More Fish Tales

What is the relationship between faculty members’ political affiliations and their classroom performance? Stanley Fish says he’s answered that question many times before, but he’s answering it once again.

In May, Fish wrote a column on his blog, Think Again, “lampooning the University of Colorado’s plan to raise $9-million for a chair in conservative thought,” as he described it. The angry responses to that column — a summary of which appeared in The Chronicle Review last week — prompted Fish to take up the issue again on his blog this month:

“I would never deny that there are some college and university teachers who mistake the classroom lectern for a political platform and thereby substitute indoctrination for instruction. But, I argue, this need not happen — it is not an inevitable consequence either of our fallible natures or of certain subject matters — and when it does happen, it should be labeled as wrong and regarded as a reason for discipline by the school’s administration.”

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