Duke has a serious problem. Some professors deem it acceptable to force their ideology upon students. When you combine the 18-1 ratio of Democratic to Republican professors in the major liberal arts departments with an occasionally voiced idea that conservative ideas are full of hypocrisy, you have a drastic educational bias. Something needs to be done.
That's where Students for Academic Freedom comes in. The project designed to combat the problem is called the Academic Freedom Pledge.
The pledge endorses the time- honored values of the noble profession of teaching. As the American Association of University Professors warned back in 1915, professors must avoid "taking unfair advantage of the student's immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher's own opinions before the student has had an opportunity fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question." We will distribute this pledge to the liberal arts faculty members and ask them to sign.
The actual text of the pledge reiterates this reasonable warning:
I will support intellectual tolerance and diversity in my classroom and welcome a plurality of views.
My own personal political and philosophical beliefs will not bias the grading or treatment of my students.
I will conduct my class for the purpose of educating students in the area of my professional expertise and will not use my classroom to advance political or social agendas.
I will act to ensure that students with dissenting viewpoints are respected in my classroom.
In circulating the pledge, we hope to foster the ideals of diversity and tolerance so essential to a university education. We are trying to ensure that Duke offers students a rich marketplace of ideas in which to learn. The university, especially one as full of talented students and professors as Duke, should be a realm where scholars from all walks of life can assemble to express their values. The results of who signs the pledge will be made available to students so they can select courses where they know professors will respect their academic freedoms.
The unfortunate reality is that many students are uncomfortable expressing dissenting political views in their classes and restrain their real opinions to avoid lower grades. In fact, I am not ashamed to admit that, in one class, I conveyed ideas that directly contradicted my own in order to earn a satisfactory grade. I, therefore, support this pledge because I do not want to be derided for my views in future classes. I want to be able to trust my professors to seriously consider my views even if they disagree with their beliefs.
Indeed, many respected professions require ethical practices in their fields. For instance, doctors take the Hippocratic Oath, vowing to uphold moral practice in medicine. Why should professors be excluded from signing an ethical pledge? After all, they operate on the most important organ; they shape the mind. Their ethical nature is critical in the development of a student's intellectual health.
Professors are already prohibited from engaging in racist or sexist speech. Aren't your views a better indicator of who you are than the color of your skin? Shouldn't they too be protected against judgment? The goal is for all of us to be treated fairly in the classroom, plain and simple.
Some have compared the Academic Freedom Pledge to a totalitarian tool designed to police the classrooms. Call me biased, but I was born in a country, the Soviet Union, where there was an actual thought police. In fact, my father was once stopped and questioned in a back alley about the somehow treacherous deed of speaking with an American tourist. This is what I would call thought police; a system repressing the slightest exposure to the outside world. The pledge fights against just this type of suppression. It will certify that your viewpoints are respected in the classroom.
The Academic Freedom Pledge is designed to foster respect and intellectual pluralism necessary for a genuine education. It also offers those professors who truly believe in honest dissent an opportunity to make their voices heard. Classroom discourse in our university would benefit immensely if students knew that professors would not ostracize them for their views. This pledge will allow students to avoid professors who will. For in the words of Adlai Stevenson, "A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular."
Serge Reshetnikov is a Pratt sophomore and a member of Students for Academic Freedom.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.