I read an article in the Wall Street Journal by a CMC professor who uses the n-word in class discussions where the book they are reading also uses the n-word. And then the President said that this is okay, because of the Open Academy policy. I’m having a hard time understanding how this is good for students. Can you help me understand it?
I’m not quite sure what you are asking. Are you asking if Claremont McKenna has conservative professors? Because, yes, there are several professors within the Government department at CMC who are openly and vocally conservative. I would say at least 3 out of every 5 professors in the department are conservative. Many of these are tenured older men though, so the ratio may shift drastically within 10 years as they retire. Claremont McKenna has historically been an institution that prides itself on “free speech”, which dates back to its conservative roots (note: the student body now is heavily democratic, a shift that reflects their current generation).
In the college’s current state, conservatism amongst professors is mostly concentrated to the Government department, so unless you major in Government you won’t really ever come across anything like what happened with Nadon.
My understanding is that he used the word while referring to a book that they weren’t even studying (They were studying Plato’s Republic.) To prove a point, apparently. But he certainly could have made the same point without using the explicitly offensive term.
That’s apparently a thing among some “conservative” professors; say something potentially offensive and hurtful without regard to (or potentially because of) its impact on students. Why? Because they can, I guess, according to the school’s “free speech” principles.
More on the controversy.
@Aquamarine99 I’m not sure I would expect the ratio of outspoken conservative professors in CMC’s government department to “shift drastically” over the years. Many of them aren’t that old. Nadon included.
The school has a policy that allows the utterance of the word if the subject matter necessitates it. The Professor is the sort who wants to flaunt his use of the word under the university’s commitment to free speech and he tried to back door an opportunity to repeatedly utter the word in class, and to do so in a manner that would make some students uncomfortable because that was apparently his goal.
The school realized they couldn’t censure the tenured professor, but they also realize his behavior isn’t the sort they want their university to be known for. So the university removed any “required classes” from the professor’s workload. That way, no student would be forced to take a class with a professor who apparently delights in using that word in particular to offend some students, AND the professor gets to keep his job and continue teaching students who sign up for his class load that now includes only non-required courses.
I think it was an even-handed way to handle the situation. Doing nothing is not a stance a diverse and modern institution should take. And firing the professor would lead to lawsuits and even more unwanted attention on the university. Their solution is good for students because by removing all required courses from his load, it ensures no student is forced to take a class with a professor some view as bigoted. It’s good for the professor (and others who hope the university can maintain a balanced handling of Free Speech) because it ensures he can continue his role as a professor at CMC. It’s good for the university because they can make a claim of being “fair” to all sides.
Kesler is pushing 70. Rossum is 75. Lynch is 77. You expect them to still be there in 10 years? I don’t even expect Rossum or Lynch to last teaching more than 2 years from now, let alone 10.
I don’t know if you attended CMC or not but I did, and the newer blood of Government professors are good. The current department chair, Pei, is very liberal which may be a reason. Of the younger professors, Pears is fantastic. And they recently hired Michael Fortner who specializes in race and has gotten great feedback from students. Out of the four visiting professors, two are left-leaning (Courser, and there’s also Bensonsmith who specializes in feminism and critical race theory). This all points to a changing tide within the Government department at CMC.
So I guess they will become just like virtually every other government department in every other college university in the country. Is that a positive?
You may be right. I don’t follow the department that closely, but glancing through the current faculty and fellows, it seems to me that CMC still has a strong conservative/Straussian leaning at least among those concerned with political philosophy and American government. I’m not referring to how they might vote, but rather their academic interests and approach.
It might be a positive for a potential student who isn’t interested in taking a class on Plato’s Republic where the professor drops the “n-word” just because he can.
It’s not nice or necessary or productive to use that kind of language but that wasn’t the issue I was addressing. The previous commenter had noted how the conservative professors in the government department at CMC were aging out and being replaced by leftist professors. If so, then the government department at CMC will be no different than any other. Is it good that virtually every government department in the country reads from the same hymnal? And how did that state of affairs come to be? Is it healthy?
I don’t think the previous poster said anything about “leftist professors.” Liberal professors are not necessarily leftist professors. In my opinion , professors like Nadon and those of a similar conservative philosophical ilk are much more likely to engage in the type of behavior I mentioned. Like the OP, I have a hard time understanding how the approach is good for students, and view it as a legitimate consideration for potential applicants.
You are acting as though young people these days aren’t more liberal than the older generation. Younger generations hold views that differ significantly from those of their older counterparts. It’s only natural that younger professors are going to be more tolerant and open minded than the 75 yr old geezers they are replacing.
And yes, it is a positive if you have professors who will combat blatant misinformation. I took a course with Kesler and he failed to correct a student who asserted that the capitol rioters were actually all BLM protesters. And then when I took Rossum he made us watch an hour long speech by Clarence Thomas about converting to catholocism which had nothing to do with Constitutional Law. That is not the type of education that is becoming of a top liberal arts college. I’m not saying all professors should be overtly liberal. In fact one of the most popular Government professors at the college, Pitney, is a never-Trump Republican. You can be conservative and still teach fairly and truthfully.
Unless you are an alum of CMC you don’t have any say in what direction the college should go in. If you want to create a niche for conservative professors then how about you advocate for it at your own alma mater? Why must CMC be the sacrifical lamb when it can and has moved towards progress?
The previous poster used the term “left-leaning”, not “liberal”, though I’m not sure they don’t mean the same thing now. The concern I have is that a doctrinally uniform field of study doesn’t strike me as healthy for a society. We already have a problem with quashing dissent. As far as using foul language, I have no idea if one type of professor or another is more likely to do so and (I) neither does anyone else, (ii) even if it is the case, it is no basis for becoming a one-note department and (iii) the language issue was not the matter I was asking about; the desirability of uniformity of political perspective was.
Thoughtful response but also not addressing the issue I am trying to have a discussion about. I am not attacking CMC, I am just trying to use the fact that a government department that was once at least mixed in political viewpoint (based primarily on previous posters in this thread) is becoming more uniformly “left-leaning” like most other similar departments in similarly excellent schools across the country as a springboard for questioning whether that is a healthy development. In my view, a liberal student should be able to argue from their perspective without fear of recourse or getting a lower grade; so too should a conservative student. And they both should learn to be able to tolerate and engage with those who argue from a different perspective.
Does this type of situation make that more or less likely?
The issue raised in the OP isn’t “foul language.” It is the disrespectful disregard of the well-being of the students, and whether self-styled “Open Academy” institutions will put put up with it.
And CMC was not known for "mixed political viewpoints,” but rather a staunchly conservative approach. If, as @Aquamarine99 suggests, the department is moving away from this, then it will be less a uniformity of viewpoints, not more.
@samsondale , this has absolutely nothing to do with whether the professor was conservative or liberal, and everything to do with his behavior in class. It is disingenuous to try to shift the conversation from whether or not this specific professor should be removed from required classes, to whether or not the institution should keep this professor in place to maintain a conservative presence on campus.
Also, you assume the next professor will automatically be liberal. There’s no way to know that now, unless you assume all conservative professors are off limits because you assume all conservative professors will use such language in class. My assumption is a conservative professor who applies will have the same chance at being hired as any other professor.
Disingenuous? I thought that the information posted by aquamarine (as cited by mtmind) that the conservative faculty were aging out and the newly recruited faculty were “left-leaning” raised a serious and important question. I figured everyone else had the issue of what should happen to the particular professor covered and was interested to hear what people thought about the more general issue.
Again, I didn’t “assume” the new faculty would be left-leaning- I relied on aquamarine’s explicit statement that this was the case.
I do agree that it doesn’t matter what the politics of the professor are here - profs of any stripe can be and have been offensive and stupid.
It was not a mixed-view point faculty. It was a staunchly conservative department that is now moving towards being more centered with the possiblity of one day (in the far future) being left-leaning. And again, unless you atteneded this college you have no say in what direction it should be going in. The department was previously predominantly conservative faculty and students. Now the student body as a whole is overwhelmingly democratic and as such a shift in the professors would reflect the changing attitudes of the students.
And no where did I say they were only recruiting left-leaning faculty members. If you go back and read my post I explicitly say that of the visiting professors two are 2 left-leaning and the other 2 right-leaning. And therefore I said there was a changing tide which I attributed to the open-mindedness of the current department chair. I’m pointing out that a once wholly conservative department is now hiring more left-leaning professors. Why are you invested with keeping it wholly conservative? You seem to want to defend the conservative student from a liberal professor but do not offer the same protection to the CMC student body who were previously stuck with almost only conservative Government professors as options.