BY MARTHA MCCAUGHEY
At its February 25 meeting, the Wyoming Senate passed a budget amendment to end funding for the University of Wyoming’s Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) program and the activities associated with GWS. The Senate approved the amendment, 16–14, but it did not make it onto the House floor for consideration. The provision’s supporters asserted that UW’s GWS Program amounted to political indoctrination and activism. Senator Cheri Steinmentz (R-Lingle) brought the amendment forward and read aloud some of the stated learning objectives on a course syllabus that she found alarming, including the following: “Gain knowledge of multiple forms of oppression and marginalization”; “understand historical and contemporary context [sic] in which women, queer, and gender nonconforming people have exercised their agency”; and “translate feminist and social justice theories into service and activism.”
Surely the senators don’t object to “gaining knowledge” of something; all academic courses promise students will gain knowledge on a topic. Likewise, one would hope the senators have no objection to studying “women, queer, and gender nonconforming people” as it is not uncommon for an academic course to study particular populations. I think what really gets under their skin is “translat[ing] feminist and social justice theories into service and activism”; Senator Steinmentz underscored this in her summary just before the vote, saying, “We’re training activists here.” Senator Charles Scott (R-Casper) said as much when he called the GWS program an “extremely biased, ideologically driven program that I can’t see any academic legitimacy to.” And Senator John K. Kolb (R-Sweetwater) said, “I don’t think indoctrination with taxpayer money is the right way to go. I am all for women’s studies, but I don’t see this as being that.”
I’m new to Wyoming and don’t claim to know much about UW’s GWS program, but for most of the 2000s I directed GWS programs in the Southeast, during which time I defended GWS from criticisms by people ranging from conservative author David Horowitz to organizations like the Independent Women’s Forum. In some ways similar to the Wyoming senators, they would look at our syllabi and declare that we were a bunch of man-haters who used our classrooms as bully pulpits. Those who take this kind of “look under the hood” don’t think they’re interfering with an academic program; they think they’re interfering because it’s not academic. Such a view of GWS is now commonplace; some even call GWS “grievance studies.” In a defense of the Wyoming legislature’s effort to defund GWS, Scott Yenor says GWS programs “reflect a dogmatic ideological stance and then aggressively proselytize for that point of view and support political activism.”
The word activism signals, at least to these critics, that someone is pursuing a political agenda over truth, which makes them untrustworthy arbiters of scholarship. When I defend GWS scholars as pursuing truth with openness and integrity, many of my academic peers in a variety of departments tell me that I’m too idealistic, that this is not how all scholars see their role. They ask, What about the ones who don’t believe in truth? What about the scholars who identify as scholar-activists? Might the Wyoming Senators be onto a problem in GWS, and in higher ed more generally?
The credibility problem we have demands that we take a hard look at how we describe our scholarship and teaching, and articulate the grounds on which they are defensible. If we want the legislators off our backs, our efforts to resist, while important, might not get us far enough. We also need to reflect on what ammunition we might have inadvertently given them.
In my experience, most GWS scholars respect students’ ideological independence and strive to offer what Donna Haraway calls “faithful accounts of the real world.” But some GWS scholars—just like some in other fields—have championed activism in their academic roles. Some of these faculty members are simply too loose with their terms and talk as though the goal of their courses is political when really they just want to establish their work as relevant or “engaged”—something politicians on both the Right and the Left have championed. But other faculty members go so far as to identify explicitly as “scholar-activists,” proudly using academia as a platform for political activism.
While GWS addresses political and controversial topics, including the academic study of activism, we cannot invoke “academic freedom” to justify doing anything we like. Academic freedom does involve limits. When it comes to instruction, the AAUP says teachers are entitled to “freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject,” but this freedom includes a responsibility to “be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.” Academic freedom, then, hardly gives instructors carte blanche to say whatever they wish in class, or to compel students to accept some ideological orthodoxy.
My defense of GWS presumes that we do not misapply academic freedom, and that we are bona fide teacher-scholars who should be protected from the demands of the government, corporations, religious groups, and political groups (even those with which we agree) so that we can pursue truth. But this defense is increasingly difficult to mount when some academics frame their work as an opportunity to pursue political goals. And so I want to ask readers, Why shouldn’t legislators worry about instructors indoctrinating students? On what basis do we deserve the public’s trust as credible scholars and teachers?
I want to say that scholars work hard to put our unchecked biases into check. That we adhere rigorously to the methods in our field rather than pursuing some biased, ideological agenda as researchers or teachers. That our innovative research corrects biases and advances knowledge. That our teaching models open inquiry. That, through our role in the governance of curriculum, methods of instruction, research, and faculty appointments, the granting of tenure, and dismissal, we hold one another accountable to conduct and teach scholarship, not politics.
But if this is not the model to which you aspire, go ahead and disagree. Make the critics’ day.
Martha McCaughey is a member of the sociology faculty and the gender, women’s, and sexuality studies faculty at Appalachian State University and a visiting researcher in sociology at the University of Wyoming. She is also a writing fellow at Heterodox Academy. Her ideas are her own; she does not speak for any academic program, university, or group.
McCaughey quotes the 1940 Statement that instructors should “be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject” and argues, “Academic freedom, then, hardly gives instructors carte blanche to say whatever they wish in class, or to compel students to accept some ideological orthodoxy.” Being a scholar-activist does not mean you are compelling students to accept orthodoxy. A professor who bans activism from their classes can just as easily compel students to accept an anti-activist orthodoxy.
And the 1940 Statement has been amended by the 1970 Interpretive Comments, which declare: “The intent of this statement is not to discourage what is ‘controversial.’ Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster. The passage serves to underscore the need for teachers to avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to their subject.” Clearly, the scholar-activists who bring feminist politics into their Women’s Studies classes are not “intruding material” unrelated to the subject.
The question about whether professors should be scholar-activists or not is a matter for ethical debate with many different answers. But that question should be a matter of individual conscience, and not dictated by administrators and certainly not by legislators, whether by direct bans on certain viewpoints or the threat of budget cuts for disfavored viewpoints. If some professors are targeted for their “politics,” we must defend them even if we disagree, and not discourage them for reasons of political expediency.
Agreed, John! I am hardly trying to justify legislative interference or suggest we ought not to address controversial topics (my own courses are full of sensitive and controversial topics). Rather, I want to push scholars to think about how they frame what they do and why they do it. I think we (academics) do need to discuss/debate the idea of scholar-activism and the implications of embracing this identity.
Not sure you read the post John. You seem to be contesting a ghost here. You fail to make the important distinction about what is being promoted as an activist. Scholars are activist for truth in their research and instruction. Scholars should be compelling students to learn the current knowledge of the field. That can and should involve controversial material, and that is what the AAUP’s statements refer to. They should NOT be compelling students to learn the professor’s opinion or political agenda. The mission of the university, which is pursued by faculty, is to create and advance knowledge. The knowledge is created from the collective works that have gone through rigorous peer-review, replication, and other scrutiny. The instruction should be based on that knowledge established by this collective process. Instruction should not be a faculty member’s vehicle to advance their personal research, personal agenda, their position on social justice issues, or a left or right political agenda. To the extent that faculty do this, they are undermining the profession’s and university’s credibility as an arbiter of truth, and they should expect push back from those with different agendas that fund the instruction collection. And it is preferable for scholars and the academy to police this misuse of power, because if we do not, we should not be surprised if legislators do it for us.
Thanks for this post, Martha. I think the questions you raise about the scholar-activist role/term are interesting and I think you get at a real tension (both here and in the piece you link to, co-written with Scott Welsh) but it is one that may not have the stakes for the political terrain you believe it does. You point out that the Senator identified the goal of “gain knowledge of multiple forms of oppression and marginalization” as one she objected to but then you say that “gaining knowledge” isn’t the real problem for these legislators — translating knowledge into service or activism is the problem. I think they are not so nuanced about where they draw the line. People who follow the “grievance studies” line of thought want to get rid of women, gender and sexuality studies and ethnic and Black studies programs whether the instructors in them call themselves scholar-activists or not. These programs changed the political status quo in higher ed. whether we call what we teach in them “the production of knowledge” or “the pursuit of social justice” and these politicians want to turn back the clock by eliminating them. I’m not saying what we call what we do –that is, how we frame what we’re doing when we research and teach — doesn’t matter. I’m just saying that to identify the rise of this phrase with the backlash against programs centered on race, gender and social justice doesn’t make much political sense to me — nor does the suggestion that if faculty avoid the phrase we will have more success stopping these politicians from trying to interfere and violate academic freedom.
Good points here. I tend to agree that some legislatures dislike some programs. But it matters why they dislike us. Of course, we should not bend to being disliked for conducting rigorous scholarship and reporting results that are uncomfortable, or teaching uncomfortable knowledge from the field. That is the university’s mission and a scholar’s responsibility. But being disliked for (mis)using the classroom as a platform to advance a personal or political agenda (from Greenpeace or Koch Brothers) is a different issue entirely. That deserves criticism, not only because of the misuse of the position but also because it undermines the credibility of that program and academia at large.
Jennifer, I don’t suggest that identifying as “scholar activists” is the root cause of this problem–only that it doesn’t exactly help make the case for academic legitimacy and trustworthiness. In my view, there are people who would love to see certain academic programs stopped because of the political implications they imagine those programs have, and there is likely nothing you or I could say to get those people to change course. But, those extremists need to get people to go along with them (they must convince other lawmakers to vote their way, they must get the public riled up, etc), and it is those people who are more moderate that I want to be harder to convince that GWS is a bogus, ideologically driven area of study. – MM
Faculty members are teachers, researchers, and citizens. The problem isn’t identifying as a scholar-activist per se; it’s failing to distinguish these roles and bringing one’s activism into the classroom. One can’t always wear both hats (scholar and activist) at the same time. That’s not to say that one can never wear them both simultaneously; in some fields, at least, objective research can still issue in normative conclusions. (Like mine, since my research is in moral and political philosophy.) I wouldn’t want to put myself in the position of policing how other faculty teach, but this post is a valuable reminder that we have less academic freedom in the classroom than in research or extramural speech, and more responsibility to allow views that we strongly reject to be seriously considered.