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An alert reader sent me a link to the “Intellectual Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity” poll to which public college and university employees in Florida are being subjected. As a trained social scientist and political theorist, as well as an experienced college administrator, I can attest that it’s one of the silliest official documents I have ever seen.
It stumbles right out of the gate with the second question, in which the respondent is supposed to agree or disagree with the following statement that I am neither making up nor altering in any way:
“I see examples of free and welcomed expression (such as speeches, debates with other students or instructors, class assignments, etc.) on my campus regularly.”
Yes, I see examples of class assignments on my campus regularly. What that has to do with assessing a political climate is a mystery.
It gets worse. Question 9, which one only answers conditionally, outlines the ideological range contemplated by the survey. According to the survey, there are exactly three ideologies: conservative, liberal and “other.”
Give me strength …
What if you consider yourself a centrist? A libertarian? A socialist? (Many leftists consider “liberal” an epithet.) An anarchist? A monarchist? Apparently, the government of Florida considers liberals a suspect class but can’t distinguish between libertarians and socialists. If you can’t tell the difference between Peter Thiel and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I see no reason to defer to your political judgment.
Endearingly, it assumes a level of ideological self-awareness in question 12. Professors are supposed to agree or disagree with the statement “I rarely inject my own political ideas and beliefs into my classes.”
Sigh …
Almost nobody believes that they’re “injecting” their own political beliefs into classes. That’s not how any of this works. Political perspectives show up in what gets defined as worthy of attention, in what counts as evidence and in which sources are considered reliable. They help sort out what to take seriously. For example, many conservatives believe that liberal-leaning academics are a problem, but conservative-leaning police are not. Many liberals would flip that around. Conservatives often argue that the issue with immigration is that there’s too much of it, and traditional culture is under threat. Liberals often argue that the issue with immigration is that many immigrants are mistreated. (For that matter, libertarians often deny the premise and call for open borders.) They define the problem differently; from that, it naturally follows that they land on different proposed solutions. That’s not “injecting” bias; it’s what happens when deeply held worldviews tackle thorny issues.
Of course, in the overwhelming majority of classes, the only correct answer would be “not applicable.” When I took calculus, I couldn’t have told you what my professor’s politics were. It never came up. Nor were we exposed to different ways of looking at it; each problem had a correct solution, and that was that. Does that make calculus dogmatic? Other than Paul Feyerabend, I’d be hard-pressed to name anyone who would say yes. But in this survey, that would be the inference.
For that matter, the idea that someone might want to read the room before putting their politics on blast seems less like censorship than like good manners. Saying “vote for Smith” is free speech; blasting “vote for Smith!” from the street into my bedroom at 100 decibels at 3:00 in the morning is harassment. Playing the trumpet is perfectly legal, but I’m within my rights to throw a student out of my poli sci class if they won’t stop playing it during class. That’s not censorship; it’s fostering a decent learning environment. Teaching students to think about the impact of their words on other people goes all the way back to the trivium (or even the sophists). It’s only oppression if, at some level, you just don’t see other people as important.
The survey doesn’t get at its intended purpose, and its intended purpose is in obvious bad faith. It’s poorly written, shallow and clearly designed to provide fodder for sensational headlines and subsequent budget cuts. Upon reading it, I suddenly understood why Florida wants to shop accreditors; no accreditor worth its salt could tolerate a mandate like this. No, Florida, there are not only three ways of looking at the world, and I would question the professional competence of anybody who said there were.
