December 7, 2008

Australian Senate Panel Dismisses Inquiry Into Professors' Politics

An Australian Senate committee, looking into whether the country’s universities are under the control of left-wing academics, has found that no such bias exists, the newspaper The Australian reported.

The inquiry was started earlier this year by the Young Liberals, the youth division of Australia’s politically conservative Liberal Party, which was then in power. The Labor Party has since taken control of the Senate.

The Young Liberals’ inquiry encouraged students to “out” left-leaning professors by submitting recordings of lectures and excerpts from textbooks to Senate investigators.

The committee received 69 such submissions and concluded that if there were examples of bias, it was because of poor teaching rather than a result of a broad-based left-wing conspiracy. The panel’s chairman, a member of the Labor Party, called the inquiry a waste of time. —Martha Ann Overland

Comments

1. I guess this makes poor teaching okay. I don’t know about you but I would rather have my kids be taught by a great teacher standing on his head than an upright poor teacher.

   — Dr. Bill    Dec 7, 04:31 PM    #

2. I am not sure I understand what the right wing perspective is on academic freedom. Is politics a problem, except perhaps for the political interference needed to remove left wing professors? Which agency would be responsible for removing left wing professors, or, for hiring more professors with differing political perspectives? If it is a private university, should the selection, imposition, or removal be done by the state? If it is a public university, would it be alright to have political interference if the ruling party is a conservative one? Would that not open the way to interference by a left wing government later if it won power?

   The point is that even if there had been a massive left wing conspiracy to control universities, it would take a massive political conspiracy to change that. What would not change then is “political domination”. Note that the people who launched this study are far from neutral and non-partisan themselves. Instead they strike me as juvenile types who seem irritated by the freedom of universities to discuss matters from heterodox perspectives, the ones that question what is dominant and mainstream. If such discussion cannot happen in universities, then where would they like the discussions to occur? My bet is nowhere, which shows these Australian young Liberals to be a heck of a lot scarier than what they claim to be challenging.

   The sad result of this study is the conclusion that any hint of having an opinion is merely a product of accident, a result of poor teaching. That is rather ridiculous. The idea that professors should be disqualified from having sharp political perspectives that can serve as the basis for asking sharp questions and doing research that no one else has thought about, is more than silly. It reflects a totalitarian bent on silencing critical voices. As usual, there is nothing more diabolically ideological than the ideologues who claim to be objective.

   — Maximilian Forte    Dec 8, 01:00 AM    #

3. There are many ways, I guess, to word the “right wing perspective” on academic freedom,” but I find the following a good characterization:

   _The function of the university is to seek and to transmit knowledge and to train students in the processes whereby truth is to be known. To convert, or to make converts, is alien and hostile to this dispassionate duty. Where it becomes necessary, in performing this function of the university, to consider political, social or sectarian movements, they are dissected and examined, not taught, and the conclusion left, with no tipping of the scales, to the logic of the facts…Essentially the freedom of a university is the freedom of competent persons in the classroom. In order to protect this freedom, the University assumed the right to prevent exploitation of its prestige by unqualified persons or by those who would use it as a platform for propaganda.

   Robert Gordon Sproul
   President, University of California at Berkeley
   1934_

   — Red State University    Dec 8, 06:32 AM    #

4. “The idea that professors should be disqualified from having sharp political perspectives that can serve as the basis for asking sharp questions and doing research that no one else has thought about, is more than silly. It reflects a totalitarian bent on silencing critical voices.”

   If this is true, it is not a tendency confined to the Young Liberals alone. More than a hundred faculty members at the University of Chicago, for example, have signed a letter calling for the abandonment of a proposed Friedman Institute in economics on the ground that “this endeavor could reinforce among the public a perception that the University’s faculty lacks intellectual and ideological diversity.” and represents an unwarranted investment in “culturally and politically conservative thought…” Clearly some members of the professoriate, therefore, are satisfied that systematic and invidious political bias is a real threat to academe.

   — Gustave    Dec 8, 07:02 AM    #

5. “Clearly some members of the professoriate, therefore, are satisfied that systematic and invidious political bias is a real threat to academe.”

   Of course some members of the professoriate might disagree with some other members about which political points of view are deserving of protection and which are threats.

   — Dan    Dec 8, 08:37 AM    #

6. Ah, yes. I do remember that student at one of the University of Wisconsin system schools (at which I taught once upon a time) slapping the desk and labeling me a “…leftist, liberal professor just like all the other leftist, liberal professors on THIS CAMPUS!” (upper case letters indicate how loudly she shouted those last two words). This all happened right after the 2004 elections. This person, who is now teaching children somewhere in Minnesota, tried to bring charges against me for speaking badly about the newly elected president. Actually, what I did was to answer another student’s question about whether the newly elected president read books.
   My view is that political opinions are indeed the starting point for discussions in class if the discussions relate to the topic and objectives of that class. In my class we were discussing the effect of the NCLB on teachers and the shouting desk-pounding future teacher took that discussion as a criticism of the president. What a time! Just think, she is now teaching at some elementary school. Wouldn’t you just love to work with her?

   — Ann    Dec 8, 09:42 AM    #

7. Sproul’s statement seems to me to be well crafted and expressive of a commitment to fostering objectivity and critical thinking. In my view, this is the correct charge, at least for a public university, and it serves everyone well, students, faculty, and the public at large.

   I’m not so sure how well it applies to private universities. I’m afraid that some private colleges and universities are committed to the enforcement of selective ignorance, in the form of rigid propaganda regarding perspectives that do not hold up in the face of critical and objective evaluation. Of course, other private institutions are deeply committed to the “search for truth,” wherever that may lead.

   So, RSU, where do you see Sproul’s statement leading? It seems to me that it does not lean “left” or “right,” only toward objectivity and critical thinking, rather than propagandizing in either direction. Some people seem to see objectivity as an ideological bias, and an a priori commitment to some ideology (whatever theirs is) as the only correct perspective for “true education.”

   For a republic such as ours to function well, the participation is essential of many citizens who are equiped to examine issues and evidence objectively and thoughtfully—that is, to give people and policies due consideration. The function of public education is to ensure a well-informed electorate. “Well-informed” does not mean that everyone will agree, but hopefully, that the citizens will not be too easily misled.

   — Joe Erwin    Dec 8, 10:11 AM    #

8. When facts have a political bias, expect more accusations from conservatives of left wing bias in the professoriate. The accusations that appear in online comment threads will come from people who have chosen pseudonyms like “Strong Eagle”, and “Obamaisamuslim”.

   — Ba'al    Dec 8, 10:11 AM    #

9. “Ba’al” identifies an interesting source of information regarding the potential biases of blog commenters. The choice of a “loaded” term as a pseudonym suggests a bias. I’m quite comfortable “in my own skin,” so to speak, and am open to being identified by my real name. I wonder why more people can’t admit and take responsibility for being themselves. Or, perhaps, there is some actual function in boldly proclaiming some systematic bias, i.e., “point of view.”

   — Joe Erwin    Dec 8, 10:21 AM    #

10. Australia is interesting since it is a western nation in which government once changed on account of a CIA engineered coup d’etat—it is, in the end, a bit comforting to know that the persecfutory party, internationally, is as intellectually naked as it is here

    — norman birnbaum    Dec 8, 11:07 AM    #

11. Hmmm. Norman, please enlighten us with more details.

    — Joe Erwin    Dec 8, 11:44 AM    #

12. This member of the left-wing consipiracy absolutely endorses Sproul’s statment as quoted by RSU in #3, above.

    — perplexed    Dec 8, 12:35 PM    #

13. “the logic of facts”…good luck with the objectivity thing, but boy it sure does smell rather 19th century in here now. I am going out from some fresh air.

    — Maximilian Forte    Dec 8, 02:09 PM    #

14. #7 Joe, you raise a good point about private institutions. I would say that as far as they go, the best that can be hoped for is “truth in advertising” from the institution (proclaiming their biased worldview in their promotional materials,) and for potential students to excercise caveat emptor.

    Truth in advertising is not happening now with most secular private institutions that are little more than multicultural left-wing indoctrination centers (such as the majority of the Ivy League, the “five sisters” colleges, etc.) instead of real colleges and universities that follow Sproul’s ideal.

    — Red State University    Dec 9, 06:37 AM    #

15. This is interesting. With so many “multicultural left-wing indoctrination centers” then one would expect that American society would not be so predominantly right wing, and monocultural in its desires.

    Indoctrination? So these must be some really fantastic teachers, who can not only get their point across effectively, they can convince people and change their minds. Then they all deserve awards for excellence in teaching.

    Oh but wait, the other possibility is that students are just really stupid, right? Gullible, naive, blank heads, just waiting to follow whatever a professor says, attending all the classes, doing all the readings.

    Sproul’s naive positivism belongs back in the 1930s. So does anyone who upholds Sproul by asserting such propaganda.

    — Maximilian Forte    Dec 13, 12:16 PM    #

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