Every spring and fall we use Ramweb to register for classes. The
fortunate students get to register for math, engineering and
biology courses. They tend to not have an issue with academic
freedom, because the subject matter acts as a way to prevent their
professors from using the lectern to silence ideological dissent.
The unfortunate students in other studies don’t have the luxury.
Academic freedom to some is a way to justify conservative intrusion
into the classroom. To those that understand it, and have
experienced their freedom being stripped from them by overzealous
professors and instructors, the controversy looks much
different.
Is there really a problem with academic freedom at Colorado
State University? The answer is undeniably yes — the persistent
neglect of diversity in discussions of opinion, ideology and belief
is an affront to the purpose of our institution. To what extent
such silencing happens is hard to ascertain, but the students at
CSU are making it known that such acts happen.
Opponents of academic freedom on campus seem to rely primarily
on two arguments. First, they say complaints about “academic
freedom” are nothing more than an attempt by conservatives to
conduct a McCarthyesque witch-hunt for liberal professors. It is
true, liberal professors stand to be impacted, but only because
they dominate disciplines that are up to wide interpretation. It’s
hard for a professor of engineering to use his class on building
materials as an excuse to attack Bush’s reconstruction policy in
Iraq.
Whether or not they admit it, liberal professors in studies like
political science, sociology, economics, philosophy and a host of
others use their classrooms as forums of criticism for conservative
policy and thought. Many of these professors believe so strongly in
their beliefs that it only seems logical their classroom is a
proper place where conservatives can be criticized. Kati Borden,
the vice-chairman for the Massachusetts Alliance of College
Republicans, said “Harassing conservative students and mocking
their points of view is a serious violation of their academic
rights. If a university is
truly going to be a marketplace of ideas, then all points of
view must be
presented and respected.”
The second common criticism is that there isn’t much of a
problem, and if there is, proper channels of seeking remedy exist.
I’ve experienced quite the opposite. Why should I, in a Central and
Eastern European Politics class, have to put up with tirades for 20
minutes about Governor Owens? A simple geography class taught many
of us that Colorado is a bit far from Europe. A student at Metro
State College of Denver had to sit in a classroom where the
professor said, “If I was a conservative, I would shoot myself.”
These are professors making these comments, in a location where
students should feel free from intimidation. I ask would you make a
comment supporting conservatives in front of someone who said that
they should die?
What remedies do exist at Colorado State? The more appropriate
question is, what effective remedies are in place? None. You have
the option of filing a complaint with the department chair, and one
CSU student in the past was told that if enough complaints
accumulated then the matter would be looked at. Other forms of
discrimination have very scrutinizing processes to ascertain the
truth about such claims, such as bodies like the Office of Equal
Opportunity independent of the academic departments.
Whatever the discipline, whoever the professor, every student
has the right to be given a balanced, fair and appropriate
education. Consistently, they are not. The liberal professors at
this university who are complaining may do well to stop claiming
McCarthy is after them and listen to their students. The three
letters P, H and D don’t give anyone a right to intimidate others;
the same way a title of Senator didn’t give a man over fifty years
ago the right to persecute communists. Academic freedom belongs to
all individuals in this community we call Colorado State
University. The time is now to start living up to its mission.
Robert is the vice chairman for the Colorado Federation of
College Republicans. This is the first of his biweekly columns for
The Collegian. He can be reached at roblee@holly.colostate.edu.
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