Members of the
College Republicans group at Santa Rosa Junior College had had enough. They
were fed up, they said, with talking among themselves about various professors
who, by expressing unvarnished liberal views as fact, made the students feel
uncomfortable expressing their opposing views in class.
“What are
you supposed to think when your teacher stands in front of the class and talks
about “what idiots all the people are who voted in the current administration?”
says Molly McPherson, a second-year politics major and president of the
Republican club. “That kind of thing doesn’t lead to the exploration of ideas, and
it doesn’t make you think that your views are welcome or would be worth an A
grade.”
So when one of
the students came across language in California’s Education Code prohibiting
instructors from teaching communism “with the intent to indoctrinate or to
inculcate” students with that doctrine, the students got an idea.
“Why inculcate
us with any political ideology? Do I pay them to teach me what to think?”
McPherson says. “I don’t think so. I want them to teach me how to think and the
facts to think with. They can teach whatever they want, but I as student have a
right to hear both sides of an issue.”
To try to make
their point, the students put the language from the education code on a flyer
and affixed a red star to the top, signing it from “Anonymous Students.” A week
ago Friday, they taped the flyers to the office doors of about 10 professors
about whom McPherson says students had complained about imposing their
political views in the classroom.
The fallout was
swift and powerful. The professors who received the flyers objected that they
were being personally attacked and threatened by the reference to the
McCarthy-era remnant of the state code, which aimed to prevent the teaching of
Communism aimed at “undermining patriotism for, and the belief in, the
government of the United States and of this state.”
At a news
conference hastily arranged by some of the professors, McPherson and another
member of the College Republicans showed up to acknowledge having posted the
flyers. On Monday, Santa Rosa administrators circulated an e-mail that defended
academic freedom but also said professors were responsible for “acknowledging
the existence of, and showing respect for, opposing opinions” and “making clear
what is personal opinion and what is considered general knowledge.” McPherson
and other students responsible for the postings faced a barrage of criticism at
a raucous meeting of the college’s Academic Senate on Wednesday.
In an interview,
McPherson acknowledged that her use of the red stars and the “anonymous” nature
of the document were “over the top,” and that she underestimated the extent to
which the faculty members, many of whom were “in the McCarthy generation,”
would be “afraid that they would come under criticism for their views.”
Rather than
implying a threat, she says, “the goal was to promote a discussion. We weren’t
trying to say they were communists. We were trying to get them to think about
what this code says about” the climate in their classrooms.
But professors
were not quick to forgive the students’ use of McCarthy-era imagery. “Unnamed
students and unspecified complaints — what does this sound like to you?” says
Marco Giordano, an English professor who was not on the receiving end of a red
star. “This was an attack and an innuendo and a slander on them, not the
opening of a discussion. If you want to open a dialogue, you go to the
professor’s office, or the department chairman or the dean. Not one of these
professors has a student complaint standing against them.” (Administrators at
the college could not be reached over the weekend to confirm that fact or to
comment generally on the controversy.)
Giordano says
that when he teaches, he provides facts and inferences of the facts in the
classroom, and keeps his political opinions to himself. But academic freedom
gives his colleagues the right to do that if they want, he says.
“It isn’t a
question of just balancing ideas in the classroom,” he says. Academic freedom
applies institution-wide. Consider the books in our library. We should have one
by the monarchist and one by the Communist, but the monarchist doesn’t have to
give equal time to the Communist, and vice versa. I don’t believe students
should feel intimidated out of expressing their political opinions, but neither
should professors.”
McPherson says
she hopes the faculty will agree to an open forum to discuss these issues in
the coming weeks.
It also seems
clear, though, that the discussion will move beyond the campus. She said she
plans to try to build student support for legislation introduced in the California legislature —
modeled on David Horowitz’s Student Bill of Rights — that would mandate, among
other things, that colleges ensure that their faculty members present all
viewpoints in their courses.
— Doug
Lederman
Copyright Inside Higher Education
http://www.insidehighered.com