Excesses in a UNC English Class and Their Consequences
K.C. Johnson, Brooklyn College—CUNY

Last week, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights issued an important ruling touching on many of the ideological divisions affecting the academy. The matter involved a case at the University of North Carolina, in which an English professor named Elyse Crystall ended a class by asking whether heterosexual men felt "threatened" by homosexual men. One student (an evangelical Christian) responded that he would not want to take his son to a baseball game where two men were kissing, and that a Christian friend of his was propositioned by a gay man and found the experience "disgusting," but that "threatened" would be too strong a word for the feeling.

The next day, Professor Crystall sent an email to the entire class saying that "what we heard thursday at the end of class constitutes 'hate speech' and is completely unacceptable." She apologized "to those of us who are now feeling that the classroom we share is an unsafe environment," and promised to do her "best to counter those feelings and protect that space from further violence." The student's remarks, she continued, constituted "a perfect example of privilege. that a white, heterosexual, christian male . . . can feel entitled to make violent, heterosexist comments and not feel marked or threatened or vulnerable is what privilege makes possible." [incorrect capitalizations in original]

Upon learning of the E-mail, Crystall's department chairman met with her and the student, stated that the E-mail was inappropriate, and monitored the remainder of the class to ensure that the student suffered no formal or informal retaliation.

The OCR investigation held that the student was targeted for "criticism in part because of his protected status" -- since white and male are "both protected classes under the laws enforced by OCR" -- and that such an act "constitutes intentional discrimination." Additionally, the office ruled that the employer is responsible for "ending the discrimination and preventing its recurrence." Since it found that the UNC administration had acted properly in this case, the OCR requested no further action. As North Carolina congressman Walter Jones noted, the ruling recognized that "a student's constitutionally granted First Amendment right to free speech was trampled upon by an instructor with the power to intimidate," and it established a limit on future such acts (albeit a limited "limit," since faculty ideologues were only prohibited from referencing race or gender when attempting to apply ideological litmus tests).

The ruling resonates on three broader levels:

1. The actions of administrations matter. The UNC administration, which doesn't have the greatest record on academic free speech issues, in this case seems to have acted entirely properly. (Alas, the faculty leadership's subsequent actions -- suggesting that the OCR's inquiry chilled academic freedom -- suggests some backtracking.) And although the department chairman's response might seem like common sense, it's not difficult to imagine an opposite reaction. For instance, at my own institution, President C.M. Kimmich received a letter (subscription required) from women's history professor Bonnie Anderson denouncing the offering of courses and hiring of personnel in political and diplomatic history on the grounds that such "old-fashioned" topics were of use only for "young white males" of "narrow" intellects. Kimmich not only affirmed the interpretation, but placed the professor on the department's personnel committee, which controls future hires. It would be hard to maintain that any white male could receive fair treatment in such an environment.
   
2. The tip of the iceberg. Perhaps few professors around the country are consciously imitating Crystall's e-mail, or Anderson's remarks on political history, or the justification issued by Duke philosophy professor Robert Brandon as to why his department had no conservatives ("If, as John Stuart Mill said, stupid people are generally conservative, then there are lots of conservatives we will never hire"). But it's worth pondering about the intellectual environment that produced such transparently absurd statements. Crystal, Anderson, and Brandon not only made their claims believing that they would be persuasive, but seem to have assumed that no reasonable person could brook opposition to their positions. Scholars of racial or gender bias speak of the "mirror effect," in which people like to hire those who resemble them. Certainly this approach holds for ideological bias as well: how could someone such as Brandon, for instance, ever evaluate applicants for a position in his department with a search for merit as his prime criterion?
   
3. The UNC curriculum. When this story first broke, I had assumed that the course in question was some sort of personal counseling offering, since I found it hard to imagine a normal academic setting in which Professor Crystall's question would be appropriate for class discussion. It turns out, however, that the course was an English class called "Literature of Cultural Diversity," whose bulletin description states that it provides "studies in African American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, Native-American, Anglo-Indian, Caribbean, Gay-Lesbian, and other literatures" (the bulletin does not clarify what constitutes "other literatures"). This course fulfills UNC's "cultural diversity" requirement, which "explores diverse cultural values and viewpoints within the U.S.," with a goal of exposing "students to the many facets of a diverse society and to allow self-understanding in the contemporary and pluralistic world."
   It's hard to contend that this requirement isn't essentially a political one, and UNC's interpretation of it raises serious questions about the university's academic values. For instance, what sort of intellectual justification would maintain that a course in, say, "Women of Byzantium" fulfills the stated description of this requirement, but a course in, say, postwar U.S. legal history would not? Yet "Women of Byzantium" is a course offered in the Women's Studies program, and therefore seems to be ipso facto acceptable for a "cultural diversity" offering.

Perhaps the university would have less negative publicity in the future if it confined itself to offering courses in academic subjects.

NAS8:19 PM

Education for What? or, Why Was Sirrah So Smart?
John Staddon, Duke University

On 22 February 1818, Blackwood's Magazine published a letter from the "Shepherd Poet" James Hogg recounting an extraordinary feat of animal intelligence. Hogg wrote:

I was a shepherd for ten years on the same farm, where I had ... about 700 lambs put under my charge ... at weaning-time. As they were of the ... black-faced breed, the breaking of them was a very ticklish and difficult task. I was obliged to watch them night and day for the first four days, during which I had always a person to assist me. It happened one year, that just about midnight the lambs broke and came up the moor upon us, making a noise with their running louder than thunder. We got up and waved our plaids, and shouted, in hopes to turn them, but we only made matters worse ... and by our exertions we cut them into three divisions.

I called out [to my dog] "Sirrah, my man, they're away" ... but owing to the darkness of the night, and the blackness of the moor, I never saw him at all .... I ran here and there, not knowing what to do, but always at intervals, gave a loud whistle to Sirrah, to let him know that I was depending on him .... We both concluded, that whatever way the lambs ran at first, they would finally land at the fold where they left their mothers, and ... we bent our course towards that; but when we came there, we found nothing of them.

My companion then bent his course towards the farm ... and I ran away westward for several miles, along the wild track where the lambs had grazed while following their dams. We met after it was day ... but neither of us had been able to discover our lambs, nor any traces of them ... We had nothing for it but to return to our master, and inform him that we had lost his whole flock of lambs.

On our way home, however, we discovered a body of lambs at the bottom of a deep ravine ... and the indefatigable Sirrah standing in front of them, looking all around for some relief, but still standing true to his charge .... When we first came in view of them, we concluded that it was one of the divisions of the lambs .... But what was our astonishment, when we discovered that not one lamb of the whole flock was wanting! How had he got all the divisions collected in the dark is beyond my comprehension. The charge was left entirely to himself from midnight until the rising of the sun; and if all the shepherds in the Forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have effected it with greater propriety.

There are two methods to train a dog. The quickest and least dependent on individual aptitude is clicker training. A clicker is sounded every time the dog gets a little "treat." He will associate the clicker with reward and pretty soon the sound of the clicker itself works as a reward -- just so long as the clicker-treat pairing is occasionally maintained. If he can't give a treat, the owner can now sound the clicker whenever the animal does whatever is required of him -- sit, stay, beg, or whatever. If, as is usually the case, the beast fails to show the correct behavior full-blown on his own, he can be rewarded for approximations, until the desired behavior does come about and can be rewarded.

This method of training is called "shaping by successive approximations." It is the method used by circus trainers -- you may have noticed the little bit of fish slipped to the dolphin after he does his trick, the treat given at the dog show after Fifi performs for the judges. It is effective and reliable, especially if what is to be taught is well-defined and predictable.

There is a second method to train a dog. It relies much more on the animal's instincts and on his relationship to his owner. Dog trainers often say "the dog wants to please his owner," and there is some truth to it. More importantly the dog is social creature. The owner, if he behaves properly will become the "alpha male" (or female: dogs are not sexist). "Positive reinforcement" is still involved, but now the reinforcement is primarily social. Moreover, the dog will behave in a different and usually more interesting way if he perceives his owner as a fellow creature rather than simply a source of food. This is the approach used by shepherds to train their dogs -- animals that already "know" what sheep are and instinctively herd them on first sight. The sheepdog loves to work the sheep and asks only to be told what to do. Hogg's wonderful dog Sirrah learned in this way and showed his versatility when circumstances demanded it.

But since the early 1950s, it is the first approach rather than the second that has formed the "scientific" basis for education. It is the approach to teaching advocated most forcefully, and with the most elegant methods, by psychologist B. F. Skinner. It is the origin of "time-outs" as punishment (in lieu of swifter and more forceful methods), of programmed instruction, and of positive reinforcement as the major engine for behavioral change. It is also the basis for regarding teaching as training in a "skill," like a trick to be taught to an animal. It treats students as if they were dogs, and pretty dim ones at that -- pit bulls rather than border collies.

The alternative is beautifully described in Richard Dawkins's moving account of "Sanderson of Oundle" -- Oundle, a British "public" school famous for its output of talent, and Sanderson, its headmaster early in the twentieth century.

Sanderson's hatred of any locked door which might stand between a boy and some worthwhile enthusiasm symbolised his whole attitude to education. A certain boy was so keen on a project he was working on that he used to steal out of the dormitory at 2:00 am to read in the (unlocked, of course) library. The Headmaster caught him there, and roared his terrible wrath for this breach of discipline (he had a famous temper and one of his maxims was, "Never punish except in anger") ... [The] boy himself tells the story.

"The thunderstorm passed. 'And what are you reading, my boy, at this hour?' I told him of the work that had taken possession of me, work for which the daytime was all too full. Yes, yes, he understood that. He looked over the notes I had been taking and they set his mind going. He sat down beside me to read them. They dealt with the development of metallurgical processes, and he began to talk to me of discovery and the values of discovery, the incessant reaching out of men towards knowledge and power, the significance of this desire to know and make and what we in the school were doing in that process. We talked, he talked for nearly an hour in that still nocturnal room. It was one of the greatest, most formative hours in my life ... 'Go back to bed, my boy. We must find some time for you in the day for this'."

Dawkins adds "That story brings me close to tears."

Undergraduates are at least as smart as border collies and British public schoolboys. Our social relationship to them is at least as important as Hogg's to Sirrah and Sanderson to his late-night pupil. Yet the whole system, even in our best universities, has moved away from this deep truth. "Centers for Teaching and Learning" have been set up, staffed by educational "experts" -- as if the whole university were not itself a "center for teaching and learning" and as if there existed a settled body of science that has much to say about the relation between teacher and pupil at an institution of higher learning. The methods of the circus trainer are advocated if not imposed. "Teaching evaluation," by students of professors (rather than the other way around) is almost universal and usually mandatory -- even though it puts the teacher in the role of student: a gamma rather than an alpha male. Technological innovation, assumed always to be an improvement, is encouraged, although it often distances teacher from taught.

To say exactly what should be done would take me beyond the limits of this article, and is indeed not altogether easy to define. But what is certain is that it is time to look again at just what we mean by teaching and what we hope to achieve in the education of undergraduates.

NAS5:20 PM