Nobody comes to college looking to be indoctrinated. As impressionable freshmen arrive, what will put a brake on their enthusiasm to absorb everything their first favorite professor tells them? What will prevent them from gravitating toward what they want to hear instead of growing intellectually, and consolidating their ideologies?
An open, unbiased and critical intellectual atmosphere is absolutely necessary to discourage these tendencies. A Senate bill being considered in the California Legislature is intended to do just that. At a university where the purpose is to impart knowledge to promote understanding, it cannot be too carefully ensured that this goal is not abused or taken over by an ideology of “truth.” Indeed, it is hard to take issue with the intent and language of SB 5, the Student Bill of Rights.
However, the legal obligation to present all sides of an issue could conjure up images of legally protected extremism for some. For example, the clause requiring professors to assign reading representative of dissenting or secondary views leads some to suggest that this could lead to discussions of the nonevent of the Holocaust. Such fears are products of overactive imaginations, and they fail to consider such scenarios in more detail. The Holocaust is a historical event assured by fact. Professors are hardly going to have to start informing students that it isn’t entirely proven that two and two are four or any such nonsense. But they cannot preach or lay on the ideology — they must remember that not everyone in the university is of their political opinion.
Unfortunately, professors often forget this. They seem to assume that everyone in the classroom will share their views and that a snide remark will float up into the air and disintegrate without affecting the learning environment. However, many times there are more mavericks in the crowd than they think; and while all students should be mature enough to handle hearing such comments, it must be asked whether such assumptions tarnish the learning experience. When professors make political comments mocking a current event, politician or opinion, they may as well be mocking a student in the classroom. If they worry about how that affects the quality of the intellectual education they are giving students, they don’t seem to show it.
Of course, the act, if passed, would probably not crack down on such smaller offenses — and for good reason, as professors should not be muzzled any more than they should become preachers. However, this is precisely why releasing a bill of this tone is good in itself: It might remind professors of the power they wield and the responsibility they have not to abuse it. In addition, it would protect against particularly egregious abuses of bias and agenda; there are courses in which students feel they can’t disagree with the main political bent. Instances of total disrespect for other cultures or opinions also occur. Such situations are much more than simply presenting one’s side of the story, and they are completely unacceptable.
One of the last clauses of the bill is particularly needed — the call for equal funding and opportunity for visiting speakers of all political or cultural persuasions. This is a problem on many California campuses today. UC Berkeley, for example, one of the rallying spots for freedom of speech in the 1960s, is hardly going to invite Ann Coulter to speak on the eve of an election. But beyond politics, every facet of society, from religion to culture, ought to try to preserve these high standards of intellectual freedom; for although one bias may be predominant in the university system today, the tables may as well turn over time, and then the new minority will sorely wish it had established traditions of openness and understanding when it had the chance.
When speaking of the humanities and social sciences, the bill reminds us to keep in mind the “uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas.” This is perhaps the very tenet that many in the university system forget. In any search for understanding, we must not assume that the issues are settled matters, and turn what is intended to be a pure institution of knowledge into an institutionalized ideological tool of “truth.”
