History Channel Fact

"Moonshine" - following the American Revolution, we were in big time debt so the first congress decided to tax distilled alcohol. Naturally, liquor producers moved their stills into the woods and conducted their business at night "by the light of the moon." Lesson: Americans have never liked taxes (a.k.a. the United States has always been conservative).

Biased Professor - Monica Casper: Women's Studies

Required Readings

WS 265: Politics of Reproductive Rights
Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Testing Women, Testing the Fetus by Rayna Rapp (feminist)
Conceiving the New World Order by Faye Ginsburg, Rayna Rapp (feminist)
Fetal Subjects and Feminist Positions by Lynn Marie Morgan
Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice by Jael Silliman

Conceiving the New World Order: The feminist vision here is large, theoretically incisive, detailed, empirically deep, and politically inspiring.

Rapp, a feminist anthropologist at the New School for Social Research; Her analysis of the intersection of reproductive and disability rights and their links to feminist and power issues is interesting. This timely work provides scholars and reproductive rights activists a forum for dialogue about fetuses without conceding to a moral or political agenda that would sanctify them at women’s expense (Fetal Subjects).

Killing the Black Body: The denial of Black reproductive autonomy serves the interests of white supremacy,'' using a black feminist lens and the issue of the impact of recent legislation, social policy, and welfare "reform" on black women's--especially poor black women's--control over their bodies' autonomy and their freedom to bear and raise children with respect and dignity in a society whose white mainstream is determined to demonize, even criminalize their lives. It gives its readers a cogent legal and historical argument for a radically new , and socially transformative, definition of "liberty" and "equality" for the American polity from a black feminist perspective. The author is able to combine the most innovative and radical thinking on several fronts--racial theory, feminist, and legal--to produce a work that is at once history and political treatise.

• When I went to Undivided Rights at Amazon, one of the books listed on "Customers who bought this book also bought:" was Killing the Black Body. Likewise, when I went to Testing Women, Testing the Fetus, the list included Conceiving the New World Order. It doesn't appear there's a whole lot of diversity here.

Biased Professor - Brooke Ackerly: Political Science

Required Readings

PSCI 201: Contemporary Political Theory
Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era by Seyla Benhabib
Justice as Fairness by John Rawls
Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights by Will Kymlicka (liberal)
Justice, Gender, and Family by Susan Moller Okin (feminist)

PSCI 209: Issues Political Theory
Feminist Thought by Rosemarie Putnam Tong

From Library Journal: Okin, also author of Women in Western Political Thought ( LJ 1/15/80), here is concerned with the lack of justice experienced by American women in both the public and private spheres. Lack of justice in the private sphere of gender-structured marriage leads to a lack of justice in the public sphere of the work place, the professions, and politics. Marriage makes women vulnerable due to the devaluation of human reproductive work and the persistence of a traditional division of labor within marriage. Divorce compounds the problem since it results in poverty for many women. This is a strong study of the contradictions in a democratic form of government, but Okin's recommendations lack analysis and are not fully linked to the political and economic arena... this is the first feminist critique of modern political theory that in shows why and how in order to include all of us, theories of justice need to apply their standards to the family itself.

Book Description: Multicultural Citizenship. It argues that certain "collective rights" of minority cultures are consistent with liberal democratic principles, and that standard liberal objections to such rights can be answered. However, the author emphasizes that no single formula can be applied to all groups, and that the needs and aspirations of immigrants are very different from those of indigenous peoples and national minorities. He looks at issues such as language rights, group representation, religious education, federalism, and secession--issues central to an understanding of multicultural politics, but which have been neglected in contemporary liberal theory.

Biased Professor: Elizabeth Boyd - American and Southern Studies

Required Readings

AMST 110: Intro to American and Southern Studies
Global Woman by Barbara Ehrenreich
Crossing the Boulevard by Warren Lehrer
Beyond Borders: Thinking Critically About Global Issues by Paula Rothenberg
The Impossible Will Take a Little While by Paul Rogat Loeb

AMST 226: Gender, Race, and Class
Where we Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks
Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race by Patricia Williams (race theory, leftist)
White Privilege by Paula Rothenberg (ideologically extreme; neo-marxist)
Race, Class, and Gender by Margaret Andersen
Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing up Working Class by Michelle Tea

From Publishers Weekly: The Impossible Will Take a Little While
In this uneven collection, Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time, gathers together over sixty poems, memoirs and essays tailored to buck up the spirits of a left-liberal audience depressed by the sorry state of the world. Although generally in favor of justice and democracy and against the "runaway global market," the selection of writers includes a wide range of environmentalists, civil rights crusaders, anti-poverty activists and dissidents against both fascism and communism. From these eclectic offerings some hopeful, albeit familiar themes assert themselves: ordinary people can make a difference, every little bit counts, in solidarity there is strength, a positive attitude is half the battle, the powers that be are unexpectedly vulnerable, and history is full of surprising victories of the weak over the strong. Not surprisingly, many of the pieces amount to motivational lectures, while others inflate the notion of hope into tiresome dilations on, for example, the links between information processing, daydreams and butterflies. But the articles that deal with concrete struggles and achievements—Nelson Mandela’s memoir of imprisonment on Robben Island, Vaclav Havel’s account of the ant-like construction of civil society and a dissident political culture in Communist Czechoslovakia, Bill McKibben’s homage to the urban planning triumphs of Curitiba, Brazil—deliver real inspiration.

Seeing a Color-Blind Future comprises five essays that author Patricia J. Williams presented at the highly prestigious Reith lectures in Britain. Erroneously perceived by some conservative British papers as a "militant black feminist" Williams proves in these highly readable and intelligent essays that she is an influential and important voice in race theory. Williams and other left law professionals theorize on "quiet racism." This is a racism that doesn't make newspaper headlines but occurs all the time. It is the taunting of black children by white children in the playground, it is being singled out in a crowd because you are black, it is not being viewed as the "norm." Williams asks, "How can it be that so many well meaning white people have never thought about race when so few blacks pass a single day without being reminded of it?" Reviewed by Cornel West, Gloria Steinem, Studs Terkel

Academic Freedom: Questions of Principle

1. Do you agree that the fundamental mission of the university in the Western tradition is and should continue to be the fulfillment of the following general principles:

(a) the disinterested pursuit of truth;
(b) educating in the classical liberal tradition;
(c) the advancement of mankind's general knowledge;

2. Do you agree with John Stuart Mill that advancements in mankind's knowledge of "truth" depend on an intellectual environment with:

(a) unrestrained freedom of speech
(b) a diversity of views being that truth requires ideas to continuously undergo challenge and be exposed to competition;
(c) an absence of censorship, intimidation, or other attempt to silence thought and stifle competition.

Or similarly with Justice Powell's view that:

"The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth`out of a multitude of tongues,[rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection."

3. If you agree with this mission for the university (1) and believe Mill's analysis to be correct -to make progress in the search for "truth" and increase mankind's general knowledge requires a liberally educated society committed to individual liberty - (2) , would it be fair to characterize "academic freedom" as the means of achieving the university's desired ends as opposed to some transcendent principle which has value whether it aids or hinders the mission of the university?

In other words, is academic freedom a privilege which society bestowed upon college professors with the understanding and expectation that by providing intellectuals with the security of not having to fear repercussions or censorship, the free discussion of diverse ideas could thrive and produce new knowledge? Does academic freedom hinge on a presumption of good faith on the behalf of universities?

Or as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor suggested in the court's Grutter v. Bollinger opinion regarding the University of Michigan's use of affirmative action in its admissions policies:

"Our conclusion that the Law School has a compelling interest in a diverse student body is informed by our view that attaining a diverse student body is at the heart of the Law School's proper institutional mission, and that ‘good faith' on the part of a university is ‘presumed' absent ‘a showing to the contrary.'"

I believe this is a good place for me to stop and wait for your response lest I spend several thousand words trying to persuade you on something we already agree on. I'm sure you had no problem discerning how I would've answered those questions so if you disagree in all or in part about anything I'll be looking forward to proving you wrong. Otherwise, it's okay to admit how frustrating it is for me to always be right, and I'll go on with my argument. Because I'm nice, I've ended with an excerpt from a 1915 statement of principles issued by the AAUP that might figure into your answer to my third question. And since you are, after all, not kidding about being a liberal, I thought I would bring special attention to those parts you're likely to find foreign and hard to relate to.

Fondly, The Conservative

"Since there are no rights without corresponding duties, the considerations heretofore set down with respect to the freedom of the academic teacher entail certain correlative obligations. The claim to freedom of teaching is made in the interest of integrity and of the progress of scientific inquiry...The university teacher, in giving instructions upon controversial matters, while he is under no obligation to hide his own opinion under a mountain of equivocal verbiage, should, if he is fit in dealing with such subjects, set forth justly, without suppression or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators; he should cause his students to become familiar with the best published expressions of the great historic types of doctrine upon the questions at issue; and he should, above all, remember that his business is not to provide his students with ready-made conclusions, but to train them to think for themselves, and to provide them access to those materials which they need if they are to think intelligently."

Students for Academic Freedom Report

Students for Academic Freedom is exclusively dedicated to the following goals:

1. To promote intellectual diversity on campus.
2. To defend the right of students to be treated with respect by faculty and administrators, regardless of their political or religious beliefs.
3. To promote fairness, civility, and inclusion in student affairs.
4. To secure adoption of the Academic Bill of Rights as official university policy, and the Student Bill of Rights as a resolution in student governments.
   

What is an Abuse of Academic Freedom?

Students for Academic Freedom supports the free speech rights of professors and believes that faculty members should be able to determine the content of their courses. These rights, however, do not provide a license to use the classroom as a political soapbox, or provide an excuse for a professor to ridicule or otherwise demean particular religious or cultural views
a student may hold. Nor do they supersede professors’ obligations to uphold professional educational standards. These include fairness to all students. They include the responsibility to make students aware of the spectrum of scholarly viewpoints on any given subject. They include the responsibility to counsel students and to encourage their intellectual development. Treating students as political adversaries is counter-productive to this task. These professional standards are recognized by the American Association of University Professors and have been since 1915.

In 1915, the American Association of University Professors issued its first report on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The premise of this report was that human knowledge is a never-ending pursuit of the truth; that there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge; and that no party or intellectual faction can be assumed to have a monopoly on wisdom. Therefore, learning is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech.

According to the AAUP’s professional guidelines, professors have an obligation to present their students with a diverse range of scholarly opinions on the subjects that they teach and should not deviate from their lesson plan to bring up controversial matters that have no bearing on the subjects. Violations of this professional conduct code include:

a. Assigning required readings or texts covering only one side of controversial issues (e.g., texts that are only pro- or anti-affirmative action)

b. Introducing controversial material that has no relation to the subject of the course (ex: making remarks on political issues in a math or science class; lecturing on the war in a class that is not about the war or about international relations)

c. Compelling students to express a certain point of view in assignments (e.g., at a college in Colorado a professor assigned students in a mid-term evaluation to explain why George W. Bush is a war criminal.)

d. Mocking national political or religious figures in a onesided manner (e.g., singling out only liberals for riducule or only conservatives)

e. Conducting political activities in class (e.g., recruiting students to attend political demonstrations or providing extra credit for political activism-type assignments)

f. Grading a students' political or religious beliefs (e.g., grading a student more leniently when they agree with the professor’s viewpoint on matters of opinion)

Academic Bill of Rights

I. Mission of the University

The central purposes of a University are the pursuit of truth, the discovery of new knowledge through scholarship and research, the study and reasoned criticism of intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general development of students to help them become creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the transmission of knowledge and learning to a society at large. Free inquiry and free speech within the academic community are indispensable to the achievement of these goals. The freedom to teach and to learn depend upon the creation of appropriate conditions and opportunities on the campus as a whole as well as in the classrooms and lecture halls. These purposes reflect the values—pluralism, diversity, opportunity, critical intelligence, openness and fairness—that are the cornerstones of American society.

II. Academic Freedom

1. The Concept. Academic freedom and intellectual diversity are values indispensable to the American university. From its first formulation in the General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University Professors, the concept of academic freedom has been premised on the idea that human knowledge is a never-ending pursuit of the truth, that there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge, and that no party or intellectual faction has a monopoly on wisdom. Therefore, academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech. In the words of the General Report, it is vital to protect Òas the first condition of progress, [a] complete and unlimited freedom to pursue inquiry and publish its results. Because free inquiry and its fruits are crucial to the democratic enterprise itself, academic freedom is a national value as well. In a historic 1967 decision ( Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York ) the Supreme Court of the United States overturned a New York State loyalty provision for teachers with these words: Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, [a] transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, (1957) the Court observed that the essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities [was] almost self-evident.

2. The Practice. Academic freedom consists in protecting the intellectual independence of professors, researchers and students in the pursuit of knowledge and the expression of ideas from interference by legislators or authorities within the institution itself. This means that no political, ideological or religious orthodoxy will be imposed on professors and researchers through the hiring or tenure or termination process, or through any other administrative means by the academic institution. Nor shall legislatures impose any such orthodoxy through their control of the university budget. This protection includes students. From the first statement on academic freedom, it has been recognized that intellectual independence means the protection of students—as well as faculty—from the imposition of any orthodoxy of a political, religious or ideological nature. The 1915 General Report admonished faculty to avoid taking unfair advantage of the student’s immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher’s own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own. In 1967, the AAUP’s Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students reinforced and amplified this injunction by affirming the inseparability of the freedom to teach and freedom to learn. In the words of the report, Students should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion.

Therefore, to secure the intellectual independence of faculty and students and to protect the principle of intellectual diversity, the following principles and procedures shall be observed.

These principles fully apply only to public universities and to private universities that present themselves as bound by the canons of academic freedom. Private institutions choosing to restrict academic freedom on the basis of creed have an obligation to be as explicit as is possible about the scope and nature of these restrictions.