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The Assault on Higher Education: The Conservative Push for the Right Student
The news of right-wing assaults on higher education keeps coming: The state of Pennsylvania has a congressional board set up to investigate cases of bias in the classroom, the State University of New York System's Board of Trustees voted unanimously to allow white students to apply for scholarships originally earmarked for black, Hispanic, and American Indian students. Barely a day passes when those of us who work in higher education are not forced to face yet another example of the increasing power of the right's ability to push its educational agenda.
These assaults, of course, are not new. Most of them have been circulating since the culture wars. But it was the attacks of 9/11 and the war on terror that gave them newfound power. Stanley Kurtz, the conservative critic who argued for government oversight of area studies programs, makes the point: "The war has unquestionably brought a new level of scrutiny to our politically correct campuses. Once the initial years of the campus culture war had passed, the public decided that campus leftism was either beyond the reach of anyone who hoped to do something about it, or irrelevant. The war changed that" (2002). What lends force to these attacks is that they are presented as stemming from a desire to protect student rights. The public has been regaled by tales of the helpless student who was victimized by a left-leaning faculty member who forced her class to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 and then penalized students who didn't like the movie with bad grades. Or we hear of freshman classes who have had to suffer through reading texts sympathetic to Islam. In addition, the media reports that university faculty are overwhelmingly leftist and hell-bent to indoctrinate their students.
There have been many counter-arguments posed that suggest that these attacks rest on faulty research, that the nature of teaching lends itself to left-leaning politics, that seeking political diversity among faculty members is impractical, etc but not enough attention has been paid, in my view, to the right's characterization of the student as a helpless victim. These attacks have typically been disguised as a defense of student rights -- such as the right to academic freedom, the right to transparency in reporting facts about universities, the right to fairness and balance in courses and curricula, the right to be taught about the greatness of the nation and of Western civilization, the right to exposure to conservative faculty, etc. -- but really the assault is on the student.
Let me briefly list some of the claims being made by the right regarding the assault on the student:
* Students are victims of indoctrination.
"For some time now, conservatives have watched anxiously as tenured leftists have conducted mind experiments on American campuses, regulating speech and punishing ideas that are politically incorrect." David Horowitz (The Art of Political War 2000, 73).
* Students have been denied access to conservative faculty.
The "About Campus Watch" site claims that "[t]he Middle East studies professorate is almost monolithically leftist due to a systematic exclusion of those with conservative or even moderately liberal views" (n.p.).
* Student ideas are often discounted by professors, which is a violation of their academic freedom.
"Rather than fostering intellectual diversity-the robust exchange of ideas traditionally viewed as the very essence of a college education-our colleges and universities are increasingly bastions of political correctness, hostile to the free exchange of ideas" (Anne Neal, co-president of the ACTA, Congressional testimony, 2003, n.p.).
These three points interconnect and reveal important premises that underpin the right's assault. Similar to the McCarthy period the right now claims that students are victims of indoctrination. Brainwashing and mind control in classrooms constitute a parent's worst fears. Merely accusing a professor of indoctrination sends shivers throughout public consciousness. It is, without a doubt, the most effective way to cripple the progressive potential of higher ed, because it immediately makes the public suspicious of professors. But let's consider for a moment what such charges presume, especially when they are bundled with the second claim that students need more access to conservative faculty.
Throughout the Bush reign the public has been repeatedly asked to uncritically believe, to have blind faith, to sacrifice, and to obey. The connections between the type of public ideally imagined by the administration and the nation's youth should be obvious. If you require an obedient populace, then it is essential that you begin training the youth accordingly. Favoring tests over critique, memorization over engagement, loyalty over social commitment, individualism over community, and so on implies a student educated to passively consume what the government provides rather than actively participate in the construction of a democratic society. This negative view of the unthinking student repeatedly appears in arguments that assume that students are docile and submissive, easily persuaded to accept their professors' politics. The right also confuses the necessary confrontations that arise in an atmosphere of critical pedagogy with hostility towards student's views.
What is most revealing is that the right suggests that political affiliations of faculty seamlessly transfer into classroom dogma and that students readily accept anything a professor says. If that were true, and if it were also true that the academy was dominated by the left, then wouldn't the nation be overwhelmingly leftist? If professors control their students, and if the left controls the universities, then why are there so many college-educated Republicans?
More
http://counterpunch.org/mclennen03212006.html
There have been many counter-arguments posed that suggest that these attacks rest on faulty research, that the nature of teaching lends itself to left-leaning politics, that seeking political diversity among faculty members is impractical, etc but not enough attention has been paid, in my view, to the right's characterization of the student as a helpless victim. These attacks have typically been disguised as a defense of student rights -- such as the right to academic freedom, the right to transparency in reporting facts about universities, the right to fairness and balance in courses and curricula, the right to be taught about the greatness of the nation and of Western civilization, the right to exposure to conservative faculty, etc. -- but really the assault is on the student.
Let me briefly list some of the claims being made by the right regarding the assault on the student:
* Students are victims of indoctrination.
"For some time now, conservatives have watched anxiously as tenured leftists have conducted mind experiments on American campuses, regulating speech and punishing ideas that are politically incorrect." David Horowitz (The Art of Political War 2000, 73).
* Students have been denied access to conservative faculty.
The "About Campus Watch" site claims that "[t]he Middle East studies professorate is almost monolithically leftist due to a systematic exclusion of those with conservative or even moderately liberal views" (n.p.).
* Student ideas are often discounted by professors, which is a violation of their academic freedom.
"Rather than fostering intellectual diversity-the robust exchange of ideas traditionally viewed as the very essence of a college education-our colleges and universities are increasingly bastions of political correctness, hostile to the free exchange of ideas" (Anne Neal, co-president of the ACTA, Congressional testimony, 2003, n.p.).
These three points interconnect and reveal important premises that underpin the right's assault. Similar to the McCarthy period the right now claims that students are victims of indoctrination. Brainwashing and mind control in classrooms constitute a parent's worst fears. Merely accusing a professor of indoctrination sends shivers throughout public consciousness. It is, without a doubt, the most effective way to cripple the progressive potential of higher ed, because it immediately makes the public suspicious of professors. But let's consider for a moment what such charges presume, especially when they are bundled with the second claim that students need more access to conservative faculty.
Throughout the Bush reign the public has been repeatedly asked to uncritically believe, to have blind faith, to sacrifice, and to obey. The connections between the type of public ideally imagined by the administration and the nation's youth should be obvious. If you require an obedient populace, then it is essential that you begin training the youth accordingly. Favoring tests over critique, memorization over engagement, loyalty over social commitment, individualism over community, and so on implies a student educated to passively consume what the government provides rather than actively participate in the construction of a democratic society. This negative view of the unthinking student repeatedly appears in arguments that assume that students are docile and submissive, easily persuaded to accept their professors' politics. The right also confuses the necessary confrontations that arise in an atmosphere of critical pedagogy with hostility towards student's views.
What is most revealing is that the right suggests that political affiliations of faculty seamlessly transfer into classroom dogma and that students readily accept anything a professor says. If that were true, and if it were also true that the academy was dominated by the left, then wouldn't the nation be overwhelmingly leftist? If professors control their students, and if the left controls the universities, then why are there so many college-educated Republicans?
More
http://counterpunch.org/mclennen03212006.html
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