The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, November 1, 1991 Page: 3 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1991 3
Where academic liberalism went wrong: not allowing a defense
Guest column by
Dr. Frank D. Schubert
Now that there is evidence that
the nationwide debate concerning so-
called political correctness in
American colleges and universities
is moving beyond its initial stages
into a more sustained conversation,
it is useful to ask how the current
situation came about in the first place.
Why such feelings of mistrust and
animosity? Why the degree of stri-
dency in polemic?
My answer to these questions
begins by granting in full one of the
first principles of academic liberalism:
that the power to name is appurtenant
to the powerful. However much has
been made of the overextended
inan ities of politically correct speech,
academic liberalism is nonetheless
correct in its contention that the
ability to name and to enforce a cer-
tain appellation over another remains
one of the most powerful means of
presuming, enshrining and exercis-
ing authority over that other. Ex-
amples are not hard to find.
One imagines, for example, the
foreign formulation "Indian" as it
conflicts with one's self-understand-
ing as Sioux, Navajo or Apache. One
notes the fact that every map and
globe in every classroom places the
northern hemisphere in the privi-
leged position of being on "top" of the
world rather than on the bottom. One
empathizes with the minority
schoolchildren who only a few years
ago opened a box of Crayola crayons
to find a light pinkish crayon marked
"flesh."
Academic liberalism is deeply
concerned with what it perceives to
be just such enforced appellations of
European cu lture over the rest of the
world, and the lessons of such criti-
cism are clear. While all cultures can
be understood to some degree from
the outside, all foreign cultures are
best understood within their own
terminology, in their own prejudices,
their own narrownesses, their own
shortcomings.
In light of this rather significant
insight, it is deeply ironic that an
academic liberalism so dismissive
and hostile toward the so-called
'Eurocentric' perspective has in re-
cent years begun to look very much
like it
What do I mean by this? Consider
the following. The usual indictment
of the European perspective by the
academic liberal is that Europeans
always won their arguments with the
rest of the world by intimidating their
opponents, by persecuting dissent,
and by refusing to listen to voices
claiming an unjust labeling by their
intimidators. Now, ironically, these
very same charges are raised against
the academic liberal. Why?
One must here consider the
clearest legacy of the liberal academic
perspective in the university — the
introduction of women's studies,
black studies, gay studies, Third
World studies and other minority
stu dies programs into the curricu lu m.
Such programs entered the uni-
versity in the last two decades with
political fervor, and in light of their
highly charged and controversial in-
troduction to the academic commu-
nity a general hesitation developed
within that community to engage
these fields in the normal rough and
tumble of academic criticism —
criticism which could have provided
them the same means of critical
scrutiny under which the European
perspective grew beyond its confines.
In granting what amounted to a
special protection from academic
criticism for these new fields, many
university administrators even al-
lowed the programs to become the
equivalent of moral sentinels in the
university, drawing upon the exper-
tise within them to scrutinize indi-
viduals and their ideas for any evi-
dence of racism, sexism, homophobia
Sexual harassment very real at Rice
To the editors,
Wake up Mark Bennett! Sexual
harassment is a stark reality at Rice
University. like you, I had originally
believed that the Rice community
was without typical societal problems
such as sexual harassment I mis-
takenly assumed that the high intel-
ligence of the students made them
more aware of and sensitive to moral
wrongs. Over my four years as a
student, I have come to realize that
just because a person is smart does
not mean that he or she is enlight-
ened. Take for example, the "joke"
recently found scrawled across a
poster announcing a Wee Women's
Alliance meeting — "How do you fix
Athletes
FROM PAGE 2
I hope these remarks do not give
an impression that I am anti-athlete
or anti-athletics. I have enjoyed par-
ticipation in sports for many years, as
many athletes can attest I know and
admire many of our student athletes
— they are special people. I know
and appreciate as friends some of our
coaches — they , too, are special. I
am aware that the situation at Rice is
in sharp contrast to that of other
schools. But, if we are going to
sympathize with the plight of our
athletes (and I do), let us be as clear
as we can what the problems are.
Paul E. Pfeiffer
Professor of
Mathematical Sciences
your dishwasher? You kick her in the
ass." It not only implies that women
are domestic slaves, it encourages
violence against women. I am en-
raged to discover that such a hostile
attitude towards women exists at
Rice.
When I state that sexual harass-
ment exists at Rice, I speak from
personal experience. I dreaded go-
ing to one of my labs during the first
semester of my freshman year be-
cause I hated interacting with the
TA Whenever he checked on the
progress of an experiment he leaned
on me, pressing me against the table.
One time, he invited me to get drunk
and watch A Clockwork Orange with
him He told the women in the class
that we were always welcome to stop
by his office for some personal tu-
toring in a tone which implied that
the lab reports were not what he had
in mind. At that time, I told a few
friends about how uncomfortable I
felt, but I never reported him be-
cause a) I was afraid that I was
prudishly overreacting, b) I naively
did not recognize that the incidents
constituted sexual harassment, and
c) I did not realize that I had any sort
ofrecourse against him. Now, I know
that Rice has a policy on sexual ha-
rassment and that what he did was
definitely an infringement of my
rights.
While I do not expect you to know
of incidents that occur behind closed
doors, I feel that you, as a writer for
the Thresher, should be aware of all
the publicity given the issue last year.
and European-centeredness.
In tandem with this discourage-
ment of critical responsibility toward
the new disciplines was a more gen-
eral move by the academic liberal to
scrutinize more closely life within
the university as a whole. One of the
early manifestations of the newly
emerging power of the academic
liberal on campus came in the form
of university job descriptions written
to detect allegiance to the liberal
academic cause even before a profes-
conquered.
In fact, one of the burning ques-
tions of the European during the co-
lonial period was the question of
whether the conquered peoples de-
liberately refused to "get" the new
consciousness (and were thus mor-
ally culpable) or whether they sim-
ply could not get it (and were thus
academically inferior). In either case,
the fact that the native did not "get it"
in the way the European desired led
to a long list of patronizing and con-
[be wary] toward those who speak the language
of moral purity, for its very employment leads to a
suspicion that only half a story is being told.
Take a look, for example, at the April
19, 1991, Thresher. The editorial
"What is sexual harassment really?"
states, "Colleges systems do not
eliminate, but often harbor, sexual
harassment in the minutes (as at
Lovett last year) or at dinner an-
nouncements (men at Sid Rich used
to make noise to drown out the voices
of women making announcements
— and then claimed it was a tradi-
tion)." A few pages later, Jill
Salomon's article, "Lessons in Eth-
ics," reported the incident of a Jones
School student who found a personal
ad with her name and number placed
in the Public News by fellow class-
mates. The question Solomon poses
is whether or not the student was a
victim of sexual harassment. None of
these incidents can be construed as
"more thoughtful and intelligent than
the CU method" because all of them
had the primary purpose of publicly
making the targeted victim uncom-
fortable.
Sexual harassment whether it is
cleverly phrased as "excuse me, but
I couldn't help noticing that you are
extremely callipygian" or thin ly vei led
as humor, constitutes a societal
wrong, even if the offenders are
"people under the influence of alco-
hol or overalls." You, and others, must
open your eyes to reality. Only then
can we as a community make a step
in the right direction.
Michele Y. Chan
Lovett '92
Editor, Other Voices
sor was given consideration for a
position ("sensitivity , to minority
concerns, expertise in women and
gender, willingness to work in
multicultural curriculum").
Additionally, attempts were made
to draft and enforce speech codes on
many u n iversity campu ses to protect
minorities, women and homosexuals
from slander, though in practice these
were often silent about the slander
concerns of those traveling outside
the inner liberal circle.
Speaking invitations came to be
scrutinized at many universities with
great concern for whether the invitee
would or would not promote and
defend a liberal academic perspective
on campus, finally, and perhaps most
effectively, students and facu lty were
introduced to the 'consciousness
raising' seminar, designed to excise
troublesome and dissenting (i.e.,
nonliberal) attitudes on the subjects
of race, gender and sexual prefer-
ence.
I note these occurrences simply
to provide a background for under-
standing my primary contention:
academic liberalism erred at precisely
the point at which it began to allow
individuals to be "named" as racist,
sexist, homophobic or Eurocentric
without the benefit of any acceptable
defense against such an appellation.
In the most extreme of the pro-
nouncements, of course, the white
person simply by virtueof being white
became necessarily racist, the male
became sexist, the straight
homophobic, the European scholar
Eurocentric, and so on.
But the most telling insight into
these charges was not to be found in
the most categorical of these sweep-
ing pronouncements, but rather in
the cases where a response to the
charges was attempted. Here the
accused was informed that, protes-
tations notwithstanding, the world
had changed so significantly that
one's very "consciousness" needed
to be raised. The phraseology sounds
innocuous and morally unassailable
until one begins to note that it sounds
eerily familiar It is the language
employed by the colonial European
to dismiss from consideration the
"errant" ideas of the native peoples
descending appellations concerning
the native and the native point of view
— all of which were, in the comfort-
able mindset of the privileged and
enlightened European, entirely
uncontestable.
The most unfortunate legacy of
this entire recent affair of the exercise
of libera] power in the academic world
is that many of the best and the
brightest who perceived no value in
subjecting their views to the moral
certitudes of this critique were dis-
couraged from entering the academic
profession altogether, leaving those
who remained to sort out the tangle
of issues once the charges began to
be leveled.
Many of those leaving the aca-
demic profession were scholars who
could have made a genuine contribu-
tion to diversity on university cam-
puses as opposed to the new type of
"diversity" where all are raised to a
certain consciousness so as to think
alike.
What is one to do, then, in the
present situation as the liberal aca-
demics and the Eurocentrics begin
their rapprochement and begin to
sort out the pieces? My advice
throughout this period had been one
of wariness toward those who speak
the language of moral purity, for its
very employment leads to a suspicion
that only half a story is being told.
Eurocentrics, in their own self-
promotion, often used the slogans of
sensitivity, inclusivity and diversity
on their own behalf, and one hesitates
to believe that the slogans are any
more believable as they have come
to be employed by the liberal aca-
demic cause in the present day.
In fact, until the ideas of "sensi-
tivity, inclusivity and diversity" are
applied in the university as a whole to
the conservative black, the conser-
vative gay, the conservative female,
the conservative Third World citizen,
and, yes, the conservative European,
it is probably better to refrain from
getting one's hopes up that the situa-
tion is improving.
In the meantime one can only hope
for the achievement of at least one
simple short-term goal — that all will
refrain from telling the natives who
they are before asking.
Homecoming
Festive
Holy Eucharist
Sunday 10 a.m.
Autry House
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Zitterkopf, Ann & Howe, Harlan. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 10, Ed. 1 Friday, November 1, 1991, newspaper, November 1, 1991; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245795/m1/3/: accessed June 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.