The Wily Filipino

Guilty.

A month or so ago I saw an odd advertisement in my university's student paper. I don't remember the exact wording, unfortunately -- something to do with criticism of the Bush government in a class other than one on U.S. presidents -- but the ad asked students to report their offending professors to the head of the local chapter for Students for Academic Freedom (in this case, one Paula Reilly). Intrigued, I looked up the SAF and found that it was the student arm of David Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights."

I sympathize somewhat with Paula Reilly, since it can't be very easy for conservatives like her at SF State. The birthplace of the Third World Strike, SF State has its share of "tenured radicals," and particularly in a city like San Francisco, conservatives are generally in the minority.

What is obviously so hypocritical about the SAF is how catchphrases like "academic freedom" and "intellectual fairness" and "hostile learning environment" and "intellectual diversity" (nice hijacking of terms there) are bandied about as a claim to some sort of equality, when they are so clearly clamoring for a conservative, anti-liberal voice. I don't think we'll see an article entitled "How a Right-Wing Professor Violated My Rights" listed on their website anytime soon. What is clear is that "academic freedom" masks an attempt to specifically restrict any criticism of their President and his government's policies.

It's quite a user-friendly website, actually, as it even lists possible violations of the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure (by the American Association of University Professors) on their online complaint form:

- Required readings or texts covering only one side of issues.

- Gratuitously singled out political or religious beliefs for ridicule.

- Introduced controversial material that has no relation to the subject.

- Forced students to express a certain point of view in assignments.

- Mocked national political or religious figures.

- Conducted political activities in class (e.g. recruiting for demonstrations).

- Allowed students' political or religious beliefs to influence grading.

- Used university funds to hold one-sided partisan teach-ins or conferences.

Add to this the other "principles" as listed in their pamphlet:

If, for example, a professor strays outside the subject matter of the course to make comments that convey contempt for conservatives or liberals, Republicans or Democrats, the religious or the non-religious -- that is unacceptable.

If a professor remarks in no particular context that the President is a "moron" (as happens more often than one might expect) that sends a powerful message to students who belong to the President's party that they are unwelcome in this classroom. Such behavior is unprofessional.

If a professor grades students using political criteria, or because the student, though understanding the course work, does not agree on a partisan issue, that is unacceptable behavior.

If a professor cancels his or her class for a protest, or attempts to recruit students for a political demonstration, that is unacceptable.

What is most disturbing about the SAF is how it turns its followers into junior Encyclopedia Browns. It's one thing to report complaints, e.g., let SAF know the date and time your professor called George Bush a moron, but it's another to "research faculty bias" by digging up voter registration records. (Yes, you're supposed to create a spreadsheet for each department!) Horowitz has a lot of nerve claiming his "Academic Bill of Rights" isn't about creating political quotas when the sleuthing above is meant to address just that perceived problem.

(See also his article on a "conservative blacklist," where he writes:

At the beginning of April, after the United States and Great Britain had liberated Iraq, and after the streets of Baghdad were filled with Iraqis celebrating their freedom, the Academic Senate at UCLA voted to "condemn America's invasion of Iraq" by a vote of 180-7. Such a politically partisan vote would itself have been regarded once as an abuse of the university, more appropriate to a political party than an institution devoted to scholarship and research. But the more extraordinary fact was that in a nation where 76% of the population support the war after the fact, 95% of the faculty senate at a state-funded academic institution were passionate enough in their opposition to "condemn" it.

The absurd under representation of conservative viewpoints on university faculties obviously does not happen by random process. It is the result of a systematic repression (and/or discouragement) of conservative thought and scholarship at so-called "liberal" institutions of higher learning.)

I am, quite frankly, guilty of various infractions related to the above, except for the parts specifically dealing with students, i.e., grading or forcing them to adopt a certain point of view. (I'm proud to say that students, including those who disagree with me, have praised the openness of discussion in my classes. As a student of anthropology I've always prioritized looking at issues from different viewpoints.) I teach in an Asian American Studies department, in the one and only College of Ethnic Studies in the country, and -- well, I cannot see how one in my position can comply with most of the "requirements" above.

Take the war on Iraq, for example (yes, I have mocked Bush before, but that was at an anti-war rally, and not in the classroom. Maybe I even called him a moron.): discussion of the Chinese Exclusion Act or, more importantly, Japanese American internment will now always be informed by the targeting of Middle Eastern (and, heh, "Muslim-looking") immigrants since 9/11. (I do include a pro-exclusion text, but there's little in it to defend, but we do discuss .) And if I don't bring the war up -- and quite frankly the connection has to be made -- one of the students inevitably will.

I have allowed, even welcomed, people to invite students to rallies (at the very least), and I have participated (gleefully) in "partisan teach-ins or conferences." (Suffice it to say California's fiscal situation has, in any case, prevented the use of funds for those purposes.)

At the peak of the anti-war rallies last year, things got quite heated between the students in my Anthropology class (I'm shared by AAS and Anthro), and it got to the point where -- this will sound terrible -- I had to excuse myself from participating in the debate because (and I obviously didn't tell the students this) I couldn't guarantee objectivity in the classroom anymore. (I simply wasn't interested in what the pro-war folks had to say; I could turn CNN on any time of day and get their viewpoint.)

But it was an obviously controversial topic that did indeed have much bearing on the subject of my class, and students certainly seemed willing to discuss it. Do I still bring up the war on Iraq? No, because I'm more sensitive to the fact that people may not share my views. Can the students discuss Iraq, even if they have opposing viewpoints? Of course they can, especially if the students have opposing viewpoints; I just keep out of the debate. (In one of my AAS classes the students actually requested that we suspend discussion of the text at hand and just talk about the invasion, which had happened that week.)

But the fact that I was worried that I would get in trouble if I had the class discuss Iraq was, I think, indicative of the climate that people like Horowitz have fostered. (I kind of broke my promise the next semester by assigning an ethnography on Iraqi women in a rural village -- with no mention of the war, of course.)

So there you go, Paula Reilly: I'm guilty -- guilty of being a person for whom my place in the academe and in my community are largely inseparable. I try, as all professors must, to separate them when necessary. But I'd like to think that students don't go to school only to get their degrees and get out. College students are, I think, generally more aware that "real life" does, and sometimes must, intrude into schooling every now and then; the SAF, in contrast, are welcome to stay within the narrow confines of their little campus public square.

Posted by the wily filipino at January 8, 2004 09:34 AM