Universities Behaving Badly (Again)

Universities behaving badly is a sport that never takes an off-season.  The economic straits engendered by COVID, the right’s ongoing desire to censor anything they don’t understand, and the left’s overblown reaction to the killing of George Floyd have all merely added fuel to a fire that didn’t need stoking.  Three stories, then, chronologically by the date of Curmie’s lead source for each story.

#1. St. Mary’s University of Minnesota is precisely the kind of institution that will take the greatest hit from the multiple factors affecting enrollment: politically-motivated cynicism regarding the legitimacy of higher education, unraveling support for student aid programs, declining population numbers for post-adolescents, perceived demand for outstanding brick-and-mortar facilities… and then add COVID into the mix.  St. Mary’s is a good school, but their “sticker price” is over $51,000 a year, more than twice as much as what an in-state student (and over 75% more than an out-of-state student) would pay at Winona State in the same city.  And whereas they have a good reputation, they’re not a Macalester or a Grinnell, whose graduates have instant credibility with prospective employers.  So it’s no surprise that they experienced a 13.5% drop in enrollment from fall 2019 to fall 2021.

Nor, alas, is it a surprise that their administration did two things in response: 1). panic and 2). use the enrollment decline as an excuse to abandon their mission in precisely the manner the administration had no doubt wanted to do for some time.  Curmie should probably mention here that he knows a little (not a lot) more about St. Mary’s than about most comparable universities: he has a friend who used to teach there, and the theatre programs at St. Mary’s and at Curmie’s employer at one time had similar exchange programs with the same British conservatory.  In some bizarre way, this makes it personal.

“Makes what personal?” you may well ask, Gentle Reader.  Well, this press release, announcing the discontinuation of some eleven academic majors, and a “new program portfolio…concentrated in business, technology, and the sciences.”  Even if Curmie thought the idea was a good one, pondering such jargon as “program portfolio” is enough to nauseate the hardiest constitution.  But, of course, turning a once-reputable university into an over-priced trade school isn’t at all a good idea; it is, in fact, remarkably stupid in every way possible, including the only one the St. Mary’s leadership seems to care about: financial viability.

Three years ago, Curmie savaged Goucher College for eliminating a host of majors and minors and pretending to remain a liberal arts institution.  Curmie directs you to that piece, Gentle Reader, where he makes many of the same arguments that apply to the St. Mary’s case: the schools are similar in many ways, and the betrayal of core values is (hat tip to Stevie Nicks) hauntingly familiar. 

But, frighteningly, the St. Mary’s case is even worse.  Both schools, of course, eliminated majors in the arts—hide-bound anti-intellectuals fear and loathe creativity even as they pretend to embrace it—and Goucher stupidly dropped math and physics, as well.  But if you’re going to call yourself a university, the list of majors that are absolutely, no-question-about-it, mandatory begins like this: 1). English.  2). History.  Guess which two majors are included on the St. Mary’s hit list.  Oh, and the erstwhile university seeks to impart its Catholic values by eliminating the theology major, as well.  Sigh.

Please allow Curmie to quote himself in a comment on his personal Facebook page about a different topic:

It’s the corporatization of higher education. Once upon a time, the goal was an informed citizenry, broadly knowledgeable and capable of critical thinking. But if you were one of the idiot politicians or CEOs who run the country, would you want that? No, you would want compliant drones, capable enough to do menial work but not to realize what a gaggle of wankers are at the top of the food chain... but you’d still want someone else to train them for you so you didn’t have to pay for that.

Sometimes Curmie hates it when he’s right.

#2. Old Dominion University is another well-respected institution that did something remarkably wrong-headed.  Curmie’s central source is a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, but that’s likely behind a paywall, so you, Gentle Reader, can check out the basics here.

Dr. Allyn Walker (they/them) is a trans scholar, a now-former Assistant Professor at ODU, who wrote a book titled A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.  Anticipating backlash, Walker makes it clear in the introduction to the book that “This book does not promote sexual contact between adults and minors” (emphasis in original), and sent university leaders talking points with which to respond to whatever outrage might ensue.  The book, in fact, is in large part the result of Walker’s discovery that there are adults attracted to children but who avoid any sexual contact.  Wait… really?  There’s a difference between having an impulse and acting on it?  Who knew, right?

Here’s Walker, describing the parameters of the question: “There is no morality or immorality attached to attraction to anyone because no one can control who they’re attracted to at all. In other words, it’s not who we’re attracted to that’s either OK or not OK. It’s our behaviors and responding to that attraction that are either OK or not OK.”  This argument may not be unassailable, but to suggest it’s outside the realm of legitimate speculation is utterly ridiculous… which is why professional idiots like Tucker Carlson clambered over each other to jump on the Stupid Train first and hardest.  (It doesn’t appear that Walker was slandered in the narrow legal sense of the term, but the end result is all but indistinguishable.)

The complaint, of course, was with the term “minor-attracted”; they accused Walker of advocating for pedophiles.  In strictly technical linguistic terms, they’re actually right… well, sort of.  The term “pedophilia” actually refers to the attraction rather than anything more than that, but it has come to be synonymous with “child molester.”  Actually, of course, the Greek word φιλία (philía) suggests the kind of love between friends or equals… or that big city in Pennsylvania named for “brotherly love” would have a very creepy name, indeed.  But Curmie has strayed… back to the subject at hand.

In one of the first posts in this iteration of Curmie’s blogging life, some dozen years ago, Curmie wrote about the case of Gloria Y. Gadsden, who was suspended from her position at East Stroudsburg State University for two Facebook posts: “Had a good day today, didn't want to kill even one student.:-) Now Friday was a different story...” and “Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete [sic] hitman, it's been that kind of day.”  Anyone who has taught at any level for more than a fortnight empathizes with Dr. Gadsden; few of us have hired hitmen, though, however much the short-term temptation seemed appealing.

With the exception of the fact that Gadsden was joking and Walker was specifically and intentionally calling attention to the distinction between thought and action, the cases are pretty similar, up to and including university administrators once again demonstrating their uncanny ability to demonstrate hypocrisy, cowardice, and insufficient fiber in the diet simultaneously. 

In the Chronicle article linked above, reporter Emma Pettit wonders, “Did Old Dominion make a difficult trade-off between principle and public safety? Or did it cut and run when asked to protect a scholar with controversial ideas?”  Oh, that one is easy, Emma.  The latter.  A university worthy of the name would make a very public statement in support of academic freedom, even for a mere assistant professor.  (Side note for those not in academia: the overwhelming majority of assistant professors are untenured, and academic freedom doesn’t completely kick in until tenure.)  But, of course, the university, like most, is run by intellectual cowards and risk-averse morons.  Walker was promptly suspended and then “by mutual consent” (wherever is that eau de cow pasture coming from?), they resigned.

All of this happened last fall, but the Chronicle article brought it back into Curmie’s consciousness.  Curmie has no idea whether Dr. Walker’s book, or teaching, or anything else, is worthy of tenure or even of a contract extension.  But there is no question that Old Dominion checked all the boxes of how not to respond to a situation like this.  The good news, at least for Walker if not also for the profession, is that they’ve just signed on as a postdoctoral fellow at (get this!) the Johns Hopkins University’s Moore Center for Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.  Curmie is pretty certain that hire will attract a little right-wing attention, too.

#3.  Illinois State University, feeling compelled to show that the left can be as stupid as the right, has introduced a new graduation requirement, to begin with incoming students in the fall of 2023, for a course in “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” 

Such courses already exist, of course, and already fulfill general education requirements. History/Sociology 111 (American Diversity: Contested Visions Of The U.S. Experience), and Latin America and Latino Studies/Sociology 109 (Introduction to Latina/O Studies) both fulfill the United States Traditions section of the GenEd requirements.  One suspects that virtually any course that checks the box for the Individuals and Civic Life section, while not focused exclusively on IDEAS issues (that’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in Society, for those of you who might be jargon-deprived), will certainly spend a lot of time there.  Anthropology/English/Language, Literature and Culture 143 (Unity and Diversity in Language), Family and Consumer Services 222 (Cultural Diversity in Dress), Management and Quantitative Methods 120 (Diversity, Inclusion and Equity in the Workplace) all fulfill the Social Sciences requirement.

Ah, but you see, a student could, hypothetically, avoid any of these courses by taking different coursework in the humanities and social sciences, the same way they can avoid Western Civilization, a single course in a foreign language, or a second semester of English Comp, and we can’t have that.  So now there’s going to be a new category, and students will have to take at least one “IDEAS-approved” course, although exactly which courses will be so designated has apparently yet to be determined.

Usually, Curmie raises a skeptical eyebrow at protestations from the right about “indoctrination,” but not this time.  Be it noted that Curmie absolutely supports the availability of IDEAS courses.  But requiring such coursework really is an example of “adopt this ideology or fail.”  How does Curmie know?  Because he’s seen how these programs operate.  Victimhood trumps excellence every time, or close enough to it not to matter.  This is not to say that such courses necessarily lack legitimacy or rigor, but whereas Curmie can teach Racine without being a monarchist, Brecht without being a communist, or Kālidāsa without being Hindu, a professor who teaches an IDEAS course without believing in a particular politico-philosophical perspective and indeed expecting agreement from students is roughly as common as AOC saying something nice about Donald Trump.  Don’t expect a lot of contemplation of the fact that goals of “inclusion” and “equity” are often in opposition, for example.

Of course, Illinois State is hardly alone in all this.  Looking for some source material for this essay, Curmie stumbled across the fact that a different ISU, Iowa State University, had already instituted such a policy, and indeed maintained it in defiance of an equally stupid state law.  Curmie has consciously avoided looking up Indiana State and Idaho State, lest there be a grand slam.

Curmie isn’t sure whether to be somewhat relieved or even more apprehensive that he’s seen it all (well, nearly all) before in 40+ years of college and university teaching.  The Big Bad Problem was once sexism/sexual assault, then homophobia, then transphobia, and now racism… with a couple of short-term stops at Islamophobia after the Iran hostage crisis and again after 9/11.  In all cases, the response to a real problem was an initially unrestrained over-reaction: one case of date rape on campus meant every incoming freshman had to endure a “training” session.  Guess what?  The tiny percentage of prospective perpetrators didn’t pay any attention, and the overwhelming majority soon tuned out, as well.  “Don’t do something that you already know to be stupid, immoral, and illegal” doesn’t really need to be repeated for two hours, even if there’s a badly-produced skit involved.

We, which is to say academia in general rather than an individual institution, endured all that and eventually settled on reasonably intelligent policies to protect the rights of actual victims (or prospective victims) without labeling everyone and their cousin a perpetrator.  The system isn’t perfect, but it’s better than it was at striking that precarious balance. 

This situation seems different, though: both more sinister and more permanent.  Here’s a case where Curmie hopes, down the road, to be proven wrong.  In the meantime: Curmie, although officially retired, taught a course a semester this academic year, but isn’t currently on the schedule to teach again in the fall.  As he looks around at the current state of higher education, especially at those in leadership positions, he increasingly believes this to be a consummation devoutly to be wished.