Are Students A Captive Audience? Constructive Disagreement And Classroom Politics

The perfect teacher.

Recently I was reading a discussion of the relationship between campus speech codes, sexual harassment, and free speech doctrine.  Because I am not a legal scholar I won't dwell on the details, but the dilemma for educational institutions is this:  how might one seek to regulate classroom expression that creates a hostile environment for students in a protected class without infringing on freedom of speech? Such utterances by a teacher or another student might include:  "Students of color are only here because of affirmative action;" "Tammy sure is easy on the eyes;"  or "Learning disabled people get extra time for the test, but I don't believe that anyone deserves accommodation."  (I made all these up, but I once knew a male prof who was famous for saying to any female student who had a hyphenated last name:  "Your mother must be one of those feminists.")

The answer to the questions I began with is this.  While individual speech acts in a classroom might be found to violate the right to work or learn in an environment free from harassment, speech codes do violate the right to free speech, as well as academic freedom. Furthermore, speech acts are only taken seriously as discrimination when perpetrated by a faculty member against a student.  In 2008 a member of the Dartmouth faculty sued on the claim that her students had created a hostile environment, and was mocked by the national press as a result.

Faculty are, in fact, perceived as having an almost uniquely destructive power to harm their students intellectually by forcing their views on them.  One way of thinking about this is what is called in labor law "captive audience doctrine," by which employees are forced to listen to political, religious or discriminatory speech.  If said employees resist, or refuse to participate as part of an audience for such speech, and are threatened with reprisal as a result, the captive audience doctrine might be invoked. (Note:  since the National Labor Relations Board is a mere shadow of its former self, actually winning a discrimination case or a grievance under captive audience doctrine is very difficult.)

Sound familiar to you?  This is more or less the principle on which conservative groups like Students for Academic Freedom ("You can't get a good education if they're only telling you half the story") and Minding the Campus assert that so-called "liberal indoctrination" in the classroom establishes a hostile environment for conservative students.  As the Student Bill of Rights published by SAF states,

Professors are hired to teach all students, not just students who share their political, religious and philosophical beliefs. It is essential therefore, that professors and lecturers not force their opinions about philosophy, politics and other contestable issues on students in the classroom and in all academic environments. This is a cardinal principle of academic freedom laid down by the American Association of University Professors.


In an academic environment professors are in a unique position of authority vis-à-vis their students. The use of academic incentives and disincentives to advance a partisan or sectarian view creates an environment of indoctrination which is unprofessional and contrary to the educational mission. It is a violation of students' academic freedom. The creation of closed, political fiefdoms in colleges, programs or departments, is the opposite of academic freedom, and does not deserve public subsidy or private educational support.

Contained in this statement, which mirrors what might appear to be a worthy standard for professional pedagogy, is language that points to a growing source of resentment among students:  faculty often tell them things that don't support, and even contradict, the world view that they brought to college in the first place.  What many teachers see as factual information, such students perceive as "opinions" that they must pretend to replicate, even if they have another "opinion."  What faculty see as reasoned argument that is well supported in the literature, and requires equally reasoned and well-supported argument to rebut, students can perceive as "indoctrination."

The two paragraphs I quoted above set the stage quite neatly for an application of captive audience doctrine to the classroom.  In the second, the faculty member's "unique position of authority" is emphasized, a position that is buttressed by "academic incentives and disincentives" (grades) that can be used to reward students who accept indoctrination and punish those who don't.

But are students always a captive audience?  Do faculty always hold a position of unique authority?  Does the fact of grading itself mean that the faculty member's unique authority is always already abusive?  And what are the implications of all of this for a liberal arts education -- which ought to be about debate, disagreement and transformation?

These may not be important questions for teachers of math and science (I am sure commenters will inform me on this point), but they are for those of us in the social sciences and humanities.  They are particularly serious questions for teachers of feminism, race, colonialism, post-colonialism and queer studies, who are repeatedly harassed by students and conservative organizations, and risk having the institutional support for their work withdrawn, because their work challenges centrist and conservative (and perhaps even liberal) views about race, sex, gender and empire.  However, a central issue for all social sciences and humanities scholars, regardless of field,  is that our very work and identities are built around the idea of constructive disagreement as a path to knowledge.  Useful disagreement depends on the notion that truth is not always an absolute value, and accepting the possibility that those things that are obvious are not always true.  If students do not believe they are empowered to disagree with us, and if disagreement itself is viewed as destructive in a classroom context, in what context can students be transformed into scholarly thinkers?  Conversely, if all student views -- no matter how factually incorrect of interpretively flawed -- have to be deferred to for fear of being charged with "indoctrination," under what conditions might a class acquire a body of knowledge about a subject, or a set of intellectual tools that constitute a recognized approach to that body of knowledge, at all?

Want some recommended reading?  Try Robert I. Sutton,  The No Asshole Rule:  Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't (2007).  Reviewed here at Tenured Radical in July 2007.

And The Jury Is In: Professors Have Little Effect On Students

Just a day before the election, another piece of scaffolding invented out of whole cloth by conservative liars -- I mean, intellectual activists -- crashes to the ground: the notion that liberal college professors are indoctrinating their students. So sayeth the New York Times. According to an article in today's paper about a book just published by the Brookings Institution:

The notion that students are induced to move leftward “is a fantasy,” said Jeremy D. Mayer, another of the book’s authors. When it comes to shaping a young person’s political views, “it is really hard to change the mind of anyone over 15,” said Mr. Mayer, who did extensive research on faculty and students.

“Parents and family are the most important influence,” followed by the news media and peers, he said. “Professors are among the least influential.”

A study of nearly 7,000 students at 38 institutions published in the current PS: Political Science and Politics, the journal of the American Political Science Association, as well as a second study that has been accepted by the journal to run in April 2009, both reach similar conclusions.

A second study, co-authored by conservative researcher, Matthew Woessner, confirms these findings. The bad news from my point of view is Mayer's view that changing the mind of anyone over fifteen is difficult. So much for the importance of Western civilization -- or any kind of civilizing influence -- in a college curriculum, something that has been a mainstay of conservative and liberal curricular conflict for several generations now.

Honestly, despite my naturally liberal desire to gloat, I find this all a little difficut to believe, which may mean these researchers are also wrong about me not being a radical ideologue who indoctrinates my students. In truth, the whole conversation is -- and always has been -- hogwash, intended to divert most of us from the great economic rip-off of America engineered by Republican operatives (oops! liberal cant! keeps slipping out!) Just try teaching Barry Goldwater's Conscience of A Conservative to an average group of undergraduates. They love it. They don't love it, however, because he was a conservative, or because he wrote about things that were eternally true, or because Goldwater appeals to the political sensibilities of your average fifteen year-old, but because the ideas are so fearless and it was such a bold attempt to alter the political landscape. Students want to do something that significant too.

And you know what? Students respond approximately the same way to the work of radical left intellectual Angela Davis, who was once fired by Ronald Reagan for being a bad ideological influence in her university classroom. This all leads me to the (unscientific) conclusion that most students are more interested in how to grow up to be significant, unique people who are effective citizens of the world than they are concerned with where to place themselves (or their professors) on an ideological spectrum defined by conservative academics.

You Don't Need A Weatherman: Conservatives Respond to Sarah Palin

Do you know that Radicals read conservative publications? Well, they do -- if they want to keep up, that is. I am even signed up for alerts from Human Events which, along with the National Review, I read regularly (this is the only thing, as far as I can tell, that I have in common with Dinesh D'Souza, unless he is secretly gay. Then there would be two things. Or maybe still one, since it is not a secret that I am gay.)

But D'Souza reminds me of an important point. The Republican Party, which has done its best to dismantle affirmative action and revile Democrats for trying to establish "quotas," may have trouble with the Palin candidacy because they, and their stalking horses in the conservative intelligentsia, have gone to a great deal of trouble to convince their base that promoting the interests of women over men is ethically wrong. And there is at least the appearance that this is what they are doing with Sarah Palin.

My conclusion from scanning the Usual Suspects this weekend? Most of the conservative establishment likes Sarah Palin, some love her, but there is also a glimmer of serious dissent. McCain himself has the look of a man in a shotgun marriage in some of the pictures, and the rumour mill suggests he was very lightly involved in the choice. And since everybody doesn't love McCain either (Patrick Buchanan seems to actually loathe him,) it probably isn't the smashing coup the Republican National Committee hoped it would be.

The Palin choice could even be a sign that the RNC knows they can't win this one, and they are not throwing a good candidate like Elizabeth Dole to the dogs. My guess? They have asked Palin to fall on her sword, and have promised her Ted Stevens' Senate seat when he is, almost surely, forced to retire for ethics violations. You heard it here first.

John McCain (who I always kind of liked until he repudiated everything he stood for to kiss the RNC's nether parts) is beginning to remind me of Elvis at the end of his career: to all outer appearances Elvis was still "Elvis," but the person inside had become obscure, so surrounded was he by handlers who made all his decisions for him, crafting a superstar image that he didn't want.

So, forget about me. What do conservatives think? Here are a few samples, starting at the center:

Politico.com announces that Sarah Palin "electrifies the conservative base", however some conservatives Politico didn't talk to seem to be on the verge of grabbing a fork and sticking it in a wall socket to achieve this effect. Right wing pro-gay-marriage queer Andrew Sullivan is spitting mad as far as I can tell, calling the Palin nomination "the most irresponsible decision by any leading presidential candidate since Bush picked Quayle." Tell it, Mary.

The Weekly Standard has more or less fallen into line to back the choice, but strangely, columnists like Dean Barnett, William Kristol, and Fred Barnes have almost nothing to say about the substance of her candidacy and have focused their remarks almost exclusively on how the Democrats will try to destroy Palin's reputation through lies and misrepresentations (Republicans would never do such a thing, I know.) And am I right that there seems to be only one woman who writes a regular column for The Weekly Standard? Someone else go take a look and tell me if this is a lie or a misrepresentation, and I will retract it.

In its typically genteel way, the National Review has endorsed Palin, but also has virtually nothing to say about Palin's qualifications for the job.

Commentary has maintained what I would say is an ominous silence for the two days since Palin got the nod. One insight here would be John Podhoretz's strongly argued column favoring Joe Lieberman for veep (strong on foreign policy, strong on Israel, terrifying on the war of terror.) I'm not sure Palin does much for foreign policy intellectuals for whom putting Israel first is an article of faith: as a matter of fact, I doubt that Israel comes up in Alaskan politics at all. And I think Podhoretz was right -- this would have been the smart pick, and I am very relieved that, for whatever reason, it did not work out.

David Horowitz, at FrontPageMag.com has said -- nothing. Which is very unusual for him. Ditto Ann Coulter, who hates McCain, and won't be mollified by Palin if she runs true to form. Coulter has posted links about Palin in a sidebar on her website but has, as yet, failed to make a statement about her party's nominee. I think we have to think that Horowitz and Coulter might be part of the conservative base still trying to get the fork out of the socket.

Veering back to the center-right, The Wall Street Journal's response was fair, but tepid. "Most years, vice-presidential picks end up having little concrete impact on the outcome. Voters usually tell pollsters they care little about the second name on the ticket," the Journal notes. "But the 2008 race, already unusual in other ways, could be an exception, because both choices are meant to deal with key issues the presidential candidates haven't been able to solve on their own." But the article -- co-written by Laura Meckler, Elizabeth Holmes and Jim Carleton, also cites the Quayle pick, and ends the article with reference to something we will hear more about I am sure: Palin's apparent dismissal of a high-level government official in what may have been a personal matter. They continue:

While she revels in her reformer role, Ms. Palin has not been free of controversy herself. In July, she fired Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. He later said that Gov. Palin and her husband had pressured him to remove a state trooper who had been married to her sister and feuded with the family. Gov. Palin denied that, saying she removed the commissioner she appointed 18 months earlier because she wanted "a new direction," and offered him a job as liquor board director which he turned down.

Some legislators have called for an investigation into the affair. "This is going to show people just how vindictive and obsessed the Palins were with this guy," says Andrew Halcro, a rental-car executive in Anchorage and fellow Republican who ran against her in the 2006 gubernatorial contest. "It's not going to be pretty."

I will also be very surprised if McCain's high stakes gambling does not become an issue in the campaign, as well as questions about how and why he "transitioned" years ago from the wife of modest means (who kept the family together while he was a POW) to the rich wife (who buys houses on impulse and finances Senate campaigns for those she loves.) Details about both of these issues are well-known, undermining his rock-solid leadership image, not among Democrats, but within his own party.

Other than grumpy right-wingers roaming the streets of St. Paul, the other thing that is not going to be pretty next week is Hurricane Gus which, as of this writing, seems to be on target to slam into the Big Easy and the surrounding Gulf Coast in the next 24 hours with winds currently at 120 mph. Michael Moore's comments on Keith Olbermann's show couldn't have been in worse taste, could they? A kernal of truth remains: other than being a tragedy for those whose lives will be ripped apart by the storm, it couldn't be a worse piece of luck for the already shaky McCain campaign.

Radical Thanksgiving: the Top Ten Turkeys

Instead of giving thanks for my blessings today, which would be sweet, I know, I am going to be different and inaugurate the First Annual Radical Top Ten Turkeys in Education Awards on this Thanksgiving. Personally, I think this is only appropriate, since my Pilgrim forebears were turkeys too, and showed their thanks to the Indians who had brought several covered dishes to the first Thanksgiving by killing them afterwards. I don't mean to take the fun out of the holiday or anything, but you can't be in American Studies and not be up front about these things.

In order to build suspense, in true David Letterman style (hey -- if the writers for Letterman's show never come back maybe they'll hire me and I can move back to New York!) I will start listing from the ten spot, reserving my Big Turkey Award for last. So without further ado, the winners are:

10. KC and the Sunshine Band, whose persistence in harassing members of the Duke University faculty and anyone who is, or ever has been, associated with them (or who has commented inadvertently on the Legal Case That Will Not Be Mentioned Ever Again Lest We Say Something Terribly Wrong And Incite Them to More Hate Mail) has become so extreme that it has become a separate phenomenon from the original issue, now resolved (in court, at least.) Give up this obsession, people, and get on with your lives as everyone else connected with this case has done. And by the way, if you write New President about me the way the way you wrote my former President about me, from what I have observed so far I think he will probably give me a big raise.

9. Alan Dershowitz who, not content with employing his fine mind in support of torture, wrote an unsolicited letter that helped take down the tenure case of DePaul political science professor Norman Finklestein. Alan -- can you please tell us why someone at Harvard Law School cares who is tenured at DePaul in political science? Inquiring minds want to know. How about taking an interest in whether women and people of color are tenured at Harvard Law School, why don't you? Or whether your research assistants use quotation marks when they take notes?

8. Margaret Spellings, chief of the United States Department of Education, who knew students were being ripped off by student loan lenders and financial aid officers collaborating with each other, but did nothing about it until her hand was forced by a New York State investigation.

7. Bloggers like this one who have been feeding the very peculiar conspiracy theory that the Virginia Tech shooting was a plot, carried out by Blackwater, to cover up the brewing national financial aid scandal. According to this little-known truth teller, the shooter was studying quietly in his room, where he was assassinated and his corpse was moved to the scene of carnage. Yikes. What will the bastards do next? Shoot up innocent people in Baghdad?

6. The Massachusetts Department of Education, for threatening to withdraw funding from a conference on standardized testing in Northampton, MA, if Alfie Kohn, a critic of high stakes testing was permitted to give a keynote address. Why is it news now? Because Kohn sued them on first amendment grounds and won, that's why. Read about it here.

5. Washington D.C.'s Board of Education, for firing Gerald Norde from the charter school where he worked as a teacher. Norde charges he was dismissed for inquiring as to why students were being persistently listed on his class roll who had either dropped out or had never been enrolled at all. Guess why? So the school district could be billed for them, using money that was being siphoned away from public school children who are real and actually do attend school! One account of that controversy is here.

4. A joint Turkey award goes to the Philadelphia Board of Education and to Chris Whittle, founder and CEO of Edison, a for profit education corporation that takes over urban public schools and runs them into the ground while -- you guessed it -- siphoning off taxpayer money. This month Edison's stock price went through the floor, and to pay the bills Whittle removed books and equipment from the Edison schools in Philadelphia and sold them. For money. Whittle also proposes that each child enrolled in an Edison school be forced to work an hour a day without pay so that the schools can cut maintenance costs, thus making the corporation more efficient. Read about it here.

3. David Horowitz, for inventing "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week," a national event featuring himself, that was supposedly an attempt to "rock...the nation" with "the biggest conservative campus protest ever." Topping the charts on the all-time biggest conservative protest nationwide would not be hard, of course, since conservative students -- being conservative, by nature -- tend not to be interested in rocking the nation. Name a) any mass conservative protest that has occurred on your campus (this requires lots of conservatives showing up at the same time, not just twenty or thirty); or b) any conservative protest at all on your campus that was not staged as a counter-demonstration. Actually, however, Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week was a not terribly successful strategy to get Horowitz back in the news after the 101 so-called radical academics named in his 2006 book failed to be upset enough about it to make it a cause celebre. Oh yes, rocking the nation with conservative protest was also a strategy to rock lecture fees into the pocket of at least one conservative. Who needs the security of tenure if you can be as financially successful as David Horowitz has been by making a profession out of criticizing people with tenure? I ask you. Would that I had thought of it first.

2. The Turkey for Unnecessary Incivility Towards a Person Who Does Not Matter goes to students who thought an appropriate response to David Horowitz speaking on their campus was to attempt to restrict his speech by booing, throwing things, and childishly turning their backs on him. For the unnecessary fodder this provided for right-wing attacks on academia, click here. Please. Go protest the war, as opposed to protesting people who say dumb things about the war.

And finally, the Radical's Top Turkey of the Year (for the Biggest Turkey in Education) is:

1. Whatever genius with a Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Social Organization of Schools who decided to label 1700 high schools nationwide "dropout factories." Now there is a small step for the future of university-based education research and a giant leap towards really supporting public school students in this country -- make kids ashamed of where they attend school! Particularly if the school you are naming is the best high school available in their district, and they couldn't transfer anywhere better if they wanted to! Nice work, dude. And I bet the study was federally funded too. I know about this terrific piece of research because some other genius at Wilbur Cross High School, in New Haven CT, where one of my nephews goes to school, decided it was a good idea to announce to the student body that the school had been listed last week as a "drop out factory." Thanks, guys. Maybe the kids will figure out how to persuade their parents to move out of New Haven and transfer them to another city system that is doing better like, say, Baltimore.