A Debate on Politics and Ideology in the Classroom
In the New York Times of September 27, 2003, columnist David Brooks, in “Lonely Campus Voices,” wrote about the “anguish” of conservative professors like Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University, Donald Kagan of Yale, and Robert George of Princeton: “when a bright conservative student comes to them and says he or she is thinking about pursuing an academic career in the humanities or social sciences.” The column recounts the advice such professors give their conservative students for life in an academic world perceived to be hostile to their beliefs. The full article is available here.
What follows now is a debate that the Brooks column prompted on the Law and Courts Discussion Group (LAWCOURTS), a moderated list sponsored by the Law and Courts section of the American Political Science Association and designed to promote discussion and the exchange of information among scholars in the study of law and courts. The messages are reproduced with the permission of the participants and in the order in which they appeared in the LAWCOURTS exchange.
Please be sure to read all of the entries (especially the final one).
From Daniel Pinello:
I take the liberty to post here the letter to the editor I sent in response to David Brooks' column in today's New York Times.
To the Editor:
David Brooks laments the plight of conservative students adrift in a higher education universe overwhelmed by liberal professors. ("Lonely Campus Voices," Sept. 27). He offers Robert George of Princeton University as a conservative beacon from whom these academic waifs find succor.
What about the lesbian and gay Princeton undergraduates enrolled in Professor George's course on civil rights and civil liberties? George supports the Federal Marriage Amendment endorsed by the Republican congressional leadership. He's written that the proposed constitutional amendment will "preserv[e] the institution of marriage for future generations of Americans" by eliminating "the actual threat of the imposition of same-sex marriage and civil unions." (The National Review, July 23, 2001, page 32.)
Will lesbians and gay men in his civil rights course feel comfortable defending their capacity to engage in loving, long term relationships? Will they assert their reasonable expectation for the same legal and financial benefits accruing from their intimate associations that straight classmates enjoy? I doubt it.
From Lynda Dodd:
Although I very much agree with Professor Pinello's position on these issues, I am a bit concerned that he assumed too much about Professor Robert George's relationship with his students at Princeton. When I was a graduate student there, many of my most liberal students expressed how much they enjoyed his civil liberties course. It's considered to be a "must take" course -- much like Sandel's Justice course at Harvard, or Rogers Smith's constitutional law courses were at Yale.
Here's an excerpt from the public student course guide (discussing the Civil Liberties course in Spring 2002):
"He challenges his students and willingly takes criticism of his ultra-conservative viewpoints -- IF you can back your own opinions up. It became a fun challenge, especially because as wild as his political views may seem to a liberal student, it is impossible to escape the fact that he is a genuinely nice person."
From Anthony Smith:
Naturally, I am sure Professor Pinello is able to defend himself. Still, perhaps I misread his letter. I took it to be a critique of those conservatives who complain the lacunae of conservative professors indicates some oppression of conservative students. His example of Professor George may be nothing more than an exemplar of the fallacy of that complaint rather than actually a critique of Professor George's classes.
From Jennifer Hochschild:
Let me chime in to agree with Lynda Dodd, without any published evidence to back my claim but with lots of experience; I was a colleague of Robby George's for almost two decades, and I find him to be one of the most genuinely intellectual people I know. He holds strong views which he defends with vehemence and evidence; he expects and encourages disagreement couched in the same serious way. Robby was probably responsible for more genuine debate on substantive matters (as distinguished from departmental politics) than almost any of my colleagues.
The more abstract point, it seems to me, is that we need to sort out carefully when, in our view, the content of a position is genuinely harmful to students or other values (an overt Nazi? an overt racist? an overt atheist?), regardless of how nice and apparently open to disagreement the holder of that view is, from when we think the content of a position is wrong and even potentially harmful, but a legitimate expression of a serious viewpoint. Does the latter depend on the person's willingness to debate his or her viewpoint? That seems like an odd criterion, but maybe it is what lies behind Lynda's and my defense of R. George. Should it hold for progressive viewpoints also (e.g., pro-choice values are okay to teach in the classroom if the prof. leaves room for argument by pro-life people, but not if not???)
Deep waters here...
From Daniel Pinello:
Tony Smith's interpretation of my letter to the New York Times is correct. Limited to 150 words, I hoped to remind the newspaper's readers that conservative students aren't the only campus minorities facing professors' hostility in the classroom and out. Nonetheless, I'm happy to respond to those who took my argument beyond its original scope.
As several subscribers note, I've never met Professor George. I'm familiar only with his published work. So Lynda Dodd provides a useful starting point -- a student evaluation of his civil rights course at Princeton: "He challenges his students and willingly takes criticism of his ultra-conservative viewpoints -- IF you can back your own opinions up. It became a fun challenge, especially because as wild as his political views may seem to a liberal student, it is impossible to escape the fact that he is a genuinely nice person." (The online student course guide that Dodd references appears to be available only to members of the Princeton community. My attempt to read other student evaluations was denied.)
Consider the lesbian and gay undergraduates who contemplate taking the course. Once enrolled, they face a special burden of defending their assertion of civil rights (e.g., not to be branded as criminals for expressing their emotional and erotic feelings; not to be discriminated against in the workplace, including the military; not to be denied spousal or parental rights; etc) that many, if not most, of their classmates won't encounter in the same immediate and personal way.
Moreover, lesbians and gay men often come out at college, away for the first time from their typically heterosexually dominated home environments. Unlike their straight counterparts on campus, they haven't otherwise been socialized into their sexual orientation, but rather have to make do on their own in relatively quick order. Adolescence, starting in early teens or before for heterosexual students, often is postponed until 18, 19, or 20 for gay people. In short, gay undergraduates may not uniformly have the ego strength or experience to attempt matching wits with a seasoned debater who actively advocates denying their rights.
Accordingly, an eminently rational response of lesbian and gay Princeton undergraduates is to avoid the one course on civil rights the University offers. After all, no matter how sugar coated ("he is a genuinely nice person"), the core of Professor George's pill is toxic to gays.
From Judith Baer:
I find this whole discussion ironic. In the Reagan years the conservatives were everywhere (NEH in particular) and, being more vulnerable then, I felt as though I was the target of every conservative academic in a position of power. An NEH-funded publication killed an invited article of mine because the reviewers, who knew who I was, found it "strident" and "tendentious." When the University of Utah invited me to speak in their gov't-funded bicentennial series in 1987, the feds funded a conservative speaker for the same night. Think of it! They were so afraid of an assistant professor that they didn't dare let her speak without opposition.
From Brian Glenn:
The "Letter to the NYT" string has been fascinating, and I'm going to try and pull it all together.
A few years ago, I taught a summer studies course on contemporary issues in American politics. The readings were selected because each made a policy argument for one side of a debate or the other. We read books such as The End of Racism by D'Souza, and Chaos or Community? by Holly Sklar.
It was a small class, just six students and myself. Very intense. Near the end of the course, one of my students remarked at the end of a class that she still didn't know my politics.
It was one of the nicest compliments a student has ever given me!
The reason she was able to say this was that I understood my role as a teacher as that of providing my students the analytical tools to derive opinions on their own. For me, it isn't the decision they arrive at which is important, it is the process by which they do so.
In this context, the debate over professors being left-wing or right-wing falls apart. Professors can hold any political beliefs they want outside the classroom, and they can hold them in the classroom too--they just have to keep them to themselves.
In the best of worlds, it simply shouldn't matter if a right-wing professor teaches a class on civil liberties. The goal of such a class is to teach students the methods of thinking about the subject, what has gone on in the past and where the arguments are heading--along with the primary purpose, I believe, which is to arm the students with the ability to arrive at their own positions on the issues based on principled, well-reasoned arguments.
Dan's fear that gay students might be uncomfortable with a professor who is right-wing in the classroom is thus a valid one, and the idea that he is willing to concede to arguments from one side simply isn't a great defense. He needs to challenge opinions from all sides, without giving preference to certain ones in advance.
The Brooks piece was clearly discussing graduate students, and that has its own ball of issues. But our discussion has been about undergraduates, and from this perspective, a professor's politics should be irrelevant, since they shouldn't be in the classroom.
I wonder if anyone would disagree with the following statement:
No student should ever have to feel uncomfortable taking a class for fear of a professor's bias, and at the same time, every student should enter a class prepared to have his or her beliefs challenged, since having to defend them is the only way to determine how well they are founded.
From Paul Carrese:
Pinello argues for the unique status of debates about homosexuality in classrooms. Curiously, [Subscriber No. 1’s] defense of Pinello's original post raises doubts about any such status: "As modern authority has made amply clear, homophobia often contains a large dose of irrational prejudice, often grounded in religious belief." Hochschild correctly notes that religious belief, however, also poses difficulties about how to promote critical debate and reflection. Thus, why not be worried that a student who adhered to a particular faith or was struggling with it -- facing the personal issues Pinello suggests are uniquely faced by homosexuals -- might find [Subscriber No. 1] to be a "Bright" hostile to religious faith, and either avoid the class or be coerced into silence in it?
Hochschild's questions are more open to such complexities. By our demeanor, inviting debate, we can provide a Socratic model for avoiding either dogmatism or cynical dismissal of all debate. Mill may not have intended to foster dogmatic versions of liberal thought, but it is at least a question whether his progressive doctrines point to problematic ideas like Rawls's "liberal public reason" (shown to be rather illiberal at moments, e.g., the footnote on abortion in Political Liberalism) or Rorty's declaration that a commitment to liberal democracy takes priority over philosophy (thus censoring certain views, e.g., religious, or Nietzsche's inegalitarian ones).
Closer to home: Cass Sunstein's new book argues for dissent and diversity of viewpoints in a political society; one chapter argues that judges fall prey to "groupthink" just like anyone else, thus to ideology. I think Sunstein would have done better to dissent from the realist (or positivist, or pragmatist) groupthink dominant among American law professors by the 20th century; indeed, recent law blogs and other essays have challenged his ideological interpretation of his data on ideology. My point: rather than charging each other with ideological views that shut down debate -- and finding that some of us rock-throwers live in glass houses -- we should just debate the merits of our substantive views of law, courts, and their study.
From Leslie Goldstein:
Chiming in on the Pinello letter--
1) While I have interacted only minimally with Robbie George, I have no reason to challenge people's first-hand assertions that he is an extraordinarily serious-minded, intelligent, thoughtful, nice, and in the best sense of the word, open-minded person.
2) Still, I had an uneasiness upon reading yesterday's exchange, but I was not sure how to voice them tactfully without appearing to attack Prof. George, which I did not want to do. We have a professor at our university who argues against affirmative action by pointing to research that she claims demonstrates that blacks lack intelligence as compared to whites (and she is in our Education School). (While she does not insist that the difference is genetic, she describes the research results as longstanding and therefore the differences as "intractable.")
She too has a nice demeanor and I am sure at a personal level is a kindly person and she is very happy to engage in reasoned debate. Still, I feel very sorry for black students who end up in her classroom and would never advise a black student to take a course from her (not because I believe she would be unfair but because I believe the student would find it a deeply negative experience.) I had the same sort of worry about perhaps some self-doubting gays who found themselves in Prof. George's class. I cannot avoid the thought that they would receive the impression from Prof. George that they are living a less than fully human life, at least as judged by one very smart, very prestigious person. Maybe this is a useful lesson for them to get, since it reflects world reality, but it might also be quite painful.
3) When I read Dan's response, I felt doubly bad that I had not chimed in sooner, because I was once in a situation where someone made an anti-semitic remark and I was with two (definitely not anti-semitic) friends and neither spoke up--it was left to me , the only Jew in the group, to complain about the remark. This troubled me a lot. I do not know how Prof. George in his classes treats the issue of overt expression of homosexual affection. Maybe he is tactful enough to treat it in completely non-demeaning ways (and I should add, that from people's responses on list, he sounds like a whole lot more tactful person than I am). I just wanted to chime in to say that this is an area fraught with delicacy in terms of having students feel welcome in the classroom--it is not just about protecting students from ideas that may challenge their shallowly held preconceptions.
From Chris Karr:
As a recent former student of Robert George's Constitutional Interpretation class (Fall 2000), I'd like to weigh in a bit.
First off, from my experiences with my fellow classmates, students at Princeton would rather have not taken George's class because of its reputation for being rigorously graded, rather than any perceived threat of being belittled or discriminated against on the basis of their political orientation.
Secondly, I had the privilege of not only having George as a lecturer, but he also headed up my precept. While the lectures were very much a back-and-forth Socratic dialog between students and professor (he often pitted students against students in order to force each other to fully develop and articulate their positions), in precept he was a great example of how the academic process should work. Never once while taking his course did I ever feel that he was excluding one viewpoint for another. (And boy, did I shoot a few wild ones out there...) Furthermore, he was as rigorous, if not more so, in his scrutiny and examination of conservative viewpoints in his precepts (about 12 students) as he was with the more liberal ones. Furthermore, unlike many other professors, George was receptive and encouraging of ideas from "lowly" undergraduates. This is not a positive view that only I share, but this view is shared by all the students I know who have dealt with Robert George, liberal and conservative alike. It seems that the ones who are most harsh about Robert George are the ones who have not had him as a teacher.
Finally, I have to question this attack on Robert George. It seems that most of the criticism leveled in his direction from what I've read thus far is simply the result of the sheer lack of any actual experience with the man or his teaching and ad hominem attacks suggesting that since he's conservative, he must make liberal students uncomfortable. I'm not a professional political scientist by any means, but are these types of remarks representative of "debate" within the field? I had much higher hopes for the rest of this field.
From Sidney Verba:
I have not taken part in the Law or Harvard chat groups except to read them from time to time. But the debate on Prof. George leads me to comment briefly.
Professors have all citizen rights to hold political positions and expound them. But I do not believe it is appropriate so to do from the class lecture platform or the central seminar seat. Our academic authority ought not to be used to foster a position on any politically relevant issue -- be that what to do in Iraq, what tax system to have, abortion, or gay marriage. Our task is to teach analysis and understanding.
Since we teach about controversial issues that we and the students have positions about, we cannot keep politics out of the classroom. And students should feel free to take whatever positions they want. We should not.
I try to keep my positions hidden. I encourage debate and make sure that the minority positions can be freely expounded. In classes that deal with public opinion and controversial issues, I try to have students understand why people hold the positions they do, whose voice gets heard, what are arguments for each side, what might be the consequences of a policy, etc. These are analytical questions.
I do not know Professor George. If he is taking a position in class in opposition to same-sex marriage (or if he takes a position in favor of it), I think that is inappropriate. Discussion of the issue, reasons for holding one side or the other are fine -- but not indoctrination (left, right, or center).
It's not blind and fully open relativism. I don't say: there are two kinds of governments, tyrannies and democracies. It's all a matter of taste. I assume a commonality of values. But I do not take positions on current issues.
Here is a story I used to tell when I taught introductory American politics -- a story that I would introduce by saying that it explained the nature of the major ideologies in current American politics:
A man is sailing his boat on the Potomac River, falls in 50 feet from shore, and can't swim.
A conservative is someone who comes along, sees the drowning man, and throws him a 25 foot rope -- reasoning that the man will develop more self-esteem if he swims the first 25 feet on his own.
A liberal is someone who comes along, sees the man drowning 50 feet from shore and throws him a 100 foot rope. But as soon as the drowning man grabs on to the rope, the liberal drops his end to go off and find a cause more worthy of support.
A radical is someone who comes along, sees the man drowning, and goes off to organize a march on Congress to demand the draining of the Potomac as a safety hazard.
Lastly, a neo-conservative is someone who comes along, sees the drowning man, sees what the conservative, the liberal, and the radical have done, and sits down to write an article about it for Commentary magazine.
The value of the story -- aside from testing whether the students are awake or not -- is its politcal neutrality. In all four conditions, the man drowns.
That is the stance one ought to take.
PS: I don't tell that any more -- except to the sophisticate audience -- because I don't want to increase student cynicism about politics. (I do take a position that politics and political life are important.)
From Scott Gerber:
I agree with Professor Verba's thoughts on the importance of a professor keeping his views "hidden." However, if a professor has written widely on a particular subject of controversy, many students are likely to know his or her views about it (especially highly motivated students like those at Princeton). Hence, it will be impossible for the professor to keep his or her views "hidden." The solution--don't write about anything, or at least about anything controversial--might have worked for stealth judicial nominees, but I don't think it's good for scholars to take that approach.
For what it's worth, I have interacted with Professor George on a professional basis and I have found him to be a great credit to the profession in every respect.
From Gordon Silverstein:
Scott Gerber raises a good point -- but I would agree with Verba, and argue that one can quite reasonably assert that there is a difference between the classroom and your written work. I can and have said to students that the classroom is a very unique environment. Much like the rare judge who can actually enforce laws with which s/he disagrees, I think a professor can help a student to articulate, support or analyze an issue from perspectives at odds with the professor's personal views. I've found that students appreciate this, and learn from example. And, more selfishly, I've found that it has helped me enormously, forcing me to challenge many of my own preconceptions, and see nuances of argument I might otherwise have missed had I merely pushed one perspective in the classroom.
[Another list subscriber] raises a solid point when we begin to turn to issues about which we believe reasonable people could not possibly disagree. But even these can and should be challenged, articulated and analyzed. I know it's a pretty tired Mill-ian argument, but I do have faith that these positions can and will win in the marketplace of ideas, but only when they do so in a fair fight. The key is to establish in the classroom that even the most controversial ideas can and should be debated in the classroom, and that there is a way to debate issues that is not threatening or intimidating to students of profoundly different views, beliefs, or practices. They may emerge confirmed in their views -- and they may emerge questioning them. Either way, that they have had to think about them in a careful way is a great success in any classrooom. This is probably a special burden for those of us who teach civil liberties, but that only makes the effort all that more important, I think.
I might add that my own experience in graduate school was immeasurably enhanced by my interaction with Senior Faculty with whom I fundamentally disagreed politically. But despite their well-established political views, these faculty went out of their way to create a world of honest inquiry in the classroom -- a world where any premise needed to be carefully articulated, and thoroughly supported by evidence and argument. There was never any illusion that I would change their minds -- nor was there ever a sense that they were attempting to change mine. Rather, the highest calling was to push each other intellectually. Outside the classroom was a very different world. But the classroom was a very special place.
As hard as it is to keep the classroom a place for neutral inquiry, and as impossible as it may be to achieve that ideal, I do think we do ourselves and our students a great service when we try.
From Jerry Polinard:
Professor Glenn notes that one of the nicest compliments he has received was from a student who could not tell what his political values were at the end of a semester. My approach is quite different, and, if I read the various posts correctly, one that is in the minority.
I tell my students they can ask me anything I ask them. Consequently, they usually are aware of my positions on controversial issues by the end of a semester. My "favorite compliment" comes when we receive the results of our student evaluations. There are explicit questions on our evaluation instrument concerning whether the professor "encourages students to ask questions," "encourages students to express ideas," and, perhaps most relevant to our discussion, "accepts disagreement with students." The overwhelming percentage of my students positively respond to these three questions.
Of course, no professor should require students to agree with her/him in a classroom, nor should any professor create a classroom atmosphere that diminishes or silences the free exchange of ideas. And I agree with those who suggest the classroom should provide a neutral environment in which this exchange may take place. I disagree, however, that a professor is under some obligation to hide her/his ideas and positions. Indeed, I suggest it is an important learning experience for students to see they can disagree with each other and the professor in ways that teach tolerance for those ideas with which one disagrees. The list responses in support of Professor George suggest these are not mutually exclusive goals.
It may be a function of teaching at a state university in the hinterlands, but I find little in Brooks' column that reflects my academic experience. There was a bias when I first entered the academy in the 1960s, but this was distinctly a conservative bias that precluded liberal academics, particularly those involved in the civil rights or anti-war movements, from obtaining tenure. Administrations quickly terminated young professors who "rocked the boat." I agree there now is a liberal bias in the academy, particularly among those of us who teach constitutional law, but I do not recall a single question in any job interview over the past twenty-five years that inquired about a candidate's political beliefs, nor a single vote cast for ideological reasons.
From James Giordano:
Interesting thoughts from Jerry. Reminds me of one my first graduate seminars in Public Law. The late Dr. Charles Sheldon really got us all thinking when he posed the following:
What is the best judicial selection method?
If one favors elections over other methods (e.g. appointment or "Missouri plan"), which election method is better?
A.) non-partisan elections (to keep judicial elections "above" partisan politics) or
B.) partisan elections (where candidates don't hide their ideology from voters)
From Dennis Coyle:
I would agree that having and expressing a point of view as a professor in the classroom is not incompatible with the free exchange of ideas, and may actually encourage it. The key is how genuine is the atmosphere of support for divergent views. Sometimes they are ostensibly welcomed, yet there is an unspoken climate that encourages some expression and discourages other. But the more I teach, the more it strikes me that it is difficult to put together a coherent and meaningful course without having certain presumptions and value judgments -- biases, if you will -- to structure the course. That is where bias may be most significant -- academic agenda setting, so to speak -- but I don't see that it is necessarily bad or avoidable. Being candid about those perspectives -- "This is where I'm coming from in putting together the course ..." -- and open to alternative perspectives does seem important. At least in our department, there is quite a variety of perspectives that students are exposed to.
That's an interesting observation that Jerry makes, that he hasn't seen appointment votes on ideological grounds. Is that the view of others? I wonder to what extent ideology is associated with other variables. For example, affirmative action has been a much more visible and contentious element of the hiring process in recent years. Could that not be a surrogate for ideology? Methodology is another element that might have ideological implications. I don't mean to be unnecessarily provocative, but I'm genuinely curious as to what other factors have been significant in hiring discussion and votes, and are the ideological implications addressed openly, covert factor, or insignificant?
From James Stoner:
While the discussion of objectivity and partisanship in teaching the constitutional law of civil liberties has been instructive, I think that, as scholars of the courts, we ought not to lose sight of the frankness of that first posting. If there are people who think only a committed liberal can teach civil liberties, perhaps that is because the courts have given constitutional law itself a partisan cast, seeing "constitutional decision as an instrument of reform" (as Archibald Cox wrote in his subtitle to his book on the Warren Court). I am not saying this is so for the whole of constitutional law -- for example, rights of the accused -- but the jurisprudence of the "right of privacy" clearly promotes a partisan agenda.
As his published work makes plain, Robert George does not shy away from rational argument concerning what are often called questions of value; he argues, for example, that abortion as well as homosexual relations violate natural law. But he does not thereby insist that the courts impose natural law in the name of the Constitution: "...the Constitution, as I read the document, places primary authority for giving effect to natural law and protecting natural rights to the institutions of democratic self-government, not to the courts, in circumstances in which nothing in the text, its structure, logic, or original understanding dictates an answer to a dispute as to proper public policy" ("Natural Law, the Constitution, and Judicial Review," in George, The Clash of Orthodoxies (ISI Books, 2001), p. 182).
George's integrity as a teacher, testified to by those in an even better position to know than I, is in harmony with his recognition that the Constitution is not a partisan instrument. By contrast, making courts and classrooms arenas for partisan advocacy is wrong on both counts.
Constitutional and academic freedom both depend on a certain generosity of spirit, don't you think?
From Patrick Campbell:
I am compelled by my own experiences to add my two cents here, though it is only fair to acknowledge that I am just a graduate student; if you are still reading, thank you.
I have been following the discussion of both David Brooks' column and Prof. Pinello's letter, and have found much of it informative, if not entertaining. However, it seems that perhaps we could refocus the discussion in such a way as to call attention back to Mr. Brooks' column, and in doing so we could also tease out a valuable critique of academic discourse that is implicit in Brooks' argument. While he paints it as lopsided struggle between "conservative" and "liberal" academics, my own experience suggests that the fundamental source of the disputes he highlights arises from one's approach to knowledge and deliberation, rather than from one's political commitments. As I tell my students, I am less concerned about the political positions one holds than the reasoning that informs and sustains them.
Unfortunately, my experience in higher education only confirms for me that too many academics are frankly not much concerned with understanding the positions of those with whom they disagree. Caricatures and easy generalizations often replace actual attempts at understanding others, and as we all know, communities that share prejudice often grow more extreme in their beliefs. Obviously my evidence is only anecdotal, but as an undergrad and graduate student I found that it was only the rare scholar or student who could (or would) engage alternative views in a manner that took seriously the arguments presented.
One example: During a course on racial politics, I asked why contemporary views of the subject that take seriously the role of culture (the so called "conservative" argument) were absent from the lengthy syllabus. I was told that these views are too often presented through think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, not subject to peer review, and thus "unfit" for our class. I don't think I need to underscore the irony in this situation! Thankfully, my mentors in public law and American politics are far more open-minded and truly deliberative in their approach, but is this true of other institutions? Other departments?
I will not commit academic suicide by being too particular in my remarks, however some postings on the list have only added fuel to Brooks' fire. Recall that Brooks is underscoring the contention that "conservative" views are often stifled in academic discourse. One way in which I have seen this done is, as in the case of gay marriage, to largely ignore the distinctions and arguments of those opposed and label their opposition using any of the modern Scarlet Letters: homophobe, racist, religious believer, misogynist, etc. There are few better ways to chill speech than suggest to a grad or undergrad student, however subtly, that they are in fact guilty of such an offense.
I have seen many instances where the status quo has been enforced through undeliberative means, and there is, frankly, a rather vibrant underground of grad students (and some faculty) who find it necessary to carry on their discussions and their work outside the halls of academia. I just ask that we at least take seriously the point that Brooks' should have made: that in many classrooms and departments, deliberation and discussion are suffering because of what is circumscribed, what is dismissed as reactionary without further discussion (such as arguments that emerge from religious belief). Do any of the established faculty on this list feel that it would be helpful to hear from other grad students who do have sympathy with Brooks' argument (or some variation thereof)? Is there a deeper or more widespread problem in the academy that could be acknowledged here?
By the way, I am politically quite moderate to liberal. However, when I ask that "conservative" or frankly more mainstream views be brought seriously into discussion, it often happens that I am then confused as a "supporter" of the position (and thus dismissed). Can we agree that this is a problem, and more to the heart of Brooks' commentary? And, for the record, I do support gay marriage. That I feel less confessional and more compelled to state that should further indicate that we may have some issues to work on as a discipline.
From Lisa Hilbink:
I have been troubled all week by the way in which the thread begun by Dan Pinello, commenting on the David Brooks NYT Op-Ed, developed. In particular, I was disturbed by the fact that the discussion took a turn in which Robert George, who was (inelegantly and perhaps unfairly) singled out in Pinello's letter to the NYT, was portrayed by list members as a paragon of liberal-mindedness and a model of academic integrity, while [those] who posted in Pinello's defense were accused of "name-calling" or of making uninformed and "ad hominem" attacks. It seems to me that the picture is quite a bit more complex than that, and so I write in order to clarify what I understand to be the very sound, intellectual reasons behind Dan Pinello's original complaint and [his defenders’] subsequent post to this list.
[Subscriber No. 1] used the term 'homophobic' in the context of asking if perhaps we scholars should make a distinction between things like George's position on homosexuality and other sorts of policy positions. He explicitly stated that he didn't think George's view should be silenced on this matter, but rather (as I understood it) that such a view, because of its potential effects on a "discrete and insular minority," should be subjected to a higher level of scrutiny and critical debate by the scholarly community than are other political positions. Reacting to [Subscriber No. 1’s] use of the term 'homophobic,' [Subscriber No. 2] then replied by dismissing [Subscriber No. 1’s] points as "name calling." And Princeton alum Chris Karr claimed he "couldn't believe what passes for debate" in our field.
In the interest of defending "our field," I think it's important to clarify what Professor George's (public) views on homosexuality are. I think both Dan Pinello's letter, and certainly [Subscriber No. 1's] post, were prompted not so much by indignance at George's views on gay marriage, but at the whole reasoning that undergirds his view. (This is not to say that people might oppose gay marriage on different grounds, but Pinello pointed specifically to Robert George's position.)
Perhaps many on the list-serv are not aware of the nature and extent of Robert George's views on homosexuality, but it hardly seems unjustified or extreme to label those views "homophobic." As a neo-Thomist natural law theorist, Robert George believes a) that any sexual act other than penile-vaginal intercourse within the confines of a marital relationship is unnatural and immoral, and b) that the legislation of morality is not only acceptable but imperative to the integrity and stability of society. Therefore, he has argued (both in print and in his classroom) that homosexuality should be criminalized (or that there would be no problem of justice in criminalizing homosexuality). He thus gives ideological aid and comfort, not to mention intellectual respectability, to the view that homosexuals are perverts and criminals,--i.e., that somehow they are NOT deserving of the same respect, tolerance, and freedom as other members of society. Now, he and those who share his views will insist that they do not view homosexuals as subhuman. As they argue, they "want to punish the sin, not the sinner." But, if (as [Subscriber No. 2] implied in his post) homosexuality is not a choice, if sexual orientation is (in part or in full) biologically determined, then to say that homosexual sexual expression is/should be a criminal act is to say that homosexuals should be denied the right to form satisfying sexual relationships. Moreover, it invites other members of society to shame and shun homosexuals, and encourages homosexuals to resort to secret, illicit, and potentially dangerous sexual encounters. How is that viewing and treating homosexuals as equal human beings (as [Subscriber No. 2] argues that George (and he) does)?
I recently completed a post-doc at Princeton, and so I, too, can attest that Professor George is a very personable man. In addition, I have many students who took and got a lot out of his Constitutional Interpretation and Civil Liberties classes. That does not mean, however, that Professor George's active defense of and advocacy for his position on homosexuality (both on campus and in national political fora) is not alienating and even threatening to some students in his classes and in the wider Princeton community. As one student I know put it, an analogy with the situation faced for gays in George's classes would appear to be Jews taking a class on civil rights from somebody who thought not only that Judaism was immoral but that those who practice Judaism (even in private perhaps!) could, in justice, be treated as criminals and perhaps imprisoned. Thus, I think it is very understandable that Dan Pinello would react as he did in his letter to the NYT, and that [Subscriber No. 1] would use the term homophobic in this discussion. These are hardly uninformed or "ad hominem" attacks, but are, rather, informed and well-founded concerns.
As for James Stoner's argument that Professor George "does not insist that the courts impose natural law in the name of the Constitution," (implying that those who don't agree with George have nothing to fear), it should be noted that he only argues for judicial restraint where "nothing in the text, its structure, logic, or original understanding dictates an answer to a dispute as to proper public policy" (as quoted by Stoner). And, as [another subscriber] points out, George is among a group of scholars who claims to find support for his neo-Thomist natural law views in "the text, its structure, logic, or original understanding," so in many "disputes as to proper public policy" (in sensitive areas like abortion, and private, consensual sexual relations, etc.), he in fact finds grounds for judicial intervention (and not judicial restraint). I think this makes the original Pinello post even more understandable.