Liberals often fight for the academic freedom to study topics deemed taboo.
Now, CNN reports, some conservative students are battling for the academic freedom not to study books and topics, such as the Qur’an or peace studies, which they prejudge as "offensive," often without knowing anything about the topic.
Perhaps it is better to hate one’s enemy in ignorance than to understand why the enemy is disagreeable?
There aren’t too many places where a student who is enrolled in a program of study is forced to read offensive books. That is, unless as student feels her “freedom” is compromised by having to read the Koran to receive a degree in comparative religion. I personally think the freedom to avoid the Koran was forfieted the second the comparative religion program was freely chosen.
One may always attend a Christian college if one doesn’t like the course of studies in a secular one.
What this conservative student backlash fails to take into account, or perhaps willfully ignores, is the possibility that academics tend to be liberal because they are academics – that the very process of in-depth study, and the requirement of most academic disciplines that all arguments be tested, create open-minded people.
That is not to say that any professor should push a specific political ideology in class, unless that is the point of the class, but it is ludicrous to suggest some type of conservative affirmative action quotas – e.g., 50% of all faculty being registered Republicans.
And as for all the supposed indoctrination going on around various campuses – other than the not-very-suprising revelation that most faculty members are Democrats, the conservatives making this argument rely mainly on anecdotes, and these may be isolated cases. Mary Daly created a furor for years at Boston College for refusing to admit men to one of her classes, but that does not mean all professors are radical feminists.
I have to believe the current push for ideological purity in many quarters of the conservative movement means innocuous teaching methods gain nefarious implications for some die-hard conservative students. For example, in my economics training it was common to invoke the concept of the Central Planner, an individual or office with perfect knowledge about an economy who could run it without any inefficiencies, the problems that exist in all economies. It would be entirely possible for a conservative student to argue that the professor was championing a form of socialism, or was arguing for the innate superiority of socialism over capitalism, when in reality it is merely a thought model to frame a question and test the impacts of the inefficiencies that do exist.
Likewise a religious student could argue that an English professor discussing the possibility of homosexual feelings or relationship between Bassanio and Antonio in the Merchant of Venice was promoting “the homosexual agenda.”
Until there is independent verification of this supposed oppression of conservative students, I’ll hold my sympathy.
I might point out that Mary Daly was roundly criticized for her stance by a lot of other feminist professors, who felt that her pedagogy should have been up to keeping disruptive students in line, by flunking them if necessary.
I think that the conservative students are exhibiting an attitude shared by a large percentage of students of all persuasions. To them, education is valued solely for its credentialling characteristics. The goal is to get a degree and a good score on the LSAT or MCAT or other professional school entrance exam. Learning is incidental to the main goal. “Do I have to know this for the test?” Cheating is rampant, and most instructors run student essays through programs designed to detect plagiarism. It does not surprise me one bit that the conservative students think that an essay with the argument “Reagan said this, so it is correct” is sufficient for an A, and that a demand for detailed documentation and argumentation is merely harassment.
Oh, and if the students objecting to reading the Koran were evangelical Christians, they were failing in their faith by refusing to learn about other religions and cultures, a prerequisite for effective evangelizing (as opposed to half-assed evangelizing, the type favored by most fundy Christians).