A member of the small, demented following of "Rump Parliament" wrote:
##########I hear so much about "political correctness"
##########on campus, yet I can't think of a single
##########right-of-center person who's been fired.
##########Meanwhile women ever-so-slightly
##########left-of-center and persons of color keep
##########leaving the university voluntarily or
##########involuntarily. I can name at least ten
##########conservatives who claim that some
##########forces on campus are after them,
##########but none of them is denied promotion or tenure.
I resist my glib reply: Has anyone of any credibility raised "political correctness" issues on this campus? I believe that that question answers itself.
Has anyone to the right of political center been denied tenure or sacked? Not to my knowledge, but I do not purport to know the ideological or partisan bent of most colleagues. Most faculty at Puget Clowns do not know much about most of the beliefs of most colleagues, which may itself suggest that "political correctness" is almost always blather.
What do I know about driving those to the right off campus? When women were abandoning this university in the late 1990s, a dean noted that no faculty publicly protested the departures of certain right-of-center women the way that faculty lamented the departures of some left-of-center women. However, I know of only one colleague who was foolish enough even to repeat that classic example of misdirection. [I shall divulge the identity of that colleague only after two Bombay Blue Sapphire martinis.] The names that the dean bandied included those of a libertarian and a religiously devout colleague. To the best of my information, neither woman was pushed away owing to her beliefs.
If right-of-center colleagues were driven away, we should all have heard one or more cover stories. As has been the case when women and minorities have escaped or been booted, a colleague should have whispered this excuse and another shoould have advanced that justification. When left-wing women have been induced or forced to leave, it has never been about gender to hear the apologists tell the tale. It has never been about race either, of course. It could not have been about ethnicity or religion. Certainly a firing could not owe to an evaluee's being avant garde or frightening. Women who intimidate or antagonize men have always been welcomed wholeheartedly. Minorities who expose the privileges that the majority enjoy have always been invited to enlighten the comfortable and conventional faculty still further.
I have never heard the cover story that would "prove" that political correctness was not involved. Hence, I assume that neither political correctness nor any other misconduct has driven any conservative faculty from campus.
You might exclaim that there are so few conservatives on campus that the odds that one of them would be hounded off campus are remote. That proves a little too much doesn't it?
Any veteran can name progressive or liberal or maybe even radical women or men who have been sent packing. I doubt that any veteran can identify a traditionalist or a conservative or a reactionary pushed out since 1992. If someone wants to bring up the fellow in 1992, I shall be more than happy to review actions and events that led him to resign. Whatever the outcome of that review, I am confident that more lefties who were also minorities have left our happy family than righties. I do admit that the lefties only outnumber the righties by an order of magnitude.
So, if you hear that a colleague is being punished for being too conservative, admit that such is not impossible but is improbable. It is far more probable that someone is exaggerating or even imagining the conservatism of an erstwhile colleague to manufacture a "crusade against nonconformists." It is easier to conjure that narrative than to analyze instances.
2 comments:
RE; Political Correctness on campus. This may be nonsensical, but I just received an invitation to a play about Rachel Corrie, The Evergreen State College student who was crushed while standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer. The play will be held at UPS and is sponsored by various peace activist and church groups in the area. Ms. Corrie was killed many years ago. No one seems to want to remember that Corrie was warned not to stand in front of a bulldozer because the driver was unable to see pedestrians. She was not deliberately crushed, it was an honest accident. A few days after the incident, I stood outside the federal courthouse with a group of peace activists who were applauding Palestinians for their bomb tossing and other aggressive behaviors aimed at Israeli citizens. When I pointed out the absolute hypocrisy of their point of view, they stared at me. Fortunately I was taking an educational course at the local temple, so I had support from the local Jewish community for standing up to the activists. I would show up at the upcoming UPS play and ask some pointed questions but I am afraid I would get chased off the campus. I understand it's a tremendously complicated issue. Maybe I am a total wimp, but I don't want to be stared down, or chased out of places like Tacoma's Antique Sandwich Company (as I have been) for standing up for Israeli citizens. No one should live in fear of random horrible explosions.
No one should be chased out of a restaurant for expressing a political view. As to the campus, I've taught here since '83 and attended many faculty meetings, forums (fora), emergency meetings about campus controversies, and so on, and I've seen no one chased out or even shouted down. I've actually experienced politeness that, arguably, may be excessive. Recently at a forum on race, a colleague equated an African American student's expressed desire to identify as African American or Black with identifying oneself as a witch or wiccan. At another forum, a colleague said he was concerned about recruiting more students of color because doing so would "lower standards." In both instances, the groups present simply listened, even as many individuals were appalled by the comments and their underlying logic. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but wasn't there a campus forum on Israel and Palestine this semester? I didn't attend, so I wonder what the atmosphere was like there.
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