Here's what I wrote on my blog in response:

Erin O’Connor claims that I’ve “jumped the shark” in my defense of academic freedom at the University of Delaware. She writes, “Surely he can see the difference between voluntary, student-motivated political efforts and institutionalized, politicized bureaucracies funded with taxpayer dollars?” This is an interesting view of academic freedom, that it applies only to student-motivated efforts and not to “institutionized” actions by university employees “funded with taxpayer dollars.” She’s wrong. Staffers who are part of “bureaucracies” also have academic freedom, including the freedom to design and implement controversial, voluntary programs. The invocation of “taxpayer dollars” cannot be used to justify censorship, whether the money is used to pay for faculty or staff or student organizations. Everyone gets the freedom to organize voluntary activities. No exceptions, not even for left-wing administrators who write dumb memos.

O’Connor also objects to the idea of “endless tutelage” in residence hall. Obviously, some people think that dorms shouldn’t try to educate students. And they might be correct that many students dislike educational programs (I haven’t seen any data on this topic) or even cause “damaging cynicism” (whatever that is). This is an argument to make in the realm of free speech. It should never be the case that voluntary educational programs are banned (whether by the central administration or a faculty body) for being “political” or controversial, even if you imagine that they don’t belong in dorms.

O’Connor also claims, “it's quite a falsehood to label FIRE a ‘conservative’ organization.” No, it’s not. FIRE is a conservative (mostly libertarian) civil liberties group that defends people with many different viewpoints, just as the ACLU is a liberal civil liberties group that defends people with many different viewpoints. I’m not usually the term “conservative” to smear FIRE; I’m using it to explain why they’re willing to let their ideology override their free speech principles. But obviously, the organization founded by the authors of “The Shadow University”, which has right-wing opponents of academic freedom such as Candace de Russy on its advisory board, which repeatedly declares conservatives to be the overwhelming majority of victims of campus censorship, is a conservative group. It just is.

I think that the critics of the ResLife program are overwhelmingly on the conservative side, but I don’t particularly care if they are “across the political spectrum” as O’Connor claims. If there are progressives who want to have the ResLife program banned, then they’re wrong, too.

I believe that the ferocity of the response to my criticism is not because I’ve jumped any aquatic creatures, but because I’ve exposed a certain hypocrisy among the thoughtful conservatives who don’t join in David Horowitz’s crusade against academic freedom. These well-intentioned conservatives and libertarians, like O’Connor and John Leo and those at FIRE, don’t like to have the limits of their devotion to academic freedom exposed. O’Connor may wonder why I want to “grind this particular axe.” I don’t particularly like the Delaware program, and I certainly don’t like the way they implemented it last year. But the principle of academic freedom demands that we defend even people and programs we don’t like against those who think that “political” activities should be banned from the dorms, or anywhere else on a college campus.

John..."Staffers who are part of “bureaucracies” also have academic freedom, including the freedom to design and implement controversial, voluntary programs."

If the university administration decided to implement a "voluntary" program of Christian prayers in the dormitories every evening, and did so in a manner making clear to students that their participation was strongly encouraged, would you view this as an exercise of freedom of speech/religion? Or is it in fact an infringement on other people's freedom of speech/religion?

Leave the indoctrination, even of a supposedly voluntary but "highly encouraged" nature, in the classroom. I don't really care to have people in my living room--let alone my bedroom--constantly spouting politics even if I agree with them. A dorm is a student's home for the duration of their time there: aren't they adults entitled to a little peace, to be let alone without having their entire waking lives suffused with someone else's advocacy?

"The fact that in the past there were some minor issues about intrusive questions being asked of students by RAs is irrelevant to the consideration of this current program."

No, it isn't. The way the program behaved in the past is a far more predictive guide to how it would be implemented in the future than is the invariable a bunch of high-minded jargon-filled and vague guidelines. The program was absolutely Orwellian in the degree it attempted to intrude on students' privacy and there's no credible reason to believe it would be any different if revived.

"Trying to change what students think is a primary goal of all education."

Silly me, I thought education was about teaching people TO think, and how to articulate and advance those thoughts, not teaching them WHAT to think. I guess that makes me hopelessly old-fashioned. Thank God I work in the courtroom every day instead of in the Ivory Tower.

Setting aside the whole idea of whether administrators and bureaucrats have academic freedom (I find that kind of funny, actually), aren't the proliferation of complex residence life programs partly responsible for the continuing rise in the costs of tuition, room and board for students? If there were no complex residence life programs, and no administrators to oversee the myriad aspects of it, other than the minimal staff needed to make sure the hotels (that's what they really are) are running smoothly, how much might students save?

Armitage, I agree with you in principle. Problem is, these res life programs didn't just spring up as an excuse to waste money. Universities have competed for decades to provide more and more "services" to students beyond education. It's a slippery slope from pizza night to paid speakers in the dorm to the Delaware structure. Hard as it is to believe, many students (and probably many more parents) look for this in a school. And up til recently they've been willing to pay for it. (For many people, the frustration with money probably has more to do with the recession than with any principled disagreement with how universities are spending money.)

Luther, I think I'd have to disagree with your comments (though I welcome your agreement to my earlier point in principle). I don't have anything other than anecdotal experience from my own and that of others I know, but the competition for students focuses on the quality of student life, not the quality of residence life. Thus the universities (my own and my alma mater included) build larger sports facilities, student unions and computer labs, all for use by all instead of just the dorm kids. No one really seemed to care about residence life except for residence life people and administrators. Everyone really wanted to get to the junior year and be able to live off campus in their own apartment. That may be different in places where dorm life _is_ campus life, but not in most places.

To put this in _real_ perspective, talk to the Europeans, who have no residence life and in many instances live in an apartment from freshman year week one.

I can't believe John K. Wilson thinks that university employees have a free speech right to deliver a university-financed curriculum. Res Life employees can talk up "sustainability" on their own time and their own dime, but they don't have a right to university sponsorship.

The proposed program isn't mandatory, a significant improvement. However, the UD faculty think ResLife's revamped program is ideologically biased and/or educationally vapid. Why should the university be obliged to sponsor it?

My daughter loved the discussions in her dorm about religion (approval of violence in the Koran vs. the Bible), patriotism (what respect is due the flag?) and the like. Nobody organized or led these discussions. They were started spontaneously and conducted both online and in person. She though the ResLife orientation program was a waste of time.

Many "progressives" seem very uncomfortable with the existence of any human activities that are not top-down directed by experts. Even the dormitory bull session must become a controlled and didactic experience.

Dr Robert Ley, a Nazi leader, once said approvingly:

"The only people who still have a private life in Germany are those who are asleep."

Thanks, David, for the reductio ad hitlerum.

This doesn't seem to be an issue about "experts," insofar as many of the Delaware sinners were RAs who take these positions simply for some tuition remittance and pocket money.

Then again, no one has bothered to present evidence that this situation at Delaware is at all representative of residential life programs across the nation. To my knowledge, most colleges offer a variety of residential options for students, from intense, small dorms that mix service, academics, and down time, to high-rise buildings that operate on a floor-by-floor basis (one floor might offer a "pillow fight club" while another is predominantly observant Jews).

As I wrote before, I think many parents look for active residential life programs for their children. Personally, I agree that colleges should, if necessary, provide only the basics. But many parents *want* their children to live on campus for the first year or so, and many students do as well. Many return year after year to the dorms, even when they can move off campus -- and they return to *dorms*, not just to friends.

So I'd like to see evidence that parents are turned off by over-active res-life programs. The buyers are certainly not being-ware.

"This doesn't seem to be an issue about "experts," insofar as many of the Delaware sinners were RAs who take these positions simply for some tuition remittance and pocket money"...it seems clear to me that the people establishing the program consider themselves as experts or authorities in the desired behavior patterns. The expertise or lack thereof of the RAs, who seem intended to serve as cogs in the wheel, is not relevant to this point.

David, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the problem not in the design of the program -- which Wilson suggests might be protected by academic freedom -- but in its implementation by RAs (i.e., when they told students they *had* to participate in res life functions)?

Luther...generally speaking, management is responsible for the actions of its employees, when these employees are acting within the scope of their employment. If you run a railroad, you won't have much luck arguing that the firm isn't responsible for the collison that happened when an engineer ran a red signal, just because you didn't *tell* him to run the signal. And if there's a whole pattern of engineers running signals on your railroad, that will make your case even worse. Similarly with the RAs.

But even if the RAs *didn't* tell the students that they *had* to participate in the program, it still seems that there was pressure on them (the students) to do so.

Luther will defend his fellow travelers to the bitter end. Arguing with him is a complete waste of time and effort.

He actually works with Erin, no?

Winston -- I knew Luther/Matt years ago at Penn. I would not say we ever worked together.

Winston, thanks for the petty retort! You might take the care actually to read what I wrote before spouting off; that's the grown-up thing to do.

I began by agreeing with Armitage that res life programs should be reduced to the bare essentials: safe, comfortable living, healthy food, and all in an environment conducive to academic work. (The real issue for me is that these programs offer all sorts of well-funded social amenities while the students live in tiny, ugly, uncomfortable boxes with intermittently working utilities and are served disgusting food at extortionate prices.)

I then suggested that these crazy res life programs survive because parents (and many students) want them.

Finally, I wrote that in this particular case, it seems that the program was in theory simply dumb, while it was the RAs who crossed the line into making it dumb and wrong.

I graduated from UD in 1993, and I distinctly remember how easy it was to avoid Residence Life programs. Aside from the "welcome to the dorm" meeting, I don't think I attended another one for four years--so even though I think the current program at Delaware is deplorable, I'm not too worried about students' ability to blow it off in practice.

That said, I'm much more concerned about the coercion of the RAs. During my four years in the Delaware dorms, most of my RAs were in-state students who had taken the job out of financial need. Unlike dorm residents, who can ignore Residence Life programs and suffer no consequences, the RAs can't avoid this nonsense. It's not unreasonable for them to assume that keeping the job (and thus being able to afford college) depends on how hard they push the extracurricular program designed by Residence Life bureaucrats, even if they strongly disagree with its content. That's a lousy thing to do to a 20-year-old kid who's simply working his way through college. Not only is it an inappropriate expansion of the responsibilities of the RAs, but it also reeks of exploitation.

Luther, you do a lot of defending and a lot of explaining, and not nearly enough ideological critiquing, unless it's of someone of a different ideological stripe from yourself.

You also seem to have a personal obsession with Erin and with Critical Mass. Whatever Erin's position is, your position is in opposition, to one degree or another. This makes all of your opinions suspect, in my book.

For once, I'd like to hear you come out and say that you agree with the positions being stated, without all the Kerry-like "nuance" that results in you saying very little indeed.

You know, something like "Using the residence halls for any sort of political indoctrination is simply wrong, no matter who demands it or what political ideas are being championed."

Winston, did you work closely with Sen. McCarthy or just study his work very closely?

1. I'm a regular commenter to 10-12 blogs. Prof. O'Connor's was one of the first blogs I ever read, and while I disagree with her (as I disagree with Ron Silliman on his blog), I admire the principles behind many of her positions.

2. But because I agree with the principles, I find myself criticizing the ways Prof. O'Connor applies them to certain situations.

3. You seem to suggest that the point of a blog comment box is to simply agree with the blogger. To do otherwise is "to troll." What kind of ideological roll-over-belly-rub is that?

4. If you actually read my comments, you'll see I'm often in agreement with Prof. O'Connor. We both agree on the need for a rigorous undergraduate and graduate curriculum with certain key requirements, even if I disagree with her (and Mark Bauerlein's) vision of what that base curriculum might be. We both agree that these res life programs are a problem, but while she sees them as indoctrination, I see them as a waste of money.

5. It means nothing to say, "I'm against ideological indoctrination." There's nothing brave about spouting those words. The critique I always present on this blog is simple: can we get anything like a clear line where indoctrination ends and education begins? If not, how do we adjudicate over the large gray area? Who has the authority to adjudicate? I've always agreed that professors should stick to their fields and shouldn't bring in material outside the confines of their syllabi. But again, it's not a terribly clear position. For example, in a class on war literature, certain political discussions will inevitably arise.

6. When I agree with a blogger, I tend not to comment. Erin doesn't need my "You go, girl" comments. I think she's intellectually secure without backslapping and gladhanding.

7. Finally, it's ironic that your pen-name is "Winston Smith" while your manner of intellectual engagement would be expected from "O'Brien."

Re-read my post, and then try again, Luther. You've twisted my words and created a straw man.

As for Winston Smith, he would indeed question the kind of academic group think you and yours are so often engaged in, like the need to shove race, class, and gender down people's throats because you have qualms with the New Criticism, which hasn't been practiced for decades and which most English student have little or no familiarity besides the invective of Terry Eagleton in his ubiquitous intro to to literary theory.

Winston, I imagine there's little to be gained in continuing this, but I need a break from work, so here goes nothing.

You claim I twist your words. Well, here are your own words. You tell me that I should agree or disagree with no "nuance." You even give me the loyalty oath to which to swear: "Using the residence halls for any sort of political indoctrination is simply wrong, no matter who demands it or what political ideas are being championed."

Now, that sounds brave and Orwellian. Except that without nuance, it's meaningless puff. The entire question remains what *exactly* constitutes political indoctrination and who has the authority to adjudicate in such matters. If a group of student residents invites Noam Chomsky to foam at the mouth in the rec room, is that indoctrination? If the house dean invites a political science professor to give a talk in the rec room, and the professor decides to address distortions in political commercials, is that political indoctrination? If a linguistics professor gives a talk in the dorm about the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, is that political indoctrination? If a community businessman gives a talk in the dorms to recruit students to enter industry, is that political indoctrination? If RAs invite students on their floors to attend a workshop on date rape in the LGBT center, is that political indoctrination? If the RAs organize a trip to DC to the Vietnam Memorial and Holocaust Museum, is that political indoctrination? If the dorm mother offers reduced-priced tickets to a Philip Glass opera, is that political indoctrination? If RAs plan a pizza dinner around a political debate on TV in the student center, is that?

Then there's the completely unrelated topic you raise of New Criticism. If you think it's not practiced, you might consult Marjorie Garber's 1500 page volume of lectures on Shakespeare recently published. Or I could direct you to the syllabi of myself and my peers who teach Wimsatt, Richards, Beardsley, and Wellek & Warren in our classes. Personally, I can't imagine a literary criticism worth anything that doesn't combine rigorous formal analysis with carefully researched attention to historical context -- sort of the intersection of Abrams and Richards. Having just taught a poetry unit to my 10th graders, concentrating on Blake's *Songs* and the formal elements of poetry analysis, I find your claims simply ignorant. Having just attended the graduation of a friend who wrote a dissertation on the New Critics, I find your claims wildly detached from reality.

But again, your own positions are poses of bravery, as if either/or thinking devoid of evidence, as if what Austen called "pride and prejudice," are admirable intellectual traits.

Luther, I'll put it to you straight, and yes, I want a yes or no answer--no postmodern obfuscating.

Is it wrong to use a position of authority to politically indoctrinate or no?

Is it the business of the university or any of its representatives to politically indoctrinate?

You can try to dodge the question by painting me as McCarthy, or you can just answer it.

And if you can't discern the differences between the various hypothetical situations you provide in your response, you're a rather dense fellow.

As for New Criticism, I am responding to your call for continuing more than a quarter of a century of "corrective" to readings of literature that don't focus on race, class, and gender. It was you who forwarded this as an either/or scenario; as a professor of English, I certainly see the need for a balanced approach, but one which critiques the race/class/gender critics as thoroughly as they critique their predecessors. And this is how *I* teach literary theory in my classroom.

Your previous rhetoric would indicate that your allegiance is to those who hold the trinity of race, class, and gender to be the pinnacle of what literary criticism can achieve. If this is *not* the impression you are seeking to make, perhaps you should tone down your stereotypical acolyte of the 1968ers rhetoric and present us with a more accurate depiction of your critical and theoretical leanings. My "claims" are based on the textual reality that you present here at Critical Mass; if I am unaware of your actual classroom practice, and you would like me to take that into account, then it is your responsibility to present me with the evidence necessary to alter my judgment.

And your friend who who a dissertation on the New Critics? What exactly do you mean by that? I know many who teach and write on the New Critics, but all of it is polemical. If you would like to point me to the entry in DAI, I'll be happy to read it.

I'll bite. Of course, I think political indoctrination is wrong, whether it's in the college classroom or the junior high civics class or the elementary school George Washington pageant play. (Or in companies where the CEO sends out emails demanding that employees vote for X.)

But as I wrote before, that tells us little. All of the situations I included in my previous comment could be construed as political indoctrination or, the other bete noir of bloggers, political "imbalance." Philip Glass's operas have a distinctly lefty bias. I can just hear the cries for political balance from the campus Repubs if the house dean didn't also provide reduced price tickets to, say, an Ann Althouse one-woman show. Of if the poli sci professor spoke on the distortions of the Swift Boat commercials, I guarantee there would be a letter to the editor the next day about political indoctrination in the dorms. Each scenario I composed had varying degrees of potential indoctrination, sketching out the gray area between indoctrination, education, and social networking on campuses.

Finally, I don't think it was the 68ers who brought race, class, and gender to the academy. John Dewey was writing class-inflected essays in the teens and twenties; strong feminist critiques of canonical writers existed before High Theory. And Ralph Ellison's and James Baldwin's essays brought race to the fore-front of discussion among the New York Intellectuals.

I defended race/class/gender work as a corrective to criticism that had failed to take such issues into account. New Critics are one responsible party, but so too are psychoanalytical critics, Jungians, structuralists, Russian formalists, reader-response and phenomenological critics, deconstructionist critics, certain old historicists, biographical critics, etc. And great work was done by the race/class/gender critics using formalist techniques. Gates's *Signifying Money* or Baker's *Blues, Ideology, and Black Criticism* are such works, as is Paul Gilroy's *The Black Atlantic* and Ian Baucom's *Spectres of the Atlantic*.

The myth is that one school of criticism silences those of the past. It simply isn't true. *Deconstruction and Criticism* was an excellent collection precisely because American followers of Derrida did so by maintaining one foot solidly in the New Critical terrain. New Historicism uses the close reading skills of new criticism along with Foucauldian discourse analysis.