To me, the issue of academic freedom is confluent with that of free speech, but their limits differ. My view is that free speech gives anyone, including academics, the right to say anything they want in public—unless that speech is meant to incite immediate violence or danger, or creates an atmosphere of harassment in the workplace. “Hate speech”, in which a group is demonized, is included in this freedom, so that there should be no laws against, for instance, calling Jews “money-grubbing kikes” in a public talk. If that, however, was repeatedly done in the workplace, it should be punished for creating a climate of harassment.
Academics should also have such freedoms—they are, after all, citizens. But the limits of academic freedom are slightly different. While you can’t incite violence or create a climate of harassment in public, or in the classroom, academics also have a responsibility to do their jobs, which involve teaching and, usually, research. If doing your job means promulgating untruths, like teaching your students that the Holocaust didn’t occur, or that creationism is true, then you are professionally irresponsible and should be fired. Likewise with scholarship: if you publish a bunch of papers that promulgate lies, then you have been derelict in your duty of advancing the field, and should be either denied tenure or not promoted.
There are obviously gray areas here. Students might consider that teaching Huckleberry Finn, with its frequent use of the word “nigger”, creates a climate of harassment in the classroom. With the sensitivity of today’s students, almost anything might “trigger” someone, causing them to complain about classroom atmosphere (see my post later today on Western Washington University).
And as for scholarship, well, there’s lots of bad scholarship out there (viz., the ridiculous glacier paper we discussed recently), and it’s up to the university faculty to determine if a professor has accumulated a record of substantive achievement.
But one thing is clear: no professor should be penalized by their universities for what he or she says outside the classroom or university setting.
That’s why the kerfuffle over Joy Karega, as reported on Inside Higher Ed (IHE), baffles me. Karega, an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition at the notoriously Leftist Authoritarian Oberlin University, has upset both faculty and students for her repeated (and often unhinged) rants on social media, which are bigoted and anti-Semitic. Besides promoting the BDS boycott of Israel, she’s said this:
Some of Karega’s posts — which have since apparently been deleted but were captured in screenshots by the pro-Israel blog The Tower — state opinions that, while controversial, are shared by other supporters of the Israel boycott movement. “Let some tell it, an attack on Zionism is an attack on Jews,” Karega wrote on Facebook last January, for example, after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. “It’s anti-Semitic, so they say. Total nonsense. And I stopped letting folks bully me with that ‘You’re being anti-Semitic’ nonsense a long time ago.”
Also inflammatory — but arguably a legitimate symbol of her political beliefs — Karega shared with that post an image of an ISIS fighter taking off a mask of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Another posted image recalls World War II-era anti-Jewish propaganda, showing Jacob Rothschild, a member of a well-known Jewish banking family, staring down the words, “We own your news, the media, your oil, and your government.”
Here are those Facebook posts:
This is classic anti-Semitism:
She’s also a conspiracy theorist of the most extreme stripe:
In November 2015, for example, [Karega] wrote that ISIS is really part of Mossad, an Israeli intelligence unit, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. “It’s troubling that in this day and age, where there is all this access to information, most of the general public doesn’t know who and what ISIS really is. I promise you, ISIS is not a jihadist, Islamic terrorist organization. It’s a CIA and Mossad operation and there’s too much information out there for the general public not to know this.”
. . . Quoting a blog that reports on many conspiracy theories and describes itself as a “weekly whack at the global oligarchy,” Karega also last year posted that Israel was responsible for the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight No. 17, which has widely been attributed to Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine. In another post, she wrote that Netanyahu visited Paris after theCharlie Hebdo massacre “just in case the message wasn’t received via Mossad and the ‘attacks’ they orchestrated on Paris.” (Netanyahu was in Paris after the attacks, but to visit Jewish people in France who were attacked.) Karega shared a video from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan suggesting that Zionists and Israeli Jews were behind 9/11, and wrote that he was “truth-telling,” as well, according to The Tower.
There’s no empirical support for any of this nonsense, but it’s free speech nonetheless. It’s posted on social media, which is a public forum, not an academic venue.
Nevertheless, some people have called for Karega to be disciplined or at least condemned by her university for this stuff, including several Israeli newspapers and, bizarrely, Alan Dershowitz, who (as IHE reports) said that if Karega “had expressed comparably bigoted views about blacks, Muslims or gays,” Oberlin would have condemned her views, even if it defended her right to express them.” (See a Fox News piece on others calling for her firing.)
I disagree with these calls. Karega is free to say what she wants on social media, or public statements. She should not be disciplined or condemned by her University for her extra-job rants, no matter how hateful or bigoted they be. Universities should not be in the business of either condemning or approving of their faculty’s extracurricular statements.
Now if she teaches this stuff in the classroom, or publishes it as counting towards her professional scholarship, then that’s a different matter. One can then judge its contribution to knowledge, its credibility, and so on. Likewise, if she repeatedly criticizes Jews in her classroom in a way that creates an atmosphere of hatred, she should be disciplined or fired.
That aside, she’s free to say what she wants. And to their credit, Oberlin issued this statement:
“Oberlin College respects the rights of its faculty, students, staff, and alumni to express their personal views.
“Acknowledgement of this right does not signal institutional support for, or endorsement of, any specific position. The statements posted on social media by Dr. Joy Karega, assistant professor of rhetoric and composition, are hers alone and do not represent the views of Oberlin College.”
In a report six days later, though, IHE notes that Oberlin seems to be backing off a little:
“These postings are anti-Semitic and abhorrent,” Clyde S. McGregor, chair of Oberlin’s Board of Trustees, said regarding Facebook posts by Joy Karega, an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition. “We deplore anti-Semitism and all other forms of bigotry. They have no place at Oberlin. These grave issues must be considered expeditiously.”
To me, that statement is out of line. I agree with McGregor’s sentiments vis-à-vis Karega’s views, some of which are classically anti-Semitic. But McGregor has no business making an official statement about what is and is not abhorrent about a faculty member’s extracurricular statements. Other people, of course, are free to counter her own speech with their speech, but not in an official university capacity.
If you disagree with my take, or have something to add, by all means put it blow.
Nothing to add, but I did share on Facebook.
I agree with your take. It seems to be a natural way to divide up the free speech and academic freedom issue. McGregor’s statement shows that public pressure can cause compromise with the carefully thought out policy. It seems to me that’s what written policy statements are for – helping to stabilize thinking when the pressure is on. McGregor should recant.
I’m a little torn, because even if she kept the anti-semitic rhetoric out of the classroom I think if I were a Jew I would still feel very uncomfortable with her as my instructor. I don’t think I could count on a fair and honest evaluation of my performance.
Still, the civil libertarian in me rebels at punishing her for it. After all, if a university can fire professors for espousing anti-semitic views, what’s to stop one from firing a professor for, say, publishing a website notoriously critical of religion and religious thought?
I might feel the same. But I’d try to remember that my feeling uncomfortable because there are anti-semites and racists out there is pretty much irrelevant.
That said, I’d do my best to stay out of any of her classes and let the department/college know exactly why. I’d exercise my free speech to expose her opinions to fellow students.
I can certainly understand why a Jewish student might feel uncomfortable having Prof. Karega as an instructor. But unless she were bringing her views to bear in the classroom, I don’t see how such student discomfort should ever prompt any action by a university’s administration. Indeed, it seems to me it would make for an impoverished university experience if a student could go through four years of college without ever encountering a classroom professor with whom one was “uncomfortable.”
I don’t know. It’s not exactly hard to believe that if she sees “Cohen” on an assignment, that she is going to grade it extra harshly, especially if the work is not on an objective subject like math (which she isn’t).
So we’re not just talking about feeling uncomfortable that someone disagrees with you. We’re talking about someone who is very likely to be racist and/or biased, and when grading subjective papers, that bias can result in unfair scores.
When it comes to our principles, it’s always worth thinking them through. The Authoritarian Left believe so strongly in not criticizing minorities, that they are perfectly fine ignoring any atrocity committed by a minority group.
In defending the Academic Free Speech of this women, have we ourselves gone too far? I don’t know. But I think it’s important to at least see the mistakes others have made, and remember that we’re not above making them ourselves. Mistakes that we can so easily see in others are much harder to spot in ourselves.
If the professor is being unfair to the students that’s unprofessional and punishable, but we should require actual evidence of unfair grading rather than just a fear that a professor might be unfair because of his personal views.
If there are allegations of biased grading, a university has a duty to investigate and, if substantiated, to discipline a professor for such academic misconduct.
But how do you propose to police faculty members’ hearts and minds? Universities shouldn’t be in the business of punishing those with the courage of their convictions to speak their minds (on their own time, of course) — even where, nay especially where, others find the content of their speech repugnant.
I agree with Dean, Ken, Adam M and Prof CC (who I commend) on this.
Her political (or religious) opinions, if expressed outside the university, should be irrelevant to her academic career.
Yes, she had better not let them intrude into classes, and certainly should not let her biases influence her grading of students. (If she’s got any sense she’d be careful it didn’t).
But IMO one’s life ‘outside’ work is no business of the employer’s.
cr
That’s why universities have procedures for appealing one’s marking in exams, coursework etc. Having ones pedagogic work repeatedly found to be substandard, or carried out unfairly would be a quick march through the disciplinary parts of the contract of employment with a final result of “we fired that one after exhausting our disciplinary options” as a public reference.
Overall, I agree, but I do wonder how far one can take extra-curricula activities before they do start to create a negative atmosphere in the classroom. Say you had a professor who was the Grand Wizard of the KKK?
As an aside, even if you don’t use these activities to justify a disciplinary action, I would imagine that they would be taken into account for tenure or other promotion, even if informally.
It can be challenging, and this case does come up to the edge — but only just to the edge, imo.
A member or even a grand wizard of the KKK could hold a position at a university, so long as their views do not emerge in the classroom or in the grading of students who bring up their opinions on the matter. This would be difficult
In his celebrated little book, On Liberty, the English philosopher John Stuart Mill argued that silencing an opinion is ‘a peculiar evil’. If the opinion is right, we are robbed of the ‘opportunity of exchanging error for truth’; and if it’s wrong, we are deprived of a deeper understanding of the truth in ‘its collision with error’. If we know only our own side of the argument, we hardly know even that; it becomes stale, soon learned only by rote, untested, a pallid and lifeless truth.
Mill also wrote, ‘If society lets any considerable number of its members grow up as mere children, incapable of being acted on by rational consideration of distant motives, society has itself to blame.’ Jefferson made the same point even more strongly: ‘If a nation expects to be both ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.’ In a letter to Madison, he continued the thought: ‘A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.’
When permitted to listen to alternative opinions and engage in substantive debate, people have been known to change their minds. It can happen. For example, Hugo Black, in his youth, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan; he later became a Supreme Court justice and was one of the leaders in the historic Supreme Court decisions, partly based on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, that affirmed the civil rights of all Americans: it was said that when he was a young man, he dressed up in white robes and scared black folks; when he got older, he dressed up in black robes and scared white folks.
~Carl Sagan (The Demon Haunted World)
This is a very old conundrum: should proponents of democracy and free speech give free rein to enemies of democracy and free speech? It’s very uplifting to read about Hugo Black and we can all pat ourselves on the back and be proud how in the free market of ideas the right ideas won. But history is full of examples of the opposite – how the wrong ideas won and the disaster ensued. The world is full of demagogues, fascists, racists, and other ideologues and cranks (who are often using our language and our values as a weapon against democracy and free speech). We can, in our hubris, think that our ideas are so absolutly right that we just have to win. Unfortunately, when those demagogues are slick and smart enough, they can acquire a huge following and we often lose.
We could all pat ourselves on the back, as well, in the secure knowledge that we alone have cornered truth, justice, and enlightened thinking. But if our ideas cannot outcompete those of the demagogues, fascists, and racists in a free marketplace, what good are they — and what assurance do we have that they are, in fact, correct?
In every instance where bad ideas have won, it’s because the marketplace of ideas wasn’t free. And the only way to assure the marketplace’s integrity is by guaranteeing free expression for all. I’m confident in the power of a right idea to win out over a wrong one in free and fair competition. Aren’t you?
After 1918 (Russia), 1933 (Germany), 1979 (Iran) and after what’s now happening in my country my trust in “free market of ideas” is not as deep as your. Still, I think that the ideas of fight for democracy and freedom which quite a lot of people had in Russia, Germany, Iran and now, Poland, were good (I do not think the word “correct” is appropriate) and the fact that they lost is not a proof that those ideas were bad.
Can you cite an example of demagoguery and oppression prevailing in a society that has unbridled free expression? (Certainly, your examples of Russia, Germany, and Iran do not so qualify.) If there are none, QED.
Just look at Poland 2015-2016 (if you do not want to look at Donald Trump). I can assure you that we had absolutely free media – but this is quite quickly coming to an end.
Having “free media” is not the same as having a media (and a populace) that can engage in free expression. And there’s a crucial reason why would-be autocrats always seek immediately to curtail free expression and a free press to enhance their power.
As for Donald Trump, my greatest comfort in contemplating the abhorrent prospect of a Trump presidency comes from the knowledge that free speech and freedom of the press are guaranteed by our constitution. They constitute our greatest check on the abuse of governmental power.
Oh, dear, that fetish ‘the marketplace’, as if it were a realm of perfect freedom, as if there were not such a thing as power, as if there were not such a thing as exploiting what purports to be free; and that other fetish ‘competition’.It is curious, isn’t it? — how when one utters those magic words, one feels imbued with high principles and rectitude and the satisfaction of being right!
The marketplace of ideas stands in metaphorical relation to the marketplace for goods and services. I’m no libertarian free-market-fetishist. But, hey, if you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears.
On the question of “how far one can take extra-curricula activities” as an academic, I think there is a bright-line answer — as far as one wishes, so long as they don’t involve illegal or unethical conduct. If the freedoms of speech and conscience mean anything, they mean that there can be no verboten ideas or expressions of those ideas. As long they in fact remain “extracurricular” — that is, separate and distinct from his or her academic work — what a professor thinks or says or writes on his or her own time is nobody else’s damn business.
Well, if the things said and written are in public then they are pretty much everyone else’s business.
And if they choose to avail themselves of those public statements privately made, they can damn well deal with it.
Everyone, students included, has a right to physical safety and to be free from targeted harassment. No one has the right to go through life free from being offended by others’ ideas.
We don’t disagree.
There’s an employment law issue though. IANAL and I don’t know about US law or the contract of employment terms that apply in Karega’s case. However I do recall a business internal discipline case from decades ago in the firm I worked for. A couple of workers captured and killed some ducks that swam in the river near one of our garages and drove off in a works van with the firm’s logo clearly displayed. They were observed and at a disciplinary meeting they lost their jobs for ‘bringing the business into disrepute’.
So although I can agree that Karega is free to say whatever she likes outside the university and within the law, if her words damage the university’s reputation by association she could be disciplined.
But that’s a tough call because a lot of actions can be deemed (by, say, the university) to be damaging to the university’s reputation. Should a coach be fired every time the school’s team loses? Where do you draw the line? Better yet, WHO draws the line? Seems to me that it’s better to err in the direction of freedom to speak, especially if that speech is not on university time.
No, Karega is free to speak and her employers, depending on her employment contract, are free to judge the implications of her free speech on their reputation. I understand that the university is a private business so, within certain limits, they can choose what is acceptable to them as employers.
Here is a quite different view on this problem:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Terra-Incognita-Oberlin-Colleges-free-speech-shield-for-racism-and-fascism-446371
I would (with trouble) agree with Jerry if Prof. Correga taught mathematics, physics, chemistry. But she is not. She is discussing her views in her classes. Her students know her opinions (they read her Facebook, surely) and it would be a brave student who would tell her that they are abhorrent lies.
But, still, the students should know her views before signing up for the class. Her reputation must surely be widely known on campus. If they are not required to take the course from her, why not let students decide what they feel comfortable with?
Would you say the same if she were a biology professor who in her free time on her facebook wrote about the stupidity of evolution, asserted that evolution was debunked and its proponents were in a huge conspiracy to fool people and take them away from God? Would you let the students decide whether they prefer her classes than somebody elses? After all, they came to the university and they trust university authorities to give them proper education. If such a professor is accepted, if she teaches what Darwinism say but with an air of scorn, they, knowing her opinions, would learn about this worldwide conspiracy. Wouldn’t they?
Those are all good questions. I posted below wondering if, in fact, the evolution case was a real one which played out on these pages not so long ago. Maybe you can say let the students decide, and let the department faculty evaluate. Should the administration get involved?
If, in the economics department you have a strong Marxist/communist as well as a strong capitalist (Friedman at Chicago), should the administration get involved in settling opinions?
I don’t really think that your example of Marxist/communist versus a proponent of capitalism is relevant here. You can have different ideological stance in economy without disseminating blatant lies. (Of course, if this Marxist wrote about the wonderful economical development in Stalin’s USSR or today’s North Korea and people dying of hunger in U.S., it would be another matter.) But Jews who shot down this aeroplane? Jews responsible for 9/11? A teacher should not go around disseminating lies (or claims which are untrue – like “evolution is debunked)whether he/she is doing it on a public Facebook or in a classroom. Such person is not fit to be a teacher and her right to free speach does not mean a right to teach.
Such person is not fit to be a teacher and her right to free speach does not mean a right to teach.
I agree, and Oberlin, a private employer, should not be compelled to continue employing her. If I discovered that an employee who represents my company was burning crosses outside black homes during his free time, I would fire his sorry ass.
+ 1
A professor of biology who uses that platform to spread inaccurate information about science is guilty of incompetence in performing their job. There should be measures taken to prevent that, but only for the sake of teaching accuracy, not for the sake of suppressing speech.
Although the Discovery institute will of course choose to report it differently.
Actually, I just remembered (silly me) that this particular problem would violate the establishment clause. So there would be measures taken not only for incompetetence, but for legal reasons as well.
OK, carry on.
I clearly said that this imagined by me professor never said anything else in his classroom than pure Darwinism. My idea was how were students, who knew his real opinion about evolution, to react when they knew that he was telling them things he thought were not true.
BTW Prof. Karega discussed her warped ideas with her class and even bragged about it on her Facebook.
There is no more reason for Prof. Karega to bring her political views into her rhetoric and composition classes than there would be if she taught math, physics, or chemistry. If she has done so, the university should discipline her, no doubt about it.
Sure, it might (as you say) take “a brave student” to challenge this professor in the classroom, but brave students make for brave citizens — and, goodness knows, we could use more of those.
Thank you, Malgorzata. If what is said in the Jerusalem Post article is correct (and it seems to be), then Karega should be out of a job at any reputable university.
I will express my opinion in the form of questions. Can people really separate their private and professional lives? Can someone be a KKK member or hateful antisemite off hours and be fair minded while teaching and grading a diverse class? As a private entity, cannot Oberlin at least rebuke an employee who brings it disrepute?
Actually they can fire her. Oberlin is a private corporation and 1st amendment protection does not apply to private organizations. Private employer’s can and have fired people for something as trivial as a political bumper sticker. Beyond that she’s a crackpot and if she’s stating similar garbage in the classroom she’s teaching lies to her student’s. She should be out.
Actually they can fire her. Oberlin is a private corporation and 1st amendment protection does not apply to private organizations. Private employer’s can and have fired people for something as trivial as a political bumper sticker. Beyond that she’s a crackpot and if she’s stating similar garbage in the classroom she’s teaching lies to her student’s. She should be out. Oberlin has the right to guard its academic reputation from kooks.
It is undoubtedly true that private academic institutions are not bound by the First Amendment. Most such institutions, however, include academic freedom provisions in their employment contracts and/or their publications. Some go so far as to expressly incorporate First Amendment protections for faculty and students. Whether the school has violated those provision, of course, will then turn on contract rather than constitutional law, although the latter provides guidance under the circumstances.
Yes, I agree that she has the right to rant her anti-Semitic nonsense in a private capacity. But, this incident is a good test of how students at this college react to this “cultural insensitivity.” Probably most students at Oberlin would not want to enroll in a class taught by a known racist, even if the racism was not manifested by the instructor in the classroom. At the least, they would want to boycott this instructor’s class. Protests would spring up everywhere. Let’s see how the students react to the ravings of an unquestioned anti-Semite. I hope I am wrong, but silence is the response I would expect.
I also expect silence.
Maybe you will find my view extreme, but it seems to me that authoritarian Leftists classify humans in a hierarchy in which Muslims are at the top, closely followed by blacks, and Jews are at the bottom. So they cannot be too indignant about a black professor blaming Jews for Muslim terror. Indeed, Prof. Karega doesn’t give a damn about the facts, but facts are also low in the hierarchy of authoritarian Left’s values.
That’s a pinched view — one unlikely to foster trenchant analysis of the matter. It’s a caricature, really, similar in its way to the caricaturization that’s led Prof. Karega astray (albeit from the opposite direction, and not nearly as ugly or strident).
I have seen “SJW” types explicitly avow the philosophy Mayamarkov describes. Very explicitly. I have seen it expressed that cis, hetero, white men have had their thoughts and opinions listened to for thousands of years and that their time is up – no one should listen to or engage their ideas any more. I’ve seen it written that “equality is bullshit. Cis, white, hetero, men have been oppressors for thousands of years and justice means, not equality, but the oppression of cis, white, hetero men for the next few thousand years.” I’ve seen a genuine suggestion that people should use a short quiz or survey to determine their level of privilege, and that in any disagreement, the participant with more privilege should be quiet, listen, apologize, and work on ways to be a better “ally.” The privilege calculator makes it clear that being a “person of color,” muslim, or “genderqueer” puts one at the top of the victim pyramid.
It would be really funny if it wasn’t so sad and frightening. A new favorite of mine is the barrage of attacks on Caitlyn Jenner for being a Republican. Social justice advocates have been calling her things like “ugly bitch,” “idiot drag queen,” rich, white, man” etc. These same people who argue that “a transwoman is a woman, full stop” see no problem with calling Jenner “an ugly ass rich white man in drag” because they disagree with her politics.
Don’t they seem nice!
sub
I wonder if this bears on the controversy surrounding the teaching of ID and creationism at the college level? I’m trying to remember the case a year or so ago in which PCC got involved. As I recall, the offender was not fired but there were statements by the college president supporting Darwin. That was a case of a teacher including creationism in the course. Was that the kind of thing that should be handled by his departmental evaluation process?
If the teaching of this were being done at a public college, I don’t think it would fly. At private institutions, probably anything goes. I’m pretty sure that FFRF has gone after teachers and the schools when taking place in public institutions.
Are any of Karega’s colleagues Jewish? Would her presumably notorious anti-Semitism not constitute a toxic work-environment that would warrant an employer’s disciplinary action?
I don’t think it should. I don’t see why people should be legally protected from having to work with people they dislike, or who dislike them. That’s a part of life. Anti-harassment statutes should be (and generally are) defined clearly and narrowly, because just having ‘offensive’ beliefs does not in itself harm anyone.
I think you need to spell out what you mean by “toxic work-environment.”
If you mean, Karega might be abusing colleagues at department meetings (or engaging in similar conduct in similar settings) because of their race or ethnicity or religion, I’m with you. If you mean she might be refusing even to engage collegially with others in such settings for such reasons, I’m with you. But if you mean some of her colleagues cannot abide breathing the same air because they find her views repugnant, I’m not.
I tend to agree with the professor on this in the general sense of boundaries, but the repulsive particulars coming from Karega make me question her ability to think coherently, much less teach.
Perhaps before one becomes a Ph.D in the art of persuasion, one should master critical thinking.
I’m reminded of Arthur Butz, a professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University. He is an ardent holocaust denier, but was always careful to keep all that separate from his university teaching and work. He had a long career at NU (although I don’t think he ever made full professor). As long as he kept it separate, the university let him be.
Prof Butz is still alive and kicking and apparently is still on the faculty of the engineering department of Northwestern Un., even at the advanced age of 83.
Another notorious example was the late Stanford physics professor William Shockley, a Nobel laureate. Professor Shockley was notorious for writing numerous articles about his claim that African Americans were less intellectually capable then Caucasians.
Shockley won a Nobel, alright, but it was for his early work on transistors, not for his bogus research into eugenics. There’s a lesson there, probably several, one of which concerns the dangers in wandering outside one’s field of expertise.
That is an interesting point. His grasp of electrical engineering could have been unaffected by his bigotry, but in the case of a teacher of rhetoric (which I take to mean what we used to called freshman composition), her bigotry would almost certainly affect her performance in the classroom. If she is teaching students to construct sound arguments and argue a case based on unbiased research, how competent is she going to be if she herself has accepted these far-out conspiracy theories? Conspiracy theories are the antithesis of unbiased research, since they presuppose the conclusion before any evidence is gathered. I hate to think what her “rhetoric” classes are like!
If Karega can’t teach her students to construct a sound rhetorical argument because she’s unable to construct one herself, get rid of her. If she’s pushing ideology in her classroom, get rid of her. But don’t get rid of her based on the assumption she can’t perform adequately in class due to her personal views, however repugnant. Judge her on her academic performance alone.
The only meaningful measure of one’s commitment to academic freedom (or to free speech, or to freedom of conscience) is one’s willingness to abide that freedom on the part of someone with whom one vehemently disagrees. Everyone‘s in favor of academic freedom for the bien pensant, so that don’t count for squat.
JAC is absolutist on academic freedom, and I admire him for it because he is so gosh-darned consistent about it. No one could ever accuse him of a double standard.
I am less absolutist in the sense that I cannot see academic freedom as a license for pure hate speech lies. On the other hand, holocaust denial and hypotheses about different intellectual capacities across races are, although more than tinged with racism, the kinds of questioning that academic freedom should permit. An even more egregious case is the late J Philippe Rushton who claimed humans varied in genital size, ranging from africans with the biggest endowments (excluding Trump I guess) to asians being more challenged in that regard.
Interestingly, like a good scientist, Rushton actually tried to gather evidence to support his hypothesis. How he got subjects, I do not know.
Please forgive the digression (I can’t help it – no free will), but was Jacob Rothschild the original model for Montgomery Burns? I can almost hear him say “excellent!”
Thank you. I was trying to think who this looked like. Excellent!
I would agree with the posting but with the following addition. Institutions should have some say, if they choose, to produce standard of conduct documents that potential employees can sign or not. I’m pretty sure that many do have these. Certain government institutions certainly have these and I’m pretty sure the military still has this.
What you do on your own time can affect the institution you work for and because of this, they have the right to institute rules. So as long as you have the choice to sign and agree or not sign and walk away, everyone is told up front. Not really that much different than the rules established on this web site.
Maybe. But society has the right to outlaw or nullify such ‘agreements’ when they’re not real agreements. If almost every business says “you can’t do X on your private time”, then your ‘choice’ is to stop doing X or be permanently unemployed. That’s not a real choice.
For example, most businesses require employees to waive their rights under labor laws (by agreeing to not seek remedy under the law). And I only say “most” as a supposition. All of the employment contracts I’ve seen in the last decade have had this clause. At some point it becomes a monopoly, under which real choice is not available.
I’m not familiar with anything about waving rights under labor laws – possibly you are talking about labor contracts (union)? That is not what I am talking about at all.
Besides – union contracts generally apply only on the job and have very little to do with your free time. As I stated – standard of conduct type documents that may be required by the company or the school for employment.
If you work in management for most of the large corporations in the U.S. they will have these things. And they do so for their own protection based on the Image they want to project.
Extreme example, I’ll admit, but think about that guy who worked for Subway, the sandwich place. He was their spokesman on commercials. Then they discover he was secretly having sex with underage girls. But it can be much less than that – such as being drunk in public or arrested for fighting in a bar.
I agree that expressing controversial views outside a professional setting should not automatically result in professional discipline. Would it be acceptable for it to trigger a closer examination of ones performance? For example, comparing grades given to jewish vs. non-jewish students of an antisemitic teacher. Or is that crossing a line between private/professional spaces because it could lead to witch hunts?
Personally, I don’t see how someone with such a shitty world view could compartmentalize it effectively. Some of teh stoopid will inevitably seep into the classroom and that’s an automatic red card. It’s only a matter of time. Better to throw them out for an obvious professional breach of conduct than the perceived potential for one (i.e. a thought crime).
The moment I read this piece I instantly realised that I had never heard of this lady before, which led me (whilst mulling over a coffee) to wonder where and how do the educational institutions find these cranks?
I think Prof. Karega should never have become a university teacher in the first place. A commenter under a news report at insidehighered.com wrote the following:
“I am not sure of this woman’s educational background or which courses she teaches. However, I am willing to bet that she either majored or concentrated in some form of “social justice” topic.
Given her penchant for posting so many things via social media, I would bet $5 that she teaches a writing or journalism class in “African American,” “Urban Politics” or “Social Justice” propaganda.”
I immediately checked her Web page at the university and found the following:
“Joy Karega is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition. Her teaching and research interests include Black political and protest literacies, translingual composition, rhetoric and composition historiography, social justice writing, and writing pedagogy. She is currently working on a book project that draws upon archival research and oral history and historicizes the political literacy education of the Black Liberation Front International, a Black student organization at Michigan State University from 1968 to 1975.”
(There is no list of publications.)
We recently argued on this blog about whether there should be “Gender studies” or “Race studies”. I am of the opinion that there shouldn’t be. Because they give employment opportunity to academics like Prof. Karega and produce works of the sort that flooded Eastern Europe until 1989.
And which ideas eventually won out in eastern Europe in 1989? How much faster would those ideas have prevailed had they been permitted to compete in a free marketplace against Soviet-style communism, rather than merely being passed hand-to-hand as samizdat?
I do not see the university as a free marketplace of ideas. To me, it is about finding which ideas seem best at the moment, then disseminating them in the most efficient way, together with the method to test, improve and replace these ideas with (hopefully) better ones.
To me, the free marketplace of ideas exists in the wider society and it is exactly that, free. Well, there are costs and publishing and so on, but no course credits and no tuition fees. When students invest time and money, I don’t find it honest to subject them to the unregulated marketplace of ideas. (Neither will their free ideas get them anywhere at the exam.)
Universities are authoritarian hierarchical institutions. And such institutions can work only with strict standards for those at the bottom and even more stringent ones at every step up. If I were a student at Oberlin, I wouldn’t want Prof. Karega to work there, even if I had the option not to take her course (at my university, most courses are mandatory). I’d be worried that the serious study I am doing will be evaluated (in terms of credit scores) as no better than the “study” of those my colleagues who choose to go to this bigoted charlatan; and I’d be worried that her presence at the University will devalue my diploma in the eyes of future employers.
You can say that students are free to go to other universities. I say that this choice is limited once the study has started, and (more importantly) that if people like Karega are allowed to teach, they are likely to infest all universities in the culture. It is the same as allowing a toxin in the foodstuff, with an appropriate label, and saying that those who don’t want to be poisoned can eat something else.
I certainly haven’t suggested that a college classroom should itself serve as a free marketplace of ideas. And I’m not in any way contesting a university’s authority to set standards for the courses being taught there (although I don’t think that authority need be exercised in an overly authoritarian manner).
What I am suggesting is that the university has no business prescribing an orthodoxy for private speech by faculty (or students) that is unaffiliated with the university.
It is improper, on the other hand, and merits discipline, for a professor to push his or her political, religious, or other ideology inside the classroom. That should be a bright line. And it should be a bright line regardless whether I agree with the ideology being pushed — indeed, regardless whether the ideology being pushed is widely considered to be benign.
All of which is to say, professors should keep their personal ideology out of the classroom, and universities ought to keep their noses out of their professors’ personal ideology and private speech.
Rsub
I think Citizen Coyne strikes precisely the right balance here regarding academic freedom and academic responsibility. (There is another aspect to “academic freedom” — concerning an academic’s right to pursue a field of study into controversial areas — but that aspect is not at issue here.) I think Oberlin College also struck precisely the right balance here in its initial statement on the matter, acknowledging a professor’s right to personal views and private speech, while disavowing that such an acknowledgement serves as any type of tacit endorsement of those views and that speech.
Speaking of Oberlin, it pains me to see the school’s name immediately preceded by the modifier “authoritarian.” I grew up a couple counties away, and friends of mine matriculated there. In those days, Oberlin College was a bastion of anti-authoritarianism, non-conformity, and free speech, with campus-wide protests of the Vietnam War and its corporate sponsors like Dow Chemical.
Or maybe I’ve just grown into an old fart, pining for some halcyon “good old days” that never were. Possibly, a bit of both.
The article Malgorzata linked to above showed she is discussing her views in the classroom, which I find troubling. It may be that those who oppose her views simply never take her classes and therefore she’s not being challenged or complained about.
Many of Karega’s views aren’t just about differing opinions, but are based on incorrect information. If she is disseminating that information to young brains as the truth, that’s a problem imo.
Having said all that, she has the right to her opinions, and to express them outside her job in any way she wants, revolting and illogical as they are.
I always find ignorance such as this woman expresses more offensive when it comes from someone who is (as she is) highly intelligent. There’s just less excuse to get it so wrong when you have a better than average ability to think.
And here again I think, is where the condition of employment comes in. Teachers need to have them or, at least can have them too. The institution that hires them can insist, I think, on some protections from this.
As a person, she can say all this nonsense all she wants. But when it is being put out in the class and in such a public way as she seems to be doing, the school that hires should also have some conditions of employment. Maybe this school has none so they don’t have recourse.
We do a lot of things in this world that can limit your freedoms. Joining the military is certainly one of them. There are many other places, both private and public with conditions that do cover what you do outside of work.
Yeah. I’m not sure how it works in the US, but every job I’ve had has limits on such things. As far as I can remember, every employment contract has had some clause about bring the organisation into disrepute. Politicking and proselytizing are also generally no-nos.
Minor pedantic correction- it’s Oberlin college, not university. As an alumnus of the school I unfortunately recognize some of these sorts of matters (I graduated in 98, well before this professor’s arrival). But there was a vigorous Jewish community on campus when I attended and I have no doubt many students are vocally debating and criticizing this professor. There has been much civil and impassioned discussion on the alumni boards for sure. The school is certainly reactionary in many ways and unfortunatley it sometimes enforces a left wing orthodoxy– I could tell you some stories from my time there….On the plus side, it has a fantastic undergrad neuroscience program.
How embarrassing for the school to have hired this person.
Is it the quality of what comes out, or what comes in in the first place that is the problem here?
I will be stunned if anything comes of this incident, Black women are pretty much on the top of the V pyramid, Jews not so much. Just remember: “racial equality is racial hierarchy”, “all persons are victims, but some persons are more victimized than others.”
Just look at respected civil rights commentator Rev. Al Sharpton if you want an illustration of this principle.