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May 14, 2006
Highlights from "How Many Ward Churchills?"
Some excerpts from ACTA's newest study:
Though the controversy surrounding Ward Churchill now focuses on whether the University of
Colorado will find him guilty of professional misconduct, Churchill's case raises questions that
extend far beyond his career. These questions have to do with how to place him in context. Is
there really only one Ward Churchill? Or are there many Ward Churchills, academics who use
their positions as scholars to promote their politics, to present propaganda as reasoned research,
and even to impose their politics on others? Just how typical--or atypical--is the man who
praised the 9/11 attacks?
As public awareness of the problem mounts--and as a movement for legislative intervention
gains momentum--it's important to explore just how widespread the "Ward Churchill
Phenomenon" really is. In order to answer that question, we took a look at the course offerings of
some of the most prominent and influential colleges and universities in the country. Focusing on
the U.S. News & World Report's 2005 list of the top twenty-five private colleges and universities,
the Big 10 conference schools, and the Big 12 conference schools, we examined publicly
available department websites, on-line course descriptions, electronic course syllabi, and faculty
home pages in a wide range of liberal arts disciplines. What we found is that Ward Churchill is
not alone, and that the kinds of politically extreme opinions for which he has become justly
infamous are not only quite common in academe, but enthusiastically embraced and rewarded by
it.
In colleges and universities across the country, in both traditional disciplines and new-fangled
programs, the classes offered and the faculty who teach them are displaying an ideological slant
that is frequently as uniform as it is severe....
Throughout American higher education, professors are using their classrooms to push political
agendas in the name of teaching students to think critically. In course after course, department
after department, and institution after institution, indoctrination is replacing education.
Encouraging students to think independently has been too often supplanted by the impulse to tell
them what to think about some of the most pressing issues of our day.
In the past, administrators have shied away from assessing the state of the classroom. They have
worried that doing so might--as many faculty claim--create a "chilling effect" or verge on
wrongful censorship. Ironically, fears of endangering academic freedom have prevented higher
education officials from following up on concerns that faculties may be abusing the privileges
academic freedom confers.
Their fears rest on a basic misapprehension about what academic freedom is--and what it is not.
Academic freedom is not insulation from oversight or accountability. It does not license
professors to ignore their duties to teach and research responsibly, and it does not license
institutions to fail to ensure that they do so. Nor does academic freedom exempt institutions or
individuals from criticism.
Too often, however, members of the academy equate academic freedom--the right to teach,
research, and speak publicly--with the right to institutional autonomy. Too often, they expect
that, in the name of academic freedom, they should be immune from scrutiny and that they should
not have to answer to the public. But academic freedom only grants faculties intellectual and
pedagogical independence on the condition that they honor their reciprocal obligation to respect
students' academic freedom to learn.
Academic freedom is essentially a public trust founded on the condition that universities foster a
robust exchange of ideas that acknowledges the existence of multiple perspectives and enables
students to decide for themselves what they think and believe. Academic freedom ends where
violations of that trust begin.
...academic freedom isn't just the freedom to be extreme in the public forum. It is also a series of
interlocking responsibilities. It is the responsibility to conduct research and to share that research
with the public. It is the responsibility to teach students well and to empower them to make up
their own minds. Producing propaganda is not doing research. Preaching one's politics in the
classroom is not teaching.
Disturbingly, as this study shows, college and university teachers across the country are
profoundly confused on these points. When institutions of higher learning proudly and
unabashedly dedicate their pedagogical resources to political advocacy, activism, sensitivity
training, and social change, students, parents, trustees, administrators, and taxpayers have a right
to be concerned. They also have the right to raise questions, demand answers, and compel action.
Though biased course descriptions and syllabi do not themselves prove that a course will be
graded unfairly, they do tell us a great deal about their instructors' slanted presentation, and they
do strongly suggest that their instructors are neither particularly interested in or respectful of the
full range of opinions on the issues at hand. They also tell us--through their prominent
omissions--that students who wish to uncover alternative viewpoints are going to have to do so
on their own....
Faced with substantial evidence of academic bias and pedagogical malfeasance, with course
catalogs and professorial websites that openly declare war on impartial, objective teaching,
institutions that do not take action deserve the criticism of public officials, taxpayers, students,
and parents. Colleges and universities must ensure that they provide education, not indoctrination.
This report aims to inform elected officials, trustees, administrators, parents, alumni, students,
and citizens about what is happening, virtually unrecognized and unchallenged, in college
classrooms across the nation. It urges them to demand better information and more accountability
from the colleges and universities they support.
Likewise, colleges and universities must amend their questionable practices and begin fulfilling
their professional obligations. They must also recognize that if they do not take swift and decisive
action, they risk losing the independence and the privilege they have traditionally enjoyed.
More to come.
Posted by acta online at May 14, 2006 08:10 AM
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Comments
This is a huge problem, especially in the humanities. I cannot tell you how many people I have known who have completed a PhD in English or some other humanities field, only to then try to pass themselves off as experts in international relations, law, and economics. Because they literally know nothing about any of those fields, they actively deceive students into believing regular falsehoods and even lies.
If the schools would crack down on this rampant form of academic fraud, that would go a long way towards restoring decimated intellectual and ethical standards.
Posted by: Federal Dog at May 15, 2006 07:50 AM
my children and I were subjected to this as each of us matriculated through colleges. I will say that such professors simply drove me to a stronger conviction in my own principles rather than "unlearning" them. My kids simply made fun of their professors. However, we all knew tht our grades depended on us spewing back their doctrines. Self preservation reigns. I found that they are more localized in sociology and political science disciplines than anyone in hard sciences. This interests me.
Posted by: Julie Them at May 27, 2006 04:43 PM