LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Procedural safeguards are needed to protect academic freedom
Letters to the Editor | 1/22/08
Posted online at 3:41 AM EST on 1/22/08
To the Editor:
I am sure that the op-ed in the Justice "Harassment policy must build a campus free from fear" (Jan. 15 issue) from colleagues in Women's and Gender Studies did not intentionally assume any guilt on the part of Prof. Hindley (POL) in the recent events around a claim made by a student or students of his.
The wording of the letter, however, and especially its timing, makes this ambiguous. As a lifelong feminist I join with them in their laudable stress on the inalienability of this right [to a classroom free of racism and sexism] and its pedagogical necessity.
What woman my age has not suffered through the humiliation of sexist language in the classroom and the more debilitating source of that language in the sexist beliefs and expectations of her instructors?
The happy outcome of our long struggle against it is evident every day in our classrooms, full of expressive and ambitious young women who have not been trained to intuit and obey the wishes and low expectations of their teachers. And that outcome, for women, is not yet secure, not by a long shot. It requires, like any access of liberty, "eternal vigilance." For people of color, for Muslims in countries like ours without majority Muslim populations, for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or transgender students, it is not yet even an outcome.
But to busy oneself with protecting the crucial right of complaint in the present context casts a strange shadow: Hindley has not been told what he is said to have said -to protect his accuser's anonymity-and has not been able to contribute his own account of his actions to the investigation, nor have any other witnesses from the classroom. He has been sanctioned and threatened with termination as the consequence of an anonymous accusation: He has not been charged nor been given the right to face or even know the name(s) of his accuser(s).
Nor have the procedures outlined in the Faculty Handbook been followed, which dictate that the first action in such a case be an informal meeting of the instructor with his or her Chair or other departmental representative.
I am sure that the op-ed in the Justice "Harassment policy must build a campus free from fear" (Jan. 15 issue) from colleagues in Women's and Gender Studies did not intentionally assume any guilt on the part of Prof. Hindley (POL) in the recent events around a claim made by a student or students of his.
The wording of the letter, however, and especially its timing, makes this ambiguous. As a lifelong feminist I join with them in their laudable stress on the inalienability of this right [to a classroom free of racism and sexism] and its pedagogical necessity.
What woman my age has not suffered through the humiliation of sexist language in the classroom and the more debilitating source of that language in the sexist beliefs and expectations of her instructors?
The happy outcome of our long struggle against it is evident every day in our classrooms, full of expressive and ambitious young women who have not been trained to intuit and obey the wishes and low expectations of their teachers. And that outcome, for women, is not yet secure, not by a long shot. It requires, like any access of liberty, "eternal vigilance." For people of color, for Muslims in countries like ours without majority Muslim populations, for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or transgender students, it is not yet even an outcome.
But to busy oneself with protecting the crucial right of complaint in the present context casts a strange shadow: Hindley has not been told what he is said to have said -to protect his accuser's anonymity-and has not been able to contribute his own account of his actions to the investigation, nor have any other witnesses from the classroom. He has been sanctioned and threatened with termination as the consequence of an anonymous accusation: He has not been charged nor been given the right to face or even know the name(s) of his accuser(s).
Nor have the procedures outlined in the Faculty Handbook been followed, which dictate that the first action in such a case be an informal meeting of the instructor with his or her Chair or other departmental representative.
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Mary Baine Campbell
posted 1/22/08 @ 10:33 AM EST
An editing error (to correct my own lack of clarity) in the first 2 paragraphs of my letter misrepresents the "right" I join the authors of the op-ed on "Harassment policy" in defending. (Continued…)
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