- Joined
- Apr 3, 2019
- Messages
- 22,341
- Reaction score
- 9,894
- Location
- Alaska (61.5°N, -149°W)
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Conservative
The university is free to establish whatever rules they desire concerning guest speakers, but once those rules are established they are required to apply them equally to everyone.The universities are administered by people who voluntarily institute internal regulations on speech and who prefer to ban guest speakers than to get violent protestors arrested. They might be individually well intended, but it doesn't seem like they will do an unbiased job.
That is why proof of bias is required. Merely making an allegation means nothing. I'm certain everyone who has ever received a unsatisfactory grade would like to dispute it, but unless they have actual evidence of bias they have no grounds to be making any claim.Moreover, every dispute concerning grades will at best lead to the administration asking another professor from the same department to grade the paper a second time -- usually without appeal.
This is why actual evidence is crucial. The sheer number of disgruntled students who did not fair well must be staggering for any administration. So unless there is a preponderance of the evidence showing bias by the professor, the administration is doing the right thing by ignoring the complaint.I would not be surprised if accusations of political bias toward his colleague or the additional workload put the professor in a bad mood and I would question the chance of coming across a fair judgement from a department who hired someone who was so biased it was obvious in how they graded the paper. And, if it wasn't enough, all disputes that lead to a second grading means the entire paper or exam is graded again: the grade may end up being lower, in other words.
In short, you only have the semblance of fairness in some departments.
I disagree. Johns Hopkins University is a private institution that receives more than a $1.88 billion federal grant annually. Threatening to cut off that federal funding would be a significant incentive for them to ensure free expression. Granted John Hopkins University is an extreme example, but the overwhelming majority of private academic institutions do receive substantial federal funding. Stanford University in California, for example, receives $656 million annually in federal funding.
If they want to separate themselves from all those federal funds, then they can be as unfair as they like. But until they do so they are also compelled to be non-discriminatory, just as if they were a public institution.
Indeed, such a move would be a major step toward establishing an existential aristocracy.
-- Xelor
You mean like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale?
Red:
The sum of Johns Hopkins' federal grant funding, and perhaps too the ratio of it among the institution's revenue sources, may be extreme; however, the incidence of it receiving such funding is not. I took your opening sentence as being broadly illustrative of the phenomena's occurrence, not a specific case to be addressed.
Well, okay. I agree that research grant funding does qualify as part of "all federal and state funding." That said, absent reversal of jurisprudential principles in South Dakota v. Dole, Jackson v. City of Joliet, and Meredith Corp. v. FCC,[SUP]1[/SUP] predicating grant research funding receipt/eligibility on an organization's positive-right and/or negative-right compliance/conformity with 1st Amendment provisions simply is not an implementable notion.
I was being general. I only brought up John Hopkins and Sanford as specific examples of a much broader practice. If only a small handful of private academic institutions received public funding then it would not be much of an incentive to cut that public funding to ensure compliance. However, if a private school were to manage to get by without any public funding whatsoever, then they could discriminate as they see fit. They could invite only those who meet their criteria, and even restrict their speech. Much like Facebook and Twitter do today. Since they are private, they have that ability. Just as we have the ability to not support them, if we do not agree with their censorship.
The only relevant case you cited was South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), which created a five-part test for whether federal funding could be withheld. According to that case the Supreme Court held that if the condition was not unconstitutional in itself, and the condition is not overly coercive, then funding could be withheld. Asking private academic institutions to uphold the individual right to free speech and the freedom of association is hardly an "unconstitutional" condition. Nor are those requirements overly coercive since we expect our own government to abide by those very same requirements.
As for the Fairness Doctrine, it was anything but fair. It's actual purpose was to curtail or censor speech by limiting points of view. Which is why it was abolished in 1987. The Supreme Court even acknowledged in FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. 364 (1984) that the scarcity rationale underlying the Fairness Doctrine was flawed and that the doctrine was limiting the breadth of public debate. That was 35 years ago, before the world-wide-web. Just imagine how much harm the Fairness Doctrine would do today, stifling different points of view.
The First Amendment protects our right to speak freely, but it does not provide us with a right to a platform or a means by which we can broadcast our opinion. In the end is easier, and the most fair to every side concerned, to simply prohibit all public debate by denying it a platform. Which was the real intent behind the Fairness Doctrine. Not to accommodate more opinions, but to stifle as much dissent as possible.
And what, in the day by day life of the majority of people, does academic value matter? Other than to other academics who seem to think they are superior than those not in involved in academia, it has no value at all.
I'm new here, so I can't comment on what discussions have been going on, however I can say that as someone of college age I have a few friends in college currently, and it seems like they are being presented information from a very biased perspective - which ordinarily wouldn't be too terrible however all attempts to speak outside of the particular narrative which they are being presented are stifled either with bad grades or disciplinary action. I can provide specific examples from personal experience, if you'd like.Part I of II
On multiple occasions, I've seen people here gripe about collegians being unable, on campus, to say whatever suits them. Just as parents draw a line about what of their guidance is open for debate, college students face constraints on what they can and cannot say in an academic context.
Kids will question what you tell them regardless of if you allow them too or not. Therefore I think it'd be better to adress their concerns openly and explain to them why they're wrong instead of disallowing questioning. With that being said I also recognize that kids are stubborn and their minds cannot be changed so easily in a lot of cases, so sometimes (like maybe with profanity or on innapropriate subjects) it does make sense to just not allow certain things to be said. But hey, I don't have kids of my own so I might be talking out of my rear end on this.To wit, the experience and insights I impart to my kids aren't by them things to question.
this is a very subjective thing, personally I'd have a very differnt goal in raising my children.When they have the life experience, intellectual knowledge and acuity to make their own marks in the world and not depend on the ones I've made for their sufficiency, I will have achieved my goal of raising them,
Sounds fair to me. Also sounds like part of becoming an adult.and at that point all of my input will for them be reduced to suggestion status, whereupon they become free to conduct their affairs as they see fit, free to express themselves as they desire, and free to raise their own kids as I raised them or differently
Sure, I can agree that that sounds fair in terms of educating students. However I question at what point will we know that they do in fact have original ideas that withstand rigorous scrutiny if they are not allowed to express those ideas?The same concept applies in higher education settings. When students reach the point that they have original ideas that withstand rigorous scrutiny, the discipuli will have then earned the right to speak freely on topics that capture their interest and that fall within the scope of their expertise. Until then, however, they need to sit down, take notes and, where/when fitting, ask intelligent questions.
This is a bold claim, to address it I think it's important to understand what an academic value is. In my understanding a "value" is defined as an "importance, worth, or benefit", so as it pertains to academics it would refer to an important part of academics, an intrinsic worth of academics, or potentially a benefit of academics. I think it can be argued that freedom of speech is not an important part of academics, as one can learn something (1+1=2) without questioning it. With that being said, I think freedom of speech is an intrinsic worth of academics inarguably. Without asking the math teacher "why?", I wouldn't feel particulary motivated to use the logic they share with me in real life. Furthermore, without the ability to question something a student cannot make it clear when they don't understand it, hindering their ability to learn. And of course, from what you said earlier, that when a student reaches the point where they do have original ideas they have earned the right to freely speak on a topic, from your very own logic it does indeed seem like freedom of speech is a benefit of academics.Freedom of speech is not an academic value.
This might be nitpicking, but here it sounds like you've given what makes something academically valuable your own meaning, being directly related to the goal of academic inquiry. That's an interesting opinion, but one that I'd question before assuming as truth. Of course, I could be entirely wrong here, so feel free to prove your point.Accuracy of speech is an academic value; completeness of speech is an academic value; relevance of speech is an academic value. Each of these values is directly related to the goal of academic inquiry: getting a matters of fact and inference right.
this sounds fair, aside from the "persuasively" part. If something is logically true then forms of persuasion should not be neccesary in getting people to understand. This is semantics at this point though.The operative commonplace is "following the evidence wherever it leads." One can’t do that if one's sources are suspect or nonexistent; one can’t do that if one only considers evidence favorable to one's preferred predicates; one can’t do that if one's evidence is far afield and hasn’t been persuasively connected to the instant matter of fact.
You make a great point here, conclusions and truths should be based on logic, not personal opinion or views.Nor can one follow the evidence wherever it leads if what guides one be a desire that inquiry reach a conclusion sympathetic to one's political views.
This is a non-sequitor. Just because something is not guiding inquiry does not make it antithetical to inquiry. It only makes it unnecesary relating to inquiry. I debated my philosophy teacher on political issues both outside of an inside class many times, however when it came time to learn we both put our differences aside freely. This is a tenured, well known professor and author I'm talking about (not sharing his name for obvious reasons), and I ended up receiving an A+ in his class despite having many open debates where I voiced an opinion different than what he was teaching, or brought up a concern with what he was saying. In fact he considered my inquiries to be in general overall benificial to his teaching, and even suggested that he may have learned things from me. Of course there were times where he had to cut me off and tell me to shut up so he could finish his lesson, but I digress.If free speech is not an academic value because it is not the value guiding inquiry, free political speech becomes antithetical to inquiry: it skews inquiry in advance, one achieves one's end from the get-go.
fair. An astute observation.Speech is political if, when answering questions, one believes it is one's task to answer normatively rather than dialectically.
Not always true. None of those topics were brought up in math class, or science, or english, or technology, or chemistry, etc. as they did not pertain to the subject matter at hand.Any number of topics taken up in a classroom will contain moral and political issues, issues like discrimination, inequality, institutional racism.
Why not? If that agenda is truly wrong than the teacher will have an opportunity to prove it wrong in front of the entire class, which in turn would show students that the teacher is of course correct. There was a socialist at my highschool, I'm talking full on uniformed, marx reading, misinformed ideology spouting, bernie supporting commie. One time he got offended at what our history teacher was teaching us about the horrors of communism in china, and after voicing his politically biased views openly was promptly blown the fudge out by the teacher. From that day forward I fully understood why communism is bad, and I'll never forget the lecture when this happened. He ended up transferring schools after that because nobody took him seriously. I'm not kidding, you can't make this stuff up.Those issues should be studied, analyzed, and historicized, but they shouldn’t, in the classroom, be debated with a view to forming and prosecuting a remedial agenda.
I can agree with that.The academic interrogation of an issue leads to comprehension of its complexity; it does not (nor should it) lead to joining a party or marching down Main Street. That is what I mean by saying that the issue shouldn’t be taken normatively; taking it that way would require following its paths and byways to the point where one embarks upon a course of action; taking it academically requires that one stop short of action and remain in the realm of deliberation so long as the academic context is in session; action, if it comes, comes later or after class.
undoubtedly a shameful display by the college students and protesters. Nobody's opinion will be swayed by such an event taking place, no matter how misinformed they are. In fact because of the streisand effect I'd argue that about the only thing that would happen would be more people radicalizing towards Murray's views.Consider the Middlebury College example that obtained a good deal of news coverage. The facts are well known. The controversial sociologist Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, was invited by the American Enterprise Institute Club to speak at Middlebury... That never happened, because as soon as Murray rose to speak student protesters turned their backs on him and incessantly serial-chanted slogans like "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Charles Murray go away" and "Your message is hatred; we will not tolerate it."
Great points, I fully agree with what you're saying here.What happened there? Well, according to many commentators, something disturbing and dangerous happened. That is the suggestion of an article headline in The Atlantic: "A Violent Attack on Free Speech at Middlebury." But whose free speech was attacked? If you’re thinking someone's 1st Amendment rights were violated, think again; no government or government agency prevented Murray from speaking. If you’re thinking 1st Amendment values like the value of a free exchange of ideas were disregarded, well, they weren't because that was never the student group's goal to begin with, and it was their show (after they took it away from the AEI club). And if it is what the Middlebury administration wanted, as President Laurie L. Patton claimed, then it was incumbent on the school's administration to, from square one, have takes steps necessary to effect that outcome.
Agreed. These students seem terribly misinformed, and I'd say the college system completely failed them.Some Middlebury faculty and many outside observers blamed the students for the debacle, and there is no doubt that their actions and ideas were pedestrian enough to merit them the moniker "whipping boy." When an earnest representative of the AEI Club told the students that he looked forward to hearing their opinions, one of them immediately corrected him: "These are truths." In other words, you and Charles Murray have opinions, but we are in possession of the truth, and it is a waste of our time to listen to views we have already rejected and know to be worthless. Now that’s a nice brew of arrogance and ignorance, which, in combination with the obstructionism that followed, explains why the students got such a bad press.
B.S. This statement itself suggests some bias, but regardless I can assure you that not all students are like this. Furthermore smearing them with ad-hominem only reduces you to their level and will accomplish nothing.They are obnoxious, self-righteous, self-preening, shallow, short-sighted, intolerant, and generally impossible, which means that they are students, doing what students do.
What they are supposed to do is create an open learning environment which promotes understanding and knowledge as well as get the kids ready for the real world and prepare them for their respective careers. Obviously it seems like they failed at doing that, however that does not then mean that "free speech isn't an academic value".What they don’t do is police themselves or respect the institution’s protocols or temper their youthful enthusiasm with a dash of mature wisdom. That, again, is what college administrations are supposed to do and it's what they are paid to do. Pillorying the students while muttering about the decline of civility and truth-seeking in a radical PC culture makes good copy for radio, TV, and newspaper pundits; however, it misses the point, which is not some piously invoked abstraction about free speech or democratic rational debate, but something much smaller and more practically consequential: the obligation of college and university administrators to know what they are supposed to do and then to actually do it.
The university is free to establish whatever rules they desire concerning guest speakers, but once those rules are established they are required to apply them equally to everyone.
That is why proof of bias is required. Merely making an allegation means nothing. I'm certain everyone who has ever received an unsatisfactory grade would like to dispute it, but unless they have actual evidence of bias they have no grounds to be making any claim. (...)
This is why actual evidence is crucial. The sheer number of disgruntled students who did not fair well must be staggering for any administration. So unless there is a preponderance of the evidence showing bias by the professor, the administration is doing the right thing by ignoring the complaint.
I recall one professor I had for a Political Science course was extremely biased toward the left. So much so that he was deliberately distorting historical events. When I confronted the professor with a number of glaring historical errors, not just in his lectures but also in the text that he required, I was given my choice of three different texts from which to choose. I would also interrupt his lectures whenever he made an historical error and point out his error in front of the rest of the class. My grade in that class did not suffer as a result, and I did learn something from the text I was able to choose myself.
However, I did have the advantage of being an older student at the time. I served in the military for 8 years before attending the University at age 26. So I was not exactly fresh out of high school. I also perform "due diligence" when learning something new by cross-referencing what I've learned with other sources.
Every professor that I had had their own rules for how they issued grades. They typically informed the class of thier process very early in the course. So the first step would be to hold the professor to their own rules. If they don't explain how they grade papers or issue grades for the class, ask them directly. More often than not it is a teaching assistant who reads and issues grades for papers, and not the actual professor.
I went for a bachelor in science, so I only had to take a couple of inappropriate liberal art courses. I also had a job as a teaching assistant while I was going to school, and also taking the class. I not only had to write and score the mid-term exam, I also had to take it. All my other courses were very technical and had no room for politics, so there was no controversies while I attended the university.I never had a problem with a professor either. For some reason, the college is known for protestors disturbing courses and student associations going on strikes, but even the courses I took outside the economics department were rather civil, even the course in political philosophy. It is also true that TAs do most of the grading, except for certain courses that enroll too few students. I did this a few times and I never bothered looking at who I was grading and I generally was on the generous side because I didn't get paid more for dealing with students or for re-grading papers.
I went for a bachelor in science, so I only had to take a couple of inappropriate liberal art courses. I also had a job as a teaching assistant while I was going to school, and also taking the class. I not only had to write and score the mid-term exam, I also had to take it. All my other courses were very technical and had no room for politics, so there were no controversies while I attended the university.
My economics department is in a business school and the department receives money from government programs, the central bank, and a few private businesses. We deal with all sorts of people and with all sorts of points of view, which is probably why everyone seems so sane. In a seminar last year, a professor objected to an interpretation made by someone presenting research on the impacts of a new policy in France. He pointed out no reason allows us to assume men and women have the same preferences on average. The post-grad showing her work took notes so she could acknowledge the objection in a paper, or try to address it if she can. All hell did not get loose.
We even have two former ministers of finance teaching here. They held office for two different parties. They talk, work together and have lunch together. You sometimes hear them have an argument about politics which usually ends without any trouble. That's how humanities and social science departments are supposed to function. It's unfortunate that reasonable people can actually say liberal arts courses are inappropriate. It's unfortunate because it's true way more often than it should.
The liberal art courses were inappropriate for me, since I was seeking a degree in science. I had to take a small handful of liberal art courses in my first two years, and none of them had anything to do with my degree. Which is why I labeled them as inappropriate. Only those courses that were about my chosen degree field were considered appropriate.
Anyone who "knows" (whoa! as if it's a fact!) that "their discipline vastly outstrips that of all others but their peers" automatically think of themselves as being superior to others.Rarely, if ever, have I encountered an academic who thinks s/he is superior to anyone. Far more commonly have I come by academics who know their comprehension of their discipline vastly outstrips that of all others but their peers. But that's not a matter of their construing themselves as superior as individuals to other individuals;
Critical Thinking allows a person to recognize and identify fallacious lines of reasoning very quickly and very easily with confidence. Racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia, ... each of these are very obvious examples of hasty generalizations. They are wrong. Knowing what is right can be difficult sometimes, but recognizing what is wrong can often time be very easy. Unfortunately for many older people the so-called wisdom that comes from age is very often more accurately described as prejudice. You get to a point where you think your age and experience has taught you all you need to know about the world and when young people with their new ideas come along it can be hard to see the merit without admitting to your own blind spots and failures for not realizing these things sooner.
Your nonsense sounds like nothing more than standard issue generational hatred. The kids didn't put Trump in office, baby boomers did. It's time to start admitting that the kids are smarter than their parents.
Anyone who "knows" (whoa! as if it's a fact!) that "their discipline vastly outstrips that of all others but their peers" automatically think of themselves as being superior to others.
But that's OK!
The only problem is that many academics quite often have close to zero actual and relevant "comprehension" of "their discipline". Over 99% of papers that get published in "peer reviewed journals" are pure JUNK with ZERO VALUE!
The biggest problem that academia faces nowadays is in the area of scientific research - the rigorous standards of research that lead to actual advances in science are under constant attack from a variety of parties: from other fields in academia(like social "sciences" - no there's no actual science in there, philosophy and so on) and sometimes from their own ranks - that is from people who should know better what science is, but discovered that they can advance in careers a lot easier and/or get funding if they lie and make wild claims about their area of research.
Good post by Xelar! Good question (re: Heckler's Veto) from Harshaw.
Like many others, I have been subject to a lot of political correctness from both the left and right. People don't want to hear what I have to say. And sometimes it's better just to shut up. Which then means I have caved into the pressure to keep a certain opinion away from the discourse.
I recall a Canadian situation where a liberal celebrity debated an academic racist about the superiority of certain races. The academic had all sorts of evidence to support his perspective; the celebrity had the crowd cheering at certain points and booing at certain points. In terms of proffering arguments and rebuttals based on facts and logic, the racist won hands down.
How should academic institutions handle "emotional" crowds when trying to display a sense of a fairness to both sides, even when one side has a reprehensible argument?
Universities are inherently anti-free speech. Professors (or their aids) lecture. Students are to accept whatever they are told as facts. Students are tested in their ability to recite and understand the professor and materials.
In short, students are tests on how precise they can submissively recite what they were told.
There is no reason to look to college kids for free speech occasions because universities inherently are anti-free speech and pro unquestioning submissiveness to professors as if they are omniscient gods.
My oldest child was literally published internationally in scientific journals and was receiving corporate grant money while still in high school, then attending a top private science and technology university on full scholarship. However, she abandoned the field of science for exactly the reason you gave.
Instead, went into the military as the quickest way to get the first degrees. The military recognized the mind and skill sets, and in a fashion she does "scientific" research for practical use in state-of-the-art warfare.
Usually, scientific "research" is hired and what scientists sell is their title as research is hired to reach the conclusions the scientists were hired to reach. Trying to do any research in many fields - particularly environmentalism - is constrained by whoever is paying for the research - meaning buying the conclusions they want. Letting the facts lead to whatever conclusions they do isn't how it works. It is about money, not science. Science is secondary and more often whoring out scientific titles than legitimate research.
:lamo tell that to Charles Murray. He is a paid shill for a eugenics organization.
Universities are inherently anti-free speech. Professors (or their aids) lecture. Students are to accept whatever they are told as facts. Students are tested in their ability to recite and understand the professor and materials.
In short, students are tests on how precise they can submissively recite what they were told.
There is no reason to look to college kids for free speech occasions because universities inherently are anti-free speech and pro unquestioning submissiveness to professors as if they are omniscient gods.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?