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March 28, 2005
Churchill Blowback
Jim Geraghty at TKS links to this story about the Academic Freedom Bill of Rights being worked on in the Florida legislature. While I am in general favorable about these Academic Freedom bills, this one seems to go a bit too far as
Academic Freedom Bill of Rights According to a legislative staff analysis of the bill, the law would give students who think their beliefs are not being respected legal standing to sue professors and universities.Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue.
Professors should be allowed to ridicule students who can not defend their belief. If they can not explain their theories in class, then ridicule is the appropriate response in some cases. The problem is when professors only ridicule some poorly defended theories. Good professors will force all students to defend their theories. I was talking to friend who works on a college campus about Ward Churchill yesterday and he said he likes it that jerks like Churchill get to say controversial things on campus. I agreed, but pointed out the limited range of jerks allowed on most campuses in the first place. Campuses should be home to jerks of all ideological types.
Geraghty thinks lawsuits are the wrong answer, but does not have much sympathy for the university admistrators who have allowed students to be bullied for years. He writes,
Bringing more lawsuits into an already heavily-litigated world over “public ridicule” and hurt feelings is probably a terrible idea. But the academic world doesn’t do itself any favors in dissuading people about these kinds of reforms when it goes on one of its usual “burn Lawrence Summers at the stake” tirades.
Posted by Pete at March 28, 2005 05:14 PM
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