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February 11, 2005
A Bill the ACLU Would Have Supported…40 Years Ago
Wizbang points out this bill being proposed in the Ohio Senate intended to "establish the academic bill of rights for higher education." The ACLU, of course, is totally against it.
There's some things in there I really like, which I think will address quite a few issues which have come up recently. These include
-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.
-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.
-The board of trustees of each state institution of higher education ... shall adopt a grievance procedure by which a student, faculty member, or instructor may seek redress for an alleged violation.
There's lots of other interesting things in there, go read it.
These are the ACLU's complaints:
-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.
I can kinda sorta slightly see their point, as the bill has some pretty vague language that could be interpreted lots of different ways.
However, this is a problem with just about any bill. It might be possible to revise the language in some places to help take care of some of that. And, I expect even if that was done, the ACLU would still be against it, and the fact is, some of their protestations are pretty over the top.
On the first and last points, I really don't see what the problem is with having oversight of course content by the board of trustees. They have more accountability than a single professor does. And it's not like, as they infer, the bill requires the trustees to lay out every single detail of course content. In fact, it doesn't require any detail of course content to be laid out, all it requires is that complaints about course content be addressed. It's not like professors are hired by a university to be able to teach whatever they want. That is not what academic freedom is about. Professors should be able to study whatever they want, so long as they can find funding, but teaching courses is a specific job that they do for pay in order to teach whatever the school thinks needs to be taught.
In regards to the second and third complaints, the bill does say, "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." Therefore, controversial matter is defined as something not related to their subject of study and not seen as legitimate in the greater academic community. It's not like teaching evolution in a biology class will now be illegal, even though it is controversial, since evolution is pertinent to biology, and the academic community sees it as legitimate, though not without controversy.
Posted by illuminaria at February 11, 2005 02:50 PM