepting his award for his work challenging the Solomon Amendment, Greenfield acknowledged that the suit "wasn't really about free speech" as FAIR had claimed, but about "equality." The free speech argument was devised as part of FAIR's attempt to come up with a "creative" way of challenging Solomon.

This is a fascinating --and highly impolitic -- admission. Lowering his guard in the supportive setting of the awards ceremony, Greenfield did not stop to think that there might be reporters in the room and that his words might be reported to a public less willing to wink and nod at FAIR's legal hijinks. Greenfield is now on record as admitting that FAIR's case was never really serious about its own claims. He has acknowledged that FAIR invoked the First Amendment not as part of a sincere effort to ensure expressive rights on campus, but as part of a manipulative strategy for smuggling an activist agenda into the Supreme Court.

It's now official: FAIR and its numerous amicus supporters --among them the AAUP and a consortium of elite law schools -- essentially used the First Amendment as an ideological Trojan horse. Trying to hide a partisan agenda in what they hoped would pass for a content-neutral case, FAIR and its backers have engaged in the worst sort of litigious cynicism. Close observers of academic politics instinctively knew this all along. But now they have a confession -- right from the Trojan horse's mouth.

Posted by acta online on April 11, 2006 at 10:39 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

ACTA's place in the accountability debate

Coverage of last week's Indianapolis meeting of Margaret Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education has centered on college preparation, accreditation, assessment, and general issues of accountability. Featuring largely in news reports is the presentation of Peter McPherson, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. McPherson's presentation focussed on how colleges and universities might adopt a "voluntary system of accountability;" coming in the midst of heated debate about whether we ought to have a federally mandated system of accountability for higher education, McPherson's proposal was at once warmly received ("The draft you circulated changed the discusssion in all sorts of ways," University of Pennsylvania education professor Robert Zemsky told McPherson), and greeted with a certain amount of skepticism as a possible "filibuster": Zemsky advised McPherson to move swiftly from words to action in order to clarify that "this isn't an issue of whether or not but how and when. ... That would help us, that we could have some faith that this train was leaving the station."

Zemsky's skepticism is well placed--after all, the Commission would not have been called if colleges and universities had managed to make themselves voluntarily accountable. ACTA president Anne Neal joined Kevin Carey of Education Sector in noting that "these are rational, self-interested institutions, and we cannot expect them to release information that puts them in a less than flattering light."

Neal's presentation--inexplicably downplayed and even ignored by the press--spoke directly to this issue. Invited to speak on the topic of accountability, Neal offered an eight point program for ensuring that higher education institutions are focussing on what counts: improving the quality of education, eliminating grade inflation, reducing costs, and functioning in a manner that is truly accountable to the broader public. Neal argued that all colleges and universities should review and reform the general education curriculum, end grade inflation, and develop institutional expectations and assessments for student learning. Arguing also for an end to mandatory federal accreditation, Neal urged governors to concentrate on appointing informed college and university trustees, and she also emphasized the importance of training trustees to do their jobs ethically and well. Part of that, she noted, would involve board transparency, and the hiring of presidents who would be agents of positive institutional change.

ACTA's recent report, Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action, outlines in great detail how institutions can restore a robust intellectual culture to their campuses; similarly, ACTA's affiliate, the Institute for Effective Governance, offers trustee training and a range of related services. If McPherson's proposal is going to fly, it needs to recognize and endorse the valuable work ACTA has already done on the issue of how institutions can make themselves more accountable and more responsible. Otherwise, the decentralized approach he endorses will just involve lots of administrative fumbling, and plenty of unsuccessful efforts to reinvent a wheel ACTA has already perfected.

Posted by acta online on April 10, 2006 at 08:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

ACTA president speaks on academic freedom

ACTA president Anne Neal delivered a talk last week at a day-long symposium on academic freedom held at Montana State University. Neal's talk focussed on the importance of outside input to academic governance, debunking the misconception that such input violates academic freedom and offering a strong rationale for why academic leaders should make themselves more accountable to the broader public.

"When universities fail to abide by professional standards, when faculty members put personal, social, and political agendas ahead of a fundamental commitment to the objective search for truth, then outside input is salutary," Neal noted. "Outside input in such instances offers not interference but a means of protecting and defending the freedom to seek the truth." Neal compared the current culture of the American campus to the ideal outlined by the American Association of University Professors in 1915, noting that colleges and universities would do well to begin voluntarily working to ensure that intellectual diversity is alive and well on their campuses. Her talk included a series of guidelines for academic leaders interested in undertaking that process.

Neal's talk was a temperate analysis of a documented problem in higher education; citing studies showing that political bias has made its way into the classroom in ways that damage undergraduate education, Neal wasted no time on rhetoric and instead concentrated on pragmatics, essentially providing administrators and legislators with a blueprint for how to restore the robust exchange of ideas to campuses where the ideal of unfettered debate has been lost in the shuffle of political correctness.

But you wouldn't know this from the coverage in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. The Chronicle's article on the symposium amounted to a one-sided and uninformed whitewash written by a journalist who appears to have forgotten that fair-minded neutrality is crucial to good reporting. Casting Neal as a lone--and implicitly mistaken--voice in the wilderness, the article briefly summarizes her argument but then devotes the bulk of its space to recording the comments of those who disagree with her. The effect was not to present a balanced view of either the issues raised at the symposium or the debate at the symposium itself, but, rather, to paint Neal as part of a political campaign to damage higher education--or, in the words of the article, as part of a "well-funded, highly coordinated effort by conservative groups" to blow a small problem out of proportion.

It's important for events such as the academic freedom symposium to be covered by the media. The state of intellectual diversity and academic freedom on campus is an issue that affects us all--whether or not we are academics or students ourselves. But it is equally important for journalists to inform themselves about the issues they are covering and to use their knowledge to maintain a steady objectivity when reporting on divisive and controversial issues. In this case, the reporter seems to have been taken in by the dismissive comments of Neal's opponents--so much so that their ungrounded assertions that there is no problem are given more weight in the article than Neal's documented statement of the case.

Posted by acta online on April 05, 2006 at 08:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

More issues at Iowa

The University of Iowa is grappling with an athletics-department scandal, a search for a new president, and an ill-conceived model for conducting that search. It is also, as the Daily Iowan unwittingly reports today, asking for some unwanted attention from the Office of Civil Rights. It's understood now that public colleges and universities cannot discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity -- and it is understood, too, that this means scholarships and similar programs that are exclusively earmarked for minorities are unconstitutional. In recent years, a number of schools, among them Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, and Yale, have either eliminated or reworked such programs to bring them into line with the law; failure to do so puts an institution at great risk.

In an article that both notes and discounts the legal problems faced by public schools that maintain minority-based programs, the Daily Iowan describes how UI is keeping its "'ethnic' financial aid" program in the form of the "Opportunity at Iowa" scholarship. Awarded annually to between 50 and 100 students, the scholarship grants $5000 a year to highly qualified minority students. The article notes that program director Marcella David has no plans to remove the requirement that recipients be of non-white descent; it also notes that Iowa has several other minority-based student-aid packages.

Apart from the article's blithe documentation of Iowa's blatant disregard for the law, what is most interesting about it is its inclusion of interviews with two minority students whose thinking about such programs underscores the manner in which even those who are eligible for them are disserved by them.

The first student mentioned in the article is Amber Lively, a fair-skinned blonde of Choctaw descent who refused a minority-based full ride to Princeton because she does not believe in accepting scholarship money for anything other than academic merit, and who now divides her unfunded time between UI and a local community college. "I knew I didn't have the grades for [Princeton], and my family's income was high enough that I knew need wasn't it," she told the Daily. "I didn't feel comfortable receiving it based on something I don't really identify with, unless it was merit-based."

The second student mentioned in the article is Lindsey Loban, a UI sophomore who receives an Opportunity at Iowa scholarship despite the fact that she does not really identify with her hispanic heritage or even with her minority status. "The Oelwein native doesn't consider herself a minority at the university," the article observes; Loban justifies accepting the scholarship because it is at least partially merit-based: "If I knew I were receiving a scholarship based solely on my background, I would consider turning it down."

Neither student likes the idea of minority-based scholarships; neither identifies particularly with the ethnicity that makes her eligible for such scholarships. One turns the money down, keeping her integrity while signing on for a tougher, less certain path through college. The other takes the money, compromising her integrity while rationalizing her decision in ways she should never be asked by a degree-granting institution to do. Both are casualties, in different ways, of a system that sees them as prestigious notches on its diversity belt. "The university's strategic plan recognizes that diversity is vital to educational excellence," David told the Daily. "And it is appropriate that we use our resources, including scholarships, to better achieve this."

The question David leaves hanging in the air is a pressing one: In using resources, including scholarships, to achieve the university's strategic plan for diversity, what happens to the humanity of those who are themselves reduced to resources to be used in the pursuit of that all-important strategic plan? Lively knows what she thinks the answer is; Loban doesn't want to know.

Posted by acta online on April 04, 2006 at 08:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Iowa trustees abdicate authority

Cornell University has been struggling with governance issues for some time; last year, tensions between the Cornell trustees and university president Jeffrey Lehman grew so serious that Lehman decided to step down. Since then, Hunter Rawlings has served as interim president while Cornell conducted a search for a new president amid vociferous criticism about the terms upon which Lehman left. That new president has been found--current University of Iowa president David Skorton will take up his new post in Ithaca in three months' time. And while Cornell looks forward to what will hopefully be a new, more peaceable administrative era, Skorton's departure is exposing fault lines in Iowa's own approach to governance.

ACTA president Anne Neal's recent letter to the editor of the Des Moines Register explains in full:

As U of I President David Skorton heads to Cornell, the Iowa Board of Regents has a most important job: finding an outstanding leader to take the reins of the state's flagship university.

But if plans announced come to pass ("U of I: President Needs University Support," March 12), the regents will have abdicated their most important responsibility.

Faculty, staff and students have proposed a gigantic presidential search committee - 23 to be exact - that would include only two regents, 11 faculty members, three staff, three students and two alumni.

That's no way to pick a president. Effective boards understand the tradition of shared governance - the participation of faculty, and sometimes students, in developing policies that affect academic life - but don't confuse the value of that tradition with their own ultimate authority. The presidential selection committee should consist solely or primarily of trustees, and should be chaired by a trustee.

While it is imperative that a variety of external constituencies be included, they need not sit on the search committee. Indeed, an effective search committee should be small. The larger the group, the more vetoes there are. The more vetoes there are, the more likely the final candidates will represent the lowest common denominator - mediocrity.

There are simply too many constituencies to include without making the committee too large. And it is questionable to what extent one professor or one alumnus "represents" all faculty or alumni.

While faculty, staff and others have much to offer, they cannot be counted on to bring the larger perspective - the public interest - to bear. That's what the regents were appointed to do; and that's why they need to be in charge.

Skorton, who has declined raises out of respect for the low salaries of UI faculty, says he will devote his final weeks at Iowa to working with the state legislature on budgeting issues and on raises for UI faculty. Perhaps it would be impolitic for him to criticize the proposed mechanism for choosing his successor; perhaps, too, the university will be too caught up in scandal management to consider more carefully how the search for the next Iowa president will proceed. But one hopes that both suppositions are false, and that Skorton--who deflects discussion about what sort of legacy he will leave at Iowa--thinks enough about the future of the school to recognize that one of the best last things he could do as president of the University of Iowa is to insist that the search for the next president be conducted in a manner that is likely to lead to the hiring of the best candidate available. The proposed arrangement, as Neal explains, is not at all likely to have that result.

One good sign: University of Iowa regent Teresa Wahlert will head the search committee.

Posted by acta online on April 03, 2006 at 09:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

White is not a culture

Thursday's edition of the University of Pennsylvania's student paper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, carries a remarkable short piece describing the latest multicultural awareness initiative on campus. Entitled, "'White Week': New Take on Race Dialogue," the article asserts the importance of studying "white culture" if one is to have a proper grasp of race relations:

Campus groups have long set aside time for examining minority culture: Black History Month, Festival Latino, QPenn for the gay community. Now, a group has decided to give white culture a week of its own.

Penn's first "White Week" kicked off Tuesday night with a discussion on the history of white culture. Events will continue through mid-April.

But even with a name seemingly intended to create controversy, the series of events isn't intended to celebrate white culture.

Instead, its purpose it "to provoke" students and foster multiracial dialogue, College senior Miji Park said.

"We think it's important for all ethnic groups to talk abotu their perspectives on whiteness," White Week organizer and College senior Fatimah Muhammas said.

The week was put together by the Race Dialogue Project, a campus group that discusses issues of race and privilege.

The kickoff event Tuesday night aimed to explore the meaning of white culture and examined its roots in history. Participants also compared various current stereotypes.

Moderators College junior Shakirah Simley, chairwoman of the United Minorities Council, and College senior Julija Zubac said their purpose was to understand, not condemn, white culture in America and on Penn's campus.

One handout -- adapted from an article in The Counseling Psychologist, a scholarly journal -- says that it highlights "common characteristics of most U.S. white people most of the time."

Over 40 people discussed "assumptions" from the article, such as that white people avoid conflict and intimacy.

"Society has a mindset of what 'white' is," said College sophomore Alex McCobin, who participated in Tuesday's event. "The stereotypes we are dealing with are inherent in every culture."

With all this emphasis on identifying stereotypes and challenging assumptions, one would think that someone would realize that the entire enterprise here is fundamantally flawed. White is not a culture; white is a color. More particularly, it is phenotype that tells us virtually nothing about a person's ethnic makeup, or values, or socioeconomic background, or tastes, or beliefs, or ancestral roots, or even race (on this last, see Henry Louis Gates' remarkable recent PBS special, African American Lives). To perceive the color of someone's skin is not to gain any automatic insight into the culture of the person whose skin it is; the former does not in any meaningful way imply or invoke the latter; to assume that it does is to engage in the very type of pernicious racism that the Race Dialogue Project ostensibly wants to resist. If the people running Penn's Race Dialogue Project can't figure that out, they aren't likely to generate much useful insight during White Week--even though that "week" will last for nearly three.

UPDATE: It must be noted that most Penn students are not as confused as the ones above, though, as this piece suggests, some Penn administrators are. Via Discriminations.

Posted by acta online on April 01, 2006 at 08:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack