PC may not have taken over popular culture, but it’s going strong at those bastions of speech codes and thought police otherwise known as universities.
The latest incident involves arguably false charges against a professor at Brandeis, who supposedly uttered the word “wetback” in a lecture.
http://www.volokh.com/posts/chain_1201117270.shtml
[i]Eugene Volokh, January 23, 2008 at 2:41pm] Trackbacks
Brandeis University Trying To Discipline Professor
for saying (in a Latin American politics class) that “Mexican migrants in the United States are sometimes referred to pejoratively as ‘wetbacks’”? That’s what the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reports ( Newsdesk | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ), though pointing out that Brandeis hasn’t even explicitly said exactly what speech of his was found to be “racial[ly] harass[ing].” FIRE (which I’ve found to be consistently factually credible) also points to Brandeis faculty committees that strongly condemn the procedures that the university has used, and argue �?? quite correctly, if the facts are as they are described �?? that this is a serious violation of academic freedom.
I should note that I’m not as hostile as the faculty committees are to the administration’s decision to place a monitor in the professor’s class. It seems to me that people who pay one’s salary to teach are entitled to know what one is teaching. And if the monitor was looking for, say, targeted personal insults of individual students (if that were the allegation), that would be a plausible thing for the monitor to do (though my view is that recording the class would be a less disruptive way of doing that). Likewise, if there were simply reports that the professor was teaching in a confusing and ineffective way, the administration should be entitled to look in on the classes and see whether they can offer the professor constructive advice, or perhaps evaluate the teaching to see if the professor falls below minimum tenure standards (or perhaps should be reassigned to teaching some other class in which he does better).
The trouble is that the administration seems to be using a vague and potentially extremely broad definition of what the professor is not supposed to be saying �?? it’s not just the monitoring, but monitoring coupled with (1) the threat of punishment for speech for which a professor ought not be punished, (2) a finding of racial harassment based on the earlier statements, and (3) seemingly serious procedural failings in the process the administration has used. Looks like very bad stuff, given the facts reported on the FIRE site and the documents to which it links.
UPDATE: Prof. Margaret Soltan (at George Washington University) blogged several weeks ago about the controversy( http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?p=3272 ) (and also here: http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?p=3265 ); I haven’t read all the details, but I thought I’d forward the link. Thanks to reader Cactus Jack ( The Volokh Conspiracy - Brandeis University Trying To Discipline Professor )for the pointer.
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[Eugene Volokh, January 24, 2008 at 2:15am] Trackbacks
Don’t Say This, I Won’t Tell You What:
In Russian fairy tales, some powerful person sometimes sends the hero off on a quest by saying, “Go there, I don’t know where, bring that, I don’t know what.” Somehow the hero manages, but that’s because it’s a fairy tale.
I’ve been reminded of this by reading the accounts of the Brandeis administration’s finding that Prof. Donald Hindley was guilty of “racial harassment” because he said … well, the administration isn’t saying exactly what he supposedly said. Press accounts agree that it involves (at least) the use of the word “wetback,” but the context is far from clear. Since my earlier post, I’ve looked a bit at the coverage in university newspapers, and here’s what I see:
- Hindley’s account ( http://media.www.thejusticeonline.com/media/storage/paper573/news/2007/11/06/News/Prof-Penalized.For.Alleged.Racist.Remarks-3080010.shtml ):
[quote] Hindley defended his discussion of the term, saying he had used it to describe racism of a certain historical period. Throughout American history, he said, “When Mexicans come north as illegal immigrants, we call them wetbacks.” …
"[Administrator Jesse Simone, who was questioning Hindley,] said, 'Did you use the word wetback?' Well, I teach Latin American politics and I'm currently teaching Mexican politics, and of course I use the word wetbacks, [but] not in any derogatory sense," Hindley said ....
Hindley said Simone also asked if he had referred to "young, white males having contact with women of color," which he said he had.[/quote]
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From the same article, a statement by Lily Adams, a student of Hindley’s who defended him:
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From an article in a different student newspaper ( thehoot.net ) (thanks to Prof. Margaret Soltan (University Diaries http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?p=3272 ) for the pointer), here’s the student’s account:
[quote] Jane [the complaining student’s pseudonym] explained that her complaints dealt with alleged insensitivity by Hindley to the issues in his class, including usage of the terms “mi petite negrita” and “wetbacks.”
“The thing that pushed me over the edge was a story about a Brandeis student that he had who came from an elite Mexican family. He said, ‘he came here and he paid his way… but when he came back here, his back was still wet,’” said Jane. “That was the day I came to my professor and said, ‘this is crazy.’ These flippant remarks, he doesn’t see that they affect other people �?? it’s a joke, to him.”[/quote]
Jane also makes other allegations (and the article also notes that “[d]espite her complaints, Jane said she may take another course with Hindley, because ‘I won’t have to do work’”).
- From the same article that quotes Jane, a quote from student Ramon de Jesus, and a respone from Jane:
[quote] “I think that the allegations which are being made against Hindley are being done so by someone who is taking things out of context. It is interesting that the person whom you interviewed almost brushes context off as if it does not matter, when in fact, it is extremely important,” said Ramon de Jesus '08.
"If context were not important, everything anyone ever said could be misconstrued one way or another. As a student of color who has taken both Latin American Politics classes with Hindley, I can honestly say that the man is not racist."
He added "I'm not in a Hindley class currently, but if given the opportunity I would sign up for another one."
Regarding Hindley's statements, "sure there is context, but it should be treated gently, especially with students from so many different cultures," said Jane.
"You have Latin American students, Mexican students ... there are Jewish students, homosexual students, black students �?? you're just running the gamut in this classroom. I would think that would call for extra sensitivity, but I guess he doesn't think so," she said.[/quote]
Now the Brandeis administration obviously thinks that what Hindley said was impermissible, and indeed “racial harassment.” It thinks that professors shouldn’t say such things. But what is it that they shouldn’t say?
If Brandeis thinks Hindley said “wetback” in the context as he describes it, then I take it that Brandeis’s view is that professors should never use such terms in class �?? perhaps not even in direct quotes, and certainly not (as Hindley says he did) in made-up quotes characterizing what people think. If Brandeis thinks Hindley said “wetback” as part of a humorous aside, then I take it that Brandeis’s view is that professors shouldn’t say such things in class in a humorous context. If Brandeis thinks Hindley said “wetback” in a way that endorsed the view that illegal immigrants (or illegal immigrants from Mexico) are bad people, then I take it that Brandeis’s view is that professors shouldn’t express such views in class using pejorative terms. Or perhaps Brandeis thinks any condemnation of illegal immigrants (or illegal immigrants from Mexico), whether or not using the term “wetback” (a term that the administration didn’t even mention in any of the documents I’ve seen from it), is a view professors shouldn’t express in class.
But how on earth is a professor to know what he shouldn’t be saying when the University doesn’t even reveal what led to this high-profile discipline? And how are faculty members �?? and students and alumni and others �?? to know whether the University’s action invades academic freedom, promotes good teaching, or whatever else without knowing what it is that Hindley supposedly said?
Nor is the University’s explanation for its silence remotely justifiable. As best I can tell from the accounts, the University’s argument is that it can’t describe what specifically was said because it needs to protect the student’s confidentiality �?? but if this was supposedly said in open class, why would revealing the statement jeopardize the student’s confidentiality? (The article that quotes Jane quotes her as saying that she “came to [her] professor and said, ‘this is crazy’”; presumably she means someone other than Hindley when she says “my professor,” but if she did tell him, then I’m still more baffled by how there could be any risk to the student’s confidentiality here.)
Finally, I realize that the administration might conclude that it can’t specifically identify exactly what was said, but that it can figure out the general gist sufficiently to conclude that a racial harassment finding is warranted. Fine �?? but tell us what that gist is, so that professors can know what they shouldn’t say, and so that others can evaluate the administration’s actions. But the administration didn’t do even that.[/i]