
##4000365 Section : ISSUES <p> A Cleveland Plain Dealer article refers to the " skyrocketing population figures of blacks and Hispanic youth . " Time magazine devoted its 9 April 1990 cover story to " America 's Changing Colors , " and asked on its cover , " What will the U.S. be like when whites are no longer the majority ? " These new demographics , as such projections are frequently and approvingly called , are invoked by educators to argue that inevitable demographic changes require a transformation of American schools and colleges , particularly in curriculum . This is one of the most popular ideas in American education today . Proclaimed in educational publications , reports , and conferences , it is ubiquitous and unchallenged . Workforce 2000 <p> The source of the new demographics is Workforce 2000 , a report that has proved far more influential than its authors probably envisioned . Workforce 2000 deserves much of the attention it has received . Published in 1987 by the United States Department of Labor , it compiles studies by the Hudson Institute on the nation 's and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The purpose of Workforce 2000 is to alert policy makers of the social changes that may affect American productivity and competitiveness . The research is carefully done , and its implications are effectively elaborated . Sparing the readers social scientific jargon , the report is also refreshingly readable . <p> The serpent in the garden , however , is this short sentence : " The cumulative impact of the changing ethnic and racial composition of the labor force will be dramatic . " 1 Somebody got carried away rhetorically , and the editors let it slip by . For this statement simply is not substantiated . <p> The report does show that by the year 2000 women , blacks , Hispanics , and immigrants will make up 85 percent of new job seekers . But this is the percentage of new job seekers , not the percentage of the total workforce . More importantly , the categories themselves are misleading because white women are the largest " minority " group listed . White women , according to Workforce 2000 , will account for 42 percent of new entrants into the workforce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white and nonwhite , will account for 22 percent , leaving 20 percent to native nonwhite males and females , and 15 percent to native white males . These numbers seem to indicate a revolutionary transformation of America 's ethnic profile -- but only if one forgets that white women have been included in the minority population , and only if one confuses new job seekers with the total workforce or the total population . <p> According to Workforce 2000 , " black women will comprise the largest share of the increase in the non-white labor force . " In fact , " black women will outnumber black men in the workforce . " This statistic suggests that the increase in the numbers of working black women is due more to their being women than to their being black . It does not prove that the total percentage of the population that is black is increasing dramatically . <p> Nevertheless , the new demographics have popularized the notion that minorities will become the majority over the next couple of decades . That simply is not true. 2 Minority groups as they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 3 are increasing in inverse proportion to their relative size . That is to say , the most rapidly growing minority groups are also the smallest ( see table 1 ) . <p> Asians are the fastest growing minority . Between 1970 and 1980 , America 's Asian population grew 143 percent , but Asians make up a small percent of the American population . Despite its large growth rate , the Asian population grew from only 0.7 percent of the American population in 1970 to 1.5 percent in 1980. 4 The highest estimates suggest that by the year 2000 , Asians may grow to as much as 4 percent of the population . Similarly , the growth of America 's Hispanic population will not soon make Hispanics a large group . This population grew 39 percent between 1980 and 1989 , a seemingly large rate , but it caused the Hispanic population to grow from only 6.3 percent of the American population to its current 8.2 percent. 5 ( Of course , in California and Texas , Hispanics do make up a large proportion of local communities . ) Finally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is growing the most slowly of all . Blacks currently constitute about 12.5 percent of the population ; they will make up 13.1 percent by the year 2000 and 14 percent by 2025 . Some Nonimplications for Higher Education <p> The mistaken conclusion that America 's ethnic minorities will become the majority has been eagerly seized on by many educators and taken to a still more absurd extreme , namely , that the population of college students will soon be composed predominantly of minorities . But even if minorities were to become the majority in the total population , the evidence indicates that the same result would not be achieved , at least not automatically , in the student population . American Indians , for example , are underrepresented in higher education when compared to their fraction of the population of the United States . In 1988 , American Indians made up only 0.7 percent of American college enrollments. 6 Asians are well represented , but they constitute a small fraction of the population . College-age blacks ( like college-age whites ) are actually a shrinking cohort . From 1979 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by 11 percent. 7 The Hispanic population is growing in the United States , but this fact does not automatically translate into hopeful projections for college attendance . According to a study by Arthur Levine and Associates : <p> The growth of Hispanic enrollment is not yet fully apparent in secondary and postsecondary education because the Hispanic population is very young , it continues to drop out of high school at a high rate , and the fraction of Hispanic high school graduates going on to college has declined since the 1970s. 8 <p> We all wish that more minorities , especially underrepresented minorities , would attend college . Better practices in grade school and high school and increased transfer opportunities from two-year colleges , where most minority freshman enroll , might help . But even the most optimistic projections of minority participation do not suggest that minorities will transform American higher education . <p> Furthermore , those who draw pedagogic and curricular implications from the new demographics ignore the diversity within the large ethnic categories they feature . For example , to discuss the educational patterns of Hispanics , one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ former showing relatively dismal participation in higher education , while the latter are well represented . In a similar vein , M. Yukie Tokuyama complains that the Asian groups identified by the United States Census Bureau " exhibit different employment patterns , occupations , incomes , and poverty levels . Moreover , there are differences within subgroups-linguistic , political , educational , generational , and occupational . " 9 Yet , many educators and journalists persist in claiming that broadly-defined minority groups , each assumed to be monolithic , will all demand exactly the same change in higher education . Multiculturalism <p> The change minority students are supposed to demand is that undergraduate curricula should include the study of minority and Third World cultures , necessarily at the expense of the traditional , supposedly " Eurocentric " curriculum . Thus , some educators are using the new demographics to argue for the justice , wisdom , and inevitability of so-called multiculturalism . But even if the exaggerations of the new demographics and its academic corollary were true , do demographic trends really compel curricular changes ? <p> No one ever thought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on European cultural achievements , was justified on the ground that most Americans are of European descent . On the contrary , the justification for that curriculum has been that the American polity-its social , economic , and political system-derives from European antecedents and has been informed by the thought of European philosophers . Beyond that , further justification for the European emphasis follows from the fact that liberal education originated in ancient Greece and all of the disciplines it now comprises developed within that tradition , albeit with heavy , repeated , and crucial borrowings from a wide variety of non-European cultures . It is , therefore , not at all obvious that changes in the racial and ethnic makeup of the population should have any effect on college curricula . The purpose of American education has been to prepare our young people for the future and not to tie them to their ancestral past . <p> In what approaches a parody of the argument from demographics to curriculum , Annette Kolodny , dean of the faculty of humanities at the University of Arizona , writes in the Chronicle of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , " colleges should change teaching practices : " different cultural groups may emphasize one cognitive style over another-for example , reasoning by analogy instead of strict linear logic . " 10 Dean Kolodny does not identify which cultural groups lack the capacity for logic , though she claims that at one university : <p> young women were using empathy as a learning strategy . What frustrated them was that their instructors rarely introduced specific case histories ; raw data abstracted from case studies made up the bulk of the material presented in the classroom . In that learning context , the men performed better than the women . And the women switched majors . <p> What ugly thoughts lurk behind such statements ? Can women not think as well as men ? Do individuals of different ethnic groups have different mental capacities ? Dean Kolodny does not pause to consider the practical implications such differences would have . <p> Echoing the alarmist rhetoric of nineteenth-century Nativist and Know-Nothing movements , the new demographics proponents picture current immigrants as intractable agents of alien cultures that will forever transform the culture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this : because the major sources of American immigration these days are nationalities that ( by chance ) fit America 's conventional taxonomy of minorities ( namely , Asians and Hispanics ) , immigration patterns require a concomitant multicultural response , especially in school curricula . <p> In fact , today 's immigrants largely mirror the culture they are about to join . For example , a recent survey of immigrants found that " the newcomers , whether Arabs , Vietnamese , or other Asians , are mostly Christians . " 11 And Barry A. Kosmin , who conducted the study , stated that " most immigrants are in the mainstream of the Judeo-Christian culture . " ( The survey revealed that 86.5 percent of the immigrants declared that they were Christian , 1.8 percent Jewish , and the balanced stated no religion or simply did not respond . ) If this is true for their religious beliefs , why should we assume that immigrants differ in other cultural respects from the present population of the United States ? In particular , why should we expect that they want their children @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans or past immigrants ? Would it not be more reasonable to assume that immigrants come to America , in part , to provide their children the educational benefits our schools are already known to provide ? <p> Besides , there is nothing new about large numbers of immigrants coming to the United States . Consider that in 1980 , 6 percent of Americans were foreign born compared to 9 percent in 1940 and 13 percent in 1920. 12 The United States has a long history of diverse immigration , the most diverse in the New World , according to Roger Daniels , who concludes that although the United States received a variety of Europeans during the colonial period , other colonized countries , such as Canada , Australia , and those of Latin America showed a comparatively homogeneous immigrant pattern. 13 Many kinds of immigrants have come to America and enriched it , but they did not come to replicate what they left . Indeed , many wished to escape their native countries ' most pernicious elements . <p> Why encourage minorities to attend college only to deny them the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ force minority students to undertake a multicultural curriculum at the expense of courses traditional college students took to secure seats in professional schools and careers ? Why insist that minorities should attend college only to change college for them , as if they were not worthy of it as it was ? Thoughtlessness or Worse <p> Proponents of a " multicultural " curriculum advance many arguments to justify their revolutionary demands . Yet their uncritical acceptance of demographic claims unsupported by any evidence -- and the eagerness with which they have used those claims to make " multiculturalism " appear inevitable -- makes one wonder about the character of their commitment . Indeed , their version of multiculturalism fits all too well with the broader desire , evident in certain circles since the 1960s , to denigrate the ideals of the West and to dismantle its institutions . <p> Whether with that motive or merely out of a thoughtless anxiety not to be left off the latest bandwagon , various members of the educational establishment have cited Workforce 2000 as if it were a fiery sword pointing us toward a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ford Foundation awarded nineteen American universities " cultural diversity " grants . The program 's goal , a foundation press release explained , was to ensure that colleges " keep pace with the rapid demographic and cultural changes under way in American society . " Franklin A. Thomas , president of the foundation , was quoted : " To teach the roots of intolerance . . . we must make the teaching of non-Western cultures a basic element of undergraduate education . " Similarly , Peter Brooks , director of Yale University 's Whitman Center for the Humanities , defends the assault on the traditional curriculum by asserting : <p> People who say we 've got to return to a core curriculum are just nostalgic for a kind of cultural consensus that just does n't exist anymore . The freshman class at Berkeley is now 80 percent non-white . That gives you a sense of how much America is changing. 14 <p> The last sentence might more accurately read : " That gives you a sense of how much Berkeley is changing . " At any rate , it is safe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ California does not represent the United States in general , precisely if Brooks 's figure of 80 percent is correct . <p> Consider , also , the proposal that regional accrediting agencies include evidence of student and faculty racial , ethnic , and sexual diversity as part of the criteria for accrediting colleges . In defending such a policy , Stephen S. Weiner , executive director of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges , asserts without qualification that " American colleges and universities are undergoing massive changes in the racial and ethnic composition of their student bodies . " 15 Weiner argues that , " In 1988 , white , non-Hispanic students accounted for 65 percent of California 's college enrollment , compared with close to 80 percent for the nation as a whole . " Exactly : colleges and universities are 80 percent white and not , as Weiner would have us believe , " undergoing massive changes . " <p> Clearly those who are sounding these themes wish that the United States were different from what it is . Some people want public policy to be based on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ envisioned policies . Responsible educators such as Dale Parnell , president of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges , have warned that Workforce 2000 has been " widely misquoted. " 16 Yet the new demographics myth persists among many educators and education policy makers . For them , the idea that America 's ethnic mix will soon be transformed appears to be a truth too good to be tested . <p> 
##4000368 Section : REPORTS FROM THE ACADEMY <p> Political correctness in American universities is much discussed and often lamented , recently even in mainstream media ; but the focus is usually on elite schools . Politically correct faculty at universities with lower standing can arguably do more harm , for their students are especially ill-equipped to recognize that indoctrination is being substituted for education . Certainly during my undergraduate matriculation at a second-tier branch of a state university system I encountered many unrelievedly politically correct professors whose ideological biases my classmates seemed unable to identify and articulate . <p> The overwhelming force and rigidity of political orthodoxy became so oppressive in an undergraduate research seminar during my final semester that I felt obligated to challenge it . This effort left me an intellectually demoralized , despairing witness of the professoriate 's ideologically induced indifference -- sometimes , hostility -- to serious debate , contrary viewpoint , and even a sincere search for truth . Several other students also came to loathe the seminar , but I do not believe they dearly understood the cause of their dissatisfaction or the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideological presuppositions instead of benefiting from a truly open inquiry . <p> I joined this seminar because one of my professors , I will call him the Ethicist , strongly encouraged me to do so . Our usual rapport had recently been strained because I had charged in a student evaluation that his personal ethics class had been extremely biased in favor of his quasi-Marxist , radical environmentalist , antiindividualist views . So disturbed was he by my criticisms that he sought me out to defend his pedagogy -- with the unnerving observation that he has " only fourteen weeks to make students question the values of the dominant culture . " I retorted that I did n't see his role as that of deprogrammer but as educator . This unpleasantness notwithstanding , he recruited me for the forthcoming seminar on Indian treaty rights , 1 a project about which he was most enthusiastic . And because I initially thought that the legal issues involved would place a moderately libertarian person like myself on the side of the pro-minority angels , I signed on . What Are Indian Treaty Rights ? @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its faculty requires some historical background and an explanation of the Indian treaty rights controversy now raging in northern Wisconsin . As the result of successful litigation initiated by the Chippewa against the State of Wisconsin in the mid-1970s , they are allowed special hunting , fishing , and timber harvesting rights not enjoyed by other citizens , including all other Indians . Initially , the court determined that the Chippewa were entitled to 100 percent of the " maximum allowable harvest " of various fish and game species on the lands they sold to the federal government a century and a half ago . The court recently reduced this percentage by half . <p> The judicial reasoning supporting this decision opened the door for the Chippewa also to claim valuable timber on publicly , and possibly privately , owned land in the northern third of Wisconsin . Indeed , among the most worrisome consequences of the Chippewa 's court-awarded rights is that real estate titles throughout the upper third of Wisconsin may have been clouded . As the basis for these resource rights , the Wisconsin Chippewa leadership and their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Superior Chippewa and the United States . <p> The court , in addition to accepting the Chippewa 's claims about these treaties , may employ all manner of modern hunting , fishing , and timber-harvesting methods , including spearfishing 2 and gill netting . These fishing methods are otherwise prohibited in Wisconsin because they can bleed a lake of its maximum allowable harvest in one day , thereby dosing it for the rest of the fishing season . Businesspeople in tourism-dependent northern Wisconsin want fishermen to stay at their resorts , eat in their restaurants , and patronize their sportshops . If Chippewa fishing doses a popular lake in their area or drastically reduces the bag limit , these small businesses can lose a great deal . Moreover , sportsfishermen 's fishing-license and club fees keep the lakes stocked with such valued species as walleye and muskie , so when the Chippewa -- who do not pay these fees-spearfish egg-bearing fish , many citizens are angered . Imbalance from the Outset <p> The seminar was composed of a half-dozen students and five faculty members whom I will call Professors Ethicist ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Junior Anthropologist . At our first meeting the faculty handed out a generic syllabus that described various goals of a research seminar , but we students were verbally advised simply to " scratch around " and go wherever our interests took us . Several professors announced the names of possible contacts for our research , all of whom were Indian activists , lawyers with Indian organizations , or journalists . <p> At the second meeting Sociologist and Ethicist suggested we consider undertaking a survey of public opinion on treaty rights , and the latter provided his poll on attitudes about affirmative action as a model . Then several of the faculty showed a film defending treaty rights . None offered information about representatives opposing treaty rights . <p> At the third or fourth meeting I began to grasp the ideological raison d'etre of the seminar and to discover the shallowness of the professors ' scholarly standards . When several described an alleged conspiracy by Exxon and other corporate black hats to funnel money into the anti-treaty rights cause , I quietly listened for some time . Then I stated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significant funding ; indeed , their movement has the hallmarks of a working-class , seat-of-the-pants operation , one too unsophisticated to have either the financial or the public-relations resources of Exxon behind it . The faculty responded with the assertion that one can not expect to find evidence of such corporate malfeasance because capitalist elites are too " crafty " and " resistant to study " to document their machinations . Lack of proof notwithstanding , several professors made comments throughout the seminar revealing their assumption of sub rosa corporate dastardliness . <p> Because no one else seemed inclined to do so , I decided to interview treaty opponents , with whom I was fully prepared to find fault . The seminar professors had indicated that opponents were calling for " abrogation " of the relevant treaties ; my position was that a Senate-ratified treaty is the law , and its conditions must be upheld and honored . But by the fifth or sixth seminar meeting I had made contact with and closely examined the literature of some anti-treaty rights activists . I discovered that the more astute among them did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the seminar participants , these opponents argue that the term-specific stipulations of the treaties in question had been fulfilled by the federal government , most of them in the last century . Furthermore , any issues arising from the inherent inequities of some treaties had been addressed after World War II by the Indian Claims Commission , which ordered additional compensation for the Chippewa as an explicitly final resolution to any residual treaty claims , a condition accepted by the Chippewa and their attorneys at those earlier proceedings . <p> Many opponents argue that the courts invented the controversial treaty rights by accepting , rather eagerly , a historically dubious explanation for one stipulation in the treaties of 1837 and 1842 . Thus , they charge that judicial activism is the source of the Chippewa 's rights . <p> I obtained copies of all the Lake Superior Chippewa treaties , compared them with the language of the other 360-plus treaties between the federal government and various Indian tribes , and determined the treaty rights opponents ' position has merit . Moreover , I managed to acquire a trenchant , unpublished manuscript @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surrounding them . The author , the nationally known and respected anthropologist James A. Clifton , had been an expert witness for the Chippewa until they realized his scholarship did not support their case . <p> When I related these unanticipated findings to the seminar group , along with my opinion that Clifton 's work seriously undermined the basis for the court 's treaty rights decisions , I hoped to ignite scholarly excitement at the intellectually tantalizing prospect of facts and plausible arguments that run counter to the issue 's standard presentation . <p> The faculty 's reaction was underwhelming . My investigation was all very interesting for those " who are into history and legal issues , " I was advised , but we also need to consider questions of " cultural diversity " and the positive " witness " Indian culture offers the West regarding the environment . Senior Anthropologist asked for a copy of Clifton 's unpublished work , and both he and Archeologist called my attention to an informative newspaper article about Clifton that they had on file . Otherwise , my research met either passive resistance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that I was free to continue this line of inquiry but that it was much " too narrow " for them . <p> By the seventh meeting , I had spoken at some length with several members of anti-treaty rights groups . I reported to the seminar that , contrary to the views expressed by the faculty , critics of treaty rights were not necessarily racists . But surely I knew , Sociologist objected , that most racist attitudes are latent and difficult to detect or that their problem may not be racism per se , but a lack of " openness to cultural diversity " ? What was in order , he opined , was an examination of George Orwell 's work on the political uses of language . As an example of the potential enlightenment students might expect from such a course of study , he declared , " I 've never met anybody who was pro-abortion , " the dear implication being that those who use that label , instead of pro-choice , are engaged in unseemly propaganda . When I pointed out that a biologist on campus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state-coerced , unchosen abortion was understandable , Sociologist stared at me for a bit and then said , " Yes , well , he 's in favor of that because of environmental concerns . He 's not pro-abortion , he 's pro-environment . " The Real Seminar Topics <p> The title of the seminar notwithstanding , most of the faculty involved were manifestly uninterested in extensive inquiry and open discussion of the controversy over treaty rights , preferring instead to use the subject as a springboard for their ideological concerns : cultural diversity and antigrowth environmentalism . Because organized opposition to treaty rights is a predominantly white , middle-class movement , the professors could not concede even the possibility of its legitimacy. 3 This class is the bete noire of the advocates of so-called cultural diversity who find bourgeois culture " stupefying , " as Ethicist once put it . They have cast treaty rights opponents as an illegitimate adversary in the several political dichotomies structuring their worldview . To consider opponents ' arguments on their merits would not serve their politically correct dualism of pitting environmentally saintly , oppressed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of promiscuous polluters . I repeatedly challenged these unproven ( and , by the faculty 's own admission , largely unprovable ) stereotypes and dichotomies . The faculty listened to everything I said and then utterly ignored it . I was n't stifled , merely rendered irrelevant . <p> In pursuit of their ideological interests , the seminar professors invited environmentalists to speak to us , encouraged a trip to an anti-mining rally , and chose as their primary seminar project a survey of student and citizen attitudes on environmentalism and treaty rights in Wisconsin . The following are some of the statements that survey subjects were asked to rate according to their agreement or disagreement : <p> I believe scarcity of resources will limit the world 's economic growth in the next ten to twenty years . <p> Humans are different from other creatures but should not be considered superior to them . <p> The natural environment can not sustain present levels of the world 's economic growth . <p> Economic growth must be limited to protect the environment . <p> It is probably too late to prevent environmental catastrophe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must learn to care more about the balance of nature and less about economic growth . <p> Commercial development in Wisconsin is more important than treaty rights . People in American society should try to get along with nature as traditional native Americans have done . <p> I protested that most of the survey questions were irrelevant to the ostensible subject of the seminar , and the results of the survey were not difficult to predict . Those initiated in the doctrines of political correctness would give the right answers while working- and middle-class people in economically depressed northern Wisconsin would find limiting economic growth ridiculous . Thus , the survey team would find a positive correlation between environmentally conscious ( good ) subjects and support for treaty rights , as well as some correlation between those less supportive of the radical environmentalism reflected in the survey questions and objection to treaty rights . Thus it is proven : the morally right-minded support treaty rights . <p> Students who completed the survey were advised " that there are no right or wrong answers . " However , the naked biases and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . For instance , when I pointed out that Ted Williams , a respected sports journalist , environmentalist , and contributing editor of Audubon magazine , had published a cogent critique of treaty rights and the mythology of Indian as environmental saint , 4 Junior Anthropologist sought to undermine his credibility by observing that many environmentalists believe Williams is actually a developmentalist . Similarly , when I reminded the professors that one of the campus environmental experts who spoke with us had admitted that some Indian fishing was ecologically harmful and unfair to other fishermen , Ethicist responded with the ad hominem charge that this environmentalist was " a conservative man . " Clearly , the seminar faculty thought there were wrong opinions on environmentalism as well as wrong political proclivities . <p> It is , of course , much easier to design politically correct surveys than to investigate the origins and historical context of nineteenth-century Indian treaties . One of the chief faculty architects of the environmental-attitude survey eventually became frustrated with my persistent references both to what the treaties actually said and their documented meaning for treaty signatories . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had time to read a lot of this stuff . I 've got so much else to do ! " <p> In a final attempt to reason with the faculty regarding the seminar 's predominant focus on environmentalism , I sent all five a memo that complained : <p> I still do n't understand all the attention we are paying to environmental issues in this seminar , at least as we move beyond the question of whether the Indians ' fishing/harvesting rights are or are not dangerous to resources . My concern is that laying an eco-aware template over the various issues relating to Indians detracts from the central points of the controversy . <p> Sociologist responded , in relevant part , " The discussion of environmental issues and environmental conceptions represent an effort to examine different aspects of one dimension of the treaty rights issue . " He claimed that " from the very first " there were three " dimensions that were defined as ( a ) concerns about the environment , ( b ) concerns about fairness and rights , ( c ) concerns about cultural diversity . @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some ten weeks into the seminar , the faculty had not structured the project short of setting meeting times . There were no required papers or readings , no lectures , and no exams . The weekly seminar meetings were free discussions during which very little of substance was accomplished . That one of the faculty was stipulating intellectual parameters at this point seemed wholly gratuitous . Willful Ignorance and Petty Arrogance <p> In his lengthy response to my memo , Sociologist revealed his deconstructionist bent : " What some might consider simple facts others might view as complex ideological claims . Further , facts are always viewed within the context of a larger view of the natural and cultural world(s) " ( emphasis in original ) . I responded , in a second memo : <p> Some historical facts have such compelling evidentiary support and logical credibility that they are virtually certain , independent of who posits them ( the Holocaust occurred even if the person telling me so is a militant Zionist or the one denying it has an Ivy League Ph.D . ) . And in between this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to decreasing likelihood . The best that reasonable people can do when facts are in dispute is to choose a value of likelihood from this spectrum . To resist or downplay efforts to determine historical fact , whatever one 's reasons , is to choose obscurantism . Moreover ; such a choice can be as convenient for those making ideological claims as the manufacture of pseudo-facts . ( Emphasis added . ) <p> I concluded with the observation that the faculty were demonstrating " a decidedly non-neutral antagonism to any perspective on this issue which deviates from what Clifton calls the New Indian Ring . " 5 Several examples of faculty behavior will illustrate the validity of my charge , to which I never received a response . <p> Because several University of Wisconsin at Madison law professors had issued a report describing opponents of treaty rights and their attorney as " precisely analogous " to the Ku Klux Klan , I was astonished to learn that the attorney in question is a Chippewa , a fact of which the law professors may have been aware. 6 His wife , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Women , had published a provocative editorial imploring her " sisters " to stop " romanticizing " life on the reservation . I copied some of this couple 's intriguing compositions and sent them to the faculty with a proposal that they be invited to speak to us , perhaps even to debate their Madison accusers . Sociologist declared he had n't joined the seminar for " that kind of shtick . " The other four professors agreed with him . <p> Because I persisted in pointing out the significant Chippewa presence in the treaty rights opposition , Ethicist and Sociologist finally felt obliged to explain these aberrant Indians by citing the coopting strategy " known " to be employed by various power elites . The other students appeared to accept this latest spin on the conspiracy theory . <p> Not surprisingly , I was the only seminar participant to bring in an opponent of treaty rights ( one of the other students did make an unsuccessful attempt ) . The faculty reaction to his pending visit can only be described as petty and infantile . Displeased to hear that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , with smug amusement , asked me what my speaker 's " Indian name " was . Before I could respond , he quipped , " I 'll bet he does n't have one . " When we polled ourselves to determine who would be joining the dinner party for this speaker ( a seminar protocol for most out-of-town guests ) , Junior Anthropologist snidely cracked , " I 'll make up my mind after I hear what he has to say . " <p> After enough such incidents , I confronted Ethicist in his office . First he denied the comments about the Indian speaker 's name . Then he launched into a dizzying display of decon-speak , accused me of " presumption " for believing I knew what he had meant by his remarks , and said that I needed to understand about the " hermeneutics of intentionalism . " This explanation of his attack on the ethnic identity of the Indian treaty rights critic only fueled my outrage , and I advised Ethicist I was considering putting my criticism of the seminar and its faculty in writing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encounter ethical problems , an opinion I have seriously considered and reject . What I write about took place in , or in the context of , a class at a public university , not a confessional . <p> Throughout the seminar most of the faculty participants engaged in entre nous repartee that assumed a common bond of political and religious ( anti-Christian ) correctness among the seminar participants . Sociologist rhetorically asked if the Lutheran synod listed in the credits of a pro-treaty rights film was the one " that did n't require a lobotomy when you joined . " At the end of the semester , with obvious relish and amusement , Junior Anthropologist announced that a student evaluation from another class charged that she appeared to hate white people . She did not infer any legitimate criticism from this student 's observation , nor did her chuckling colleagues , one of whom sighed and stated with mock-resignation , " Yes , it 's a tough job , but somebody 's got ta do it . " In Summary <p> The Indian treaty rights seminar faculty taught me almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the seminar . They did not even define their terms . That is , we students were never instructed as to what an Indian treaty is , nor were we shown how the courts extrapolated the controversial new Indian rights from certain treaty stipulations . <p> What they did teach is that undemonstrable assertions , at least when they are grounded in correct politics , constitute legitimate support for scholarly conclusions . On the other hand , solid facts that undermine correct politics can be dismissed by " viewing them within the context of a larger view . " Furthermore , the faculty , who were supposedly dedicated to diversity , demonstrated in word and deed that people whose experiences and perspectives do not support political orthodoxy should be ridiculed and despised or at least ignored . <p> To what degree the other students in the seminar accepted the faculty 's ideologically motivated behavior as valid scholarly praxis , I do not know . I suspect that several of them have accepted it . But such a mockery of liberal education ought to be of concern to academics even if , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ classroom serves only to demoralize . <p> 
##4000369 I first heard of student protests at Bowdoin College when I returned there in June of 1990 for my twenty-fifth reunion . Outgoing president Leroy Greason , addressing the assembled alumni , mentioned that at the end of the spring semester , a group of students had staged a rally on the steps of Bowdoin 's Art Museum in support of gay and lesbian studies at the college . Greason said that he met with the students and listened to their demands but made them no promises . The event ended with student leaders walking with Greason back to his office and trying unsuccessfully to change his mind . <p> After Greason 's retirement at the end of the academic year , the students ' demands , which included a formal response by 2 November 1990 , fell to his successor , Robert H. Edwards , who assumed office in the fall of 1990 . He began inauspiciously . In his convocation address and again in his inaugural address , Edwards stressed the college 's commitment to diversity . Then , on October 31 , Edwards responded to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gay and lesbian studies , by issuing a memorandum " to the college community expressing general support for increased diversity . " Two days later , a group of students , apparently dissatisfied with that response , or , as the alumni newsletter euphemistically put it , " feeling a need for a more specific commitment , " blocked the entrances to the administration building and the library . <p> According to the newsletter 's sketchy account , Edwards met with student representatives and agreed to establish a committee that fall to devise a plan for increasing the number of minority faculty ( including women ) at Bowdoin and to refer a proposal for a gay and lesbian studies program to the faculty . The newsletter concluded by noting that " President Edwards also expressed deep disappointment that the protesters had chosen to block the library . ' Protecting freedom to learn in an open institution is a sacred trust , ' he said . " <p> I , too , was deeply disappointed by the students ' actions , as I told President Edwards in a letter of December 5 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ " freedom to learn in an open institution , " but that they had apparently not been disciplined . On the contrary , Edwards rewarded their efforts by referring their program proposal to the faculty for consideration . Their easy success could only have confirmed the lesson learned by radical students in the 1960s , that where arguments fail to convince , force and intimidation succeed . When the use of force is allowed to play a role in determining curriculum , as at Bowdoin , the integrity of academic procedure is violated . <p> I expressed my fear that faculty consideration of the proposed program would mean , as is often the case with student demands of this nature , that its approval is a foregone conclusion . I suggested that , given the coercive manner in which the students made their demands , their proposal should not be considered . <p> Edwards replied , in a letter dated December 12 , " Every experience I 've had indicates that , when presented by a confrontation that could polarize the campus , it 's best to diffuse it and channel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see that Edwards and I were working from a number of different assumptions . What he regarded as mere confrontation , I saw as an illegal action by some students that deprived other students of their right to access college facilities . What he saw as a situation that could polarize the campus , I saw as an action that had already polarized the campus , separating those who respect the rule of law from those who respect force . Where Edwards conceived the president 's role as diffusing disorder by acquiescing to the demands of the party causing the disorder , I believed he should enforce the rules that define the college community . <p> To provide details on the student protest and his view of the circumstances surrounding it , Edwards included with this letter several documents : his memorandum of October 31 to the Bowdoin community and the Coalition for Diversity , his statement to the student protesters on November 2 , and his memorandum of November 5 to the trustees and overseers of Bowdoin College . He also included a copy of the coalition 's November 2 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Edwards called diversity " the greatest issue facing American society , " and announced that " I have reiterated my conviction that Bowdoin must create a more welcoming environment for cultural , racial , religious , and socio-economic diversity . " <p> Most alumni must have been surprised to learn that Bowdoin 's atmosphere was less than congenial to groups of people long considered welcome at the college . Edwards did not suggest what made the environment unwelcoming , nor when the negative transformation occurred , nor what could be done to improve the situation . He simply offered an obscure and unsubstantiated indictment of the college 's atmosphere after being on campus only ten weeks . <p> Edwards 's memo also affirmed that " race and gender , as issues , are treated widely throughout the curriculum . " This fact , he said , " demonstrates Bowdoin 's awareness that , although many students arrive on campus ignorant of issues about race , gender , and ethnicity , it is the College 's business that they graduate more enlightened than when they arrived . " Enlightenment , understood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gender , and ethnicity , marks a significant departure from Bowdoin 's traditional sense of its mission as teaching . <p> Edwards ended his memorandum by saying , " Finally , I would emphasize that this note is only a status report . It is not designed to dispose of the question of diversity , but to open discourse on a subject that will never have a ' solution ' but will require unending commitment , tolerance , and energy from all of us . " Edwards made no attempt to justify his discouraging assertion that this subject would never be solved . Significantly , nothing in his memorandum addressed gay and lesbian studies . <p> Hoping for a response , Edwards delivered his October 31 memorandum in person to a meeting of the Coalition for Diversity , but November 1 passed without an answer . In his November 5 memorandum to trustees and overseers , Edwards explained what happened next : " About 7:00 a.m. on November 2 a group of about 40 students blockaded the entrance to the Library and to Hawthorne-Longfellow Hall . They demanded that the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 's demands read as follows : <p> The " status report " presented to the Coalition of Concerned Students on October 31 is inadequate . As previously stated , we demand : a significant increase in the number of faculty from minority groups ( including women ) reflecting the demographical percentages of these groups in the United States . the creation of a position in Gay and Lesbian Studies . <p> The document asked the president to affix his signature to these demands as well as to the following demands : <p> We the Coalition of Concerned Students demand that no disciplinary action be taken against staff members who could not enter the Hawthorne-Longfellow building on November 2 , 1990 . Furthermore , we demand that no disciplinary action , such as dismissal , on the part of Bowdoin College , be taken against students , faculty and staff involved in the protest . <p> The November 5 memo continues the chronology of events following the blockade of the library : <p> By 9:20 a.m . Dean Lewallen had invited 5 or 6 students to the Afro-American Center Library to talk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to my inquiry as to why there had been no discussion , " when the door was open , " I was told that the memo was a regurgitation of what was known ; gave no clear indication as to the action that would be taken , whereas my statement on the budget has promised an interim answer by June of 1991 ; and made no explicit mention of the gay-lesbian demand . <p> Edwards said that he explained to the students the limits of his power to grant their demands , reiterated his agreement " on the diversity issues generally " ( suggesting for the first time that he included gay and lesbian concerns as matters of diversity ) , and proposed language he thought would be acceptable to the students . <p> Following his meeting with student representatives , Edwards went to the library to address a group of " some 50 to 60 students " who were still blocking the building 's entrance . Edwards found the protester " in a cheerful humor " but noted that " there were beginning to be disagreements between the protesters and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delivered the following address to the assembled students : <p> Good morning to all of you . I just wanted to say to all of you that I am warmly in accord with your cause . But as your new president , you need to know -- and I say this from the bottom of my heart to you -- I am deeply disappointed that you have decided to block the library . <p> Libraries represent liberal learning and freedom of education and freedom of thought , and my understanding is that 's what you all stand for . You 've chosen the wrong symbol to block , because blocking libraries and burning books is what happens in fascism in Europe and you need to know that . That 's the starting point . OK ? But secondly -- and let me say -- when this is over , I want you to know that I want to have a continuing discourse with you , because I believe in this cause and I 'm strongly with you . <p> I want you to know that this is a statement that we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of your group . It says : <p> As I stated in my memorandum of October 31 , I am committed as president of Bowdoin College to expanding diversity at the College . . . . <p> To that end , <p> 1 . I shall meet with department and program chairs in the coming week to establish procedures for advancing this goal through recruitment in the 1991 season . I will also act to establish a committee that will begin work this fall to produce a plan , with time goals , for securing at Bowdoin a significant increase in the number of faculty from minority groups ( including women ) reflecting the demographic percentages of these groups in the United States . I would expect the committee to produce a hard interim report by June 1991 . . . . <p> 2 . I shall introduce to the faculty the proposal to establish a program in gay and lesbian studies and the staffing such a program would require . <p> That being so , I would ask you to disperse from the doors of the library and allow the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . ( Emphasis in original . ) <p> " I believe , " wrote Edwards of the response to his address , " there was relief all around when the statement was read . " The relief was understandable , because Edwards had just handed the protesters everything they demanded , and they no longer had any reason to prohibit other students from using the library . Some of the protesters lay on the ground an additional fifteen minutes and then dispersed . <p> Edwards continued the November 5 memo with a self-assessment and a look forward : <p> How would I interpret all this , and what might it bode for the future ? There is a head of resentment at Bowdoin , and on a number of other campuses , on the diversity question . At Bowdoin , although there are some who are obdurate and want publicity , most genuinely seek more social , racial , and personal diversity and a welcoming atmosphere for them on the campus . <p> Edwards is obviously conversant with the political implications of diversity and is quick to recognize that some ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accept it unquestioningly . He therefore divided the campus population into two groups , the right-thinking majority who support diversity and the publicity-seeking opposition . Anticipating that the hard-hearted publicity seekers will continue to resist the mollifying suasions of the diversity camp , Edwards looked to the future with guarded optimism : <p> I believe we can make progress , but would caution that progress will not mean a solution or tranquillity . The more diversity we create , the more the campus will become a forum for expression by those who have suffered prejudice and indignity . This will not necessarily be calm , and it will require steadfastness because this will be the American social agenda of the ' 90s . <p> Edwards , who acceded to the demands of protesters to avoid polarization , pledged himself to keeping the campus in a state of constant polarization . There will be neither tranquillity nor calm , he said , as we pursue the social agenda he proclaims for our entire country for the remainder of the century . Edwards then returned to his assessment of the protest itself : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statement responding to student demands made undertakings that would have been quite reasonable to agree to in open discourse . The Library and Hawthorne-Longfellow Hall returned to normal after about four hours of disruption , without angry confrontation and polarization of the campus . I believe the protesters now understand the gravity with which the College will view interruptions of its academic processes . The deans will be taking steps to ensure that students henceforth understand the disciplinary consequences of such action . <p> In the only humorous remark I ran across in many memos , Edwards suggested that protesters will now begin to fear the judgment of his administration . On the contrary , the deans might spare themselves the effort of making students " henceforth " understand the consequences of library-block-ing ( as if students normally arrive at Bowdoin without any notion of decorum , rules , or the order of law ) . The students already understand full well the disciplinary penalties of their actions and look forward to being treated again to hollow strictures ( " You 've chosen the wrong symbol to block " ) and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are happy to achieve something less than they demand ; these protesters asked for a slice of bread and received a loaf . Their statement demanded the creation of a position in gay and lesbian studies . Edwards promised to propose a program in gay and lesbian studies and the staffing such a program would require , thus revealing a greater enthusiasm for gay and lesbian studies than the protesters themselves demonstrated . <p> That enthusiasm is evident in the conclusion of the November 5 memo : <p> Regarding gay and lesbian studies , the College has established procedures for considering new academic programs which are faculty-driven , and gay rights is a volatile and political issue , with much potential for militancy and backlash . The faculty understand the importance of the College 's taking control of the issue , creating a rational process for analyzing it as an academic question-evaluating the research , disciplinary base , and theory that exist -- before considering the appropriateness of a new program at Bowdoin . The issue will be discussed at the coming faculty meeting . <p> Thus , Edwards injected the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ' statement of November 2 did not mention and which does not follow from his earlier reference to the academic issue of gay and lesbian studies . And once again , he attempted to discredit any opposing view in advance by yoking it with such strongly negative concepts as " backlash " and " militancy . " <p> As his various correspondence makes clear , Edwards regards diversity as the central concern of Bowdoin or of any college or university today . Just as clearly , he described that issue in Manichean terms , with good will and moral right on the side of diversity and ill will and immoral views on the other side . He took an advocacy position and , while pretending that nonaligned persons are welcome within the diversity camp , really left no neutral ground . However , as college president , he can not act as both advocate and judge . <p> In ending his letter to me , Edwards made a heavily hedged acknowledgment of a position on campus opposed to his own : " There are , incidentally , strong indications that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ success , tactics like blocking the library produce antibodies of resistance that deflect attention from the very cause the protesters seek . " However , within less time than it takes to study for a final exam , the protesters received agreement to all their demands , and more . To suggest that the tactic of blocking the library produced anything less than total victory for the student protesters , as Edwards did , is misleading . <p> In all that Edwards writes , a great deal is left unsaid . Nowhere does he admit that the opposition has valid arguments . Much has been written against affirmative action and a curriculum driven by political concerns . On campuses across the country , there are professors who question the appropriateness of a separate discipline devoted to homosexuality ( what of heterosexual studies ? ) . I mentioned the last of these points in my letter to Edwards , but he wrote nothing in response . <p> Similarly , Edwards left a great deal unsaid about his own views , which are offered without substantiation . He asserted that Bowdoin must be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a small college in Maine with a long history of drawing the majority of its students from Maine and Massachusetts should mirror the demographics of all fifty states . <p> Edwards 's reaction to the library incident is easier to understand in light of statements made in his convocation address , in which he saw " a fresh task before us of dimensions even greater , in a way , than those early Congregationalists faced when they set forth Bowdoin as a light and a beacon on what they considered to be their ' errand into the wilderness . ' " Judging that " we have perhaps yet another wilderness before us , " Edwards asserted that Bowdoin 's new mission is " to create a just and cultivated society . " Continuing the theme of social engineering , Edwards said he came to Bowdoin " with no interest in control , but with great interest " in engaging the college community " in defining the meaning of culture in modern America . " He went on to include within that sphere of definition not only " knowledge and understanding " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ changed Bowdoin 's nearly 200-year-old mission from imparting knowledge and transmitting culture to creating a new society and defining culture ( including behavior ) . His promotion of the cause of homosexual studies and even of gay rights may be the first step in fulfilling the college 's new charter . <p> Through all his memoranda , addresses , and statements , it becomes apparent that Edwards believes not so much in allowing diversity to exist as in imposing " diversity , " coupled with a studied antagonism toward any opposing point of view . I found myself agreeing with Edwards on one matter : in the next few years , Bowdoin can look forward to troubled times . <p> By Gary Crosby Brasor <p> <p> Gary Crosby Brasor , formerly assistant professor of French at Howard University , is a policy analyst at Digital Equipment Corporation , 200 Forest Street , Marlboro , MA 01752 . <p> 
##4000371 As students of power relations have known for years , Machiavellian strategies can operate in academic departments just as they do in the larger world . Indeed , with such ideals as objectivity , rationality , and the disinterested pursuit of truth now subject to widespread ridicule by ideological militants and devotees of postmodernism , hardball politics may be more commonplace on campus than off . Unfortunately though , among the torrent of books and articles documenting the rising influence of academic ideologues , there has been little if any attempt to analyze the concrete political strategies by which activist faculty gain and perpetuate their power . This article is intended to rectify this oversight and to propose some acceptable countermeasures for those who wish to resist . The Ideological Cartel and Departmental Governance <p> Prof. Holley H. Ulbrich recently coined the term academic cartel to describe a small , closely knit group of professors who seek to enhance their academic standing and vocational benefits by dominating the decision-making machinery of a department. 1 Understanding university life as characterized by fluid coalitions that shift in response to changing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that " circumstances peculiar to academe virtually guarantee a lifetime for the departmental cartel that is brief . " 2 Our view , however , is that this fairly benign prognosis seriously underestimates the contemporary power of shared ideology and common political cause to neutralize " circumstances peculiar to academe , " freeze alignments , and extend the existence of departmental cartels indefinitely . Cartel Strategies <p> The key goal of an ideological cartel is to capture the departmental chairmanship , for it is the occupant of this position who usually appoints committees , defines and redefines jurisdictions , writes job descriptions and agendas , oversees peer review , and establishes the framework for hiring . As intermediary between dean and department , the chairman also exercises substantial control over the flow of information to higher levels , shaping impressions about the relative merits and contributions of the department 's members . This differential evaluation is often accompanied by what Richard Rorty calls " a lot of ad hoc departmental rhetoric " contrived to reeducate the powers that be about " the nature of the discipline . " 3 Once an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other strategies for cartel maintenance become far easier to execute . These are addressed in the following paragraphs . <p> The incremental transformation of the department 's agenda . The composition and orientation of a department are the cumulative result of successive decisions about courses and hiring . Continuity of control over these decisions is maintained by appointing cartel members as chairmen of departmental committees having jurisdiction over course additions , course deletions , the rewriting of course descriptions , and program reviews . Given enough time , the curriculum decisions made by these committees will restructure faculty needs and determine recruiting . When they do , two crucial consequences follow : noncartel faculty are gradually marginalized and rendered vulnerable to pressure to switch departments , seek jobs at other institutions , or take early retirement , and future recruiting focuses on those who share the cartel 's ideological vision of the discipline . <p> The dissolution of fixed structures . This strategy replaces permanent bodies possessing established jurisdictions and elective memberships with ad hoc ones appointed by the chair . These bodies are then empowered to make policy and procedural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . <p> The manipulation of information . Even when a departmental vote can not be avoided , control can still be maintained by withholding information until university deadlines are at hand . Then , cartel members -- having already determined their own position -- call the required meeting and force votes on policies that others have had little or no time to evaluate . <p> Cartel members can complement this strategy by reducing the number of departmental meetings ( easily done , for few faculty members campaign for more meetings ) . Infrequent meetings make it harder for noncartel members to pool knowledge from noncartel sources about emergent policy changes , and they prevent dissidents from confronting cartel leaders with potentially embarrassing questions . <p> The development of flexible evaluation methods so that performance scores of cartel members can be inflated in areas of responsibility they prefer to avoid . There are activities that university administrators respect but do not generously reward . To remain " respectable , " cartel members must avoid these burdens without incurring onus . Unfortunately , teaching ( especially of undergraduates ) is frequently regarded as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often teach inordinately heavy loads , thereby subsidizing the minimal teaching responsibilities of those inside the cartel. 4 In universities where teaching accounts for a sizeable percentage of the annual evaluation , policies must be manipulated to ensure that cartel members receive ratings equal or superior to those carrying the heavier burdens . This can be accomplished by various techniques , including preferentially assigning more lightly enrolled elective courses to cartel members or allowing them to teach seminars that do not require much preparation . Releasing time from teaching in return for nominal administrative assignments is yet another way to allow the favored to look better than they deserve . Adroit information management and appropriate obfuscation can hide these privileges from any but the most persistent inquiry . <p> The use of gossip to discredit dissidents . Accusations and rumors of sexual harassment , problem drinking , crankiness , lack of congeniality , or insubordination can irritate institutional sensibilities and identify the accused as " the other . " 5 This transforms legitimate intellectual differences into a question of personal failure , thereby discrediting criticism . <p> The suppression of academic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some larger university mandate . This maneuver requires a powerful act of intimidation to deter future debunking . For example , cartel members can seize an argument designed to reaffirm , in the midst of ideological dominance , the legitimacy of a nonideological perspective and reinterpret it as an attack on the moral purposes of the institution . This becomes easier as colleges and universities , often without much reflection , adopt vague mission statements on the importance of diversity , multiculturalism , and a sensitive learning environment . Cartel members can present the " subversive " argument to sympathetic university officials when its author is not on hand to rebut the argument 's misconstruction . At appropriate moments , the cartel departmental chair can then state or , even better , merely hint that senior administrators found the dissident position " disturbing . " Challenging Cartel Dominance <p> Most of those likely to be left out of ideological cartels entered the academy not out of any zest for confrontation but to enjoy the calm , quite pursuits of scholarship and teaching . But , as Machiavelli says , when " @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does not " change his mode of proceeding . " 6 Thus , when confronted by an ideological cartel , professional survival may well require developing a combativeness not originally thought part of the academic job description . For those willing to summon the appropriate resolve and application the following course is recommended . <p> Document everything . Since the leaders of the cartel have kept files and bestride the official channels of communication , it is necessary to retain memoranda , letters , announcements , and meeting agendas ( as well as to take minutes independently ) in order to document procedural tricks and double standards . Dissidents need such records to establish their credibility with administrators . <p> At every opportunity aggressively and openly question cartel policies . The question mark , as Saul Alinsky observed , is an inverted plowshare , a " carrier of the contagion of curiosity . " 7 Asking pointed questions at committee and departmental meetings forces cartel members to formulate convincing and internally consistent justifications for salary decisions , teaching assignments , committee appointments , and procedures in general . Forcing them to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or force cartel members to adhere to more evenhanded procedures , thereby weakening the cartel 's effectiveness . <p> Promote counter-pressure . Ulbrich advises dissidents to " raise the costs of cartel behavior by constant monitoring , by grievances , by complaints flied with the higher administration , and by establishing a reputation for the cartel among other academic departments so as to predispose any grievance hearing toward the grievant and . . . to create alliances within the local academic community that may bear fruit in the future . " 8 A problem does not exist until people define it as such ( to paraphrase Alinsky ) . 9 Encouraging colleagues to visit deans and air their complaints , either individually or collectively , alerts administrators that all is not well . A series of memos exposing the cartel , particularly from someone who has both seniority in the profession and tenure in the department , can also be very effective . <p> Redress intellectual power imbalances by calling in outsiders and create new forums for discussion . To legitimatize intellectual alternatives , dissidents can cite respected scholars from other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to bring these professors to the campus as speakers . Dissidents can also sponsor educational programs , for example , brown-bag luncheons , focusing on such topics as departmental governance or the erosion of academic freedom . <p> Press colleagues to take a stand . In circumstances of ideological oppression , faculty must be aware of the Machiavellian necessity to choose : <p> A prince is also esteemed when he is a true friend and a true enemy , that is , when without any hesitation he discloses himself in support of someone against another . This course is always more useful than to remain neutral , because if two powers close to you come to grips , either they are of such quality that if one wins , you have to fear the winner , or not . In either of these two cases , it will always be more useful to you to disclose yourself and to wage open war ; for in the first case if you do not disclose yourself , you will always be the prey of whoever wins , to the pleasure and satisfaction of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason , nor anything , to defend you or give you refuge . For whoever wins does not want suspect friends who may not help him in adversity ; whoever loses does not give you refuge , since you did not want to share his fortune with arms in hand. 10 <p> Those who prefer others to do their fighting for them forfeit their claims to respect and risk coming to grief however things turn out . Once the campaign against the cartel acquires real momentum , fence-sitters should be reminded of this basic fact of life . <p> Alert college administrators to the fact that ideological cartels can expose the institution to embarrassment . It is becoming increasingly obvious that administrators who allow ideological cartels to flourish open themselves to embarrassment when the media and public observe the intolerance , zealotry , and abuses of power that these cartels engender . Repeated allusions in appropriate campus forums to conspicuous examples of such embarrassment may eventually penetrate the consciousness of even the most resistant provost or academic dean . <p> When all else fails , inform the media , the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a high-risk venture to be considered only in serious situations when there is no further internal recourse , iniquitous policies that for ideological reasons may pass muster within colleges and universities almost always look different when exposed to broader scrutiny . Moreover , savvy administrators may sometimes welcome such exposures as a means of weakening or overthrowing cartels they are otherwise helpless to confront . Needless to say , however , the personal costs of following this course may prove high for the whistle-blower . Conclusion <p> In the past , it was believed that the commitment of scholars to the canons of reason and evidence prevented the ideological capture of most academic departments . However , such transformations not only take place but do so through strategies that are likely to render them permanent . In these new circumstances , those holding traditional academic values may find themselves defined or harassed out of professional existence . As unpleasant as it may be , scholars must learn to recognize and respond to these attempts , which are likely to become increasingly common in the 1990s . These days , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hasten one 's ruin . <p> 
##4000372 Section : ISSUES <p> I am taking it as given that politicization and low academic standards are the enemies of liberal education , that those enemies are currently in the ascendant , that my readers agree with me about this , and that they agree with me about little else . <p> There are two questions that I wish to address in this essay . The first is : In what sense of " defense " is liberal education in need of defense ? The second is : What are we defending ? Both questions turn on the difference , to put it crudely , between philosophy and politics , or , if you wish , between theory and practice or between scholarship and action . <p> Scholars accentuate their disagreements . They like to sharpen the issues . The deeper each goes into a question , the more he disagrees with every other scholar . And that is all to the good . It furthers understanding . Scholars , in addition , wish to win battles by fact and logic , not by the number of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ statement who does not understand it , that is disagreeable . But in a political battle , it does not matter why you vote with me as long as you do . Our agreement need only be practical , not philosophical . That is why politics makes strange bedfellows . The art of finding a ground on which we who agree about little can , nevertheless , stand together is not an art to be despised . It is , nonetheless , a political not a philosophical art . <p> Because scholars disagree about matters of fundamental import , they will not agree about the essence of liberal education . For the idea of liberal education is part of a network of ideas -- about knowledge , human nature , society , and God -- that are essentially contested . If we could agree about the exact form and contents of an ideal curriculum , we would already possess answers to all the unanswered questions that make liberal studies so lively an enterprise . Our failure to agree on a definition of liberal education is , therefore , as it ought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we should teach the questions . But that is no answer . For we also disagree about which questions are meaningful , which are important , and which are still unanswered . In addition , this emphasis on questions obscures -- and perhaps is meant to obscure -- the fact that there is a great deal of knowledge that is almost beyond question , much of which should be conveyed to our students . Indeed , one of the most prevalent forms of contemporary politicization is an exaggerated emphasis on questions . For this has the effect of undermining the entire enterprise : its covert message is that there is no truth to be had and , hence , that questions are not to be taken seriously , that liberal studies are a game , and that nothing of importance remains except political commitment unqualified by information or reflection . Plying a sea of questions without the ballast of knowledge is a dangerous business . No wonder so many students and schools capsize . Furthermore , not to teach that which is known , and not to insist on accuracy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to our inadequately prepared college students and to perpetuate the low standards to which they have become habituated . And pandering breeds boredom . For one must first know something , before he can find the deeper questions intelligible , much less exciting . <p> So we are back to the fact that those of us who are most concerned to defend liberal education do not agree on its definition . This theme can be developed in greater detail than I have room for here . For example , many of those with a religious orientation claim that the root of politicization goes back to the same Enlightenment conceptions to which others appeal in opposing politicization . Hence , while on the issue of the moment we may agree , that agreement is like a sheet of ice over the liquid depths of more interesting disagreements . <p> That would be fine , if our interest were purely philosophical . However , we do not oppose politicized scholarship in idea merely . Instead , it is an immediate practical threat , undermining all our versions of liberal education . Nor is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in arguing the issues . Instead , his object is power , not truth , and therefore he is unmoved by rational argument . Thus the defense liberal education needs is political , not philosophical . To see what this defense requires , let us examine the character of politicization more closely . Politicization 's Progress <p> How did the academy become politicized ? What were the rest of us doing ? Why did we let it happen ? It all seems so improbable -- so much so , indeed , that many people , both in and outside the academy , have trouble believing it is a fact . The explanation has several parts , but the major part has been overlooked , just because it stares us in the face : the politicized minority gained power precisely because it is politicized and the rest of the professoriate is not . Preferring power to truth , the politicized scholar can be ruthless , hence , efficient , in the pursuit of power . <p> Had genuine scholars been interested in power , they would not have become scholars . The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Left in the 1960s . Having succeeded as students in imposing their will on entire institutions , they naturally wanted to continue the fun as adults -- and to make their livings at it . So they became scholars , of a sort , while retaining their commitment to " activism . " And they succeeded easily -- just as easily as they had won their student victories over reason and fair play . Hence the advent of the well-named " Tenured Left . " <p> It is true that by the 1960s , scholarship and teaching had already declined to the point where they were vulnerable to any intrusion bearing some signs of vitality . The curriculum had already become a wasteland of arid professionalism and premature specialization . Coherence and educational purpose were long since sacrificed on the convenient altar of student choice ( merely an excuse for teachers to pursue their scholarly specialties in undergraduate courses ) . This was the fertile field on which fell the seed of the weed called " relevance . " And many professors had become so involved in shallow careerism that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they were not unhappy to gain a little extra time for their research , when student " activists " managed to shut down classes or put an end to grading . The same sort of professors are unperturbed today when their colleagues debase the curriculum with undemanding political content . It is also true that many of those who were paying attention lacked any defense against radical demands . Always they said , " Well , I do n't like their tactics , and they are going too far , but it 's in a good cause and I can not oppose them . " The same sort of professors are still saying that , but now it is about what their colleagues are doing . They profess to care about the rights or welfare of women and minorities , but in fact they do not care enough to oppose the outrageous things being done in their names . Nor do they understand the purposes of education sufficiently to see why the curriculum should not be politicized " in a good cause . " <p> Essential as these factors are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We have to recognize , in addition , that psychologically and institutionally the academy was not -- is not -- prepared to withstand the importunities and stratagems of the politically motivated . I have already touched on the psychological aspect -- the fact that genuine scholars are not girded for battle . Indeed , one might go further : a major impetus of scholarship -- beginning with Plato 's founding of his school in the original groves of Academus -- is to retreat from the hurry-burly of political strife , the better to understand it . Scholars are by nature the men and women least inclined to sacrifice accuracy and nuance to the crude demands of political rhetoric , and they are the persons least inclined to sacrifice to the exigencies of the moment that leisure which is necessary to their taking a large view of things . It should therefore surprise no one that genuine scholars have not been very good at defending themselves from the dirty work done by their politicized counterfeits . <p> But more important than psychological considerations is the fact that the academy as an institution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of governance evolved to protect it from external political pressures but not to protect it from organized internal pressures to conform to a particular political program . Internally , that system serves to protect our enterprise from the biases that vary with individuals and from those plays for power to which overweening ambition leads an occasional scholar . It presupposes that nearly all academics have at least a large measure of commitment to the traditional goals of teaching and learning . It does not work when there is a sizeable minority who share essentially the same political goal and who are shameless in their pursuit of the power to advance that goal -- at whatever cost to truth and education . This is the reason the academic Left has succeeded in taking control of higher education , despite the fact that a ( diminishing ) majority of professors remain unpoliticized . <p> When faculty debates and committee deliberations -- never to tell the truth , noted for their high intellectual level -- are undermined by the concerted action of those who plan their strategies beforehand , who applaud speakers on their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ standard big lies , such as that Western civilization is racist and sexist ) , and who do all they can to distract attention from the arguments of the " other side " and to intimidate those who dare make such arguments ( especially by calling them racists and sexists ) , then the system no longer works . For it depends on a certain amount of civility , intellectual honesty , and multidimensional disagreement -- as opposed to the reduction of every issue to two " sides . " Nor is there any mechanism in place to prevent the academic Left from tirelessly proposing new programs , recycling the same tiresome ideas in ever new forms . Opposition from genuine scholars , who would rather be doing their proper work , is thus exhausted , and students graduate " knowing " little more than that Western civilization is racist , sexist , and " homophobic . " Nor is there any mechanism for monitoring individual classes for such flagrant abuses of academic freedom as irrelevant political harangues , known falsehoods presented as fact , and biased grading . Indeed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chat , forty years ago , was one of the means attempted for external political control of the academy . Defending Liberal Education <p> What , then are we to do ? There is no way out of this ocher than to explain -- clearly , repeatedly , and patiently to all who we can get to listen -- that politicization has changed the game and chat the game can not be restored without changing the rules , at least for the duration . We need to explain that academic freedom , which ordinarily requires independence from outside interference , calls for just such interference when that freedom is being subverted from within . Not that parents or trustees or the public should dictate curricula ; however , they have every right to refuse to fund those institutions that permit their own faculties to violate the principles of academic freedom or that otherwise do not live up to their own pretensions . In addition , we have to build up an internal body of resistance -- a group of faculty and administrators who understand what is at issue , to whom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide an alternative in answer to a public call for reform . <p> But for the purpose of gaining public support , as well as to gain the support of our colleagues , we need to be clear not only about what the academic Left is doing but also about what it is that our society is losing thereby . And this brings us to our second question : What shall we defend ? For all talk of strategy and technique is trivial in comparison to clarity about our goal . Nor can we move anyone if we only complain of what is wrong , and are perceived as mere carpers and cavilers . We must also say what it is that we stand for , and we must make that statement inspiring . Despite our philosophical differences , we have to find a common ground on which to make our appeal to colleagues , parents , trustees , and the public . Politicization 's Paralyzing Paradoxes <p> Here we confront a paradox . Scholarship leads us to sharpen our disagreements , rarely to resolve them , while an effective defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we can stand together . The language of political campaigns is adopted deliberately . For another form of the paradox is this , that to fight the politicization of scholarship we must become political . This paradox is an enormous stumbling block to us . Our enemies use it to charge us with hypocrisy and those who should be our allies use it as an excuse not to fight . The former say we are just as political as they are , and the latter say that if we spend our time in fighting rather than in teaching and learning , then we have already lost . Both of these arguments are fallacious , just as it is a fallacy to suppose that a peaceful nation may not arm itself against warlike aggressors . Nevertheless , the paradox that underlies those arguments is not so easily dismissed , for it is subject to endless metamorphosis . No sooner have you rid yourself of it in one form than it reappears in another . <p> Consider , for example , the familiar plaint that opposition to politicization is right-wing politicization . There @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the issue goes well beyond the fact that politicization is currently from the Left . If that were all there is to it , then we could easily maintain that we oppose all politicization and not only its current leftist form . Furthermore , most of us would be saying that honestly , and few of those we want to convince would doubt that most of us are saying it honestly . But the issue is muddled by the fact that the Left -- I mean the academic Left , for what other Left is there today ? -- has adopted the thesis that all education is political . In consequence , any defense of unpoliticized education is ipso facto a rejection of leftist doctrine . The academic Left seems to have put us in the position of being unable to transcend politics . We either accept their politicization of the academy or , by opposing it , seek to place the academy in opposition to the Left , which , of course , is to politicize it . Deuced clever of them , what ? <p> But it is not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its doctrine . They did not have to . The idea that all education and all scholarship is political does , of course , have its provenance in Marx 's idea of mystification . But it goes beyond that notion . Marx never said that every idea mystifies . Indeed , it is a corruption of Marxism to suppose that objectivity is impossible or that it is possible only after one has taken a political stance . For Marx himself sought to establish his views by rational argument based in part on historical data . Once upon a time , the Left thought it could win in a fair fight : by facts and by logic , it could win to its own view all those who were not mystified or self-serving . Only in the 1960s did a segment of the Left , namely , the New Left , decide to immunize itself from criticism by holding that everything is political , so that any inconvenient fact or argument could be dismissed as " reactionary . " ( In this , the New Left echoed in doctrine the practice of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ following every twist and turn of the Moscow-dictated party line . But evil practice is one thing , its justification in theory is another . ) <p> Thus , in opposing politicization , we do not reject leftist doctrine per se . Rather , we reject only the current debased form of leftism . And besides , rejecting a view as ground for academic practice is not inconsistent with giving that view a fair hearing within the academy . In fact , in the present case , the doctrine can not be fairly considered except by not acting upon it ( just as one can not simultaneously practice suicide and think about whether suicide is a good idea ) . For the serious examination of any view is possible only if ( 1 ) objectivity is possible and ( 2 ) we are trying to be objective ; but the idea that all education is political denies ( 1 ) and sanctions the violation of ( 2 ) . It follows that sincere radicals -- those who believe in the truth of what they espouse -- will join with us in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Shall We Defend ? <p> What idea of liberal education joins the Jesuit and the atheist heir of the Enlightenment , the Orthodox Jew and the Fundamentalist Christian , the libertarian and the socialist in a common cause to save the academy ? I think an answer can be found in the history of liberal education , in the fact that a tradition that began in pagan Greece proved essential to the Christian universities of the Middle Ages and to secular education in modern democracies . For this suggests the existence of some common core that can be conceptualized and used in a variety of quite different ways and yet is identifiably the same thing . <p> The Pythagoreans believed that the study of mathematics liberated souls from their bodily prisons ; it did so because the truths revealed therein were universal and neither served any particular party 's self-interest nor depended on any particular person 's perspective . Thus Proclus credited that sect with creating liberal studies . The same ideal of impartiality is implicit in a religion that claims to be universal , not tribal . The Christian scholar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but , in however subordinate a role , the liberal arts continue to serve that end and thus formed , and form , the body of Christian education . Nor is it any accident that modern democracies have fostered the liberal arts . For they , too , despite -- or because of -- their emphasis on individual liberty , depend on a general understanding of the impartial rule of law and of rights deemed universal . Without such an understanding , a democracy will degenerate into an unlimited , unmediated , unmitigated warfare of special interests . <p> Therefore , liberation from limited perspective , granted to us by the acquisition of objective knowledge and by the development of our rational faculties , is the goal of liberal education and makes that education valuable in a variety of contexts . We can disagree about whether a liberal education is complete if divorced from theological instruction ; we can disagree about whether moral teaching must be part of it or must be left merely as a hoped-for consequence of strictly mental training ; but we have to agree that knowledge and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of themselves lead to or in conjunction with other things support that self-transcendence without which life is less than human . It is perhaps needless to add that low intellectual standards and politicization are the two wicked arrows that could penetrate liberal education 's heart and kill it . This is especially true of that contemporary form of politicization which teaches that one 's sex or race or class determines one 's " perspective " or " values " or " culture " -- for this is the very denial of the possibility of self-transcendence . <p> As the needs of a democracy are those that will be most generally acknowledged in our society , let us look more closely at liberal education in their light . One frequent criticism of the traditional curriculum is that it is elitist , and that a more democratic curriculum would give equal treatment to the contributions and cultures of all of America 's , or even the world 's , subgroups . I will ignore the problem that there is an enormous number of ways in which millions of people can be subdivided , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Far more important is the fact that the traditional curriculum was indeed designed for an elite group , and that it is therefore precisely the curriculum most needed by today 's democratic citizenry . To begin , again , with the ancient Greeks , liberal studies were those deemed suitable to the gentlemen of leisure whose only responsibility was to take a leading role in their polis . By teaching them a larger view of things and to think for themselves , it prepared them to rule . Since in our democracy the franchise is widespread , that same sort of education must also be widespread . In a democracy it is elitist no ! to make " elitist " education widely accessible . <p> Let us take military , political , and diplomatic history as an example , since that is so often invidiously compared to the " more democratic " social history . Social history , fascinating and valuable as that is , does not teach the art of statesmanship , of which the democratic citizen needs some understanding . It is far less useful to women and black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is to learn how to rule , which means studying what has been done by rulers , especially those of societies most like our own ; and those rulers have been , primarily , white males . It is a tendentious oversimplification , typical of present-day politicization , to suppose that former ruling classes were merely racist and sexist and that we have nothing to learn from them of prudence , statecraft , and practical wisdom . <p> The new , " multicultural " curriculum is not a curriculum for free men and women , prepared to take control of their own futures . It is , instead , a curriculum for those who will remain slaves to their origins , to their sex , race , age , class , handicap , or other peculiarity . It is , thus , inimical to democracy . So , too , is the related devotion of educational institutions to reforming students ' attitudes . In the first place , that really is elitist and antidemocratic , since it means that a self-selected group of educators has decided for all the rest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . Worse yet , it interferes with the transference of knowledge and development of mental skills that is essential to democratic citizenship . A democracy is in peril when its citizens can not think for themselves . Finally , the social reform motive serves as a welcome mat for politicization . If higher education is to perform its true service to democracy , it must drop the project of directly reforming society and return to the task of improving the minds of our young . <p> In conclusion , I think we can agree that the liberal arts tradition we defend is characterized most fundamentally by its quest for objective knowledge , both of historical and cultural peculiarities and of universal principles . Such knowledge lifts us out of the prison houses of our individual selves and peculiar conditions , making morality and democracy possible and supplementing the teachings of universalistic religions . Without this knowledge , partly achieved and partly hoped-for , unanswered questions can not be examined impartially nor taken seriously . Within this framework , there is much we can disagree about , as we can disagree about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is clear that such knowledge and such inquiry , as well as the literature ( mostly European ) in which it is embodied and the social forms ( developed in the West ) that support it , are of general import to mankind regardless of one 's origins or present habitation . <p> By Thomas Short <p> <p> Thomas Short is associate professor of philosophy at Kenyon College , Gambier , OH 43022 . <p> 