How would you suggest a disentanglement of academic freedom on topics with legitimate, academic value from populations who feel threatened or marginalized by the topic?
I mostly think that those populations have to handle this or choose another type of education. Liberal arts is about grappling with big ideas, including evil ones. Colleges should be making their case for why this experience is valuable and worth making sacrifices for. Some in the audience won’t be convinced. So be it.
This is the common view of how many think diversity should work. Bring in a diverse students, then leave it to them to adapt to the prevailing culture. Unfortunately that can be a pretty alienating experience for those outside the prevailing culture.
Colleges should be making their case for why this experience is valuable and worth making sacrifices for.
Interesting how it is those outside the prevailing culture who are expected to make the “sacrifices,” as if there is nothing to be learned from including their perspective.
By the way, do you and others feel the same way about students who would rather their professors not repeatedly drop the N word even when not studying texts using the N word? In the name of “academic freedom,” of course.
"We received expressions of concern from students in three separate, recent classes. The first cited Nadon’s express use of the N-word independent from the reading of Huck Finn or any other text and Nadon’s argument with a student that was reported to ‘box her in’ and ‘force her’ to support Nadon’s point of view.”
I really think adults can tell the difference when a word is used as a deliberate slur, compared to when a word is discussed in context for historical, political, sociological or literary purposes. If they can not, perhaps higher education isnt right for them at this point.
Alternatively, I’d think that experienced professors at esteemed institutions would be able to come up with a more productive method of making their point than repeatedly dropping the n-word and otherwise insulting and offending their students. “If they can not, perhaps higher education isnt right for them at this point.”
My classmates and I could so distinguish by 8th grade when we read the book; I am confident today’s college kids are at least as sophisticated as we were at 13.
Well if it worked for you personally as a “sophisticated” 8th grader some many years ago, then I guess we ought to disregard the viewpoints of everyone who might feel differently about the issue, including those for whom the term might be particularly offensive.
This is only comparative if the Hamlin prof was regularly showing pics of Mohammad when not actually studying it - and no - I wouldn’t support that (either).
I’m sure it is. As it would be for me if I attended a madrasa in Somalia. But I’d be a fool if I expected them to take the Quran out of the curriculum to help me feel less alienated. To the extent that accommodating me requires undermining the foundational values of the institution, they shouldn’t accommodate me.
“Including their perspective” is great. “Including their perspective” would mean providing the opportunity for her to share her point of view and for other students to hear it, which the college did. The professor clearly took this perspective into account in the first place, or there wouldn’t have been a content warning. The student didn’t claim that she spoke up and was shut down, so how was her perspective excluded? She also had the opportunity to invite guest speakers to campus, write a column in the newspaper, etc. What she didn’t have an opportunity to do was neuter the content of the course…until the administration stepped in.
I don’t think colleges should require professors to use a euphemism for the N word during classroom discussions of Huckleberry Finn. Each professor should be able to make a judgment about their pedagogical approach.
A fair point, and one with which I agree. As you can see by posts immediately above, others take a harder line view on academic freedom. For some, when a Professor repeatedly uses the N word, the problem with with the students and not the professor.
First, while I admittedly don’t know anything about educational approach in Somalia, I’m not sure we should be using the educational approach at a Somalian madrasa as a model for how we deal with differing viewpoints.
Second, no one here has suggested that anything be taken out of the curriculum.
Third, if one of the “foundational values of an institution” is to create an inclusive environment were people from different cultures are respected, then how can this value be obtained if the person has no voice in the process and accommodations are never made?
The incidents did not occur in a class where Huckleberry Finn was being taught.
You seem to assume that I have not been called offensive terms. Of course I have. Every adult woman has. And while I censure such terms when used as slurs against women, I don’t want to ban all literature containing such terms, or historical texts where such words occur. Part of growing up is understanding what terms were used in the past, are still used in many countries, and why using the words as slurs is objectionable, not pretending the words don’t exist.
I made no such assumption. I pointed out that you were substituting your sensibilities for the sensibilities of everyone else.
As for the stuff about banning literature and texts, no one here has suggested that, so . . . 
I think the professor who was not teaching Huckleberry Finn was taken back by a student thinking there was no censorship in the US and came up with the most common example he could think of.
What about a class on Rap music using the N word or swear words? Should I get to demand that those words be bleeped out of all the songs played in class (or required listening) as they offend me? Or perhaps I should take a different class, even if not taking the Rap class would harm my chances of getting a job in the music industry? Does the music department have an obligation to change all notations of ‘reta**’ on music to ‘slow down!’ so as not to offend people who could confuse it with a reference to someone’s mental state or mental health?
Schools can’t be everything to all students. If 90% of students in a class want to learn about Mohammad in art history, should 10% of students, who were given a warning and an alternative, get to stop the class (or teacher)? This was not the case of a professor going off on a tangent for her own purposes but teaching a subject in a traditional way. If she had not given an option not to view that art or based 50% of the exam on that piece of art, that would, IMO, be the same as excluding those students from that class. It seemed to me she (prof) tried to be as inclusive as possible without changing the course as she felt it needed to be taught.
But…she was an instructor, a contracted teacher at the school to teach this class for one term. The school feels they can find someone better to teach the class and will offer that instructor a contract for one or two terms and see how that goes. That’s the deal with being an instructor rather than a full tenured professor.
Universites are doing their students no favors when they treat college adults are fragile beings who are scared to death of words on paper, or, heaven forbid, spoken aloud in an academic context. It makes me wonder how these men and women get through a day-perhaps they never listen to the radio, take a subway, or interact with those unlike themselves.
Universities are doing their students no favors when they expect their students to sit silently and not stand up for themselves in the face of obnoxious professors who go out of their way to be offensive and to disrespect them.
And what of the old white male professor who can’t seem to communicate with diverse students without pissing them off? What favor is the University doing him (or the students) by backing him up?
It is what I said above. For some, no matter how obnoxious the professor, it is always the student’s fault.
There is nothing in the article to remotely suggest that was happening. Did you read the story? In a discussion of censorship, the professor pointed to the actual text of HF as an example of a book widely banned in public secondary schools due to its historical racial slurs.
I read numerous articles about it and am familiar with the professor’s approach. I stand by my assessment.
One can point out that HF was banned in some classes without spontaneously breaking into memorized passages every time censorship comes up. And that was just one of the incidents.
In the linked page, it looks like the facts are disputed in terms of whether the CMC instructor used the insult only in context of the book where it is written versus gratuitously out of that context.
Without agreement on the facts of that case, it is no surprise that the argument just goes around and around.
It applied to the other book, Color Purple, as well I assume.
Many ethnic, racial, and religious groups had slurs used against them historically. We can acknowledge that openly-those words do not have some magic power to curse those who read or hear them. Understanding they were part of history broadens our perspective and understanding of the times.
Since we have no consensus on events there is no point in discussing it further, but I saw nothing to suggest that it was used or intended as a slur. Interesting that some posters assume the race and gender of the professor is relevant for some unknown reason.
Was the art history class, a required class or an elective?
This whole story reminds me of a European cinema class I took in college (as an elective); we had to watch some pretty stomach turning, heavy on symbolism films, that went way over our heads. I won’t bore you with the details. Our instructor was really into the history of cinema and was a great lecturer, but was adamant about the movies he showed during the class. And we did complain to him (not the administration). His answer was that this isn’t entertainment, it’s art and art can be uncomfortable. Plus it was an elective class and we could have easily picked a less disturbing class if we wanted to. We also watched some incredibly boring films and some incredibly beautiful films. I did not recommend the class to my fellow students but his class was always full.
The Hamline story is the impetus for the whole thread. If you fire people for showing an image in class, that’s the most powerful action you can take to ban that image. We’re talking about it because it actually happened.