ACTA's Must-Reads

It is true that some professors teach to an agenda that may not be germane to their certified discipline. But it is also true that some colleges bring considerable pressure to bear on individual faculty to teach according to institutional--or even national--orthodoxy. That orthodoxy significantly includes "sexual harassment," its discovery, prevention, and cure. On my campus, "sexual harassment" means whatever an administrator says it is. It may be a single word, such as "damn" or "hell;" it may be an illustrative anecdote that contains reference to violence or human sexuality. It may be an expression or idea the hideousness of which has heretofore escaped indignant notice. If a student objects to it, the College always claims that the teacher is generating a hostile environment. It accordingly punishes the teacher, and does so with the support of the federal judiciary, which claimed that "sexual harassment," however it is defined, whatever it may mean, must be stopped immediately.
For one example, a few years ago I was subjected to an extensive "investigation" during an entire summer because a student believed I had no right to assign the likes of Ernest Hemingway, as some of his themes offended her Christian sensibilities. During the investigation, it was "revealed" that I had also assigned an article by a reporter for the Los Angeles Times dealing with quid pro quo arrangements between some spouses who use sexual favors as leverage to obtain nonsexual goals: "I'll give you fellatio if you'll be nice to that lady friend of mine you hate." I assigned this article in conjunction with James Joyce's "The Boarding House," which focusses on domestic prostitution. The College's attorney was indignant at the very idea that I would assign such an article, and implied, seemed to threaten, that this would be a very long investigation indeed. Meanwhile, in an "our side" caucus, the faculty officer assigned to pretend to represent my interests asked me if it was necessary to assign Hemingway, or at least the objectionable story. I said no--but what might she be implying? Well, John, if you want these investigations to stop, you have to seriously consider giving them something.
The systemic problem ACTA cites is, to be sure, quite formidable. But having institutions, themselves fabulously corrupted by the zeitgeist, be the principal agents of change, of review and enforcement, appears quixotic at best. The remedy suggested this week by one participant in Pennsylvania during the special committee scrutiny of charges that college teaching is more "lefteous" than "righteous," that colleges ought return to the tradition of Western-Culture liberal arts as formerly embraced before the sweeping changes that began forty years ago, was dismissed as rather beside the point. Au contraire, it is the point. Even if the ideal was imperfect then, even if many of its soi disant practioners were frauds or worse, the academy fared much better than the model that has replaced it. How do we get sort of back there? One professor, one college, at a time. In the meantime, somebody has got to tell the judiciary to stop the recently embraced nonsense that "academic freedom" is first and foremost the prerogative OF THE INSTITUTION, with no necessary deference to the population, on and off campus, it was created to serve. Nothing will improve as long as Leviathan is enabled.

They should not teach peace or war or freedom or obedience or diversity or uniformity or nationalism or antinationalism or any other agenda that might properly be taught by a political leader or a talk-show host huh? Then what to do with the fact that most colleges [let alone high schools] have mission statements about "forming good citizens." Are you going to tell me that that has nothing to do with "nationalism"?

"But this basic tenet of professionalism does not seem to be as widely held as it should be."

College classroom instructors love to prattle on about how "professional" they are, but in point of fact, they are not professionals. It is therefore not surprising that they have no understanding of even very basic tenets of professional conduct.

They do not sit a rigorous comprehensive exam administered by an agency without interest in the outcome of the testing (e.g., bar or medical boards), and there is no licensing mechanism involved. Unlike doctors and lawyers, for example, who are required to demonstrate objective competence in the field (and who can be disbarred for malfeasance or incompetence), all college teachers have to do is convince some school to give them a PhD. Since schools granting degrees are businesses, and will go out of business if they do not grant enough diplomas, all anyone has to do to be a college instructor is pay for a PhD.

If academics had to meet actual professional standards, a hell of a lot of them would never, ever survive the credentialing/disbarment process. It is the single-most important reform that could be instituted in the colleges, and because of how it would wipe out entire faculties as we know them now, any professionalization of college teaching is doomed in advance of the fact.

" .. if acadeemics had to meet actual professional standards, a hell of a lot of them would never, ever survive the credentialing/disbarment process."

Hear, hear. The alleged "academics" think "academic freedom" is some "get out of jail" card for everything from parking tickets to murder. Well, it is not -- it is about specific knowledge.

And because so many soft-side academic fields (e.g., English, Sociology, Ethnic Studies, Humanities, Education) use no Common Body of Knowledge, all one has to do is B.S. his/her dissertation committee. As in, "yes, I agree with you, I'm for spending money and higher taxes, and giving non-Democrats a hard time."

The emperor has no clothes, no intellectual standards. ACTA would do everyone a favor by publicizing that fact.