BY KEVIN HOWLEY
Call me cynical, but any piece of legislation or policy prescription that receives bipartisan support these days gives me the willies.
When Democrats and Republicans agree on anything, it usually involves bloated military budgets or, in the case of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, doubling down on roads and bridges in the midst of fossil fuel-induced climate catastrophe.
Let’s just say Biden-era bipartisanship doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
Back To School Daze
I was reminded of this as I returned to campus in these politically polarized times. If I were a chemist or kinesiologist, I might not have been so wary. But as a media studies educator, there’s no avoiding the fractured and divisive nature of our political culture and public discourse.
Heaven help me if, in the course of my teaching, I discuss “controversial issues” in such a febrile political environment. After all, the prospect of a tumultuous and potentially calamitous midterm election is difficult to ignore.
But don’t take my word for it. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently suggested that there will be “riots in the streets” if the Justice Department charges Donald Trump with obstruction of justice and mishandling of classified information.
Oh, to be teaching STEM now that the 2022 campaign is here!
School Censorship
It isn’t just violent political rhetoric that concerns me. Censorship and intimidation are commonplace throughout the US education system, from preschool to the university. Florida Governor and Brownshirt throwback Ron DeSantis is the poster child for “educational gag order” legislation currently sweeping the nation.
Of course, the forces of ignorance and intolerance are most apparent in so-called Red States, where culture war issues like critical race theory and LGBTQ rights gain traction with the MAGA faithful and the demagogues who cultivate them.
But in recent years, university presidents and their so-called leadership teams—consisting primarily of political insiders, career administrators, and corporate bigwigs—are working just as hard, albeit with far less fanfare, devising new ways to stifle dissent and debase critical inquiry, all in the name of free speech.
A Manufactured Crisis
You needn’t be an English lit major to recognize that bipartisan solutions to “bridge the campus speech divide” have an Orwellian streak a mile wide.
Consider, for example, a report issued late last year by the Bipartisan Policy Center titled Campus Free Expression: A New Roadmap. The report offers university administrators guidelines for “upholding their institutional mission amid today’s changing social, civic and political landscape.”
This laudable goal stands in sharp contrast to the report’s conspicuous silence on academic freedom: a prerequisite for free inquiry and inclusion in higher education. Even Princeton University’s Keith Whittington, who described the task force report as a “terrifically useful document,” voiced concern.
“I wish it had addressed the specific issue of academic freedom more, but if universities were to follow through on these proposals, we should certainly expect some positive ramifications for academic freedom as well,” Whittington added. Skeptic that I am, this sounds like magical thinking: the application of discredited trickle-down economic theory to intellectual inquiry.
Then there’s the report’s significant and worrisome caveats regarding students’ everyday “lived experience.” The task force acknowledges that identity and experience are sources for important insights, “but we heard that students’ tendency to elevate such perspectives over knowledge developed on other bases can have a deleterious impact on classroom discourse, particularly when it comes to some of the most fraught topics of our time, such as race, class, sex, and gender.”
I wonder where they heard that? It sounds like the same voices calling for education gag orders on structural racism, gender identity, economic inequality and other so-called divisive issues. The same conservative voices who have spent years manufacturing a campus speech crisis in an effort to stifle dissent and further marginalize oppressed communities whose histories, hopes and aspirations are deemed unfit for school curricula, public libraries, and the town square.
Three cheers for bipartisan solutions to the campus speech divide!
Reasons to be Cheerful
The fall semester is young—the honeymoon period of the academic year—and despite the specter of political violence, there are reasons to be cheerful.
For instance, in the first days of a communication theory course, I asked students to identify concepts from our textbook that they find interesting and important. Unprompted, one student wanted to talk about critical race theory; another sought greater insight into queer theory; yet another was eager to discuss environmental communication.
I suggested that their curiosity may reflect the divisive public discourse surrounding these topics—and their social, economic, and political implications.
To their credit, young people are asking difficult questions about the state of the union, and the wider world. A welcome counterpoint to reactionaries whose willful ignorance does a profound disservice to students, places additional stress on educators, and, as former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey warns, represents a clear and present danger to our precarious democracy.
Likewise, in an introduction to media studies class, we had a lively conversation about the dangers of “deep fakes” and other forms of misinformation and disinformation that undermine our ability to discern truth from falsehood, facts from opinion, reality from fantasy.
No mean feat when whole swaths of the American electorate continue to believe the twice-impeached former president’s Big Lie about a “stolen” 2020 election.
Once again, students didn’t shy away from discussing this unnerving state of affairs. They spoke openly and thoughtfully of their shared and common concerns, and did so without partisan squabbling or bipartisan virtue signaling.
And that’s as it should be—the stakes couldn’t be higher this school year.
Kevin Howley is professor of media studies at DePauw University.
