How bad must things be in academia right now if plans to conduct a survey of students on their knowledge of, and thoughts on, the First Amendment right to free speech causes a chancellor to quit his job?
That is the scenario playing out at UW-Whitewater right now as their interim Chancellor Jim Henderson walked off the job Monday, after learning that the UW System is going to send out email invites to students to take part in an on-line survey about freedom of expression on campuses across the state. Not only did Henderson feel he could no longer do his job, but he made sure everyone knows that he feels he can’t even recommend or help recruit anyone to fill the position full-time anymore.
On his way out the door, Henderson told the press that “all of the chancellors” oppose the survey, and that the System is just kowtowing to Republicans in the Legislature who think it will expose suppression of conservative viewpoints on campuses–which he then assures everyone is NOT happening at UW-Whitewater. So that begs the question, why should those running the UW schools fear the results of a survey? If everyone (including faculty and invited guests) are allowed to speak their minds in the classroom and in the quad and during student group presentations at the Union, that will be borne out in the poll.
I can actually provide the UW with the results of the poll without out even sending out the emails or tabulating the on-line responses: 10% will say that free speech rights apply to everything that they want to hear and everything else is hate speech that has no place anywhere on the planet, 10% will say that they don’t even open their mouths during discussions in class because they don’t want to be “canceled”, and 80% will say “Dude, I’m just here to get a degree and party”.
But it is those 10-percents on the outside edges of the campus community that scare the hell out of collegiate administrators. The 10% calling for strict controls on expression are all of the new “protected classes” that continue to sub-divide into smaller and smaller classes demanding special recognition, and that have the ears of sympathetic journalists ready to tell the story of their “struggles to deal with the unwelcoming atmosphere and inherent biases of higher education”. And the 10% that will claim “cancellation” have the sympathetic ears of the majority party in this state, which also controls the purse strings for the System.
If anyone should be sweating the results of this survey, it should be professors that teach classes dealing with the Constitution. If the kids show a complete lack of knowledge of their most-basic of individual rights, that isn’t going to reflect well on those that are supposed to be teaching them. But even that is greatly complicated by today’s campus environments. Some students come to college today with their pre-conceived notions of what is “their truth”–and information presented to them that challenges those beliefs is labeled “violence”–yes “violence”.
And so it becomes much easier to placate the few who demand controls and limits on expression–while denying that you are actually doing it. You are far more likely to get a pat on the back from your peers in academia (and a multi-page feature in the Sunday New York Times)–while you all shake your fists at the lawmakers “interfering” with education today. Plus, a Republican representative from Tomahawk is far less likely to gather a big group together and protest day and night outside of your residence and office demanding your immediate firing. The other “monsters” you have created–they just happen to live next door.
