Should academic freedom protect racist/classist views? This Harvard student says no.

[alp227]

Harvard University student Sandra Korn is getting flak (h/t ConWebWatch, predictably misogynistic) for her column in the Harvard Crimson newspaper, "The Doctrine of Academic Freedom":

In July 1971, Harvard psychology professor Richard J. Herrnstein penned an article for Atlantic Monthly titled “I.Q.” in which he endorsed the theories of UC Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen, who had claimed that intelligence is almost entirely hereditary and varies by race. Herrnstein further argued that because intelligence was hereditary, social programs intended to establish a more egalitarian society were futile—he wrote that “social standing (is) based to some extent on inherited differences among people.”

When he returned to campus for fall semester 1971, Herrnstein was met by angry student activists. Harvard-Radcliffe Students for a Democratic Society protested his introductory psychology class with a bullhorn and leaflets. They tied up Herrnstein’s lectures with pointed questions about scientific racism. SDS even called for Harvard to fire Herrnstein, along with another of his colleagues, sociologist Christopher Jencks.

Herrnstein told The Crimson, “The attacks on me have not bothered me personally… What bothers me is this: Something has happened at Harvard this year that makes it hazardous for a professor to teach certain kinds of views.” This, Herrnstein seems not to have understood, was precisely the goal of the SDS activists—they wanted to make the “certain kinds of views” they deemed racist and classist unwelcome on Harvard’s campus.

In its oft-cited Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the American Association of University Professors declares that “Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results.” In principle, this policy seems sound: It would not do for academics to have their research restricted by the political whims of the moment.

Yet the liberal obsession with “academic freedom” seems a bit misplaced to me. After all, no one ever has “full freedom” in research and publication. Which research proposals receive funding and what papers are accepted for publication are always contingent on political priorities. The words used to articulate a research question can have implications for its outcome. No academic question is ever “free” from political realities. If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?

Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of “academic justice.” When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.

The power to enforce academic justice comes from students, faculty, and workers organizing together to make our universities look as we want them to do. Two years ago, when former summer school instructor Subramanian Swamy published hateful commentary about Muslims in India, the Harvard community organized to ensure that he would not return to teach on campus. I consider that sort of organizing both appropriate and commendable. Perhaps it should even be applied more broadly. Does Government Professor Harvey Mansfield have the legal right to publish a book in which he claims that “to resist rape a woman needs … a certain ladylike modesty?” Probably. Do I think he should do that? No, and I would happily organize with other feminists on campus to stop him from publishing further sexist commentary under the authority of a Harvard faculty position. “Academic freedom” might permit such an offensive view of rape to be published; academic justice would not.

But won't such a position make those who make "politically incorrect" views into martyrs?

Oh yeah, I'll end with my obligatory do not read the comments section even though the link is to Harvard's newspaper.

People who believe in Herrnstein's scientifically racist views have mastered the art of framing, strengthening ther arguments by depicting their critics as "politically correct" dimwits who get offended at everything. I think what it boils down to is the way bigotry can be defeated. The thing is, people try to frame their bigoted views around an albeit spun but factual basis rather than prejudice (for instance linking homosexuality and pedophilia, using IQ tests to explain why Asians succeed in school, or "because anatomy" to explain why women can't serve in combat). Sure, those facts may exist, but the question is: do they matter in a human society? When do those "politically incorrect truths about human differences" outweigh the ideal of equality?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I went through this in the first go-round, and well remember

when Arthur Jensen published his severely flawed paper on IQ, race & heredity in the Harvard Educational Review. At that time HER would only publish it or offer it as reprints when it was bound with several rebutting papers. IIRC, the opening sentence was something like "Compensatory education {by which he meant Headstart} has been tried, and it has failed."

Incidentally, Jensen was pushed into publishing the article by fellow Berkeley professor and inventor of the transistor, William Shockley. Shockley, in my opinion, was a genuine racist and agitator.

There was a movement among some in academe to silence Jensen back then, but I was among those who stubbornly resisted it. I didn't think that scientific work should ever be shut down on ideological grounds (although I certainly opposed experimentation that is harmful to the human subjects).

It was my position that science contains ts own self-correcting mechanisms, and that more harm would come from making martyrs through the mechanism of suppression than could result from allowing free inquiry to proceed.

(I would now have to re-think that position to great extent due to the unholy influence of Big Money in almost every economically significant field of scientific endeavor, from drug testing to studies of the consequences of fracking. But all of that is a different story for another day.)

In any case, Jensen relied heavily on a series of twin studies published in the 30's-50's by Cyril Burt in England, in which Burt concluded that human IQ has a heritability coefficient of .8, meaning that 80% of the variance in IQ is attributable to heredity.

The problem with Burt's work is that by 1976, various researchers looking at the original data were forced to the conclusion that much of Burt's work was faked. As a matter of fact, Jensen himself was one of those who discovered and reported much of the fakery.

These discoveries were petty much the death knell for "Jensenism." I met Jensen more than once back in those days, argued with him, and always believed he was honest albeit deluded, and even had the Burt data been more trustworthy, his conclusions from it were unwarranted. My arguments were a bit too technical to go into here.

[Vattel]

2. Academic freedom should be protected.

Jensen's research was flawed, but that is something that has to be demonstrated by his peers.

[Throd]

3. Who decides what is racist or classist?

[Gravitycollapse]

4. This is called peer review and it already exists.

[YarnAddict]

5. Let them put their whacky ideas out there

If they can be publicly challenged, debated, and refuted, it helps the progressive cause.

[aikoaiko]

6. Bring on the thought police

Peer review takes care of bad ideas in he academy.

[Gravitycollapse]

7. More often than not it does. Which doesn't mean it's perfect.

But we should be addressing this as a problem within peer review instead of trying to throw the entire system out.

[Iggo]

8. Protect them from what? Sunshine? Criticism? Ridicule?

Never!