During the last decade, when the topic was pretty sensitive, he wrote an essay comparing some of the 9-11 victims to Adolf Eichmann ("little Eichmanns"), noting that, as the Western powers were gaining oil profits on the backs of Arab children through sanctions and then invasion, sooner or later, like would be paid for like.
The University of Colorado fired him for poor research practices, but he maintained that his controversial (to say the least) essay was the actual reason. Four years later, a jury concurred, and he gained a chance to get his job back.
I heard Churchill take on a neo-conservative commentator, David Horowitz, in a debate. His language skills were exceptional. His reasoning was obtuse, but his overall point couldn't be ignored: Freedom to share ideas had to remain paramount.
Horowitz is widely known in conservative circles for his attacks on the higher educational system. He considers it a racket where liberals have campaigned for, and gained, rights (collectively bargained, in many cases) to assist with granting tenure, and--according to him--just keep recycling professors who agree with each other on the left. When I was with NEA in D.C., I attended a conference facilitated by Horowitz. He was sure to bring in students who said they had been intimidated into silence by their conservative views. Some cried as they told their stories.
But most tended to shroud their conservatism atop what was really bothering them: That someone, probably a professor, had thwarted their needs to proselytize their religious beliefs, in effect equalizing the two. The professors, according to them, tended to stop or deflect or point out the misdirection of their comments at that point. This offended their sense of free speech rights. Horowitz did not disagree.
I did. But I was one of the very few union people in that room--some American Federation of Teachers staff members were on a panel discussion--so I did not jump into the conversation. An Education Week reporter caught me for a comment. I can't recall exactly what I said, but it didn't make the final version of the story. (I could be pretty vanilla in commentary at times; the more one hangs around politicians, the more one can easily act like one.)
I was witnessing the same thing that students at Indiana University say they have to deal with: a professor who holds controversial, and offensive to some, viewpoints. This one, though, is conservative and more progressive students are objecting.
It's not as if they don't have cause. This professor, Eric Rasmusen, is an economist in the business school who says, in views posted (note) on his website:
- that women are "the weaker sex";
- that gay men should not be teachers; and
- that blacks have lower standards for getting into colleges than whites.
The provost, Lauren Robel, took a good look at the situation and managed to insert the First Amendment in an important way. She called the comments "vile and stupid....more consistent with someone who lived in the 18th century than the 21st." But she also pointed out that Rasmusen has been careful to put his personal viewpoints in a place where the university can't touch them. "Somebody with his views--should that person be teaching students? If that was the only question we had to answer, the answer in my mind would be pretty clear," Robel said. But she had to admit: "These are things he says on his own time, in his own space. That, without more, is not enough (to remove him)."
Does Rasmusen pose a hostile environment in his classroom? Good question. The university, to its credit, took steps to release some of the pressure of the situation: First, it allowed students to transfer out of his class; second, it said that his classes would not be required for graduation; and third, assignments would be graded without him knowing whose they were. Fair enough.
So what's the problem? Just knowing how someone thinks is now fair game for going after their teaching status. A lot of this is overreaction, adopted by our hyper-sensitized higher education culture. (See my blog of 1/7/19: a review of The Coddling of the American Mind)
Rasmusen may be walking a fine line, but he's walking it well. He hasn't been accused of intimidating or driving his views down people's throats within his classroom; he hasn't been accused, either, of demonstrating bias in his grading. He had made strong comments about gay men on his blog, so IU removed it from its servers--in 2003.
That attention has been brought to his comments brings notoriety to them, which might actually enhance Rasmusen's reputation in some eyes on the same campus. But nobody has to read them. And nobody has to take his classes. True, people will be observing more closely. But if he hasn't stirred up that much attention for at least sixteen years, he knows what he's doing and can co-exist as an obnoxious bigot in a progressive atmosphere. (I'd like to see him in the same room as some gay male teachers I've met through NEA. Only one thing I could say: Good luck, dude. You're about to be taken down a few notches.)
For those a bit bothered about this, allow me to offer a bromide: Get used to it. It isn't like you're hung over the bar on a Friday night. You might even get a decent conversation out of it. It isn't everywhere that you can get a balanced reflection between people on controversial topics. Most of the time, someone will try to summarize the truth in about six words, order another round, and that will be that. You still get to walk away, though, just like the university allows them to walk away from the noted professor's class.
The First Amendment wins this one. But that's not surprising. If responsibly utilized, it wins every time. Which is the idea: Speaking responsibly will always be supported, because it sounds like someone's been thinking carefully. Under those circumstances, human beings not only tend to get along better, they even make more sense.
If that doesn't happen in that particular vicinity, decency in thought and speech usually catch up and overtake those without it. It doesn't always, though, and the cutting edge issue remains: What happens when stupidity and bigotry, its ugly cousin, take over the conversation through what they do best--intimidate and humiliate those who disagree?
It appears that Rasmusen, though pushing the edges of mainstream thinking, hasn't made someone disagreeing with him feel like mulch. As long as he can exercise that tolerance, there can't be that much amiss about his presence and approach. Cutting him off would lead to doing the same at the other end of the spectrum, igniting all kinds of indignance. Self-righteousness ignores the first axiom of free exchange: It all works both ways.
It doesn't mean we have to agree or even think of other ideas as worthy of governance. But it's the utter measurement of our democratic society to determine whether we can survive knowing that there's a large group of people out there who think in ways we find unthinkable (against which we constantly need to push back). That will be the work of an already greatly challenged Constitution. I wish it, and us, lots of luck.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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