Jim West has an interesting post today: Loyalty Oaths For Professors? Cal State Fullerton’s Reprehensible Behavior. At Cal State Fullerton, Wendy Gonaver lost her job because she refused to sign an oath to defend the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
Okay, technically, I'm against this, for I believe that colleges and universities should be open to all sorts of ideas. Even ideas that are absurd should be challenged through argument, not dismissal or intimidation. For example, if a professor wants to say that there wasn't a Holocaust, then he should be able to present his case in an open forum. And, in turn, those who know better can present the evidence for this atrocity. It's because of an absence of such an open-forum that Holocaust-deniers can thrive. "See, they don't want to debate us!" they say. "What are they trying to hide?" Well, why not shut the Holocaust deniers up through evidence and argument? The same goes for 9/11 conspiracy theorists and creationists. (I sympathize with creationists, however, but not with Holocaust deniers or 9/11 conspiracy theorists.)
When I was at DePauw, the KKK was invited to be on a university radio program. Students and professors rose up in protest. One professor said that inviting a KKK representative grants undeserved legitimacy to its beliefs.
I sympathized with the concerns of African-American students for their personal safety. I did not, however, sympathize with the professor's argument--not in the least bit. The way to show that the KKK's beliefs lack legitimacy is, well, actually to demonstrate that the KKK's beliefs lack legitimacy. Blithely blowing them off with academic snobbery accomplishes little. And so I believe in academic freedom. A professor who doesn't like the Constitution should be free to present her case.
My problem with academia, however, is that there is not much tolerance for a lot of ideas. And I'm not talking here about Holocaust revisionism or the KKK. Many professors are liberals, who love to ramrod their liberalism down students' throats. Students can get bad grades just for being conservative. And professors often go unchallenged through all of this. So, while I technically disagree with that Cal State professor's dismissal, part of me rejoices that a professor was knocked off of her power trip. She couldn't boldly proclaim her liberalism as the only way to see the universe. For once, she had to answer to a higher authority.