Prof. Landy's comments on this issue:   Regarding the complaints of conservative students about liberal bias in  the class room: I am writing as a teacher in the humanities who has an essentially conservative, right-wing point of view.  I do have some sympathy with the students who make these complaints, though I am not always comfortable with the way the students frame them.  I won't take time to parse the student complaints.  I do want to give you briefly my point of view and some of my experience on this issue.

First, it is very easy to say, in response to these complaints, that students should accept having their views challenged.  Professors can use that principle to justify almost anything they say in class.  I don't deny that challenging students is part of the professor's job; but as any alert professor knows, this is always a delicate thing.  An alert professor learns very quickly how easy it is to intimidate students and produce an unwelcome silence in response.  There is a psychological
dynamic between professor and student that makes rational debate between them very difficult.  Thus, challenging students with opposing views requires an high level of tact and self-awareness on the part of the professor.  When it comes to politics, where passions run high, I am afraid that much of this tact goes out the window.  And the current academic climate favors this tendency.  Students should accept having their views challenged.  Professors can use that principle to justify almost anything they say in class.  I don't deny that challenging students is part of the professor's job; but as any alert professor knows, this is always a delicate thing.  An alert professor learns very quickly how easy it is to intimidate students and produce an unwelcome silence in response.  There is a psychological dynamic between professor and student that makes rational debate between them very difficult.  Thus, challenging students with opposing views requires an high level of tact and self-awareness on the part of the professor.  When it comes to politics, where passions run high, I am afraid that much of this tact goes out the window.  And the current academic climate favors this tendency.

In an atmosphere in which so many academics share the same point of view, controversial positions tend to become axiomatic.  I recently attended a national honors conference in which seminar-type discussions were held on subjects of war and peace between faculty and students. During one discussion in which I took part, I saw a splendid example of professorial bullying from a liberal faculty member who seemed stunned by disagreement from an academic colleague (me) and seemed completely unaware of the effect of her conduct on the students in the seminar.  To her, like many of her persuasion, opposing Bush and the Iraq war was not open for discussion--not a controversial position; it was something to be taken for granted by all rational adults.  In a "post mortem" discussion after the seminar, conservative students said afterward that they did indeed feel intimidated in the discussion.

I suspect that my experience in that seminar, though perhaps not typical, was also not isolated.  Faculty surely recognize how easy it is, IN GENERAL, for the majority view in any institution to become unintentionally dogmatic and imperious.  If one's views are not regularly challenged by one's academic peers (as mine are, believe me), it is very easy to neglect tact in discussing your views with anyone, including students.  Now most professors--most of the time--know perfectly well the difference between controversial and disciplinary subject matter, and most professors--most of the time--are also tactful and sensitive in dealing with students who hold differing views.  But in the current academic climate it is VERY easy to slip into dogmatism and bullying.  At the very least, it is going to take some extra vigilance on the part of the professoriate to avoid these pitfalls, and I do wish my colleagues on the left would acknowledge this.

Tucker Landy
Faculty Regent
Associate Professor in Liberal Studies
Kentucky State University
Frankfort, Kentucky  40601
(502) 597-6596

Full Text of AAUP  Statement on Professor Ward Churchill Controversy  (2/4/05)

“We have witnessed an extraordinary outpouring of criticism aimed both at Professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado at Boulder for his written remarks describing victims of the attacks on September 11, 2001, as "little Eichmanns," and at Hamilton College in New York for inviting him to speak at the college. Television commentators urged viewers to write to Hamilton College to condemn what the professor had written and the college’s decision to invite him. More than 6,000 e-mail messages were sent to Hamilton College president Joan Hinde Stewart, who described them as “ranging from angry to profane, obscene, [and] violent.” The governor of New York wrote a letter of protest to President Stewart and in a dinner banquet described Professor Churchill as a "bigoted terrorist supporter." The governor of Colorado called on the professor to resign from the University of Colorado and, one day later, called for his dismissal. Professor Churchill reports that he and his wife have received more than a hundred death threats. The prospect of violence at Hamilton College led the administration there to cancel the visit.

The American Association of University Professors, since its founding in 1915, has been committed to preserving and advancing principles of academic freedom in this nation’s colleges and universities. Freedom of faculty members to express views, however unpopular or distasteful, is an essential condition of an institution of higher learning that is truly free. We deplore threats of violence heaped upon Professor Churchill, and we reject the notion that some viewpoints are so offensive or disturbing that the academic community should not allow them to be heard and debated. Also reprehensible are inflammatory statements by public officials that interfere in the decisions of the academic community.

Should serious questions arise about Professor Churchill’s fitness to continue at the University of Colorado—the only acceptable basis for terminating a continuing or tenured faculty appointment—those questions should be judged by a faculty committee that affords the essential safeguards of due process, as required by the university’s and the Board of Regents’ official policies. Special care must be taken, however, to avoid applying harsher standards in such a case or following less rigorous procedures, because of the nature of the statements made by Professor Churchill about the tragic events of September 11, 2001. While members of the academic community are free to condemn what they believe are repugnant views expressed by a faculty member, any charges arising from such statements must be judged by the same standards and procedures that would apply to statements unrelated to the terrorist attacks and the loss of life on that fateful day. We must resist the temptation to judge such statements more harshly because they evoke special anguish among survivors and families of the September 11 victims. The critical test of academic freedom is its capacity to meet even the most painful and offending statements. A college or university campus is, of all places in our society, the most appropriate forum for the widest range of viewpoints.”