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Missouri debates intellectual diversity
This week, Missouri's House Higher Education Committee will consider an intellectual diversity bill that would require state colleges and universities to report the measures they are taking to ensure that political bias does not translate into intellectual intolerance on their campuses.
The bill is similar to those that came before legislators in Montana last week; there it failed because of concerns that such a requirement would violate the state's constitution, which gives the Montana regents sole responsibility for managing the state university system.
No such stipulation exists in the Missouri constitution, and as the case of Emily Brooker makes clear, this is a state that clearly needs to consider carefully whether it is fulfilling its obligation to students. Brooker, a Christian social work student at Missouri State, sued the university after the school of social work disciplined her for refusing to write a letter to the Missouri General Assembly supporting gay adoption. Missouri State settled out of court last November.
Worth a read as debate heats up: this op-ed by University of Missouri political science professor J. Rochester Martin:
1. If the university stands for the discovery of "truth," then at the very least we must acknowledge the reality - the truth - that an overwhelming percentage of faculty at most universities in the humanities and social sciences (other than economics departments) as well as schools of education and social work are ideologically liberal and politically affiliated with the Democratic party.All the data as well as anecdotal impressions tell us this. Indeed, Helton and Granger, and even Chancellor George, said as much. UMSL is hardly an exception. Still, these academic units tend to be in denial about this.
While it is true that some academic units lean conservative, for example business schools, these are relatively few in number and, in any event, are not fields of study whose essence is "debating the great ideas."
Roughly half the country is Republican and conservative. I am not saying that universities must engage in bean-counting and assure proper faculty balance and presentation of ideas based on such percentages, only that surely there could stand to be a bit more representation of such viewpoints, especially on the part of departments that so often claim to espouse democratic principles, rail against elitism, and preach about respect for "diversity."
2. Helton and Granger both suggested that "we don't tell businesses to be more liberal, so why should we tell universities to be more conservative?"
The problem with this analogy is that it misrepresents what a university is about as opposed to a business. The #1 mission of the university is the promotion of free inquiry and the free exchange of ideas, that is, universities have a special responsibility to insure a diversity of ideas in a way that businesses do not.
3. A "liberal bias" does exist on campuses and operates in more subtle ways than outright indoctrination. We often hear about "institutional racism."
Well, there is something akin to that in the form of "institutional liberalism."
It consists in the fact that (1) most job candidates in the humanities and social sciences and schools of education and social work tend already to come with a liberal paradigm in their orientation to their discipline based on their training; (2) any job candidate in these areas who presents a conservative point of view in a dissertation talk is more likely to offend the faculty than those presenting a liberal point of view; and (3) the nature of the speakers these units bring to campus tend to expose students to liberal ideas more than conservative ones. This is not blatant, only systemic.
The bias also manifests itself in university climates - through speech codes that, for example, ban "affirmative action bake sales" sponsored by conservative student groups seeking to protest race-based college admissions while permitting "white privilege" conferences sponsored by liberal groups - and in curricula - through non-academic requirements in degree programs that mandate, for example, "social justice dispositions" in schools of education and social work.
One can only imagine the uproar that would occur in UMSL's Senate and elsewhere on campus if the College of Business Administration tried to mandate a "capitalist disposition" requirement in its B.S. programs!
4. I agree it is crazy to waste money on hiring another administrator to serve as an "intellectual diversity" czar, but why do we not raise similar concerns about possible overstaffing in the Office of Multicultural Relations and related "diversity" offices? Could it be too politically incorrect to do so?
I should note that I consider myself a middle-of-the roader, someone liberal enough for the local chapter of the United Nations Association to have named me (on the 50th anniversary of the UN in 1995) "one of 50 St. Louisans who had devoted their lives to global peace and justice," yet conservative enough to have been praised by many conservative groups for my book on education.
The bottom line is that I support diversity (racial, gender, etc.) and consider it an important part of the university, but there is nothing more important than "intellectual diversity" - a diversity of ideas.
Therefore, I am inclined to give HB 213 a fair hearing before dismissing it. The law may or may not be a good idea - again, I share some of the criticisms and concerns expressed in The Current - but in any event, it does not hurt to insure students are exposed to a full range of viewpoints. UMSL strikes me as less guilty of liberal bias than many other campuses, so it would seem we should be less fearful of more scrutiny, as long as proper safeguards are put in place that assure academic freedom.
Martin is right. Intellectual diversity is not a partisan issue -- it's an issue that concerns everyone who cares about the quality of higher education. To support it is to take a profoundly sensible and moderate position.
Posted by acta online at February 26, 2007 07:44 AM
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