This article in Slate addresses the notion of academic freedom as relates to courses that discuss sexism and racism. It essentially states that if we adopt the customer model of education, students end up feeling like they can pick and choose the things they want to learn and that if they feel uncomfortable, will express this through complaints and legal means (and sometimes win).I've experienced this in my own courses on race and gender. No matter how gently or empirically a notion is introduced, many Americans are not used to discussing race (they're more accustomed to discussing gender). Many people equate a discussion on race to being racist, or a discussion on gender to equate to accusations of misogyny. And if students feel they are being called racist, they immediately put up a wall or feel threatened. And routinely, if someone feels threatened, they stop learning.
While I do my best not to accuse students of behavior (i.e. I don't go about saying, "You white people should be aware that you hold a privileged position in the world"), someone always gets upset when we discuss underlying assumptions of race and the ways in which race and ethnicity differ, or the notion of how gender norms become cemented in society. And routinely, they complain to the dean or my chair, or (apparently) on twitter.
While this has always been the case, I do agree with this article that it is becoming even more difficult for professors such as myself to continue teaching what we do without students feeling they shouldn't have to face anything that doesn't conform to their notions of truth and reality (or anything entertaining, for that matter).
When it comes to discussing race and gender, I've actually found the opposite--that students are more willing to talk about race and almost mocking and totally dismissive when it comes to gender. And there's always an MRA in the room. I've actually given up on the thing entirely.
ReplyDeleteI've concluded that the only people who can engage students in discussions about race and gender privilege are white males. The students don't take it so personally then, or read the entire discussion as an accusation or "sour grapes" whining from an affirmative-action beneficiary.
Evidently we can't take our students out of their safe little ruts. It's bad customer service.
ReplyDeleteWell, hey, I'm a white guy, so who is going to listen to me on race or gender?
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I can get fairly prescriptive, and nobody seems to care. "Do this in the professional workplace. Don't say that."
Thankfully, this discussion doesn't come up often (ever) in my classes. However, I can understand how it would make white students uncomfortable even before you begin the discussion.
ReplyDeleteThe language used - structural racism - puts those who benefited from structural racism at a disadvantage in the discussion. Of course it makes them uncomfortable because it's easy for others to equate those who benefit from structural racism with racists. If you want to hold a discussion on this topic, you can't use pejorative terms like "racism" to describe such a broad range of behaviors, from burning crosses to moving your family to the suburbs.
Those of us who have benefited from structural racism have had it so good for so long that it will not kill us to be at a disadvantage in a discussion of how we have benefitted from these things. In fact, such minor and limited discomfort may increase empathy for those that experience this racism all the time. The best college course I ever had was called "racism, race privilege, and whiteness" and was the first time I was forced to confront my own discomfort with my advantages and notice the ways I subtly used them without even being aware of it. It changed everything for me.
DeleteHave read numerous articles and blogs on this particular controversy, and responses and emails by the professor (and others) in question. I think there is a lot more context to the arguments raised in the Slate.com article and the issue(s) poses multiple deeper questions.
DeleteTwo observations I have is that the professor could/should have handled things better and that the students who complained may not have been typical Vocal Vinnie ninnies.
This gets so complicated. We absolutely *do* need to be able to talk about structural privilege (in relation to gender, race, ethnicity, and -- increasingly crucial at this time of ever-widening economic divisions -- class, in courses where it's relevant -- and I, for one, think that all students should have to take at least some classes where it's relevant; seeing situations from the perspective of others/The Other is basic cultural/intellectual literacy. On the other hand, I have known a few (and only a few) professors who did, indeed, fit the stereotype of dragging race/class/gender into everything, whether or not it's relevant, and of applying their particular version of that formula with just as much tunnel vision as the most orthodox Freudian or libertarian or devotee of the New Criticism. Approaches that privilege race/class/gender are one lens, and, at least in an intro course designed to introduce students to the variety of practices common in a discipline such as communication, they shouldn't be the only, or even the dominant, one. On the other hand, there are definitely students who will translate even occasional, appropriate mentions of such perspectives into "all (s)he ever talks about is. . .", especially if the professor appears to them to belong to a group they perceive as "other" (just as they'll perceive women/people of color/immigrants/GLBT people/etc. to be "taking over" if they show up in proportions equal to those in the population, and/or don't bend over backwards to conceal their deviations from a white male heterosexual nativist norm).
ReplyDeleteThe conflicts that arise surrounding these issues strike me as one more example of how dug in and polarized we have become. Such polarization makes it hard to discuss not only politics, but really any subject of civic/community interest. I definitely tend toward the free speech absolutist end of the scale, but it strikes me that the language of offense/hurt feelings/feeling unsafe, which of course was originally coined by the left, and has its legitimate uses, has become part of the problem. It is unfortunately all too easily adopted by the right, at which point conversation about virtually anything important becomes impossible, as long as somebody decides to take a conversation personally (and somebody always does, especially in the college classroom, because 18-22 year olds, like toddlers, are pretty much hard wired to take things personally). So even a concept like structural privilege, which McMillan Cottom explains brilliantly, and which is precisely designed to take the focus away from the individual, becomes an occasion for personal offense. First, students are hurt because they think they're being told they're racist, and then they're hurt because they're being told it doesn't really matter if they're not racist, as long as the systems within which they move perpetuate longstanding racial (or gender, or class) privilege. The latter, of course, is a major challenge to the snowflake world view (what they think/feel/maybe do Matters! They'll change the world, even if they only facebook/tweet about it!), and is probably the real reason for the pain, and the protest (well, that and resentment that they won't sail into a well-paying job upon graduation).
All of the above said, I'd say that something is, indeed, rotten at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, as evidenced by the letter of reprimand quoted in one of Cottom's sources:
Delete"Shannon, I find it troubling that the manner in which you led a discussion on the very important topic of of structural racism alienated two students who may have been most in need of learning about this subject.
While I believe it was your intention to discuss structural racism generally, it was inappropriate for you to single out white male students in class. Your actions in [targeting] select students based on their race and gender caused them embarrassment and created a hostile learning environment.
For that reason, I have determined that a reprimand is warranted."
The biggest problem, of course, is the assumption that the professor can control the students' reactions/feelings. The students may well have felt singled out due to the nature of the subject (and perhaps also the demographics of the class/college, especially if they weren't used to being in the minority), but that doesn't mean Gibney singled them out.
The other problem, of course, is the vice president's choice to address a member of the faculty by her first name in a formal letter of reprimand. At the very least, it shows a poor command of tone and situation, at most -- well, I gather there's a lawsuit brewing, and I wonder what documents might come to light, and what patterns of address an analysis of those documents might reveal. Perhaps he just likes to think of himself as an informal guy, and write accordingly, but I wouldn't be surprised if older, whiter, and/or maler colleagues get titles, while younger, browner, more female ones do not.
Well stated. The ways in which we are becoming even more polarized with either-or reasoning leads to learning being stifled.
DeleteThe casual, first name basis of the letter is very odd and certainly makes the school look bad. Do they routinely issue such "friendly" reprimands?
DeleteI don't know enough about the issue of structural racism to have an informed opinion of it but I think it's obvious that a discussion of structural racism must involve white men. What else would you talk about?
For me the biggest issue is the soft- and applied-science majors who have to take my calculus based physics course and can't even add fractions. They need C's for their program and are not prepared with enough math skills to function at the C-level in my course. This leads to an Ever-rising Canon of Butthurt which gets worse every semester.
ReplyDeleteI have experimented with every form of correction and redirection of student answers possible, and every type is described in my evaluations, to my chair, and to the deans (plural) as "ridicule".
And all I'm talking about is forces and motion. Not hot-button social controversies.
That's useful data. I'd be inclined to move the ones who feel hurt and "ridiculed" by all available pedagogically-appropriate modes of correction to an online version of the class, with as much feedback as possible provided by pre-programmed (admittedly, by humans) response as possible. And then I'd require them to write an essay comparing the experiences, and reflecting on their feelings. Okay, that last sentence was the composition teacher/humanist in me coming out.
DeleteYour experience, FP, resonates with me as the idea that no matter what, if students' inadequacies of lack of education of ignorance is made obvious to them in ANY way (sensitive or otherwise), they get upset and defensive. We're raising a nation of young adults who cannot be told in any way that they need to learn about anything that is outside of their realm of experience, and that is disturbing.
DeleteI have students complain: "I don't know how to do that well" and then refuse to even try to do something they've not encountered before (be it reading, writing, or even doing math). This attitude of "if I don't know it, then I must be threatened by it" shows their overall misunderstanding of the nature of learning and the purpose of education.
We aren't here to AFFIRM what they already know, like I'm sure their parents do, but to add to that knowledge. And no matter how often they claim they need a college EDUCATION, they end up simply wanting a college diploma for not being educated.
"I having trouble in this class because I'm not very good at math."
Delete"Then why are you majoring in engineering?"
File this under "conversations that are not allowed to happen."