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Kevin Barrett in context
The discussion about University of Wisconsin lecturer Kevin Barrett has rightly swung away from academic freedom to issues of hiring and internal review: Ringing evocations of academic freedom in Barrett's case both misconstrue academic freedom--which is not the freedom to push political viewpoints or junk science in class, and which is not the freedom to teach whatever one wants however one wants--and deflect attention away from the real issue at hand, which is how Barrett came to be hired in the first place. UW clearly needs to pay more attention to its hiring processes, and it needs to pay particular care to its mechanisms for evaluating applicants for part-time teaching jobs of the sort Barrett has. Instead, it has issued ringing endorsements of academic freedom: "We cannot allow political pressure from critics of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas," says Provost Patrick Farrell. "That classroom interaction is central to this university's mission and to the expansion of knowledge. Silencing that exchange now would only open the door to more onerous and sweeping restrictions."
But UW is not alone in either its casual approach to hiring adjunct lecturers or its apparent lack of established procedures for assessing what teachers are teaching and whether they are teaching well. Nor is it alone in its willingness to fall back on hollow evocations of academic freedom when weaknesses in its present personnel practices are exposed.
Consider a strikingly similar case from the spring of 2005, when the media got hold of the information that a North Carolina Wesleyan political science professor named Jane Christensen not only subscribed to a conspiracy theory of 9/11, but openly advocated that theory in the classroom. Christensen maintained a faculty home page where she outlined her beliefs (it also featured a photo of herself dressed as a terrorist). She also taught a course entitled "9-11; The Road to Tyranny," in which she advocated her position: "I teach the truth about 9/11 in all of my courses," she told the press, adding that criticism of courses such as hers amount to "a war by the extreme right wing motivated by the Zionists to quash academic freedom on campus."
When the media spread the news that Christensen was using her classroom to advocate a crackpot theory rather than to teach students to think for themelves, NC Wesleyan responded in the hackneyed and self-discrediting way that has become commonplace when academic administrators are confronted with evidence of faculty malfeasance--they defended Christensen's academic freedom, and refused to draw a necessary distinction between her right to pursue the truth as a scholar and her obligations not to impose her views on students. "We don't tell professors what to think," said NC Wesleyan president Ian Newbould. "We don't tell professors what to teach. ... What makes America great is we don't do that. I've often used a quotation that they say comes from Voltaire, `I may disagree with what you say but I'll fight to your death your right to say it.' "
Similarly lame comments came from Tom Betts, who chairs the college's Board of Trustees: "I find what's on her Web site to be distasteful and despicable, and I disagree with everything on it. In the most polite of terms, it is disgraceful. ... However, this is America, and academic freedom and free speech is what sets us apart from the rest of the world. And I believe and hope most people will see this Web site for what it is--the opinions of a very, very far left person. And any sensible person would see this as a joke--a very bad joke."
The combination of relativism and disavowal here is classic--both men recognized that Christensen was promoting crackpot views, and they distanced themselves from those views as such; but both men also used the concept of academic freedom to absolve themselves of responsibility for determining whether such views may be legitimately advocated in the classroom, and also for asking the larger question of what it means that anti-intellectual extremists such as Christensen enjoy comfortable, tenured positions at taxpayers' expense.
ACTA Online covered the Christensen case when it broke in April 2005, as did KC Johnson, who took a close and revealing look at its partisan syllabus. Both noted the manner in which NC Wesleyan administrators relied on a bad faith evocation of academic freedom to refuse to respond to criticism; both noted, too, that professors' classroom conduct can and should be accountable in ways that NC Wesleyan administrators were not prepared to accept, implement, or ensure.
Christensen has since passed away, and the specific issues raised by her case have passed on with her. NC Wesleyan no longer offers "9-11; The Road to Tyranny," and students are no longer exhorted by her to accept propaganda as fact. But as the Kevin Barrett case shows, the problems posed by her class and her position remain--they were not unique to her, nor to her institution. Likewise, her institution's total inability to respond appropriately to her classroom proselytizing and its deep confusion about the obligations academic freedom imposes on teachers, were far from unique. UW's present predicament is representative of a much larger one; that predicament, in turn, revolves around inadequate hiring and review practices. When administrators attempt to mask this by declaring themselves to be champions of academic freedom, they do their institutions, not to mention the concept of academic freedom, a terrific disservice.
Posted by acta online at July 30, 2006 07:27 AM
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Comments
I imagine that we can easily come up with cases in which the university administrators would be much less willing to support "academic freedom" than they have been in the cases of Barrett and Christensen.
I do not think that a geology professor teaching that the earth is flat, or that it was created in six twenty-four-hour days less than 6000 years ago, would get much support on the basis of academic freedom.
Similarly, a chemist who taught that the four elements are earth, air, fire and water, or the pholgiston theory of fire as anything other than older, failed, attempts to understand how things work, seems unlikely to keep his position.
As a decidedly different situation, consider Michael Behe. He is one of the small fraction of biologists that supports the "theory" of Intelligent Design. He is outspoken about this. He also teaches Biochemistry. Reports are that he is a fine teacher who does teach biochemistry and does not insist on teaching ID. He is not, as nearly as I can tell, censured by his employer. If he could develop testable hypotheses about ID, he would be fully within his academic freedom to attempt to do the experiments to test the idea.
Consider some other situations that could arise. How would various members of the academy respond to this example, which could, potentially, involve classes in a number of disciplines?
Imagine that a professor, in a class where the topic is relevant, notes that statistically (based on data gathered over a number of years), the variance in certain cognitive abilities among girls is greater than the variance among boys, even though the mean is the same. The sad result of this is that girls are over represented in lowest levels of the distribution. This means that many more girls than boys end up unfit for certain jobs requiring a minimum level of these particular abilities. On the other hand, because of the general nature of statistical distributions, it is also true that girls are over represented among those at the highest levels of the distribution. This means that girls are now notably more likely than boys to end up qualified for jobs requiring very high levels (say top 2% and above, or even top 0.5 % and above) of this ability. The prof reminds his students that boys are still represented at the top and bottom levels of the distribution, there are just fewer of them. The prof further notes that the causes of the differences in distribution are not known, but might include social, environmental, or genetic components.
Posted by: Mike McKeown at July 30, 2006 01:32 PM
"UW clearly needs to pay more attention to its hiring processes, and it needs to pay particular care to its mechanisms for evaluating applicants for part-time teaching jobs of the sort Barrett has."
Nice idea, and I agree with much of the post, but how is this to be done in practice? A place like UW must hire many hundreds of adjuncts every year, maybe hundreds of new ones. It's impossible to subject all of them to the same scrutiny as one does for a tenure-track hire. (And even the latter are always subject to surprises, as anyone with real experience knows.)
Was there any way in advance to know what Barrett was apt to be teaching? There may have been, but I'm not aware of this. Once an agreement has been reached, there's a contractual obligation on the part of the university, an obligation that would be very hard to cast off without legal liability, to say nothing of the real issues of ethics and academic freedom.
When someone turns out to be a crackpot, it's always possible not to renew their contract. Here I'm completely opposed to those administrators who proclaim the usual inanities of academic freedom and simultaneous disavowal.
But to yank them out of a contracted class or program? That seems to be getting into treacherous waters.
Posted by: Michael Kellman at July 30, 2006 01:42 PM
POINT OF ORDER
" .. anti-intellectual extremists such as Christensen enjoy comfortable, tenured positions at taxpayers' expense .."
First, I support ACTA in this area, for authentic accountability.
Second, it should be noted, NCWC is privately owned; UW-Madison is owned by Wisconsin taxpayers.
If non-engineers such as Barrett want to play silly, inane, and jejune word games -- great, they can do it on their own dime. Not the public's dime.
If Mr. Barrett and his non-engineer cohorts had any true courage, he'd do what these private citizens did, on their own dime.
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/060717roco02
But we know the boiler-plate answer to that -- "we need to help students develop their critical thinking skills."
Right -- as if watching "The Simpson's for 16 years hasn't had any impact on the development of such skills? Please -- nobody could be that stupid and dense. Find honest work, please.
Posted by: A.D. at July 30, 2006 03:03 PM