The reasons for enacting Senate Bill 24 are that too many faculty members at our universities no longer observe their responsibility to teach and not to indoctrinate students; that university administrations no longer enforce their faculty guidelines on academic freedom; and that the existing guidelines are not codified as student rights; as result students currently have no way to redress their grievances.He refers us to a few examples that are intended to convince us of a crisis in Higher Education. But to my knowledge these individual cases are largely unsubstantiated, or at best rare infringements of what are already common academic expectations for intellectual integrity and openness. (Horowitz has even retracted a number of examples that turned out to be spurious.) I must confess that I do have colleagues that I suspect do more preaching and indoctrinating than teaching. But we already have expectations against such behavior (and ways of responding to it). I also have colleagues who proffer views that are simply ridiculous, but who attempt (so very poorly and with extreme incompetence) to defend them. I can only hope that students recognize the preposterousness of these lectures, or at least receive enough good instruction elsewhere to put them into perspective.
The chief sponsor of the Ohio Bill, Mumper, was quoted as saying things like "If the system were fair Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be tenured professors somewhere." Yeah, right. And a CNSNews article reports that "[t]he bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Larry Mumper (R-Marion) was quoted as saying the bill would 'open up debate' by curbing a perceived left-leaning political bias at the state's colleges and universities."
Horowitz argues that
an education -- as distinct from an indoctrination -- makes students aware of a spectrum of scholarly views on matters of controversy and opinion, and does not make particular answers to such controversial matters the goal of the instruction.But surely as a professor I must care not only about diversity of opinion, but also about correct opinion. Evolution is the best model for understanding biological phenomena: I profess as much, defend the claims, and should expect educated students to understand the force of the arguments for and against the view. In addition, the results of my research have led me to believe that naturalism in philosophy presents the best possibilities for addresses a host of important philosophical problems. I profess as much; I defend my position, exploring alternatives that don't fare as well and inviting students to raise their own questions. That's neither indoctrinating nor preaching; it's presenting the results of my research with students. I should not be dogmatic, of course, and I should do what I can to get my students to avoid dogmatism as well. We should also note that students are exposed to diversity of opinion not only in the individual classroom, but by taking many different professors (with different perspectives) throughout their college careers. Some (many) of my colleagues are not naturalistic in their approach to philosophy. They are entitled (expected!) to make the case for their positions just as I am entitled to do the same for mine. Students caught in the cross-fire will be treated to good ol' intellectual disagreement and debate. Good for them, even if they feel uncomfortable about it.
The ACLU opposes the political motivation behind the Bill.
The Ohio Senate is considering a bill that would censor Ohio colleges and universities. The so-called ?Academic Bill of Rights? is truly as a misnomer, as it is really an ?academic bill of restrictions.? The ACLU of Ohio opposes passage of this bill because it could be used to curtail academic freedom and to encourage thought policing in our institutes of higher education. The bill would have a chilling effect on freedom of inquiry on Ohio?s campuses. For example:
? The bill forces the board of trustees, of both public and private schools, to adopt policies about what can and cannot be taught.?
? Under the bill, faculty would be discouraged from teaching anything ?controversial? ? a vague term that could pertain to any number of topics including evolution, history, or religion.
? If they do raise controversial issues, instructors would have to present alternative views regardless of the merits of those views or their own beliefs about them.
? Senate Bill 24 would shift the responsibility for course content and student evaluation from highly trained faculty to the state government or the courts.?
The American Federation of Teachers also expresses opposition and has resolved to
oppose the imposition of so-called intellectual diversity requirements as an unacceptable infringement of academic freedom and an unwarranted intervention of persons who are not academic professionals into academic decision making....
In an article at InsideHigherEd.com, David Steigerwald suggests that "the oh-so-neutral language of the bill only hides its profoundly ideological purpose" adding that "it is only reasonable to wonder what political forces are lurking behind it and whose agenda it is fulfilling." He concludes that
the very same people who, 10 years ago, ridiculed the campus speech codes as ?political correctness? now want to impose the most extreme sorts of speech codes through force of law and outrageous intimidation. The very people who howled about the debunking of the great Western traditions of free speech and critical reason are now engaged in a frontal action that can only squelch free speech and establish a radical subjectivity as the rule of the day.
After all, anything any student wishes to find discriminatory, under the law, could indeed be removed from the classroom; education would devolve into whatever pandered to the individual bias of every student. Truth, that noble thing conservatives always say they seek, will become the same degraded thing that it has become with the likes of Limbaugh, Fox News, and Horowitz: mere ?spin.? The radical right, it seems, has learned well from the postmodern left.
Here's the Bill:
A BILL...
To enact sections 3345.80 and 3345.81 of the Revised Code to establish the academic bill of rights for higher education.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:
Section?1.?That sections 3345.80 and 3345.81 of the Revised Code be enacted to read as follows:
Sec.?3345.80.? The board of trustees of each state institution of higher education, as defined in section 3345.011 of the Revised Code, and the board of trustees or other governing authority of each private institution of higher education that holds a certificate of authorization issued under section 1713.02 of the Revised Code shall adopt a policy recognizing that the students, faculty, and instructors of the institution have the following rights:
(A) The institution shall provide its students with a learning environment in which the students have access to a broad range of serious scholarly opinion pertaining to the subjects they study. In the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts, the fostering of a plurality of serious scholarly methodologies and perspectives shall be a significant institutional purpose. In addition, curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social studies shall respect all human knowledge in these areas and provide students with dissenting sources and viewpoints.
(B) Students shall be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study and shall not be discriminated against on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs. Faculty and instructors shall not use their courses or their positions for the purpose of political, ideological, religious, or antireligious indoctrination.
(C) Faculty and instructors shall not infringe the academic freedom and quality of education of their students by persistently introducing controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to their subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose.
(D) University administrators, student government organizations, and institutional policies, rules, or procedures shall not infringe the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of conscience of students and student organizations.
(E) The institution shall distribute student fee funds on a viewpoint-neutral basis and shall maintain a posture of neutrality with respect to substantive political and religious disagreements, differences, and opinions. The selection of speakers, allocation of funds for speakers' programs, and other student activities shall observe the principles of academic freedom and promote the presentation of a diversity of opinions on intellectual matters. Except as provided by law, the institution shall not permit the obstruction of invited campus speakers, the destruction of campus literature, or other efforts to obstruct a civil exchange of ideas.
(F) Faculty and instructors shall be free to pursue and discuss their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, but they shall make their students aware of serious scholarly viewpoints other than their own through classroom discussion or dissemination of written materials, and they shall encourage intellectual honesty, civil debate, and the critical analysis of ideas in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
(G) Faculty and instructors shall be hired, fired, promoted, and granted tenure on the basis of their competence and appropriate knowledge in their field of expertise and shall not be hired, fired, promoted, granted tenure, or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs.
(H) Faculty and instructors shall not be excluded from tenure, search, and hiring committees on the basis of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs.
(I) The institution and its professional societies shall maintain a posture of organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive disagreements that divide researchers on questions within, or outside, their fields of inquiry recognizing that:
(1) Knowledge advances when individual scholars are left free to reach their own conclusions about which methods, facts, and theories have been validated by research;
(2) Academic institutions and professional societies formed to advance knowledge within an area of research, maintain the integrity of the research process, and organize the professional lives of related researchers serve as indispensable venues within which scholars circulate research findings and debate their interpretations.
Sec.?3345.81.?The board of trustees of each state institution of higher education, as defined in section 3345.011 of the Revised Code, and the board of trustees or other governing authority of each private institution of higher education that holds a certificate of authorization issued under section 1713.02 of the Revised Code, shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student, faculty member, or instructor may seek redress for an alleged violation of any of the rights specified by the institution's policy adopted under section 3345.80 of the Revised Code. Each board of trustees or other governing authority shall provide students, faculty, and instructors with notice of the rights and grievance procedure by publication in the institution's course catalog, student handbook, and web site."
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