October 5, 2007

U. of Missouri Is Devising Database to Ease Student Complaints of Biased Professors

University of Missouri students who feel professors have discriminated against them based on their political or religious views will soon be able to file online complaints against the instructors, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported today.

New Web sites under construction at the university’s four campuses will track and record academic-diversity grievances against faculty members for compilation in an annual report.

The monitoring system is a response to a push from the Missouri legislature, which has hotly debated “intellectual pluralism” since last fall. The debate stemmed from a lawsuit against Missouri State University filed by a Christian student, Emily Brooker, who said a professor had retaliated against her for refusing to sign a letter supporting gay adoption. (The case was settled out of court.)

At a meeting of the university’s governing board on Thursday, one of the trustees, David Wasinger, said that the online database would help resolve a “deep-seated problem” at the university and demonstrate credibility to state legislators.

Some faculty leaders, however, questioned whether the tracking system might have a chilling effect on classroom discussion. “When we talk about monitoring what faculty say, people get nervous about that,” said Tim Farmer, president of the University of Missouri at St. Louis’s Faculty Senate. But, he said, “I think people are taking an open-minded view on it as long as it doesn’t change what they teach in their class.” —Paula Wasley

Comments

1. Mo tax dollars at work — this state recently sold off its student loans to the highest bidder to raise money for campus improvements statewide. The state can’t afford to support students and faculty with money for campus improvements so the state cheats students who took out loan in good faith with the state (through MOHELA) and then does spend money threatening professors because of one incident at MSU. The wise folks in Jeff City can’t find cash to actually support academics, but they can do this. Show Me State! You bet – Show Me the Ignorance! I can’t wait to get another job in a less backward state, like Mississippi or Texas!

   — stuckinmo    Oct 5, 07:47 PM    #

2. If anybody thinks this is about “intellectual diversity,” they should think again. This is straight out of the David Horowitz playbook, and of course it will change the teaching of some professors, who will be be fearful of the conservative—let’s not kid ourselves—reaction to their (gasp!) talking about war, say, or maybe health care for children. The only “deep-seated problem” it will address is that of academic freedom, namely the freedom of professors to discuss their subjects in the context of the world in which they live. The fact is, as the article in the Post-Dispatch mentions, there is no real problem of “viewpoint discrimination.” The problem—the one that’s being introduced now—is the intellectual self-policing that will occur as a result of this nonsense. As a professor at MU, I am deeply disturbed by this. But it won’t change a thing about the way I teach.

   — Samuel Cohen    Oct 5, 09:22 PM    #

3. I don’t think this database is a good idea and it won’t accomplish much. How can you really investigate these things? What is the burden of proof? But, as a moderate to conservative who went to college in the 90s I do wish there was room for my viewpoints in the academy. I kept my mouth shut for most of my undergraduate and graduate days (English Lit) because of the outward hostilities towards anyone without a non-liberal view. Samuel, I think you should change the way you teach if you aren’t open to opposing views. If you are, then more power to you! You are in the minority. I hope that someone this movement by MO will make the academy more open to views.. but I don’t think the database itself will do any good, and will turn in to more of a tattletale or grudge fest.

   — Matt Zimmerman    Oct 7, 10:09 AM    #

4. Part of what I do as a teacher is challenge students’ beliefs, arguments, and underlying assumptions (and I tell them that constantly). I don’t really care what they think, but how well they develop their arguments. Some students respond well to this challenge, while others think I am unfairly attacking them. My concern about such a database is that students who are unable to engage in a higher level of intellectual debate may react by adding me to the list. So, do I stop challenging students so I don’t offend someone? At that point, true education stops.

   — Greg    Oct 8, 10:07 AM    #

5. This is a truly terrifying idea. All too often, in my experience, students presented with ideas that make them uncomfortable complain that their professors are biased. They don’t seem to understand that the educational process requires that they think new thoughts. They don’t necessarily have to accept them, but they must be exposed to them. In the absence of new ideas, we are left with only indoctrination.

   — Sally    Oct 8, 10:09 AM    #

6. I think the database is a bit of an overreaction. The professor who retaliated against the student for refusing to sign a letter supporting gay adoption is a more important example of the lunatic minority on campus than of the left-leaning majority. As a right-leaning moderate, the best advice I can give to conservatives on campus is to bring your best arguments, as free of bias as possible, and be willing to listen to opposing viewpoints (there will be plenty) with an open mind. Keep in mind that political discussions in many classes (English Lit, for example) may often be irrelevant. You can avoid becoming part of the problem by not getting involved in them. By far, the most important thing conservatives and liberals can do is to try to rise above the idiotic and reactionary tone that Democrat and Republican politicians love to take. Don’t become one of them!

   — Tracy G.    Oct 8, 10:18 AM    #

7. Why must freedom of speech work only one way? Why be afraid of a database? Let all ideas be discussed. And don’t mask liberal OR conservative indoctrination as “challenging beliefs and underlying assumptions.” Faculty should not set out to change belief systems; rather to encourage exploration of multiple ways of looking at things.

   — TLC    Oct 8, 10:23 AM    #

8. I don’t have a problem with the database itself, but rather that it is being funded by the state. There are plenty of sites already available for students to post their views about professors both good and bad. Mr. Wasinger’s quoted in the article as saying this database would ‘help resolve a “deep-seated problem” at the university and demonstrate credibility to state legislators.’ Exactly how will this “annual report” be used? Odds are the report will become just one more item that the universities check off on their list of “mandated reports” and that will be that. Simply another bureaucratic waste that they can scarcely afford in today’s economic climate. It is also likely that from time to time the report will be cited by a legislator pointing to some of the submitted information as a reason to exhort additional controls over an out of control environment. Such are the intricacies of university/state politics.

   — Michael    Oct 8, 10:26 AM    #

9. As the article and many of the previous posts have inferred, “bias” is a subjective term. A student could file an online complaint against professors (or graduate teaching assistants, seeing as how many of the undergraduate courses at MU are staffed by doctoral students) because of grievances that are only peripherally linked to “intellectual diversity.” Hypothetically, if a student receives a failing grade for failure to complete the assignment, he or she might be tempted to present any religious or political discussions held in class as evidence of the instructor’s “biases” against him or her. While the complaint might not be substantiated, the very fact that it is filed and placed on the instructor’s record can indeed have a chilling effect on intellectual discussion.

   — Mina    Oct 8, 11:50 AM    #

10. I suspect that public universities in Missouri also have to track and report in some fashion on other sorts of grievances (e.g., employment, sexual harassment, racial discrimination, academic freedom). If so, and the system believes this kind of grievance is important, tracking it is only fair and logical.

    As an administrator in a public university, I think it is important to address the perceived issue of bias, whether the result is data that shows there is no problem or data that shows the problem exists and is being addressed.

    Personally, I am sensitive to the issues on both sides. If faculty at my institution talk in the classroom the way they do in belittling one another and others via email, students will correctly perceive a hostle environment. On the other hand, I am an evangelical Christian who, in my faculty days in an evangelical insitution, faced just this sort of allegation by a student whose academic work was simply inadequate. It was easier for him to blame me than accept his own responsibility.

    — Jim    Oct 9, 01:19 PM    #

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