Academic
Questions Spring
2003, Vol. 16, No. 2, 36‑45
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE
Heinz-Joachim Klatt
For the last two years I have taught an 8-months senior undergraduate
course on Political Correctness in the Psychology Department at King’s
College of the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario: PSY
383E: Psychology and Ideology - the Study of Political
Correctness. The fact that this course became possible, in the
current atmosphere of passionate devotion to the cause of ideological
conformity and censorship, is due to a number of particular events and
personalities without which the course would never have been approved.
I would like to begin my exposé, in a few strokes, by outlining
the pregnancy stage of the course that finally resulted in its
birth. Thereafter, I will describe its infancy and speculate
about later developmental stages. My hope is that this course
which is now being taught in a psychology department will soon be
offered by many other departments in the country. It is my
further hope that in the not too distant future it will be taught only
as a history course and will then be centred on a topic that will have
been utterly defeated and relegated to the follies of the embarrassing
past.
1. Three Events that Led to
Teaching a Course on PC
Certain aspects of the events that led to the creation of the course
are bizarre and basically incomprehensible unless three earlier events
are known that set the stage.
The story begins in 1987 when I had a mentally retarded student in my
Child Psychology class. This student, according to her own
admission, since the university would not release correspondence or
test results, came from a special high school program for the
“intellectually impaired” and was admitted as a student with a
so-called learning disability. She had decanal permission to enrol in
just two courses and she chose Sociology (where she obtained a B) and
my course in Child Psychology. The Disabilities Office requested
a number of “accommodations,” i. e., privileges, for her which I was
not willing to grant unless I could be convinced that this was not
another of the innumerable cases of academic fraud committed in the
name of “helping the disabled.” Matters became complicated and
messy when the dean refused, even though the policy requires it, to
convene a committee to deal with the matter, when the instructor does
not agree to grant the desired privileges.
The student was treated and evaluated as any other; she failed the
course; she appealed her mark, and I was pressured to pass her.
Since I did not mollify but rather went public with articles in the
press, and later in a scientific journal, as well as on radio, the dean
withdrew her from class after she had spent 8 months in class and
further 5 months after the final examination.
The very public and protracted debate was strictly about policies and
issues rather than personalities; nevertheless the university was
thoroughly embarrassed by the exposure of the fact that it admits
mentally retarded students under the label of “learning disability,”
and it is a matter of debate whether the justifications that were
offered in the press by disabilities advisors, by chairman, dean,
principal, and university president reduced or increased the
embarrassment. I personally was left, at least among some
important segments of the local society, with the reputation of being
insensitive and cruel toward the “disabled.” I had committed a
politically most incorrect sin. Prof. Westhues in his book
Eliminating Professors (1998) very ably analyses the role that my
exposure of the admission of mentally retarded students to the
university played in my later battles with PC on campus.
The debate had not yet ended when the same dean in 1989 interfered in,
and thus impeded, my election to the chairmanship of the
department. The meddling was so gross and in blatant violation of
our policies that I grieved against him, not to obtain the chairmanship
but to restrain a dean who knew no bounds. The grievance involved
an ad hoc committee, faculty association, our national professorial
organization, lawyers and the bishop and resulted in a disapproval of
the dean’s actions. Grievances had never been filed against the
dean at our college and the dean after his reprimand wisely decided not
to stand for a renewal of his first-term contract. I had by now
established my reputation as a PITA (Pain in the Ass), as Prof.
Westhues calls dissenters.
In 1991, finally, the grievance procedures were still in full swing and
the faculty was very divided over the issue, when I was accused by four
women students of having sexually harassed them in my Child Psychology
class. The same letter that informed me of the charges also
contained the judgment of guilt and announced the establishment of a
tribunal that would determine the punishment which, I was told, could
be a written reprimand for the file and dismissal. That the
accusations were taken seriously is understandable, if at all, only in
light of the previous battles which were fought with the same warriors.
Every one of the following charges, before I was even informed of their
existence, was judged by the Harassment Advisors as a ”serious form of
sexual harassment”: I. I had said that the first
menstruation of a young girl, in its emotional significance, is
comparable to the first sitting up of a child and to the first day in
school.
II. I expressed my view that genital mutilation of
non-consenting victims is abhorrent.
III. I was accused of evaluating women more harshly
than men, in a class, by the way, in which there was only one single
male student, who ironically did quite badly.
IV. The most grievous transgression that I was guilty
of, however, was the fact that I had called a student, Lucrecia, by her
nickname “Lucky Lucy.” Lucrecia used the moniker herself when
signing and appreciated the fact that I occasionally used the familiar
form, and she passionately and in tears defended me during the
proceedings. It was other women students (with an average of 55%)
who claimed that they felt I had created a “negative psychological
environment” for them which prevented them from studying.
These accusations, which should not have taken more than perhaps half
an hour of administrators’ time, were taken most seriously in an
atmosphere of moral panic, zero tolerance for sexual harassment and
acrimony over the previous battles. In a process of unbelievable
lawlessness and arbitrariness I was first judged guilty, then informed
and investigated, and after another two years of highly unpleasant
procedures exonerated and compensated, if money and a year’s paid leave
of absence can be considered compensation commensurate with the
indignities suffered. Although I had signed away my rights to sue
the institution, the administrators and the mendacious students, I did
not receive an apology.
During the 2 years of rehabilitation (on March 9, 93) King’s College
received an unsolicited letter from Professor Richard Henshel from the
Sociology Department of the university who, informed through the press,
expressed how “shocked and horrified” he was about the procedures that
“lacked even the most elementary standards of fair play.” In
particular, he insisted that “sanctions must be implemented to deter
frivolous or malicious claims.” As most of you will know, this
support was the beginning of a short-lived friendship that was
terminated by Professor Henshel’s untimely death of cancer, my
administration of his estate and the underwriting of this conference by
NAS, the major beneficiary of his last will.
2. The Creation of a Course on
Political Correctness
After the dust had settled at my university and I was advised by family
and friends to be grateful for the compensation, in 1999, I decided to
take the second step to fight the malignancy. Knowing full well
the traps, barriers, cliffs and vortices that I would have to face I
judged that I had gained enough immunity, respect and savvy through my
earlier battles that I could dare it. Thus I proposed a new
course to my department: Psychology and Ideology - the Study Political
Correctness. The course proposal made it through the usual
committees with merely one irregularity, i. e., some parts of the
debate, to which I was not privy, without any precedent were held in
camera. PC was given the status of a person that could be
commented on only behind closed doors, a sign of the times!
As soon as the course was approved to be taught for the first time from
September 2000 to April 2001, I informed the National Post, one of the
three big national daily papers in Canada. The endorsement was
enthusiastic and became the first of a long series of more endorsements
in other papers and the topic of many lengthy radio interviews between
Vancouver and the BBC in London. Merely one published commentary
was negative, the one that came from the Women’s Caucus of the
University of Western Ontario. The complaint was that there was
no need for such a course since all the issues to be discussed were
already well covered in many existing courses, especially in Sociology
and Women’s Studies. When later I invited the Women’s Caucus
President and Vice-President to come to my class to present their views
the invitation was declined.
Why was the course approved since neither college nor university was
under any legal or contractual obligation? I see five facts as
allowing PC to become an academic subject matter:
1. First of all, we had a new dean and a new principal.
2. Further, the prerequisites for enrolling, against my wishes, were
determined in such a fashion that only very few students would qualify
to enrol. Limited enrolment makes the breakthrough of offering a
course on PC less dramatic and important.
3. I assume, as well, that my anticipated retirement in 2004 was taken
into account thus promising that the course would not remain on the
books after that date.
4. However, who knows, perhaps I have persuaded someone to accept the
idea that PC indeed is a worthwhile academic subject matter that
requires analysis, debate and evaluation.
5. Finally, I am personally convinced that those who voted were mindful
of the fact that however they decided there would be lots of publicity
and media attention, positive in case of approval, negative in case of
rejection. This speculation proved to be true. All the
publicity was very positive and encouraging.
One particular fact about the public debate I found especially
revealing and noteworthy. Over and over, the university was told,
even lectured about, by editorialists, journalists, students and other
citizens in the letter sections what the importance of freedom of
expression and of academic freedom is. What irony!
Professors appear to have lost their moorings in the muddy and smelly
waters of PC and need to be told by the non-academic world what the
mandate of the university is.
3. PC as an Academic Subject
Matter
a. Dilemma
What is special about teaching a course on Political Correctness?
The most obvious dilemma is posed by the fact that virtually everything
that has to be said in such a course is politically incorrect and
brings the instructor in conflict with laws and regulations from which
he cannot opt out. In my particular case - but the internal
policies resemble each other like eggs - I am subject to the following
codes:
1. The Sexual Harassment Policy and Procedures (1991) state that I must
not engage in any “repeated behaviour, verbal or physical, that, by
denigrating an individual or group on the basis of sexual orientation
or gender [sic], interferes with the academic or work environment” (4,
d).
2. The Race Relations Policy (1994) states that I must not “engag[e] in
a course of comment or conduct of a racially oriented nature that is
vexatious and is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome”
(4.02).
Nota bene, “The term “race” is understood by the University to refer to
“race, ancestry, place of origin, color, and ethnic origin” (p. 9).
3. The Human Rights Code (1995) states that I must not “engag[e] in a
course of vexatious comment or conduct that is known or ought
reasonably to be known to be unwelcome” (10[1]).
The dilemma, as can readily be seen, consists of having to dissect,
analyse and criticise empirical facts about social groups and social
policies affecting these groups and, in doing so, having to navigate
around the verbiage of “verbal behavior,” “denigrating,” “gender,”
“interference,” “environment,” “vexatious,” “comment,”
“unwelcome.” A fortiori, an instructor in a course on PC “ought
reasonably to know” what possibly is “unwelcome” to some students of
“color,” “race” and “place of origin.” If some instructors might
have an excuse for not knowing, a professor of PC cannot expect
leniency and understanding, he “ought to know”! Whereas most
professors, for ex., may be forgiven for not knowing that because my
“place of origin” is Germany I belong to a different “race” than those
from England, specialists in PC are expected to be enlightened by our
contemporary distinctions and will not be forgiven for not
knowing. It is apparent that someone teaching a course on PC is
particularly vulnerable.
What is the solution to the problem that consists of teaching a
curriculum that in its entirety and for countless reasons is apt to
make a great variety of people feel “unwelcome”? The situation
does not make me think so much of Ulysses who merely had to avoid
Scylla and Charybdis but of someone who risks being gobbled up by one
of hundreds of whirlpools.
In order to protect me from persecutions by PC tribunals I took two
measures and, in addition, benefited from two circumstances that were
mostly beyond my control.
b. Precautions
The most important protection, I judged, was to treat the subject
matter of PC as any other academic topic and to teach the course as I
would teach any other. Opposing views are offered, free debate is
encouraged, censorship and self-censorship are frowned upon.
Judgments are made on the basis of empirical data and logic. The
course is not taught as the academic arm of a political movement that
pursues a social or political agenda (such as the empowerment of women
or blacks) other than to bring rationality into the debate about issues
that are systematically avoided in other courses.
A particular problem was posed by the need to compile a reading list
that does justice to the most diverse views and that takes into
consideration the limitation that was imposed when the course was
approved: Only psychology students enrolled in the honours program
could be admitted and the readings had to reflect that
limitation. Even within these constraints it would be easy to
create a list of books and articles that covers the entire spectrum of
viewpoints with original publications, but such a list would be
unmanageable with today’s students even in a whole-year course.
After all, the course in question is only one course, and not one on
feminism, one on sexual politics, on multiculturalism and diversity, on
affirmative action, freedom of speech, etc..
The second step that I took to reduce the chances of being indicted by
the thought and language police of the Equity Office was to write an
exordium that goes beyond an introduction in that it requires the
students not just to acknowledge its stipulations but to agree with
them before they sign up. At first sight it appears perhaps odd
that in a course on PC where intellectual diversity is sought and
encouraged I insist on agreement before even the studying begins.
What is it that I want my students to accept before they sign up?
First of all, I want the students to know what they are getting
into. To this end, in much greater detail than in any
conventional Course Outline I define the notion of PC and outline the
topics to be covered. But then I explain academic freedom,
characterize it as a duty (and necessity) rather than as a privilege of
professor and student, and express “my strong hope that none of you
will ever even consider invoking a harassment policy against anybody
else in order to muzzle someone, to vent frustration, or get even, to
wreak havoc or to be vengeful. Have the decency to resolve
disagreements and to mute bad feelings through dialogue, open or
private, rather than through accusations and incriminations” (2000,
11). I further inform them that tolerance is expected of them and
respect for those who formulate “offensive” thoughts. Lastly, I
explain that, in my view, the “professor’s obligation is toward
accuracy, appropriate restraint in judgment, respect for the opinions
of others, and tact and courtesy, but not toward ‘feeling good.’
There is no obligation, nor is it desirable, to make everyone
comfortable. I emphatically reject considering the students’
feelings as the criterion for establishing what constitutes improper
behavior of the professor and what constitutes a ‘hostile environment’”
(2000, 11).
c. Circumstances
In addition to these 2 precautions that I took, I benefited from 2
circumstances that were largely beyond my control: Self-selection of
the students and my imagined or real immunity.
So far students who have signed up were only those genuinely interested
in the topic and who had no axe to grind. There were no spies,
agents provocateurs or emissaries from the campus temples of PC in
class. However, at the beginning of class in September most
students saw the preference for eating beef as equivalent to the
preference for eating human flesh, the difference merely being one of
taste. As some prefer tulips to roses, others prefer roses to
tulips and de gustibus non est disputandum, therefore there is not much
room for debate. Apparently an entire generation of our students
has swallowed wholesale the principles of cultural relativism and moral
equivalence, and the better students are not those who know better but
who are willing to listen to counterarguments. However, even with an
elite group it is an uphill battle to defeat the dogma that the
abdication of reasoning and non-judgmentalism are the most important
moral principles.
In addition to the favorable self-selection of the students, the fact
that further protected me from vexatious and malicious accusations was
my imagined or real immunity. I like to believe that my previous
battles with the administration and students have made all potential
warriors more cautious.
d. Definition of PC
PC was defined in the following terms:
PC is a canon of orthodoxies and prohibitions. It is a set of
claims that society today does not readily allow to be
questioned. It has characteristics of a secular religion, is
motivated by resentment and strives to establish a radically
egalitarian society.”
PC is adamant in the promulgation of its “correct” creed, enforces
adherence through censorship, the control of language and, in
particular, the use of epithets (such as “racist,” “sexist”) that are
designed to bring controversies and debates to an end. So-called
(sexual and racial) harassment policies that function as speech codes
are the prime vehicle for the enforcement of PC in that they do not
allow anything to be said that creates “discomfort” or a “hostile or
poisonous environment.” The resulting self-censorship is so
effective that no overt censorship is necessary to enforce conformity.
Its champions typically claim to be “liberals” although it is difficult
to see how someone who insists on being correct and exercises
censorship can call himself a “liberal.”
As in any religion and ideology, PC has its heretics, those who are
“politically incorrect,” who are to be vilified and shunned and not
allowed on institutional committees.
PC has its particular code of ethics that is grounded in the notions of
“equity” and “diversity.” “Equity” refers to the commandment that
every organization, private and public, reflect the sexual composition
of society, except those in which women dominate by their
numbers. “Diversity” refers to the commandment that every
organization, private and public, reflect the racial composition of
society. In paradoxical fashion it is argued that all races are
equal and can contribute equally to society and ergo that we need
representatives of all races everywhere because “diversity is our
strength.” The government finances and supervises the social
engineering, rewards compliance and punishes disobedience. The
Human Rights Commissions excommunicate the heretics.
Because of its illiberal fanaticism, PC espouses zero tolerance
policies which inter alia allow schools to suspend four-year-old boys,
who kiss three-year-old girls, from kindergarten for “sexual
harassment.” Zero tolerance policies, as well, permit schools to
suspend children, because of their “violence,” who click their fingers
in imitation of a gun, and it is zero tolerance policies that prohibit
the children’s game of musical chairs because it supposedly promotes
aggression. It is because of this fanaticism that the enforcement
of PC very often is tragi-comical and lends itself to satire and even
entertainment.
Many manifestations of PC are so absurd and laughable that one finds it
difficult to distinguish reality from a cabaret. When in
Stockholm in the year 2000, I learned that a feminist group at the
university is campaigning to ban all urinals and that some schools have
already dismantled the contraption. The PC argument is that
standing up is “degrading to women,” a “nasty macho gesture” that
suggests male violence, a gesture, it may be added, that women are
never supposed to witness! PC prohibits ethnic, sexual, racial
and other jokes, but has unwillingly become a laughing stock
itself. Somehow humor and wit find a way to survive. If PC
is on the defensive today it is not so much because it has been proven
wrong but because it has been mocked, derided and ridiculed profusely
for its absurdities and pettiness (“blanched paper” for “white paper;”
“hole” for “manhole;” “Amen” verboten because it excludes women!).
Very central is the dogma that all but white, able-bodied men are
“victims” and therefore entitled to special considerations in
employment and education. As “victims” they have greater
credibility in courts and tribunals and are entitled to be treated
“unequally,” i. e., with special “sensitivity.” An elaborate
grievance growth industry with armies of experts, consultants and
advisors assists the “victims” and “survivors” to take advantage of the
benefits that our “sensitive” and “multicultural” society has to offer
to those who feel hurt.
With Nietzschean contempt for Western culture and civilization, PC
rejects essential elements of scientific methods of investigation,
rationality and the notion of progress and espouses “alternative modes”
of thinking. The “method” of the “feminist lens,” adopted by the
Canadian Panel on Violence against Women (1993), is a prime example of
this postmodern relativism. In postmodern fashion, “correct” in
PC does not refer to facts but to attitudes, to comportments that bring
about utopian perfection.
Finally, and with great irony, the adepts of PC insist that there is no
such phenomenon, that PC is a prevarication of dark reactionary forces
and a myth created by those who wish to keep women and racial
minorities in subordinate places.
e. Course Content
PC, similar to Marxism and feminism, is an ideology and not a
scientific discipline. As such it gives direction and purpose to
political and to private life, to the courts, and, above all, to
academia, in particular, to the humanities and the social
sciences. The formal and natural sciences, however, are not
immune either, as “ethnomathematics” and “physics from a feminist
perspective” and “physics for girls” demonstrate.
PC, being the secular religion that it is with its venomous tentacles
permeating all institutions of society, would have its legitimate place
in many academic departments and disciplines. What topics should
be covered will largely depend upon the department that offers the
course. Independent of the academic department, however, the
following subject matters should be incorporated in any case:
1. Principles and mechanisms of PC: censorship and self-censorship;
speech codes; intimidation by policies, tribunals, forced reeducation;
hate laws; infantilization of students by the university in loco
parentis; PC terrorism;
2. Principles and values that are threatened by PC: freedom of
expression and academic freedom; the merit principle in hiring and
promotion; the principle of equality before the law; individual rights
and responsibilities;
3. Faddish, pseudoscientific follies: postmodernism, alternative,
intuitive science; cultural relativism; moral equivalence; victimology;
“hurt feeling” movement; multiculturalism.
In a psychology course on PC, some of the following topics should be
included: multiple personality (DID); repressed and recovered memories;
child abuse; “war against girls,” “violence against women,” “sexual
harassment,” “date rape” and pornography; homosexuality, pedophilia;
self-esteem and learning disabilities; the myth of the noble savage;
social conformity.
4. Conclusion
Political correctness has become part of our culture and continues to
shape people’s thoughts; it continues to determine how they speak, how
judges adjudicate, how professors allow their academic freedom to be
curtailed, and whom universities admit. Even respectable and
thoughtful people argue in favor of affirmative action because they see
progress in more minority members being admitted to universities and
businesses at whatever price. Highly politicized women’s courses
are being taken for granted. Students continue to be given
extraordinary privileges in competitive examinations on the grounds
that they “suffer” from some fictitious “learning disability.”
The highly politicized term “gender” has largely replaced the only
meaningful term “sex” as when men and women are counted and the
distribution is called the “gender distribution.” Even in the
better journals, expressions such as “Everybody has their own opinion”
and “the child sits on their own chair” have become commonplace and do
not raise eyebrows anymore.
There is a continuing need to reflect upon these practices and to
introduce students to the issues in a thoughtful and critical manner;
in short, it is imperative to teach courses on political correctness.
Notes:
1. Kenneth Westhues, Eliminating
Professors: A Guide to the Dismissal Process (Queenston:
Kempner Collegium, 1998).
2. Heinz Klatt, Psychology and
Ideology - the Study of Political Correctness, 2 volumes
(London, Ont.: University of Western Ontario, 2000).
3. Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women, Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence -
Achieving Equality (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services -
Canada, 1993).
Note: This paper is
adapted from remarks delivered at a conference, cosponsored by the New
York Association of Scholars, titled "Academic Freedom and Intellectual
Pluralism: U. S. and Canadian Perspectives." The conference
took place at Medaille College in Buffalo, NY, on 21 and 22 September 2002.
___________________________________________
Heinz-Joachim
Klatt is professor of Psychology at King's College, University of Western Ontario, London,
Ontario, e-mail: Klatt.
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