January 2002
Review of Alan C. Kors and
Harvey A. Silverglate, The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on
America’s Campuses. New York and Toronto: The Free Press, 1998.
In 1993 President Clinton
nominated Sheldon Hackney, then president of the University of Pennsylvania,
as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. During his confirmation
hearings, testifying under oath before a Senate committee, Hackney professed
to be a champion of free expression. He denounced campus “speech codes”
and criticized “political correctness,” including excessive solicitude
for the “rights of minority groups.”
To judge from the evidence
assembled by Kors and Silverglate, in their admirable book, Hackney was
fortunate that it is difficult to prove perjury against witnesses who describe
their own beliefs. An accused can defend himself too easily by insisting
that whatever his previous (or subsequent) words or deeds, he testified
truthfully about what he thought at the time. As a lawyer active in the
American Civil Liberties Union, Silverglate understands the constitutional
and other legal remedies that victims of American campus persecutions can
pursue — remedies that the book explains in some detail, and that Canadians
have reason to envy. As a professor of history at Penn, Kors is especially
familiar with the flagrant abuses that occurred there under Hackney. The
book ranges widely over the American academic scene, citing specific cases
(often horrifying) at many institutions, but what happened at Penn exemplifies
well the techniques of repression and injustice employed by the left-wing
radicals of the “shadow university” — the term applied by the authors
to the bureaucracies in charge of orientation, residences, and “student
life.”
It is typically these bureaucracies
that enforce regulations, often behind a cloak of “confidentiality.” Not
content to wield power over students, the “shadow university” has sought,
with some success, to extend its sway over faculty as well.
Many of the rules and practices
have been outrageous – among them efforts to impose “thought reform” through
mandatory indoctrination in radical ideology, as well as denial of due
process in determining whether a person accused of prohibited conduct is
guilty or innocent.
For a professional burglar
or pickpocket, an occasional sojourn in the slammer has no long-term significance;
it is merely one of the inconveniences of his chosen occupation. Yet before
he can be imprisoned, the law requires the prosecution to prove his guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt, and to do so in a public trial under procedures
that grant the accused extensive rights.
Those subjected to disciplinary
action by universities on serious charges (such as harassment” or “date
rape”) are likely to suffer much more severely. Academics who have invested
years in preparing for a career, or students looking forward to lucrative
employment after graduation, may well find their prospects ruined. On many
campuses, however, they enjoy few if any of the rights accorded to an alleged
thief (such as presumption of innocence, a public trial, representation
by a lawyer, and cross-examination of witnesses).
At Penn, Hackney had a long
record of seemingly fanatical devotion to “politically correct” causes,
especially minority “rights” (actually privileges) and the suppression
of “harassment,” very broadly defined.
It is true that on certain
occasions he did champion free expression. He did so in 1981, when a left-wing
columnist in the Daily Pennsylvanian expressed regret that President Reagan’s
would-be assassin had not been successful. He did so again in 1988, when
Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam came to the campus and preached
anti-Semitism. Later, asked whether denouncing a white man as a “fucking
fascist white male pig” would amount to prohibited harassment under Penn’s
speech code, he replied that it would not. He also considered it permissible
to call a black who habitually associated with whites an “Uncle Tom” or
an “Oreo.”
Similarly, on an off-campus
issue, Hackney upheld the right of an “artist” to receive federal funding
— taxpayers’ money — for a work highly offensive to many Christians.
Entitled “Piss Christ,” it consisted of a crucifix immersed in urine. Any
attempt to “cleanse public discourse of offensive material,” Hackney argued,
threatened to result in “an Orwellian nightmare.”
But white males, Jews, and
Christians, as well as blacks who failed to display an adequate sense of
their own cultural distinctiveness, were not protected groups. If anything
“offended” feminists or racial minorities favoured by the radical Left,
the response of Hackney and his subordinate administrators was to sacrifice
freedom of expression in the supposed interests of a more sacred cause,
that of “diversity.”
Universities like to proclaim
(as a policy document at the University of Western Ontario did in 1995)
that they aim at providing a “welcoming environment” for people of diverse
origins. Such rhetoric may be harmless, but only if administrators avoid
drawing the conclusion that they have a right (or duty) to suppress, or
allow others to suppress, anything “offensive” to any of the groups being
“welcomed” — especially the “historically under-represented.” At Penn,
Hackney did draw that conclusion, and urged his subordinates to act accordingly.
The result was indeed Orwellian.
When some black students
stole (they preferred to say “confiscated”) the entire press run of the
Daily Pennsylvanian, in protest against a columnist of whom they disapproved,
Hackney saw a “conflict” between “diversity” and free expression. Diversity
prevailed; the thieves went unpunished. The university was similarly lenient
towards blacks who kidnapped a white student and terrorized him at length
for his alleged “racism.”
Penn’s double standard became
obvious after a group of students disturbed a Jewish freshman, late at
night, by persistently singing and chanting under his dormitory window.
He finally shouted in exasperation: “Shut up, you water buffalo!” The term
“water buffalo” was an English version of Hebrew slang for persons engaging
in rowdy or thoughtless conduct. The reproach was rather a mild one in
the circumstances, but it happened that the noisy students were black.
Penn charged the freshman with “racial harassment.”
The accusation was so ridiculous
that it attracted the attention of the national media. Penn’s officialdom
appeared to be as nutty as a pecan pie — the sort of “politically correct”
crackpots who could encounter a Pekingese puppy and imagine themselves
to be confronting a pack of ravenous wolves. The university’s public image
suffered major damage, and eventually the forces of repression capitulated.
Not only was the “water buffalo” prosecution abandoned, but Penn’s trustees
intervened to insist that the right of free speech be restored. Their will
prevailed, and the campus “speech code” was abolished.
At many other institutions,
unfortunately, restrictions on freedom of expression survived. They are
difficult to dismantle as long as a university gives priority to “social
justice” over its strictly academic mission. Commitment to “social justice”
requires definition of the term. To establish such a definition is a political
act, requiring the university to take a stand on who is right and who is
wrong on controversial public issues. A citizen in a free society has a
right, for example, to oppose “affirmative action” (race and sex preferences);
but if a university seeks “social justice” and defines it as entailing
preferences, students or faculty members who condemn this view may be regarded
by administrators as posing an intolerable threat to the institution’s
official “goals” and “values.”
Kors and Silverglate believe
that typical senior administrators are motivated by ambition more than
ideology; they want to protect their careers by appeasing the groups willing
to make trouble — usually feminists and “anti-racists.” But another form
of trouble is bad publicity. The experience at Penn supports the authors’
argument that “sunlight” is a potent weapon against the denizens of the
“shadow university,” the enemies of true justice and liberty. Enjoying
fewer legal safeguards for freedom of speech, members of the Canadian university
community clearly have even greater need for this weapon as an alternative
to lawsuits.
As a result of the response
to their book, A. C. Kors and H. A. Silverglate performed a second valuable
service. They launched the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
(www.thefire.org), which intervenes in individual cases to support victims
of repression. FIRE and SAFS are thus advancing the same cause, though
in somewhat different political and legal environments.
Help us maintain freedom in teaching, research and scholarship by joining SAFS or making a donation.
