'Universities Are Right—and Within Their Rights—to Crack Down on Speech and Behavior'

Submitted by Mastodon on Thu, 2015-02-12 23:07

Article here. Excerpt:

'That’s why the contretemps about a recent incident at Marquette University is far less alarming than libertarians think. An inexperienced instructor was teaching a class on the philosophy of John Rawls, and a student in the class argued that same-sex marriage was consistent with Rawls’ philosophy. When another student told the teacher outside of class that he disagreed, the teacher responded that she would not permit a student to oppose same-sex marriage in class because that might offend gay students.

While I believe that the teacher mishandled the student’s complaint, she was justified in dismissing it. The purpose of the class was to teach Rawls’ theory of justice, not to debate the merits of same-sex marriage. The fact that a student injected same-sex marriage into the discussion does not mean that the class was required to discuss it. The professor might reasonably have believed that the students would gain a better understanding of Rawls’ theory if they thought about how it applied to issues less divisive and hence less likely to distract students from the academic merits of the theory.

Teaching is tricky. Everyone understands that a class is a failure if students refuse to learn because they feel bullied or intimidated, or if ideological arguments break out that have nothing to do with understanding an idea. It is the responsibility of the professor to conduct the class in such a way that maximal learning occurs, not maximal speech. That’s why no teacher would permit students to launch into anti-Semitic diatribes in a class about the Holocaust, however sincerely the speaker might think that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust or the Holocaust did not take place. And even a teacher less scrupulous about avoiding offense to gay people would draw a line if a student in the Rawls class wanted to argue that Jim Crow or legalization of pedophilia is entailed by the principles of justice. While advocates of freedom of speech like to claim that falsehoods get squeezed out in the “marketplace of ideas,” in classrooms they just receive an F.'

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Comments

I disagree that college students ought to be treated like children. On the contrary, at age 18 (at least in the US), the law holds them fully to account for their actions and vests them with all the rights an adult has under the law.

At the same time, classrooms are not nor ought to be free-for-alls. They exist to serve a purpose: teach subjects. Failing to scope discussions and subject matter makes that hard.

In the particular example given re gay marriage, so long as the student whose opinion was that the ideas of the philosopher under discussion didn't support gay marriage conceptually, it ought to be fair game to discuss since the other POV seems to have been fair game. I.e., fair's fair. Same thing happens in law courts, or should: if counsel A broaches a topic for prosecution, counsel B should have the right to discuss it from the POV of refuting it.

But it seems PC-ness and intellectual cowardice on this particular prof's part trumped that idea.

Gay marriage may be entirely defensible from another POV, which personally, I think it is. That POV is contract and partnership business law. Marriage is under the law a specialized form of contract and business partnership. As long as competent adults are involved and willingly wish to enter into it, their sex shouldn't stop them. In fact since contract and business partnership law allows for multiple parties to it, I also don't see why marriages of > 2 parties shouldn't be allowed. However under this paradigm, all parties must be joint and several, thus classic polygamy/polyandry is not supported, while polyamory is. The questions of who handles trad'l marriage-related matters (i.e., end-of-life decisions, child custody, etc.) would require advance determination, but it could be done.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2015-02-13 17:07