Taping the College Classroom

Less than one week after singing the praises of Susan Estrich, she writes on the activities of the Bruin Alumni Association, an unofficial group of UCLA Alumnists who are paying students to tape their professors in the classroom. While I don't disagree with Ms. Estrich point of view entirely, I take umbrage in her willingness to protect the professor's right to academic freedom. I've never heard of this "right" before so I couldn't even begin to define what she is talking about. So I won't try! I will tell you of a story that happen to me while I was completing a "Peace and Justice" class at Xavier University during the mid '80's.

The Peace and Justice class was the only theology class (a core requirement at Xavier) that could fit into my schedule, I knew from the outset it was going to take a huge effort to keep an open mind and not put my grade in jeopardy by having a conflict with the professor. Term paper after term paper I fed the good professor exactly the point of view I thought he wanted to hear. The last topic he assigned to me was the Economic Report on Latin America, I was told that there was a copy at the university's library. Much to my surprise I found that it was written my Henry Kissenger, what I didn't know was that there was a second report written by Congressional Democrats for Economic Freedom. When I turned in the Kissenger term paper for the class finals, the Jesuit professor rejected my work (even though I was critical of part of Kissenger's thesis) and gave me 2 days to do a new paper on the second report. All because this was the view point he required. If I would not redo the paper my semester grade would be lowered from an A-minus to a D. After petitioning the Theology Department's chairman, the good priest/professor was persuaded to grade the Kissinger paper, nonetheless my semester grade was still lowered to a C.

I'm all for academic freedom so long as the "openess" that Estrich professes remains open for all point of views, and I am confident that Ms. Estrich assures this in her classroom, but it is a quality which is clearly lacking by college administrators, campus activities and perhaps, alumni groups.