04.02.23a. Academic Freedom; Bias in the Classroom; Two Hypotheticals. The two stories below are hypotheticals that we discussed at our law and econ lunch, with much diversity of opinion, particularly on the question of whether a professor should publicize his biases or try to hide them. Any comments? I'll be discussing the actual case that prompted the hypotheticals at some point, but I don't know enough about it yet.

INSTRUCTOR A. An instructor in a course on "Threats and Workplace Safety" uses the course to advocate his view that there should be an independent Palestinian state. A full six course sessions are devoted to this, preceded and followed by more mundane sessions on how to respond to false bomb threats, good evacuation procedures, sexual harassment, and such things. The instructor make his bias clear, but tells students that the material will not be on the final exam, so they need not worry if they disagree with his views. The Palestinian material itself is scholarly, and moderate in tone, but is clearly one- sided.

INSTRUCTOR B. An instructor in a course on "Jews in the Twentieth Century" assigns such anti-semitic materials as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," as well as various Zionist writings. It becomes clear, despite his best efforts, that he dislikes Jews personally and as a group, but he also seems to make an effort to present a variety of viewpoints. On his final exam, one question asks, "What arguments did the Nazi's make for their anti-semitic policies?" There is no evidence that he treats Jewish students badly, and he allows harsh criticism of anti-semitism to be made in class.

I have heard that there exists a substantial number of professors of the "professors can do no wrong" school of academic freedom--- that even in a case in which a professor went beyond Instructor A and taught only gardening in a course on American history, academic freedom should protect him from criticism (or, at least, from being removed from teaching the course--whether they think the penalty of collegial criticism should be applied is less clear). If anybody knows of a written defense of such a position, please let me know.

[in full at 04.02.23a.htm .      Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]

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