Academic Freedom

[asterroc]

There is a bill in the House right now called "H.R. 4137, The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007." This bill is designed to help students access higher education, regardless of their financial situation. This is a highly laudable goal. Moreover, this specific bill reauthorizes a system already in place, and already proven to work reasonably well - sure not perfectly, but without the bill going through things would be MUCH worse.

However, there are people planning to tack on an "Academic Bill of Rights" amendment. At first glance this seems harmless - it's supposed to give students the right to free speech and congregation on campuses. Take another look at that. How long have our universities and colleges, both public and private, already been providing the right to free speech and meeting and even civil protests on our campuses without interference from the Feds? When problems come up, have we ever turned to the Feds for their so-called help? You know where else the Feds are sitting on our campuses? Behind tables saying "Join the Army - you'll only have to train two weekends a year and we promise, cross our hearts, that we won't send you to Iraq to be blown up! and we'll even take you if you're schizophrenic or retarded because we need more cannon fodder people who can't understand the situation they're in while on the front lines eager recruits who we can prey upon recruit because of their debt and help to become financially solvent!"

Yeah, I want them legislating for more Federal presence on my campus. Where do I sign up?

To send a letter to your Rep, here is where you sign up.

And in case you think I'm saying this just b/c I'm a flaming Liberal, quoted directly from the model letter on that page,

Over the last four years, 28 states have considered legislation aimed at correcting an alleged “political bias” at their state colleges and universities. After examining the evidence and assessing existing institutional policies, no state enacted this legislation, regardless of which party held a political majority.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

libertarians and conservatives frequently argue that we should distrust all federal programs in an area because a few federal programs they can point to have bee disasters. this is not a terribly compelling argument.

in addition, many universities, public and private, have been known to conspicuously fail to protect free speech, and even to actively suppress it, so the benefits of clearly articulated students rights are there, even if they are perhaps being exaggerated in this setting.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

You're right that isn't the best argument, but on the other hand do you feel that a few conspicuous failures to protect free speech are enough to require nationwide federal intervention?

Perhaps a better argument is that it's setting a dangerous precedent - I am under the impression this amendment is being proposed by individuals who feel that there is a "liberal bias" at universities, and that universities cannot be trusted to represent the best knowledge of their own fields. If that truly is the opinion and purpose of this amendment, it is a small step (but not a slippery slope) from this bill to one requiring federal content standards for higher eduction.

We have seen what happens when political bodies try to legislate content in the field of biology at the K-12 level. I don't want to see that happen to all fields at the higher ed level. Professors ARE the experts in these fields, that's why schools hire them. By definition no political body could better understand what is important content than the faculty who teach that content.

[q10.livejournal.com]

what kind of intervention are we talking about? will it be analogous to, say, the application of federal anti-discrimination laws to campuses? that's been problematic on occasion, but on the whole i think it's worked out alright.

sure, these people may think there's liberal bias at the universities, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that they're right on this issue (it doesn't exclude the possibility that they're right about liberal bias either, although even if they are, i suspect their big-picture cure is worse than the disease). the fact that somebody can spin protecting people's rights to assembly and speech as related to an entirely reprehensible proposal for content standards (which i'll admit is a risk) doesn't mean we shouldn't stop standing for people's rights - it means that we should try to promote public awareness an alternative picture that clearly separates these issues. people are being rather unwholesomely silenced at real universities right now, and, although i'm always nervous about federal intervention, it doesn't strike me as a terrible idea to set federal standards on, say, school disciplinary processes to try to discourage this kind of thing.

of course, i haven't read the rider. based on the name, it could be anywhere between completely reasonable and beyond absurd.