Unfavorable feelings towards ideologies
Volokh, Eugene
VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu
Tue Aug 14 11:57:03 PDT 2007
Well, if there's evidence of discrimination against students in
grading because they're evangelical -- or because they're libertarian or
Socialist -- I'd be happy to see it and denounce such discrimination. I
certainly do denounce campus speech codes of the sort you describe, as
well as mandates such as that in Brooker's case.
But findings that academics simply have unfavorable feelings towards
evangelicals -- or libertarians and Socialists -- strike me as neither
shocking nor even particularly noteworthy. As to "hostile and unwelcome
atmosphere for believers," I'd have to know more about the details to
have a sense of whether this is proper; for instance, if the atmosphere
is hostile and unwelcome simply in the sense that many classmates and
professors publicly disapprove -- especially outside class -- of
religious belief (or of evangelical religious belief), that's a
hostility and unwelcomeness to ideologies that are quite legitimate.
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 10:05 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Unfavorable feelings towards ideologies
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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