Claremont McKenna threatened to bar me from teaching required classes for quoting ‘Huck Finn.

I teach at Claremont McKenna College, the No. 1-ranked liberal-arts college for free speech by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. FIRE may need to consider its ratings.

On Oct. 4, 2021, my class discussed Plato’s “Republic” and his views about censorship. A student objected that Plato was mistaken about its necessity. Here in the U.S., she said, there is none. Someone brought up “Huckleberry Finn.” She replied, correctly, that removing a book from curriculums doesn’t constitute censorship. I pointed out that the case was more complicated. The book had also been removed from libraries and published in expurgated editions.



An international student asked me why. I told her, quoting Mark Twain’s precise language, which meant speaking the N-word. This caused the first student to change her mind and acknowledge the existence of censorship in America. Far from being harmed by hearing the word, she now saw that Plato’s views couldn’t be dismissed as outdated and merited more serious consideration. This liberation from her initial prejudice bore fruit. Later in the semester she raised a very thoughtful question about Socrates’ criticisms of the poets: “But isn’t Plato a poet?” A rare success.



CMC’s administration determined to put an end to any such successes. The associate dean of faculty, Ellen Rentz, emailed me on Oct. 14 asking me to speak on the phone about “some serious concerns” a student had raised with her about one of my courses. I asked repeatedly for her first to communicate the concerns in writing over email, but Ms. Rentz wanted only to discuss them in person, over the phone, or on Zoom. Eventually, on Nov. 6, the Dean of Faculty Heather Antecol emailed me explaining the student’s concerns, who it turned out was not filing any sort of official complaint. After saying “this is not a disciplinary matter,” Ms. Antecol said CMC still had a “duty to appropriately respond to concerns brought to the College’s attention” and demanded to know the “pedagogic principles” that I thought justified using “the n* word expressly.”

Here is exactly what I emailed in response to her question: “I do think that when a student asks me a direct question that I am able to answer, good ‘pedagogy’ requires that I tell him the truth. Do you disagree? Similarly, when a student makes a false statement, I think my job requires me to confront that student with facts that contradict him. Do you think I am wrong to do so? I also hold the view that before criticizing or praising an author, one should first attempt to understand that author as he understood himself, something that requires reading and discussing exactly what he wrote. Do you think I am mistaken in this approach?”

I never received a response. “Pedagogy” wasn’t really up for discussion. Instead, the dean enlisted the help of both the department chairman and a co-director of the college’s Open Academy program—a resource center that describes its purpose as “to counter the forces that are pulling us apart with educational strategies that bring us together”—to ban me from teaching any required courses in the future, seemingly into perpetuity.

I was informed by these other faculty that the discussion of “Huck Finn,” reading the forbidden word aloud from the autobiographical “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” and alleged complaints for making arguments on all sides of contentious issues such as the equality of the sexes, formed the basis for the dean’s decision. But I can’t be sure, because the dean of faculty’s office has never informed me of a single complaint, though I had repeatedly asked in the fall for her office to detail what complaints, if any, students had filed against me. Instead, Ms. Antecol kept the process secret and played the role of investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury.

On July 13, I filed an internal grievance for violations of the college’s published policies. That process has yet to run its course. I can report that two weeks after that filing, when it was apparent that my case and other similar ones would become public, Ms. Antecol decided to permit me to teach in the fall one of the two courses she had taken away from me and given to adjuncts.

The administration’s behavior toward me and two similar cases in the literature department seem to show that CMC sets the bounds of faculty speech arbitrarily. This spring, a literature adjunct read aloud and asked students to discuss a passage from “The Color Purple” that contained the N-word. They complained. Ms. Antecol summoned the adjunct, who apologized and agreed to undergo recommended counseling. The professor submitted to re-education and training in critical race theory. Despite all this—and a glowing recommendation by the faculty member who observed her course—the class the adjunct was set to teach at CMC in the fall was abruptly canceled.

When a tenured literature professor, who is also well-connected to the board of trustees and the media, committed a similar offense, he received no penalty. Last fall the professor assigned Robert Lowell’s poem “For the Union Dead,” which contains the N-word. When he played in class a recording of Lowell reading the poem, a student exploded, excoriating both author and teacher as old white men. The associate vice president for diversity and inclusion informed the professor by telephone, not in writing, that he was in the clear because he hadn’t himself read the forbidden word aloud in class.

The effects of the administration’s actions are disastrous and lasting. Students, already fearful to speak their minds, become even more so when they see that certain peers can veto the content of courses and conduct of teachers arbitrarily. Professors, a generally timid lot at best, give increased devotion to the cause of conformism. The liberating power of books, particularly those written in times and places distant from ours, is diminished when they are expurgated and bowdlerized.

My job as a teacher is to oppose ignorance wherever it manifests itself. If a dean promotes the work of Daniele da Volterra, Pope Paul IV’s painter of fig leaves, I have no choice but to stand for the original of Michelangelo. And so must I stand for the original works of Mark Twain and Frederick Douglass, exactly as written by their authors. They deserve that, as do my students.

Mr. Nadon is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.



link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/c..._opin_pos_3#cxrecs_s

One wonders how much better the world would be if we had only teachers and none of the lofty academics and learned folks in the hallowed institutions of higher learning who waste their days pondering such irrelevance.

In my younger years, I debated whether to apply to one of the Claremont colleges, CMC being one candidate. Perhaps in retrospect, it's best I didn't.

Students that can't handle the stuff described in the article should be kicked out of college. They are already too ill prepared for the realities of life.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
<<snip>>
Students that can't handle the stuff described in the article should be kicked out of college. They are already too ill prepared for the realities of life.

That's the best idea I have heard in a LONG time regarding the current situation at colleges and universities! If they're too immature to handle such simple things, then kick their asses out!

So am I understanding that administration has chosen to take the side of the uninformed or perhaps immature, and prevent the teaching of correct understanding in literature and life, in order to protect and enable the feeling which allow students to remain ignorant?

Such context demands the demotion of said administrators to their level of exhibited reasoning. Do they want fries with that?

I mean this with all due respect. You are an exceptionally intelligent, capable person. As such, find another more productive way to spend your time than wasting it in an environment that produces nothing but failure and ignorance. I have a pair of bachelor's degrees and a masters in business, and I now believe a college degree is virtually worthless given the miniscule value that comes with such a degree. And that worthlessness only seems to multiply with each academic level achieved. I used to help with a college and career class at church but have completely withdrawn from it given the idiocy of the current group.

quote:

Claremont McKenna College

Never heard of the school so I looked it up, in Kaliforniastan. Enough said.

quote:

Students that can't handle the stuff described in the article should be kicked out of college. They are already too ill prepared for the realities of life.

Another viewpoint would be that the students are young with limited knowledge or experience in the realities of life. Ostensibly, they are in college to expand their knowledge and to prepare to face those realities.

If allowed to teach without suggestions, guidance and restrictive orders from administrative drones, it's likely that the author may well have made some headway in preparing at least some of the students for life.

Instead, by curtailing his teaching load and restricting his teaching style, the administration has almost assured that the students will leave college at least as lacking and probably more lacking in preparation to face the realities of life than when they entered.

At this point PC has become a hysteria.

quote:

Originally posted by FiveFiveSixFan:

Another viewpoint would be that the students are young with limited knowledge or experience in the realities of life. Ostensibly, they are in college to expand their knowledge and to prepare to face those realities.

Well, colleges aren't very interested in 'teaching' nowadays. They are more interested in indoctrination and making money.

My niece, raised by a conservative Montana family, is a CMC graduate. To put it bluntly, she entered as a reasonable person and left as a lunatic.

The new generation believes anything that doesn't fit their beliefs must be destroyed. Scholarly debate is dying.

quote:

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

- George Orwell, 1984

I am grateful for my Classical Education. Reading of the Great Books, wonderful novels and quality Professors. Intelligent debate and lots of hard work.

Teaching at the College level used to be fun, although it was hard work. Motivated students who wanted to learn made it that way.

I applaud anyone who chooses to do what is right. You have my respect Sir. Fight stupidity and ignorance with everything you have.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
I mean this with all due respect. You are an exceptionally intelligent, capable person. As such, find another more productive way to spend your time than wasting it in an environment that produces nothing but failure and ignorance. I have a pair of bachelor's degrees and a masters in business, and I now believe a college degree is virtually worthless given the miniscule value that comes with such a degree. And that worthlessness only seems to multiply with each academic level achieved. I used to help with a college and career class at church but have completely withdrawn from it given the idiocy of the current group.

If you're not willing to fight for what's right within your institution, you've surrendered to those advocating what is WRONG. Bravo to the author for his response! We need to see these exhibitions of bravery. They are the only way to combat an evil agenda of suppression.

quote:

Originally posted by pulicords:

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
I mean this with all due respect. You are an exceptionally intelligent, capable person. As such, find another more productive way to spend your time than wasting it in an environment that produces nothing but failure and ignorance. I have a pair of bachelor's degrees and a masters in business, and I now believe a college degree is virtually worthless given the miniscule value that comes with such a degree. And that worthlessness only seems to multiply with each academic level achieved. I used to help with a college and career class at church but have completely withdrawn from it given the idiocy of the current group.

If you're not willing to fight for what's right within your institution, you've surrendered to those advocating what is WRONG. Bravo to the author for his response! We need to see these exhibitions of bravery. They are the only way to combat an evil agenda of suppression.

Perhaps I misread the Ops post. He's been all but eliminated from teaching, only to be given a single class. And my bet, the writing is on the wall, and there will likely be a 'new' anonymous complaint filed against him during the next semester if he deviates one millimeter from the decreed orthodoxy, that will end his tenure at the school. I admire his courage/approach, but there currently is no way to beat the school at this game. I would not view it as courageous for one man with a rifle to charge a fully armed enemy battalion. Sometimes it just makes better sense to pack it in and re-group, trying to find a better option/solution.

50 years ago the left realized the value of polluting the minds of students and they did a good job of getting that done.

Serious question - Do these policies only forbid saying the naughty n-word or is reading it also banned?

Edited for clarity: I mean the university-level policies that got this professor in trouble.

I am sure that some colleges pull Huck Finn from the shelves, but most do not.

The "everyone needs a college degree" mantra resulting a proliferation of useless degree programs and a bunch useless graduates of said programs. Most of these can be summarized by the tag line "grievance studies". Since people with grievance studies degrees have no productive skills, they generally are not hired into jobs that pay much. They then sulk in their low paying jobs with their college debt and guess what they do? That's right, complain about all their grievances.

Unfortunately, some of them figured out how to infiltrate college administrations and leverage their grievances into higher paying jobs, where guess what they do? Find grievances to exploit to justify their existence, even where no rational person would see an actual issue.