In the wake of Senator Susan Wagle's energetic and quite probably libelous campaign against University of Kansas social welfare professor Dennis Dailey, Kansas state schools will now be required to create policies regarding the teaching of human sexuality courses. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius cited the sanctity of academic freedom as her rationale for vetoing Wagle's initial amendment to the state budget, a provision that would have denied all state funding to university departments using obscene materials in the classroom. On Friday, though, she did sign into law Wagle's latest budget amendment, saying that it struck "an acceptable balance that will both preserve academic freedom and require university administrators to adopt policies on issues of concern to many Kansans." Wagle, who conducted her campaign not by developing a reasoned argument for why the state legislature should be able to dictate how and what a professor teaches, but by casting Dailey as a sexual pervert, has declared herself to be satisfied with the new law, which gives state universities until January to implement policies on sexual harassment, the use of explicit material, and instruction about pedophilia in sexuality classes. Wagle says such a policy will force KU to address her allegations against Dailey. "If the policy is substandard, there's no question that the Legislature will act again," she declared.

Sibelious, who seems to have a much clearer picture of how schools might conform to the letter of the law without changing much, if anything, about how human sexuality courses are taught, says she thinks the proviso will not have much effect at all. KU admins seem to agree: A statement issued by the University of Kansas indicated that the school would cooperate, but added that "the legislative motivation for this proviso was flawed." Likewise, Dailey's comment on the new requirement is that "It won't affect my teaching."

KU isn't likely to write the sort of policy Wagle wants to see. My guess is that the policy will rely heavily on the language of KU's existing policies on sexual harassment, academic freedom, and faculty responsibility, and that it will be designed to ensure that professors teaching human sexuality courses continue to have the same freedoms, and same responsibilities, that professors teaching other courses do. It can't do otherwise without creating a landslide. If KU admins attempt to define what constitutes obscene material, and if they attempt to forbid such material, they will be creating policies whose impact will reverberate across the curriculum in potentially disastrous and easily forseeable ways: consider what such a policy could mean, for example, for the history course on the French Revolution that assigns readings from the Marquis de Sade, or the anthropology course that covers genital mutilation or fertility rituals, or the literature course that assigns Ulysses or Lolita, or the women's studies course that includes Our Bodies, Ourselves. KU isn't going to want to hand Wagle that kind of power.

My guess is, too, that Wagle won't be satisfied with the sort of toothless proviso KU is likely to feel compelled to write--and that we may witness phase two of her crusade next spring.

Some of you may still question whether the NYT is biased against conservatives. The article in this week's magazine about young conservatives on campus settles this question definitively.

One has only to follow the mercilessly titled "Hipublican" link to the see the cruel mockery of this pyramid of nerdliness.

Did these guys come out of central casting or what?

Erin mentions "KU's existing policies on sexual harassment, academic freedom, and faculty responsibility". Several recent cases have shown that universities and professional scholarly associations do have policies, but they're mainly honored in the breach. Interestingly, the professor at an Illinois school who wrote an inflammatory e-mail to an Air Force Academy cadet was suspended based on existing AAUP policies that require professors to be civil in public discourse. What would happen if this policy were ever uniformly enforced? Sexual harassment policies of course cover workplace situations and do not include the classroom, so they would not apply to a course on human sexuality.

A recent essay by Stanley Fish has pointed out that there are policies that regulate academic conduct short of the extreme-case instances that govern loss of tenure (though it's difficult to see what teeth they have if some of the offenders are protected by tenure). This is an example, if misguided, of attempts by the real world to circumscribe more carefully what ought and ought not be done in the academic world -- simply because "academic freedom" in ordinary usage does not in fact afford protection to genuinely independent thought, but instead becomes a refuge for those who swell departmental enrollment with no-effort courses on things like human sexuality -- or those who maintain beliefs in outlandish philosophies like Marxism or militant Islamism. The Harvard psychiatry professor who believes alien abductions are real has been maintained in his position based on "academic freedom". More realistic criteria for the use of this defense will inevitably be imposed from outside the academy, and I see no loss to society as a result.

John,

University sexual harassment policies have absolutely made their way into the classroom. Daphne Patai documents a number of chilling examples--some of which involve career-ending false accusations--in her book Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism.

I read the review of the book you cite, and the case the reviewer cites hinged primarily on a lawsuit, which would be outside any employer or university's policies. The review said the university had policies that supported their view that he should be terminated for offhand remarks, and naturally I don't know enough about that to comment.

However, workplace sexual harassment law specifically excludes offhand remarks from harassment. You can't make a case by trying to construe an overheard remark that "I find pregnant women sexy" into harassment. This suggests to me that it's a mistake to conflate workplace sexual harassment law, and workplace policies designed to avoid lawsuits, with policies universities may have to govern classroom conduct. But it's worth pointing out that, in relation to an earlier post, UC apparently had no policy governing faculty sexual relations with students. Discussions of this type of policy appear to indicate that, even if a university has some policy that says you can't draw diagrams on the blackboard that might look like a sexual organ, policies in more critical areas like sexual liaisons that might create a conflict of interest don't exist.

I think it's a mistake to say that if you try to hold the adults teaching classes and running an institution to ordinary standards of good taste, or standards of conduct that apply to most other professions, you are opening the gate to hysterical feminists. That, it seems to me, is simply not the argument of a mature intellect.

Some universities may need to scrap policies that allow hysterical interpretations of offhand remarks. Real-world policies don't do this. This is not a reason to oppose adoption of realistic policies that apply elsewhere in the real world.

John,

I urge you to read the book before judging it.

Well, were I to order the book, I would need to pay a non-trivial sum (or use time I don't want to spend that way to hie myself to the local library and see if they have it). The purpose of a review is to give a buyer an idea whether the book is worth purchasing. Based on the review, I see some serious problems with the argument. First, I believe it misuses the term "sexual harassment", which ought to apply to policies and law circumscribing certain types of workplace conduct. This does not currently extend to the classroom. It is using slippery word choice -- and thus to my mind poor argument and poor writing -- to call classroom political correctness "sexual harassment" policy.

Second, it appears to take the peculiarly absolutist position academics of all political persuasions appear to take in regard to any attempt to rein in clear abuses relating to "academic freedom", tenure, or any other perceived ability to use complete discretion irrespective of norms in other fields. In one case, if you question whether a professor should be in the classroom if he teaches that alien abductions are real, you open the door to every other assault on "academic freedom". Or if you question whether a for-credit course is much different from Playboy or Penthouse and as such suspect on intellectual grounds, you're opening the door to screaming feminists.

I would prefer not to spend time reading the book to verify that this is the argument, based on the review -- and this isn't "judging" it, this is making an informed consumer decision, same as a bad review of an automobile might influence my willingness to spend the time on a test drive.

If you feel that the book has additional points to make that would be more respectable intellectually, perhaps you could summarize them.

John,

You haven't the time to go to the library to borrow the book; I haven't the time to compensate for that by summarizing the book for you.

You can read an excerpt from the book on Amazon.com. The sample pages begin here, with page one of Patai's study. You can also read a review by Cathy Young here. If you don't like that one either, Google will offer you plenty more to choose from.

I still urge you to read the book before passing judgment on it. Since you can't make it to the library and won't spring for a new copy, perhaps you'd be willing to shell out $4.95 plus postage to order a used copy. The seller says that the book is like new.

The Young review was helpful in confirming my impression that the book is poorly argued. For instance, Young says the book recognizes that "sexual harassment" refers to necessary law and policies governing coercive workplace conduct. This is what I've been saying all along.

But then the book, according to Young, identifies a "sexual harassment industry" that maintains "Women are seen as powerless in interactions with men; distinctions between trivial and severe offenses are erased; an accusation, for all intents and purposes, equals guilt. Lack of evidence is treated as a pesky inconvenience, to be circumvented by such Kafkaesque means as depositing unproven allegations into sealed files that can be opened in the event of future complaints against the same person."

If it were me, I would use a different word to cover this latter outlook if "sexual harassment" actually refers to a set of laws and policies Patai feels are justifiable. It is simply intentionally or unintentionally misleading to use "sexual harassment" to describe non-workplace policies in which due process is not accorded, especially as Patai apparently acknowledges that workplace sexual harassment law and policy does accord due process.

I think an easy clarification would be to continue to describe workplace sexual harassment policies as "sexual harassment" policy, and university classroom based, non-due process policies as "schmiggledwap". (Or select another word you like better.)

At that point we can make an easy argument. Universities need to abandon schmiggledwap. I don't see this as controversial. The schmiggledwap industry is a fraud and is causing problems.

Universities could then adopt policies similar to existing workplace sexual harassment policies, in consultation with their attorneys. This would guarantee due process rights, professional investigation, confidentiality, and other features that have generally worked effectively in the workplace for almost 30 years. We would not be confusing sexual harassment law and policy with schmiggledwap. Universities could adopt policies that would prevent real abuse while protecting faculty from hysterical allegations.

I've noted an odd form of argument in the past some-odd years: if you haven't read Book X, you can't have a valid argument. While there may be basic books in some fields that, if you don't know about them or about the basic principles they outline, show you clearly are ignorant, I don't see that an unwillingness to spend time with one of many books on a subject that appears to argue in a slipshod manner is necessary to have a valid opinion.

The "if you haven't read Book X, you don't have an argument" view is often, it seems to me, espoused by people who have read Book X and have become "converts". The assumption is that if you read Book X, you will become a convert, too. "If you haven't read Diuretics, you can't intelligently discuss $cientology." I think that on the face of it, this is not a valid argument -- if I can be reasonably assured that such a philosophy makes patently outlandish arguments, I don't need to waste the time to wade through them in detail, whether they have made someone a "convert" or not.

John,

It's enough to say that you don't plan to read the book. There is no need to speculate about my past conversion experiences. It is hardly a sign of fanaticism to recommend a highly regarded book that is directly relevant to the topic at hand; nor is my suggestion that you actually read the book before dismissing it and its author proof of my blind devotion to Patai's world view. You've taken rather a lot of speculative, not to mention derisive, license with me in your posts of late. I'd like you to stop.

My inner Aristotle suggests there is another approach to this issue, the "argument from circumstance".

Let's grant, as we certainly must, that university non-due process based policies, and related complaints and lawsuits, are a problem. Professors are losing careers based on crazy interpretations of offhand remarks. Students can get revenge for bad grades via unfounded allegations.

What would be the cure? Can a university simply decide one day to ignore all allegations of schmiggledwap? Of course not -- the university would simply be sued, a much more expensive proposition.

The only alternative, it seems to me, is to adopt clear due-process based policies following the successful models of workplace sexual harassment programs.

If Student A felt Professor B drew a bell curve on the blackboard that reminded her of a breast, and she filed a complaint, it would be reviewed by a responsible party in legal and/or HR, and probably, just to cross the t's and dot the i's, investigated on a confidential basis.

Among the criteria the investigators would use would be whether there was a pattern of behavior. If Professor B had no history of such things, or just occasional reports that he'd said "shoot" when someone thought he'd said something else, the matter would end, and Student A might even get a little talk with the dean.

(If there were a slipshod investigation and Professor B were exposed as a harasser and fired on the same evidence, Professor B would have grounds for a lawsuit.)

Under such a policy, the student orientations on harassment would certainly include clear discussions of what is and what is not harassment: roll in the hay for an A is harassment. Walking around the lecture hall kneading shoulders is harassment. Offhand remark alone is not harassment. Rorschach blot that reminds you of sex is not harassment. Get it, kids.

The clear way to eliminate hysteria and Spanish inquisition style procedures is to institute clear, reasonable policies and due process procedures. This is simply the Enlightenment vs the Middle Ages. The cost to a university is the limitation on its sphere of action that comes with the need for transparancy and due process.

This is also the Enlightenment vs the MIddle Ages. One thing I am beginning to consider is the fact that universities are in fact medieval institutions, while our system of laws, government, and business stems from the Enlightenment. I suspect there will be continuing conflict, and I suspect this is deeply at the root of unwillingness to accept reasonable solutions to what has been pretty adequately addressed outside of the university environment.

John Bruce,

I'd suggest telling Erin that you'll stop iff (that's a logic term--not a typo) she admits that Chris Stevens, despite all he's been through and the support he gives to our troops, is still "disturbingly illiterate."

I don't know if an apology to the Tunneler of Oppression would be in order.

Ritchie, this may be one area where we agree. It's been at the back of my mind for many years that university adults -- both faculty and administrators -- do in fact relish the near-infinite discretion they have in their (rather limited) spheres of effectiveness.

I think the question of what to do about the problem of non-due process political correctness inquisitions illustrates my concern. The clear solution would be to adopt understandable, reasonable, enforceable policies, supported by due-process methods of enforcement, all in an atmosphere of transparency. This is the solution that the "highly regarded" book on the subject apparently doesn't consider. Too simple? Sounds too Republican? Who knows?

But my speculation is that a big reason is that any university that adopted such policies would simultaneously be restricting the power of assorted deans, faculty, screaming feminists (could be an intersecting set of the above), etc.

By the same token, I've been scolded publicly by The Professor (I sent her a note about it offline; my e-mail works, and I'm not sure why she chose to berate me publicly) -- but others who've been accused of "trolling" behavior seem able to get away with it here without the same sort of treatment.

So, while I tend to agree with some that Stevens rates an easier ride than Tunnel, I agree with you that such inconsistency is at least noticeable, and in fact does not speak well for the attitudes emanating from the academy.