Centerfield

It depends on the specifics. If they're just denouncing leftist professors, I don't see much point in it. But if they are exposing leftist professors who seek to impose their worldview on their students and who grade students based on their politics, then what they are doing is appropriate and worthwhile. Students have academic freedom of thought, too. And the university certainly should not try to shield its taxpayer-funded professors from criticism on the backs of a no-taping policy. Imagine any other publicly-paid employee speaking in front of an audience of taxpayers. When Justice Scalia and other supreme court justices try to enforce no-taping rules after the tape has already been made, everybody screams about it. Using the tapes allows the critics to show the professor's actual behavior, without claims of bias on the part of the students complaining.

"But if they are exposing leftist professors who seek to impose their worldview on their students and who grade students based on their politics, then what they are doing is appropriate and worthwhile"

Not to nitpick, but has there even been any reliable evidence of this? Has there ever been any evidence of politically-motivated grading, or open persecution of conservative views?

...if this is such a problem, why do they need to PAY students to get anything? I guess the guys who didn't pay didn't turn up much beyond normal student griping (my prof gave me a C! Must be because she's one of those damned liberals. I bet she even listens to NPR!).

Glad to see conservatives encourage that good old American values of ratting on people for trivial offenses.

I don't suppose stats will be available on just curious what percentage are faked by students selecting, mixing and matching quotes with software like the media do.

Jon, they might need to pay to encourage students to take the risk of telling the truth about faculty members they may have again in the future.

Rafique, go to most any of the blogs talking about this and you'll find at least a few first-hand accounts of discrimination by faculty against students on account of their political views. Ann Althouse's comment section has several first-hand anecdotes on both sides.

Again, it's one thing to just "out" a faculty member based on their political affiliation. It's entirely another to refuse to engage in critical thinking about controversial matters, to insist that students take part in political activities or write from a particular political point of view in order to get a good grade.

Why are the faculty so upset, anyway? If it's not true, they can point to the tapes and show it. And if it is true, they should stand by their politics proudly.

Finally, as consumers, shouldn't students be allowed to have more information about the product they are buying before deciding to take a particular professor?

Pat,

I'm sure that there are examples of legitimate grievances in this area, but the whole thing just smacks of duplicity. Who decides what views are radical? This group clearly has their own agenda. If this were a nonpartisan group (notice I said nonpartisan, as opposed to bipartisan), then I might not be so skeptical.

Ultimately, the user of the information decides what constitutes radical. And again, my issue is not that some professor has radical views, it's that they abuse their position of authority to impose their radical views on their students. Equally bad is if they waste a bunch of class time ranting and raving about their political views.

On a broader point, I don't think it's wrong for partisans, people with a strong opinion on a subject or an ideology, to publicize information with their slant on it. I want to know that slant, so I can take it into account in evaluating the validity of the information they provide. But if we wait for only those with no visible biases to post reviews and evaluations, I suspect we'll be waiting a long time.

Exactly what harm do you think this is causing? What makes it unethical?

Myabe I'm overreacting. It just seems to me like they're paying students to rat out suspected "radicals." Again, if politics isn't the issue, there really needs to be some real evidence of abuse. I'll take your advice, though. I'll search the blogosphere, and hear all sides on this.

No, Rafique, I agree with you. Radicalism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. What's mainstream to one person is far leftism to another. I know of few things more chilling to free speech than a professor afraid to talk because s/he might be reported by a student looking for next weekend's beer money.

One word that would neutralize the leftist professor chase - TENURE. Unless a student is physically threatened, if a prfessor has power, it is highly doubtful that any punitive action - public exposure included - would have much of an effect. Look at Ward Churchill for example.

So Jean, the tax-paid, tenured faculty have a right to politically indoctrinate their students, but the tuition-paying students have no free speech right to cal lthem on it? Would you feel the same if the faculty members were being listed for telling the students they were going to hell becaues they did not accept Christ?

Jones said he would only accept recordings from students whose professors consented in writing to have their lectures taped.

That seems to cover most of the "unethical" and "illegal" angles.

Jones' site describes his campaign as "dedicated to exposing UCLA's most radical professors" and his list of the university's "worst of the worst" singles out only professors he says hold left-wing views.

Having briefly attended UCLA, it was my experience that Jones would have real difficulty finding professors with "radical" right-wing views on campus, much less ones who espoused them in class, or attempted to browbeat students with them. In many departments not being hard left would be a disqualification for tenure during review. Not an overt one, but a serious unspoken blackball factor. So even a simple registered Republican of "mainstream right" views is an endangered species in those ranks. Last survey I saw found less than a dozen registered Republicans on the entire UCLA faculty, almost all in the business areas, and that's a BIG faculty roll.

The "Dirty Thirty" list referenced in the article is here. Though it's actually only 28.

I think it's a pretty mindless response, though. Far better would be an anonymous student-review process. A few universities use this already. The students get to rank the professors on several factors and provide bried commentary, and the (cumulative) results are available to other students.

Interesting in light of a recent experience of my son, a junior at ASU. He's majoring in Economics with a minor in Poly Sci. Just started a Poly Sci class. Professor used an interesting tool (insisting he be addressed in exceedingly deferential terms) as a prolonged introduction to issues related to power and influence. My son found it a useful way to grab students attention at the beginning of a semester...And then it started to change. In expounding on the historical abuse of power he rapidly moved from Adolf Hitler in the '30's to...(wait for it)...George Bush in the 21st century.

My son's reaction: what else is new. I think that's one of the ironies in this. Students assume their college professors are leftists and in that assumption the tune out important points. ("Baby with the bathwater" etc.)

In my son's case the college experience has made him more conservative. (Another "South Park conservative")

As for things "more chilling" to free speech than a timid professor afraid to speak because of what a few former students say about him, how about a student afraid to participate and speak his own mind in class because the professor is a radical idealogue and the 3 friends the student had who took the course (and who did not share the professor's ideology) all got bad grades, while the students willing to write in favor of the professor's bias all got good grades?

Yeah, teachers grading on ideology is bad, and no doubt it happens in 1-2% of classrooms. But the proposed cure strikes me ethically as way worse than the disease.

Saw an interesting reaction in a professors' blog - he thought that $200 for an entire semester of taping was pretty drastic underpayment, and suggested that the students doing this might want to form a union.

Personally, if I were a UCLA student, I'd be deeply tempted to to submit some bogus tapes. All kinds of fun to be had here....

Saw an interesting reaction in a professors' blog - he thought that $200 for an entire semester of taping was pretty drastic underpayment, and suggested that the students doing this might want to form a union.

Aha!! I think we've identified one of the radical liberal professors!!

I'm still trying to figure out why some people consider this "unethical". What principle of ethics does it violate?

None that I can think of, IF the professor has agreed to let their lectures be taped for other than personal course use by the student. Devil, meet details. Oh, you're old friends already?

The actual "unethical" and "McCarthyite" web site is here. Far from being a simple list claiming that some bunch of professors are "radicals", each listing is accompanied by a lengthy profile of the professor, with copious references to the professor's own written and spoken words. These are not just postings from random students going "yo, thiz dud3 sux".

As for the tape recordings, here's what the site says:

"We are paying for top-quality class notes, lecture recordings and other materials because volunteer labor and internet anecdotes do not provide solid proof of abusive professor behavior."

and

"The Bruin Alumni Association will not render payment for copyrighted materials in any form. All participating students are required to sign a contractual agreement for full delivery of class materials, and must also sign an honesty clause declaring that their written notes are accurate and clearly delineate paraphrases from direct quotes. The Bruin Alumni Association will not purchase any lecture recordings that were obtained without consent of the recorded professor."

I'm still trying to figure out why some people consider this "unethical". What principle of ethics does it violate?

If any ethical considerations have been violated I would say it limits the free markets of ideas. Not to say that when Ward Churchill becomes a national figure that there aren't problems in higher education, but I am very uncomfortable with what this guy is trying to do. Taken to it's logical extreme (which I doubt it ever will be) it does smack of McCarthyism to me. There are a lot better ways of dealing with the pendulum has swung to far problem. Gravity, or in this case the free market of ideas, will take care of the problem when it becomes too bad if the free market is allowed to work. I think that tenure is possibly at the root of the problem. When the proffesors aren't accountable to the market there are imbalances.

It seems like suppression of ideas to me rather than a mechinism of the market.

How does criticizing someone else's speech equate to suppression of it? How does the "free market" process work if the consumer is not allowed to hear reviews and criticisms of the product they are consuming from other private citizens?

Remember, most of these professors being reviewed are GOVERNMENT employees, with lifetime tenure in their positions. The site in question does not call for them to be fired, just presents information from THEIR OWN writings and speeches. I cannot imagine anything less restrictive of free speech than directing the viewer to a person's OWN WORDS.

I don't have any problem with making information about course material public. Seems like a good idea. But on the surface at least, the site doesn't really tell us what to expect from their course material, but rather is a political rant against the various proffesors. It's what I would expect from one of the cable talk shows. It is mostly opinion based on an anti-leftist/activist bias. The intent looks more like suppression through personal attack than just letting students know what they can expect from the course material.

I can't argue that the site shouldn't be there. The intent is even OK by me (a wing-nut rightist). I don't want a generation indoctrinated by crazy left-wing socialist ideaology. After reading some of the descriptions of these folks it makes me wonder even more what is wrong with the educational system in America today.

Free speech is a tough issue. I remain emotionally uncomfortable with the idea that the best way to handle the problem is by attacking the personal politics of the professors.

I agree that the reviews of the professors I skimmed seemed light on biases and indoctrination in class. Maybe not very many people have taken them up on the $100 offer yet, so they don't have a lot of material to work with.

But it does seem to be to be fairly fact-filled. He's not listing faculty who told a Bush joke in class one day. He's pretty meticulously gone through their records and shown what the faculty members themselves have said. If the professors listed are in fact what most all of us would consider very "lefty", I wouldn't call it bias that causes them to be put up there. Bias would be if he listed somebody as a far lefty when he or she was merely a Democrat.

For me it goes to the intent of the site. I don't want to assign motives that aren't there, but it is easy enough to interpret the intent as holding the proffesors up for public ridicule because of their beliefs. To me this is wrong in the sense that our institutions of higher learning should have various points of view available without fear of ridicule if those points of view are not mainstream.

Another motive, the inferred one, is that the ideologies at UCLA have become too one sided. In that case I think there are better ways to go about correcting that. Once you have tenure in place you can expect to have these kind of problems. You may be able to force the proffesors to go to ground, but you aren't going to change the structure.

The stated motive is to apprise student of what they can expect from certain proffesor's classes. I have no arguement with that.

To me the site does show a certain bias in the way it describes the activism of the proffesors on the list. My interpretation of its intent is that it seeks to paint them as bad because of their political views. Note that there are short descriptions of classes as "excellent: good teaching to match strong material" followed by long rants about the proffesor's left wing ideaology. I would be more convinced if there were a few rightys denounced. It smells of agenda rather than a call to the balance of ideas to me.

I would be more convinced if there were a few rightys denounced...

First you have to find them! As I noted, at UCLA that's not easy. Righties at UCLA have already "gone to ground," and are unlikely to offend. An endangered species.

Bainbridge weighs in.

I'd guess the towers of higher learning lean left across the nation. Idealism (and worse in this case, IMO) untempered by realism is too easy to maintain in an environment isolated from the real world. Mix in the '60's generation coming into the tenured proffesorships, the fact that UCLA is in LaLaLand, and I understand how it could be hard to find conservatives, let alone ones expounding their views publicly.

Bainbridge points to hiring policies, and that might be part of the problem (he doesn't say how you can correct that problem), but I point at tenure as the problem. In the real world if you don't meet the demands of the marketplace for lengthy periods you perish. The same should be in effect for the marketplace for ideas. Tenure throws the swing of the pendulum out of kilter.

You correct the problem by shedding light on it and applying political pressure to the faculty and the administrators who hire them.

I don't want to get rid of tenure at all, and I don't think radical opinions such as those held by the faculty listed on the site should exclude anyone from the tenure process (although some of them seem to exhibit very little intellectual ability in some areas). Academic freedom protected by tenure is a good thing, even when it protects very unpopular opinions. As Prof. Bainbridge has noted, however, the same "open-minded" liberals who are reacting so strongly to this list generally have no problem refusing tenure and excluding from debate any faculty member (or prospective member) who openly exhibits more conservative views.

My interpretation of the site is that it attempts to paint the professors as holding radical views because they do in fact hold radical views. I admire the reaction of one of the professors listed, who e-mailed that he felt slighted; he thought he deserved 5 fists, not the 2 he had been given.

Just curious about what the reaction would be if a liberal organization was into outing "right wing facist ideologues"?

You know, the shoe on teh other foot thing.
Think there'd be outrage on the right?

duh.......

Well, Marcus, I'm sure the right-wingnuts would be complaining. just as you would be complaining just as much as the left-wingnuts are complaining about this one.

Now, how would you feel if there were a list of professors who talked about their religious beliefs in class? And suggested that anynone who didn't share their beliefs was just a pitiable fool? Would you be for such a site, or against it?

Just curious about what the reaction would be if a liberal organization was into outing "right wing facist ideologues"?

You mean MoveOn.org? We called it the 2004 election. Oh, you mean on campus! Which makes it an entirely hypothetical question... :-)

Just having a chance to catch up...

I work as an adjunct professor and, as such, have been witness to the debate that has raged amongst other faculty in regards to this specific occurence. We have an online "Faculty Lounge" which is basically a free for all newsgroup.

Not suprisingly, an overwhelming number of faculty are outraged that an organization would attempt to "censor" them. What proved very interesting to me as I watched different professors weigh in is that immediately after many railed against "censorship", the proceeded to castigate the viewpoints that they perceived as being held by the group behind the project as "the depths of ignorance." One professor mentioned a student's attempt to use the Bible as a source in one of her papers, calling her"utterly ignorant" and referring to the Bible as "a work of fiction."

I guess that's what amuses me the most about this whole thing...setting this specific occurence aside and the discussion of whether it is right or wrong...

Look at the reaction from those on the far left. Many have expressed absolutely outrage at fears of being "censored" (and I understand that), but at the same time, they are proceeding to totally trash the views of the other side, going so far as (in the specific case of the professor and the Bible) to forbid a student from sharing their religious views in a paper on morality.

Can't both sides at least acknowledge the other side's right to their own beliefs? Isn't knowledge best attained by open and honest debate? How can you possibly have open debate when you do not respect the other side enough to even allow them to share their point of view?

That's my two cents...

Hear! Hear!

What Abel said.

If you have a professor who is rabid ideologue, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. It makes ingratiating yourself and sucking up so much easier by providing an obvious route. Play the role and have a little fun with it. Remember the guy who ran the ferry in The Outlaw Josie Wales? He could wistle the Battle Hymn of the Republic just as well as Dixie.

Abel,

I would be very interested in your thoughts regarding tenure in relation to the censorship/ideology matter.

From too many years at university, I'd say that it's a slow process of evolutionary change. Almost generational. And we're the MTV generation...well, at least I am. (Or is that the very first SNL generation?)

gee Pat, I guess a tool of political initmidation is ok in academia?

Look, I had as one of my physics professors at Cal, Charlie Schwarz, who was unabashadly liberal and was constantly protesting UC's role in teh weapons labs. did it ever come across in his class? Only once.
He walked into the full lecture hall and proceded to write the words "Not Guilty" on the chalkboard. Everyone applauded with much whoop and holler.
Charlie ahd been involved at a protest at the Livermore Lab site.

Gosh I hope it didn't traumatize some poor righty for life.

I also had a couple of econ teachers who both before the class noted their political leanings.
The class was Political economy of natural resources.
They said it was important for the students to know their bias because economics is very much a politcal animal as much as it is a discipline. No one voiced any problem, there were other classes available for those who might have been inclined to go a more traditional route.

Fiat Lux.

So Marcus, in your mind criticism = political intimidation?

Gee.... I always thought "political intimidation" was doing things like threateing peoples families with bodily harm....or sending the IRS after people with bogus tax audits..... and I thought "censorship" was restricting some-ones ability to make thier views heard.....not PUBLICIZING some-ones views and providing your own criticism of them..... silly me, I thought that sort of thing was called "Freedom of Expression" and "The Unfettered Exchange of Ideas".... guess I need to work on my vocabulary skills.

A few things to notice:

1)whether or not this effort is technically Ok may depend on what the rules of the university are. Presumedly they'd be within their rights to frame the content of the lecture in a variety of ways. I expect that there's substantial disagreement about what exactly the "product" of a university is. Is it the lectures, or the grades, or the certifed educated students, or the degrees issued, And to what extent is a student the same thing as a customer? Does it depend on who is paying for the education? Might the parent or the state be viewed as the customer? What about if you are on scholarship?

2) it's not clear to me that there's any agreement as to whether or not lectures are a private or a public happening, and the category into which they fall bears greatly upon what its OK to do...

3)taping is copying, which means that copyright laws may well apply; whether the content is copyrightable and whether that would be held by the school or the professor is open to question and rules may apply in different ways depending on a variety of variables such as cointract terms, school rules, whether the school is public or private, whether it recieves federal aid, who is paying for each student's schooling....

4) such copying as has been advocated may arguably fall under fair use, which would make it allowable. However, notice that general descriptions of what fair use allows are vague. By themselves, they may provide what seems like a reasonable rationale for the copying, but the actual precedents can be found to allow far less than the vague descriptions can be argued to allow. (and Yes Pat, this is an idea I expect you to call to my attention as something I've noticed, at some future point)

5) at least in theory, I support the notion that a professor should be willing to stand behind his or her views and/or statements. After all, if you are a professor, then you are professing./i> If a professor can't be held accountable for what he professes, then who can?

6) In practice, there's little doubt that the elements of a witch hunt may apply, and that's the main reason for professors balking at this. There's little doubt that such policies may intimidate professors from speaking extemporaneously, and that may well be a bad thing for education. It's also extraordinarily likely that some professors will get crucified for the decontextualized content of some brief profession that sounds very objectionable without the proper context. Still, if you want to profess, it's hard to argue that scrutiny over what you profess shouldn't come with the territory. Personally, I'd like to see professors continue to enjoy substantial freedom. But if something comes along that has a chilling effect on professors talking out their @sses while acting in their official capacity, that might not be the worst thing in the world.

7) So there seem to be valid reasons for advocating the policy, and also valid reasons to be worried that it might be troublesome. My expectation is that it won't have that much traction beyond the transient PR value of fostering this current debate. I expect that it will provide more reason to professors to pay heed to the question of who owns the content of their lectures, and to maintain that they themsleves own it, and that it can't be copied w/o permission.

As for the copyright issue, I am a strong proponent for a broad interpretation of the fair use doctrinue. Criticism of the expressed viewpoints is one of the fundamental purposes of fair use; copyright is not to be used as a shield to protect oneself from criticism. And unless the professors themselves sell tape recordings of their lessons, I doubt that this use of the recordings would have any noticable impact on the market for their lectures, a key element of winning any copyright claim. I would also note, as I did before, that the disclaimer on the site says BAA will only use recordings of classes which the professors have consented to be recorded. The site is not posting these recordings, just using them to back up claims made against particular faculty members.

There's little doubt that such policies may intimidate professors from speaking extemporaneously.

One would hope that the fact that people are paying attention to them would also make them think a little bit before spouting off idiotic, unsupported drivel masked as deep intellectualism. If they, with their tenured-protected jobs, intimidate that easy, then they must not be able to support what they are saying very well.

I would be very interested in your thoughts regarding tenure in relation to the censorship/ideology matter.

My views on tenure are decidedly out of the academic mainstream--I will be the absolute first to admit that. Additionally, I'm an adjunct. Some academics have a, shall we say, less than positive view of adjuncts. I've had some criticize me for not fully devoting myself to education. Personally, I enjoy my business career as well and think that it gives me valuable experience to use in the classroom...

That aside, let me answer your question. My opinion...

Forget censorship, I'm not a big fan of tenure. For starters...off the top of my head, I can't think of any other professional field out there that affords one absolute job security (other than federal judges). Even ministers and priests are subject to the recall of their congregation or diocese. Certainly, the business world, while it may have a few people who hold honorary positions due to their prior accomplishments, would never award an entire class complete job security. It's just not healthy to guarantee someone a job for life. (FWIW...I would be in favor of limits on how long someone could serve in a "life" capacity on the judiciary without facing re-confirmation.)

A professor without tenure is someone who is challenged on a daily basis to better herself, to devote herself to her research, and to seek to truly succeed in impacting the lives that sit in front of her on a daily basis. That's the environment in which most of us work, and I don't think it would be such a bad idea in higher education either.

Of course, one of the arguments against that would be that professors without tenure would be afraid to share conflicting points of view. IMHO, that argument just doesn't fly. I look around the company that I work for...we all see the world quite differently. As long as we produce and do our jobs effectively, no one so much cares what your viewpoints are on different issues.

Okay, let the stone throwing begin...

Abel, I've got to disagree with you on that one. Yes, the business environment is pretty tolerant of divergent viewpoints (at a certain level), as long as the work is being done (i.e., money is being made). But working in an academic environment myself, with 2 parents and a step-parent having been faculty members at major universities at one or more points in their life, I can tell you the academic world ain't like that.

The biggest problem is that (in higher education) their are no milestones and measurements of quality and productivity to use in evaluating performance. And performance is such a nebulous concept in academia anyway. There is great value to society in having people who do little more than sit around and think and talk and write from time to time. Many waste that time and opportunity, but many others bring forth phenomenal gifts to the world as a result. But there is no way to separate the former from the latter up front.

Because there is not a universally defined bottom line (profit), performance and advancement become largely based on personalities and reputations. While there are some objective measures, course load and quantity of published writings (the latter does weigh heavily in tenure decisions), a whole lot of what goes in to employment decisions (hiring, raises, tenure, discipline, etc.) are entirely subjective. Which increases the pressure to conform to group-think... UNTIL one gets tenure.

As much as academia has gone to the liberals right now, tenure is protecting conservative academics the most right now, because they are in the minority. They may have to "cover" for a few years until getting tenure, but then they can say what they want, without fear of real reprisal (getting fired, having their pay cut, etc.).

Now, if we start talking tenure in elementary and high school, I absolutely agree with your points.

I want to know if kids can get the $100 for recording a chemistry or calculus class. Those professors would probably be the most likely to give permission to do so because they discuss apolitical topics, which would also make the recordings of the least use to the alumni group paying for them. This whole thing is ridiculous regardless of whether or not you have a problem with it.

Pat, you make some pretty good points for tenure. I come from a small business background so the concept seems to lack the "responsibleness" so inherent in my daily world. I dislike the concept of tenure. It is foreign to my worldview. But I can see a logical reason for it after thinking about what you said. Cogitating....

WHQ, taken for what it is, I agree it is pretty petty, but the reason it interested me is I see it as a small example of what a centrist faces. One side (politicians or professors) can forget about trying to steer to the center because it holds no value for them to do so. The other side abandons trying to persuade, feeling it would be useless to do so. Hence the insults and smears hurled at each other across the ever widening chasm.

Rafique,
With due respect, you forego your right to ask "[h]as there ever been any evidence of politically-motivated grading, or open persecution of conservative views" when you start a thread attacking a group which aims to collate precisely such evidence. Surely you see the glaring contradiction here?

PatHMV,
To respond to your very first post, folks may be more apt to scream about disclosure of Scalia's tapes about his discussions of Judicial rulings, because he is a Supreme Court Justice and his thoughts have an effect on each and every person in this country just about. Leftist professors nowhere near have that much power. Moreover, professors, unlike Scalia, did not choose a job that commands such public interest. Scalia chose to serve as Justice and make Judicial pronouncements that affect every American's life, that Americans might be interested should come as a price that comes with the job. Professors do not make policies that affect the entire nation.

Second, what is up with this argument that 'how dare anyone criticize any conservative for doing something that a liberal has ever done.' This argument seems incredibly weak. If Clinton, for example, lied under oath, then he rightly deserves criticism at the very least. If Bush illegally wiretaps American citizens perhaps he should also be criticized. To argue the relative justifications of either of these two legal violations is one thing, to suggest that the one cancels out the other is absurd.

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