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4/04/2003 02:48:00 AM | Timothy A thought experiment on who Drezner would have fired Dan Drezner, who kindly linked to us a while back, says that De Genova should not be fired for the comments he made at the teach-in. But he allows the possibility that maybe De Genova should be fired for class-related conduct hinted at in news reports. One of Drezner's examples is that a student said De Genova once cancelled his office hours to go to war rally. Can we call this for what it is: a pretext? Professors miss their office hours for all sorts of bad and often personal reasons. Would Drezner make it rule that those (untenured) professors should be fired? Would he say that we should investigate professors to make sure that haven't done so? Or only those who make disgusting comments outside the classroom? As I said, firing De Genova because of his alleged classroom-related misdeeds would be a mere pretext and the real reason would be because of his disgusting comments. That would hardly be a victory for free speech. Drezner also suspects that De Genova may push his anti-war viewpoint in class and intimidate his students: Any teacher worth their salt knows that students must be constantly reassured that disagreement with the powers that be -- i.e., the person in charge of grading -- will not affect their class performance. If academics publicize their position on an issue of the day, and then signal to the students taking their class that this can be the only correct position, the professor has crossed the line from the free expression of personal views to the subtle intimidation of alternative points of view.I have a hard time seeing how this could be a fair, workable standard for firing someone. Ok, even if a professor has to allow all viewpoints, must he "constantly reassure" students he will not grade them badly? What if a student were to say in class that he or she thought there should be a million mogadishus? Or a million matthew shepards? Could a professor express outrage or must the professor bite their tongue in order to 'constantly reassure' the student that his or her views will not affect his grade? Can a professor say the U.S. army is imperialist if students in his or her class have parents in the military? Can they mention any atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam if students have relatives who were veterans of that war? And also, on your logic, why does the view have to be expressed in class for students to feel intimidated? If it is widely publicized, they know the viewpoint. What if you happen to be in the class of someone who has the world's most popular weblog and your professor provides a link to a post saying all people of your religion should be suspected of disloyalty (imagine atrios is university's biggest donor). Furthermore, a lot of universities do not care a hoot about teaching or at least when it comes to granting tenure. Maybe they should care as much about it as they care about research. Maybe you could argue this should start a reform of standards in academia and somehow argue this will not threaten free speech. But it hardly seems wise to assume that in a time of war this will done in a way that protect free speech and does not target certain viewpoints. Firing De Genova in such a pretexted manner would likely have larger consequences. Sadly, I would guess Drezner can think of professors (well maybe not ones at Chicago, heh) who do 'push' their viewpoints in some way. I do not like that is a good teaching tactic, but is Drezner saying we should fire them all (those without tenure only I presume)? Or somehow judge when a professor does not tolerate enough viewpoints and make students feel comfortable enough? More likely is that the only profs who would be fired would be those who managed to pop up onto the national media radar screen or otherwise managed to be untenured and offend the donors and alumni. Is there a principle here that does not put a lot of professors at risk? I cannot see one .... perma link |
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