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from the debating-whether-something's-debatable dept.
It looks like anybody can be against academic censorship, as this opinion piece in the Washington Post shows:
Wisconsin's Supreme Court can soon right a flagrant wrong stemming from events set in motion in 2014 at Milwaukee's Marquette University by Cheryl Abbate. Although just a graduate student, she already had a precocious aptitude for academic nastiness.
On Oct. 28, in an undergraduate course she was teaching on ethics, when the subject of same-sex marriage arose, there was no debate, because, a student said, Abbate insisted that there could be no defensible opposition to this. (Marquette is a Jesuit school.) After class, the student told her that he opposed same-sex marriage and her discouraging of debate about it. She replied (he recorded their interaction) that "there are some opinions that are not appropriate that are harmful [...]
[...] McAdams, a tenured professor then in his 41st year at Marquette and a conservative who blogs about the school's news, emailed Abbate seeking her version of the episode. Without responding to him, she immediately forwarded his email to some professors. She has called McAdams "the ringleader" of "extreme white [sic] wing, hateful people," a "moron," "a flaming bigot, sexist and homophobic idiot" and a "creepy homophobic person with bad argumentation skills."
Because there is almost no Wisconsin case law concerning academic freedom that could have guided the circuit court, McAdams is asking the state supreme court to bypass the appeals court and perform its function as the state's "law-developing court." He is also asking the court to be cognizant of the cultural context: Nationwide, colleges and universities "are under pressure" — all of it from within the institutions — "to enact or implement speech codes or otherwise restrict speech in various ways."
[Post-publishing edit: An A/C below helpfully provides the following far more neutral reportage by Inside higher Ed titled Ethics Lesson which explains the situation with more light and less head. Thanks A/C - Ed. (FP)]
(Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday January 09 2018, @05:52PM (15 children)
So, I spent a few minutes skimming the court complaint, the letter the university sent to the professor to terminate him, and a few other accounts. It sounds like there was a bunch of bad behavior from a lot of perspectives.
First, the student. Something left out of a lot of reporting is that this student was already receiving an F in the class. Somewhere I read that the student admitted this had nothing to do with his views, but was a result of his own poor performance. At a minimum, this leads to me to believe the student is poor at logic skills and argumentation, since those are highly valued in philosophy classes. There were also reports that the student was going to drop the class or was forced to drop the class or whatever, which apparently were not true. The student was getting an F. Is there a possible motivation to try to create a controversy to "get out of" that F somehow? If you discredit the teacher and show her to be unfair, maybe this student had something to gain. I don't know whether that's the case (and even if it was, it doesn't excuse some of the response to all of this), but this whole thing may not have started from the purest motives to begin with.
As for the grad student teacher: there's no recording of what happened in class. We have differing accounts. The teacher claims she didn't think it was a useful example to debate in the context of the specific philosophical principle; the student claims she "shut down" debate. There is a recording of the conversation with the student after class, which mostly seems to be reasonable for quite a while. (The transcript is available as part of the termination letter, which I found on the WaPo article.) At the beginning, it sounds like the teacher had her view based on evidence, and she was asking the student to consider analogies and think through the matter logically (as any good philosophy prof would do). The student sounds a bit aggressive in the transcript, but the instructor seems to stay calm for a while... and then things get a little more heated when the issue of whether discussion of the issue might come across as "homophobic" comes up. The instructor repeatedly asks the student for evidence and the studies to back up his position (and makes reference to a previous conversation -- so it sounds like it was a repeated issue with this student claiming there were "studies" to support his views and not producing them).
Far from ignoring the issue, the instructor says she actually brought the whole thing up in the next class meeting and offered a bunch of information to the class on the objection raised by a student (mostly having to do with bad outcomes for children) and why that may not be an applicable logical objection given the philosophical principle discussed in class (Rawls and limitations on freedom). She also says she brought up the specific study generally cited for poor outcomes for children of gay couples -- note she did her own research on the issue where the student could be bothered to produce his studies. She noted why there have been objections to this study, and she encouraged students to go read the study themselves so they could see the logical and methodological issues themselves. Again, that sounds like what a philosophy professor should do: encourage students to explore and critique arguments for themselves.
I do think the instructor went overboard in dismissing potential objections. It is possible to make an objection to gay marriage within Rawls's framework, but it would likely require a much different approach from the student's. (For example, it's not simply about freedom but about additional rights -- advantages -- given to married couples by society. There are valid arguments about whether even heterosexual couples should be given those additional advantages legally. I should clarify that I'm not arguing against same-sex marriage here; only noting there are potential philosophical objections that could be raised.)
On the other hand, I do think the instructor's perspective that a discussion that some find offensive might derail class time is a concern. It's not a reason to stifle debate, but given this issue isn't a clear example of the philosophical principle under discussion, I can see the desire to move on. (According to the instructor, she did encourage students with other views to discuss the matter with her after class.) I mean, what would the reaction be if someone wanted to bring up the perspective that mixed racial marriage should be banned? That was a standard viewpoint until about 50 years ago (even Lincoln himself clearly stated he'd never advocated for interracial marriage), but now it would be considered racist to bring it up as if it were an open question. I don't think gay marriage has yet achieved that taboo status, but discussion of it would be awkward at best and considered offensive by some. If I were an instructor and a somewhat off-topic example came up in class that could cause problems, I think postponing conversation to after class and then bringing up a summary of objections again next class (if they were worth discussing) is a good way to handle it while keeping the main goal of education in mind. (This isn't a political debate class: it's an ethics class and they were trying to brainstorm issues to support a specific logical framework.)
All that said, pretty much everything that happened after that sounds bad. The philosophy department apparently ignored the student's complaint, but the student was not exactly forthcoming to them (apparently he didn't even play the tape of the conversation or whatever for them). Instead, the student ran to a prof on campus known to be a conservative blowhard... and said prof then blogged about the whole situation and how the instructor and department reacted to it, without actually getting information from said instructor and department.
Is that reason for revoking tenure and firing the prof? In my opinion, absolutely not. But it certainly wasn't a very reasonable way to handle things. Meanwhile, accounts say that the grad student instructor was going around bad-mouthing the prof and refusing to talk to him even before he ran the blog. So there was unreasonable behavior on the other side too. (Though, admittedly, to have some senior prof from another department contact you and question your teaching competency when you're a grad student also is a bit weird too, and I can somewhat understand an initial defensiveness to this.) And then this got wider media coverage, so the grad student started getting threats, etc., which is what led to the issue with the prof to begin with.
Bottom line is that it's a private university, and they can sort of do what they want. Usually tenure policies are created and arbitrated at universities with faculty agreement -- and if the overall faculty is against this prof who was fired, I'm not sure he has much of a case legally. I do think the university is rather spineless for firing him. On the other hand, it's hard to believe this is a one-off situation... instead, I'd imagine this has internal political roots at the university with people disliking this prof's behavior for a longer period, and this was the excuse.
So my reading is that this whole thing got blown up because lots of people (student, instructor, old prof, university) behaved badly in various ways. It's less about the actual debate or "academic censorship" and more about the increasing polarization and politicization in today's climate... It's unfortunate because philosophy classes are supposed to be above this sort of thing. The first philosophy class I took as an undergrad was the first place I felt like we actually had "politically incorrect" debates -- it was okay to talk about completely off-the-wall ideas as long as you had a logical argument to follow through with. It sounds like the student had very little logic skills though (remember, he was getting an F), the instructor was a bit frustrated to have to delve into a political debate that wasn't quite relevant to the point at hand, and then it all blew up.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @07:26PM (13 children)
It is common for an instructor to give a bad grade to a student who is known to be conservative.
This isn't new. It happened about 60 years ago to my father, a baby boomer in college. The assignment was to write about nuclear war or weapons or something like that. My dad wrote a paper that concluded we should have more nukes. The liberal professor was not pleased.
Shutting down the Catholic take on gay marriage at a Catholic university, while not also shutting down the anti-Catholic take on it, clearly shows that the instructor was biased. It would be acceptable to shut down both sides or neither, and at a Catholic university it would be understandable to shut down the anti-Catholic take on it. Of the 4 possible options, the instructor took the 1 option that was least acceptable.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:06PM (11 children)
Was going to FTFY, but too much is wrong. Let us try a reformulation, shall we?
"It is common for conservatives to earn bad grades due to lack of intellectual ability and curiousity, and to be completely unaware (Dunning-Kroeger) of the cause of their bad grades and so to attribute them to the bias of their instructors."
Evidently, this even spans generations of conservatives! As Dan Quayle once said: "It's a terrible thing to never use your mind!"
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:31PM (10 children)
"lack of intellectual ability" --> couldn't see obvious correctness of far-left communism and perversion
"lack of curiosity" --> refused to try a 3-way with trannies and a goat
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @03:11AM (9 children)
Conservative: very, very, bad at math. Even simple math. Have fallen for the "tax cuts for the rich will improve the economy" scam since Reagan! And now obviously unable to solve the "missionaries, trannies and a goat" problem. They did not refuse, it is just mathematically impossible. And these people complain about getting flunked? Amazing.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:35PM (6 children)
The best/worst part is, somehow they've convinced themselves that it's everyone ELSE who's been permanently and fatally disconnected from reality.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:51PM (5 children)
If people became conservative at age 70, that might make sense. You get disconnected from reality when you go senile.
Instead we find that people become conservative as they get employed, start families, and buy homes. This suggests that becoming conservative is associated with growing up. Once you start taking on an adult role in the world, you become conservative.
It's a matter of growing up, becoming mature, and learning that there is a reality that you might not prefer but can not ignore.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:33PM (2 children)
So why is it that I've moved leftwards as I've gotten older? Why is it that after more experience, more learning, more travel, meeting more people, learning different languages, I've let go of some "conservative" ideas I held as a child and teenager?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @02:31AM (1 child)
Brain damage, most likely.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:12PM
Come on now, people getting "conservative" as they get older isn't brain damage, it's assholery. Just because you're missing a few (hundred million...) neurons doesn't mean everyone else follows the same life path.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:20AM (1 child)
you forget how to do simple math? And substitute wishful thinking and racist hateful misogyny? I don't see it. Early onset dementia?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:00AM
1. The person being addressed
2. The first tranny
3. The second tranny
Now we have a 3-way, as stated. As for the goat... we count it the same as a condom or handcuffs or anal beads. It's a toy.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:09AM (1 child)
There are "trannies", so 2 or more. Let's say 2. There is the person being addressed, which makes 3. The goat counts as much as a condom, butt plug, or fake eyelashes. So we're still at 3.
It is thus a 3-way at minimum. It need not be more. Thou shalt not count to 4, and 5 is right out.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:14PM
You only need to post the same offtopic bullshit once. Twice or more gets you Spiced Ham'd.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday January 09 2018, @09:17PM
No, I didn't "assume" that. I don't feel like going back and finding the quote now, but where I read about it, it said the student himself basically admitted his work was poor. I don't remember who reported that the student said that, but the student's own reported assessment of the rationale for his grade was what I was basing my post on.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:03PM
Funny, that sound exactly like attempting philosophical discussion on SoylentNews! There are studies!!!!