Free speech at Middlebury?

I don’t. I was judging the parents were supposedly editing their kids’ papers to conform to what the parents’ think that professor wants to see instead of either letting them find their own way, or, alternatively, providing their kids the background to support their own opinions.

The awful messages that they are teaching their kids are “don’t ever expose your beliefs where they may be questioned, conforming is the best practice, always bow to authority, even when you think that they are wrong, and your belief system is secondary to prestige”

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Sounds like a great way to create a mediocre paper.

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But the low grade is because they are conservative…

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The parents aren’t editing the essays, the students are reading and editing each other’s, as they would have done at Middlebury’s writing center (and maybe they utilize that too, don’t know). Interestingly, the family I know in this group is Jewish.

There is a difference between students discussing the best ways to get good grades by playing to their professor’s stated and unstated biases and having secret sessions to make sure that the forces of oppression don’t discover you and punish you for holding the wrong beliefs.

Bottom line, parents send their kids to this college, because they think that the college is great. They think that the college is great because they think that the professors are great. If they do NOT think that the professors are great, why are they sending their kids to this college?

The history of conservatives complaining about “liberal” professors, and using this as a weapon is pretty long.

The first Black professor to teach in the City Colleges of NY, Max Yergan, was fired because he was “liberal and progressive”, meaning that the things that he taught about race in the USA made conservatives and “moderates” feel uncomfortable. Thus was in the late 1930s. They basically snuck informants in his classes to “catch” him in the act. The 1930 version of the “Veritas Project”.

In the 1950s, McCarthy and his followers led attacks against universities which would fit very well into the complaints that I am reading here. Faculty were investigated and universities were pressured to fire faculty because Right-Wing students claimed that these professors were indoctrinating students in left wing beliefs. Sounds familiar?

So yes, I am saying that the so-called “fight for free speech” that is being waged by political entities against colleges is merely a smoke screen for an attempt to bring back McCarthyism on campus.

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Clearly this has touched a nerve. I have no dog in this fight, at all…I don’t care if students edit papers to remove certain positions/politics/views, or not. Nor do I care if parents have a little side group to discuss these behaviors, or the history of right-wing vs. left in university settings.

I’m a parent of kids at pretty good colleges, but I sure don’t think the colleges, nor the profs, are ‘great’. My perceptions of colleges and whether they were ‘great’ (or not) was never a part of my kids’ college decisions.

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What the professor said was sort of relevant in the context of a class about religious extremism, but what bothered me was that he was presenting his opinion(that the terrorists on 9/11 were motivated by US troop presence in KSA and therefore the US government is to blame for the 9/11 attacks because they put troops in KSA) as an indisputable fact in a lecture to be taken in by students.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, students are going to be shaped by their professors’ attitudes and beliefs, especially if they choose to teach the curriculum in a politically biased manner. Some professors at Middlebury try to teach neutrally from the facts and make it very clear when something is an opinion up for debate/discussion(this is proper), other professors(including some right leaning ones, though there are few at Middlebury) launder opinion into their curriculum as fact(which is a problem).

I’m definitely not anti LGBT+ lmao, I’m a moderate Dem and I voted straight ticket for President Biden, my Dem Congressman, and my Dem Senator. But I still have concerns regarding some professors on campus considering I’m not some sort of socialist/communist/anarchist.

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Here’s the problem: I’m 99% sure that, if you could magically push an imaginary “stop” button in the middle of a lecture, the professor - any professor - could cite chapter and verse all sorts of primary sources to back up their “opinion”. That is what they do for a living and that is how they got their jobs. You’re free to disagree with them and the proper way to challenge them is to come up with a source that is compelling enough to warrant hijacking the class. And, kudos to the undergraduate who can cobble together a coherent, properly sourced (not from a blog, or a random op-ed) counter-argument as part of a paper. But, how many students, especially indifferent ones who may only be in the course to satisfy a distribution requirement, have those sort of academic chops? The left of center ones, that’s who.

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Great post until the last sentence ("The left of center ones, that’s who.) which seems to give credibility to OP’s fears & concerns.

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It’s about picking your battles. Academia is one of the few industries left in America that blatantly bases its appeal on the idea of having a “passion” about something. IMHO, if you’re only sitting in a class in order to collect credits, you have little to complain about when someone else expresses a passionate opinion about something they can probably back up if challenged. I think most middle-of-the-road students get that.

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Hello everyone,
I believe this thread may be getting a little off-topic. I’m all for free speech, but the majority of the posts seem to center around political opinion and not the original question. As long as the professors are willing to read an evidence-based conflicting viewpoint, as it seems they do, that’s all I hoped for. However, I do worry about generalizations. Many conservatives, including myself, are not anti-LGBTQ+.

My closest friend identifies as a socialist. Does this matter to me? Of course not. We still enjoy the same activities and like to hang out. He was my partner for debate one year. Whenever the topic was about a governmental policy, we knew we would do well. We would each write our own passionate argument, one being the pro and the other the con. When the competition day came, we had confidence in our arguments, no matter which side we had to take. The moral of the story: It is important to try to understand both (or all) points of view.

Thank you for answering my questions!

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Two stories from my past, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.

My high school America Since 1945 teacher telegraphed a final exam essay question “Rank the post-WW2 presidents in order of greatness and explain your reasoning. Be specific. Use examples.” It was pretty clear how he would answer the question, so, because as a youth I was a bit of a troublemaker, I answered in the reverse order. It took a lot of work defending that position, but I did it, and got an A. As I should have. As every college professor should as well.

In college, I had a class where when returning the first (all essay) exam the professor said “You will notice at no time did I ask you what you think. I don’t care what you think. I want to know if you know what Emile Durkheim thought.” Again, I think that’s exactly the right approach.

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Your perception, and your kid’s perception, was that the college was great for them. That means great education for them, the college culture and student body were a great fit for them, and the college was affordable for you. If

Based on the profiles of the students who end up complaining about how radically left colleges like Middlebury happen to be (mostly upper middle class White), colleges like Middlebury are not their best choice, financially. Based on the complaints about the professors and student bodies, a college like this would not be a good fit. So they either enjoy paying a lot of money to be in a place where they do not fit, or are there because they think that the education is so good that cost and fit do not matter.

[aside]
In that case, I will withdraw what I said about having a legitimate argument, since I think that particular argument is pretty weak and simplistic.
[/aside]

People are like that. Your political opinions will affect what you teach, and, as some politicians have been politicizing facts, this will will be claimed even more so.

I teach ecology and evolution, and there are politicians who claim that by teaching that evolution is the best explanation for what we see today, that I am providing a political opinion. When I teach the fact human activity is driving the climate change that we observe now, there are a lot of people who claim that I am not teaching fact, but merely my opinion.

On the other hand, scientists’ opinions will often affect the direction of their scientific theory. It is likely that Darwin’s focus on competition as the driver of evolution likely has to do with how he grew up, and the political and socioeconomic ideas on which he grew up.

Today’s “moderate Democrats” would, in many cases been have considered “moderate Republicans” in the 1970s.

Also, socialism, communism, and anarchism are three distinct political movements. Socialism - workers have some control over production’ Communism - no private ownership; anarchism - no central government. Anarchism is not that different from libertarianism.

I’m glad to hear that.

A minority view, but one that would not put you in direct conflict with other students.

However, despite what many seem to believe, this would not actually be different at any almost any other of the “elite” liberal arts colleges. The only one of the “top” liberal arts colleges at which you will find a relatively large group of fiscal conservatives (though the great majority of these are social liberals) is likely Washington and Lee College.

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