Unfavorable feelings towards ideologies

Tue Aug 14 10:05:21 PDT 2007

Eugene: Actually, the article did at least suggest that where there is so much smoke, there must be at least a little fire. Here is another excerpt:

  Other prominent voices from the academy have suggested that the anti-evangelical bias does not likely translate into acts of classroom discrimination. Tobin intends to test that claim with a subsequent survey of 3,500 students in the coming academic year. "My guess: You can't have this much smoke without some fire," he said. 
  French can readily testify to that. Before the Alliance Defense Fund filed a federal lawsuit last year, Georgia Tech University maintained speech codes forbidding any student or campus group from making comments on homosexuality that someone might subjectively deem offensive. What's more, students serving as resident advisors were required to undergo diversity training in which moral positions against homosexual behavior were vilified and compared to justifying slavery with the Bible. 
  In another landmark case at Missouri State University, junior Emily Brooker objected to an assignment in which students were asked to write their state legislators and urge support for adoptions by same-sex couples. The evangelical social-work major was promptly hauled before a faculty panel and charged with maintaining an insufficient commitment to diversity. The panel grilled Brooker on her religious views without her parents present, convicted her of discrimination against gays, and informed her that to graduate she needed to lessen the gap between her own values and the values of the social-work profession. 
  The Alliance Defense Fund sued Missouri State on Brooker's behalf, pressuring the university into dropping the discrimination charges and paying for Brooker to attend graduate school. An independent investigation into the incident found such widespread intellectual bullying throughout the university's school of social work that investigators recommended shutting the program down and replacing the entire faculty. 

  Many Christian students have provided me with anecdotal evidence about the hostile and unwelcoming atmosphere for believers on campus. And, of course, the difficulty CLS has experienced in being excluded from many "tolerant" law schools is also documented.

  It is enough for me to warn my own children away from secular colleges (particularly from "elite" secular colleges).

  Rick 

"Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu> wrote:
  I appreciate Rick's point, and I agree that professors ought to
be careful in class -- and certainly in grading exams -- about
expressing disdain for many ideologies, whether religious or otherwise.

In class, a few ideologies, I think, can rightly be disdained;
but there should be a substantial zone in which the professor may
express disagreement but should do so in a way that fosters serious
debate. Certainly a class discussion of same-sex marriage won't go far
if the professor calls one view homophobic (or the other sodomitic, for
that matter). Likewise, a class discussion of economics won't go far if
the professor describes one mainstream view as countenancing the rape of
the working class.

But as I understand it the survey (at least as Rick's post
quoted it) did not try to capture how professors behave in class --
whether they express their views constructively and politely, for
instance. Rather, it meant to capture what professors believe, and whom
they have unfavorable views towards. Why is it so shocking that
professors would have unfavorable views (not necessarily hatred but
unfavorable views) towards, say, evangelicals, any more than that they
would have unfavorable views towards Socialists or free-market advocates
or libertarians?

Eugene

________________________________

From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Duncan
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 9:37 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Unfavorable feelings towards ideologies

I appreciate Eugene's distinction between hating the sin and
hating the sinner, but it is very easy to overlook this distinction when
one is creating a classroom atmosphere or even grading papers.

If a professor expresses in class his disdain for "homophobes"
or for "fundamentalists" or for persons who base their worldviews on
"religious superstition" as opposed to secular first principles, does
the professor not create a hostile and unwelcoming environment for
students who belong to conservative religious faiths. Is this consistent
with all the rhetoric we hear in Academe about how intellectual
diversity is essential to a rich educational experience for all our
students?

Should support for same-sex marriage or domestic partnerships
be a condition for successful completion of a degree in social work?
Should it be relevant to your grade on a paper that focuses on family
policy and law?

My son is a senior in high school (a national merit qualifier),
and we are not even considering "secular" colleges for his education.
Why go to a place where you are hated?

But notice this is all the more reason why state scholarship
programs should not exclude religious colleges or "pervasively
sectarian" religious colleges from participating. 

Separate and equal is one thing; separate and unequal is another
thing indeed.

Rick

Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

"It's a funny thing about us human beings: not many of us doubt
God's existence and then start sinning. Most of us sin and then start
doubting His existence." --J. Budziszewski (The Revenge of Conscience)

"Once again the ancient maxim is vindicated, that the perversion
of the best is the worst." -- Id.

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  Rick Duncan 
Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law 
Lincoln, NE 68583-0902

"It's a funny thing about us human beings: not many of us doubt God's existence and then start sinning. Most of us sin and then start doubting His existence."  --J. Budziszewski (The Revenge of Conscience)

  "Once again the ancient maxim is vindicated, that the perversion of the best is the worst." -- Id.

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