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J’accuse
When I was teaching at Penn, I learned the hard way how very powerful students are. They hold professors’ careers in their hands–and can destroy them very, very easily, simply by accusing them of offensive classroom conduct. Most students don’t realize this–and if they did, would never dream of abusing their power. But some students see that power very clearly–and they work it.
You might recall the case of Thomas Klocek, a DePaul adjunct who was fired after debating, outside of class, a group of pro-Palestinian students on the subject of Israel. The students were offended by his views, and objected to having theirs challenged–and, having imbibed the notion that they had the right not to be offended, they filed a complaint, and that was it for Klocek’s career.
A similar case happened a couple of years ago at Brandeis, where students in a political science course took exception to the professor’s attempt to explain, from a historical perspective, where the term “wetback” came from. This was grossly insensitive and a small group of highly confused and very intellectually challenged students were just not going to stand for it. They filed a formal complaint against the professor, and Brandeis ran with it. What then happened to the professor was unspeakable. What the administrators did in carrying out wrongheaded policies for the sake of indulging these students was unconscionable. And the students themselves? Oh, they walk. They walk and they skate and they feel just *great* about the moral high ground they think they took. There is a sick purity about it–they really are innocents on some level, so totally removed are they from the zone of rational thought, moral responsibility, and reasoned tolerance.
Where do students get the idea that they had the right not to be offended? University policy. It’s all there–on the books at DePaul and Brandeis and many other schools, in policies on hate speech and verbal harassment and so on. They encourage students to grossly misunderstand the purpose of higher education–which should involve being exposed to a wide range of views, learning how to choose among them, and learning to navigate the marketplace of ideas like an actual adult (as opposed to a spoiled child). When students avail themselves of these policies, administrators must take their complaints seriously, and follow through. Careers are ruined along the way, absolutely asinine judgments are made, and the educational enterprise is reduced to a joke by the very people whose job it is to uphold it. And it all happens over and over again, every year, on campus after campus, like sick clockwork, while nobody learns.
And so it happens that the latest iteration of one of higher ed’s most pathological patterns may be found at the University of Illinois:
The University of Illinois has fired an adjunct professor who taught courses on Catholicism after a student accused the instructor of engaging in hate speech by saying he agrees with the church’s teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.
The professor, Ken Howell of Champaign, said his firing violates his academic freedom. He also lost his job at an on-campus Catholic center.
Howell, who taught Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought, says he was fired at the end of the spring semester after sending an e-mail explaining some Catholic beliefs to his students preparing for an exam.
“Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY,” he wrote in the e-mail. “In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same.”
An unidentified student sent an e-mail to religion department head Robert McKim on May 13, calling Howell’s e-mail “hate speech.” The student claimed to be a friend of the offended student. The writer said in the e-mail that his friend wanted to remain anonymous.
“Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing,” the student wrote. “Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another.”
Howell said he was teaching his students about the Catholic understanding of natural moral law.
“My responsibility on teaching a class on Catholicism is to teach what the Catholic Church teaches,” Howell said in an interview with The News-Gazette in Champaign. “I have always made it very, very clear to my students they are never required to believe what I’m teaching and they’ll never be judged on that.”
Howell also said he makes clear to his students that he’s Catholic and that he believes the church views that he teaches.
McKim referred questions to university spokeswoman Robin Kaler, who said she couldn’t comment on Howell or his firing because it’s a personnel issue.
According to the university’s Academic Staff Handbook, faculty “are entitled to freedom in the classroom in developing and discussing according to their areas of competence the subjects that they are assigned.”
But not really, apparently. That freedom only exists if nobody gets offended. Once that happens–even if it is clearly owing to the students’ own inability to distinguish between a professor explaining a view and a professor imposing a view–all bets are off.
AAUP president Cary Nelson, who is also a U of I English professor emeritus, does not love what his institution is doing. “It’s part of intellectual life to advocate for points of view. … Hopefully when they go out in the world, they can emulate that. They can argue a case, and do it in a well-informed and articulate way, and can make a more productive contribution to our democracy that way.” Nelson misses the point a little bit–it’s not really okay for professors to “advocate” a point of view, nor is that what Howell says he was doing. All of which is to say that Howell is in an even stronger position than Nelson makes him out to be.
But Ann Mester, associate dean and adjunct anthropology professor, doesn’t see it that way: “The e-mails sent by Dr. Howell violate university standards of inclusivity, which would then entitle us to have him discontinue his teaching arrangement with us.”
There’s that word again: “entitle.” That’s about what it all comes down to, isn’t it?
You know, for all his flaws, even Joe McCarthy’s denunciations weren’t anonymous. This sort of rampant Marcuseanism is the intellectual equivalent of foot binding. In the name of reaching some impossible standard of “beauty” (in this case, political), universities like this one are continually narrowing and contorting what they offer, ultimately stunting and crippling the user, who must thereafter rely on others to get anywhere. Of course, for some, that isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Prof Mondo: You make the key point that the accusing students are anonymous. They don’t have to be accountable for their claim–and there is, likewise, a lack of procedural respect for due process for the accused, who should have the right to face his accuser. It’s institutionalized moral cowardice. Posing as a victim, the student can go on the attack, do terrific damage to others, and never even have to have his or her name attached to the deed. This allows the student “not to know” what he or she has done, and so deactivates the work of conscience. I am convinced that this produces a situation rather like the famous Stanford prison study–when people have the power to anonymously dole out punishment, without fear of confrontation or reprisal, they become creepily sadistic very, very fast.
1)”university standards of inclusivity”…the fact that something is written in “university standards” does not necessarily imply, of course, that it is *lawfully* written in such standards, much less that it is *ethically and wisely” written. Bureaucrats, for whom their institution’s policy guide represents the ultimate truth, have a very hard time understanding these points. iI hope that at least the “lawfully” point will be explored in a lawsuit filed against this institution.
2)This kind of thing seems to have reached a level such that individuals of independence and integrity should think very hard before pursuing a career in academia.
3)What happens to these anonymously-accusing students after they get out of school? Some will themselves become academics and perpetuate the problem; others will join business and government organizations and contribute to poisoning the climate there as well.
A very disturbing story! Adjuncts are most vulnerable because their contract is usually one course at a time. They don’t have to be fired- they simply are not offered any future courses to teach. More critically, anonymous potshots from students are not only damaging to professors’ careers, but have a chilling effect on the topics they are willing to explore with their students. By avoiding whatever is cutting edge or controversial, the lifeblood is sucked from universities, thereby turning them into bland diploma mills instead of temples of knowledge.
[...] aren’t the major point here. To get back to that, here’s Erin O’Connor, who linked to that article and added her own comments: When I was teaching at Penn, I learned the hard way how [...]
The students were being students – immature and self-engrossed. Their conduct is sort of age appropriate in the sense of a range of responses to education across an age-defined group. Some kids are entitled and thin-skinned, but many aren’t. Others are indifferent or absent that day. This response seems little different than the types of responses kids have usually produced. I was a 60’s undergrad – Lord, were we full of indignation!! Usually ignored until it escalated to interference w/university operation.
The admins – what’s their excuse? They are gatekeepers, and their response here, ceteris paribus, is embarrassingly immature and fearful. Universities are a stew of behaviors, and many are ill-considered or foolish, and should be overlooked or chastised, lightly. Occasionally [and that is a measure of infrequency], some behaviors are more consequential and require careful deliberation and some serious response. These situations seem good examples of why we need gatekeepers loathe to jerk knees or respond from fear of publicity.
This situation was one best handled by a department head and the goal should have been to buffer classroom dialog w/out being indifferent to student concerns. Some people discussing this case have inferred the instructor was already on thin ice and this was the last necessary act. But in the absence of pattern or practice ignoring requests from the dept., this reaction is insane and cowardly. I expect students to be foolish at times, but that’s why I hoped the adults in authority would model thoughtfulness and fair play in response. Blaming the students is kicking the wrong dog.