Yet more Churchill

Robert K. C. Johnson, over at Cliopatria asks a very pertinent question: "What exactly is it that Churchill and the other eight members of his Ethnic Studies Department are teaching Colorado students?" He points to a very important article by Mark Blauerstein in the Chronicle of Higher Education which describes a process he calls "group polarization." This is a form of institutionalized groupthink that radically narrows the bounds of legitimate thought within a department or school. Johnson wonders if such is the case at CU.

This raises a couple of important questions?

How does a university guarantee quality control in the matter of instruction without infringing academic freedom? Student evaluation forms are at best a flawed mechanism.

And, given the observable phenomenon of group polarization operating in many departments, how does a university effectively evaluate the performance of its personnel? Peer review in such a situation is worse than useless. Strictly defined bureaucratic procedures simply invite academic careerists to game the system.

I don't have the answers but would welcome any suggestions.

UPDATE:

Ralph E. Luker at the same site presents a list of links to articles and blogs that reference the Churchill affair, including a couple of my posts. Check it out.

UPDATE!

I've been saying all along that we are entering a period of crisis in which academic freedom is going to be seriously challenged; a time when academic institutions will have to get their acts together or suffer severe consequences. Here is the latest harbinger, reported by Digito Society [hat tip to Instapundit]. An Ohio legislator wants to introduce a legal requirement that, "Faculty and instructors shall not use their courses or their positions for the purpose of political, ideological, religious, or antireligious indoctrination."

It is all to easy for academics to sit around and gripe about "encroaching McCarthyism" or some such nonsense and to ignore their own faults. Agreed, those who are assaulting academia are often over the top and have a style reminiscent the old McCarthy bully boys. But, they are responding to conditions within academic institutions themselves. The current costs of higher education in this country are outrageous, the institutions themselves are frequently corrupt and highly politicized, the faculty are often incompetent and irresponsible in the exercise of their authority, and the proliferation of administrative positions is completely out of hand. I could go on, but what's the use, bureaucratic inertia will prevail. Current trends will not be reversed until a real crisis is upon us, funding starts fading away, and the bodies start dropping.

UPDATE:

In a related matter, there is now a published call to "take back Hamilton College" [the school that had invited Prof. Churchill to speak] from the radicals who are supposedly destroying the institution and its reputation. Read about it here.

UPDATE:

The lawyers are on the case. Legal opinion seems to have it that Prof. Churchill has nothing to worry about. Read it here.

The argument, as presented in the Rocky Mountain News, that state supported institutions like UC have less latitude in removing faculty than do private ones and that Churchill's speech, however obnoxious, is protected by the first amendment. Additionally, tenure is supposed to provide yet another level of protection in order to ensure that universities remain a forum for the free discussion of ideas. This last point, made by David Miller, former legal director for the Colorado ACLU, is to my mind questionable considering that universities have a record of prohibiting speech and stifling many forms of expression, but the first amendment point is probably sound. I wonder, though, if there is not going to be an attempt to shut down the Ethnic Studies program and to simply eliminate the positions within it.

UPDATE:

Glenn Reynolds over at Tech Central Station agrees that Churchill's speech is fully protected and then goes on to make the point that I and others have been making for the past few days -- that Churchill was hired not in spite of, but specifically because of, his presumed ethnic heritage and his radicalism. He certainly was not hired for his academic excellence. Reynolds also, like the rest of us, places the blame with the University administration and its tenure and hiring committees that operate to ensure uniformity rather than diversity of opinion. Read the whole thing here.

In the end this is probably going to be a good experience for the academic world. It will serve as an "alarum bell in the night" waking universities across the country to the dangers they are courting. What is interesting is the way the blogosphere has been acting as a dynamic public forum in which the different aspects and ramifications of this case can be widely discussed and deliberated.