By Dave Porter
Disclaimer: This essay was submitted by a reader. The opinions it expresses are theirs and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any members of The Berea Torch. Reviews, critiques, and questions are welcome.
Deconstructing is a tool of the Woke; it is analysis intended to expose internal assumptions and contradictions that may subvert a program’s apparent integrity or importance. Although regularly used against the establishment, it seldom is used against the tenets of Woke-ism or other progressive programs.
Baffling means impossible to understand or perplexing. At a liberal arts college dedicated to the unfettered pursuit of truth, it is incongruous that a lack of concern for truth would be tolerated, let alone venerated by the powers that be.
Bull (or more profanely, “bullshit”) is a rebuke to a claim perceived to be deceptive, misleading, disingenuous, unfair, or false. As the philosopher Harry Frankfurt pointed out in his classic work, On Bullshit (2005), unlike liars who assert falsehoods (i.e., lies), bullshitters convey impressions about themselves and others while simply ignoring the truth. Unlike liars, bullshitters maintain plausible deniability: “Who knew?”
Title IX refers to the 1972 extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to higher education. The particular portion of the 1964 CRA most important here is Title VII which prohibits hostile environment discrimination. Title IX is an example of what Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) have argued are good intentions and bad ideas producing calamitous consequences.
Pages 80 – 93 of the BC Faculty Manual explains the College’s Sexual Misconduct Policy derived from Title IX. Sexual Misconduct covers just about everything: “Any act of Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, Non-consensual Sexual Contact, Non-consensual sexual intercourse, Sexual Exploitation, stalking, intimidation, dating Violence, or Domestic Violence, or any act that creates a Hostile Environment or any act of retaliation against a Complainant or anyone involved in a grievance procedure under this policy.” (The Faculty Manual’s seemingly random capitalization is also a little baffling.) It further defines a “Hostile Environment” as “activity or conduct involving Sexual Harassment that is sufficiently serious that it interferes with or limits a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the College’s program.”
The paragraph defining “Sexual Harassment” concludes with a catch-all phrase, “or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work or academic performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working, academic, or campus environment.” The two words, or effect, would be easy to overlook, but they provide potential grievants and administrators great latitude in prosecuting those they believe to be behaving (or speaking) inappropriately.
Such bad behavior could be expressing a different opinion, stating a contrary fact, or just asking a critical question – intent doesn’t matter; effect is shown by a grievant’s testimony about feelings. Here’s the bottom line: if I say or do something you feel is offensive, you can file a Title IX grievance against me and persecute me unmercifully while simultaneously signaling your bravery and virtue to others (a perverse kind of win-win situation).
As a liberal arts college, our college also makes many promises concerning academic freedom. For example, page 37 of the Faculty Manual contains these assertions: “Academic freedom is essential to quality education;” (t)he faculty member is entitled to freedom in the classroom and should be supported by the College administration and colleagues;” “this freedom is fundamental in the advancement of truth;” “…full freedom in… presenting a variety of perspectives and in research and its publication;” “(individuals) enjoy the Constitutional rights which belong equally to all citizens.”
A reasonable person might sense tension between the College’s commitments to prohibit subjectively hostile environments and its commitment to protect the academic freedom of those seeking to discover and disseminate factual information (i.e., the truth). The Faculty Manual’s Harassment Policy (p. 66) acknowledges this tension but asserts that “in prohibiting harassment…, Berea seeks to preserve and enhance academic freedom for all… (not) to inhibit scholarly, scientific, or artistic treatment of subject matter appropriate to… higher education.” Apparently intent matters here…
Thus, the conflict is resolved: protection from hostile environments preserves and enhances academic freedom by definition. In my admittedly not-so-humble opinion, this is bullshit. As George Orwell observed, speech that offends no one, needs no protection. Academic freedom is needed most in situations where someone is offended and offers an emotional account of the harm they feel was done to them by insensitive words or the expression of a different point of view.
All of the foregoing is a matter of opinion and argument. I taught several sections of GSTR 110 entitled Questioning Authority: skepticism and science as antidotes for oppression. I have always tried to walk my talk and when my PSY 210 Industrial/Organizational Psychology classes engaged enthusiastically in an examination of the apparent tension between the College’s commitments to academic freedom and hostile environment protection, developing and deploying a survey of relevant perceptions and judgments seemed to be not only permissible but obligatory.
The survey my class and I developed contained about 80 items. Some of these were borrowed from other surveys addressing academic freedom and Title IX but most of the survey used brief descriptions of realistic scenarios to solicit individuals’ perceptions of hostile environments and judgments about academic freedom protection. A draft survey was reviewed by 6 senior faculty members and we addressed the concerns two of them raised. A representative sample of 120 members of the campus community submitted valid and substantially complete responses within hours of its posting.
When asked explicitly about their support for freedom of speech and hostile environment protection, most respondents claimed to support both of these. In fact, expressed support for freedom of speech was slightly greater than support for hostile environment protection. It was also noteworthy that, just as the Faculty Manual claimed, those who supported freedom of speech also expressed more support for Title IX protections (r120 = .21, p<.02). Nonetheless, much of my career as a behavioral scientist has focused on the differences between individuals’ explicit claims and the implicit knowledge reflected by their behavior.
Despite the college president’s efforts to suppress our study by prohibiting me from “using or sharing” it, it has been presented more widely than any study I’ve ever done. A student research poster at the 2019 MidAmerica Undergraduate Psychology Research Convention received over a dozen “thumbs up” ratings. Two presentations to the Social Sciences Division of the Kentucky Academy of Sciences Annual Conference received laudatory comments. The Canadian Society for Academic Freedom published a synopsis of results (http://safs.ca/newsletters/issues/nl89.pdf pgs. 37-43) and hosted a two-hour presentation by my students and me. The study was featured on a Psychology podcast, https://moreofacomment.buzzsprout.com/1207223/9662481-berea-s-dave-reckoning-with-dave-porter Just recently, the Heterodox Academy hosted a presentation of our study and my experiences for their Legal and Economics Communities.
Our report with the entire survey attached can be found at: How Hostile Environment Perceptions Imperil Academic Freedom: The Effects of Identity & Beliefs on Perceptions & Judgments. | Researchers.One Our analysis of the survey data contained several important results: the respondents often disagreed about the scenarios. However, the pattern of their ratings showed that they believed those scenarios perceived as being hostile environments should not be protected by academic freedom and vice versa. This reflects a profound misunderstanding of freedom of speech & academic freedom.
In fact, across the 21 scenarios the correlation between average hostile environment ratings and academic protection judgments was a negative .87 which meant that over three quarters of the variance in subjects’ judgments about academic freedom was predicted by the subjects’ perception of the hostility in the scenario. Across the 120 subjects the correlation between their average ratings of environmental hostility and judgments about academic freedom protection was negative .61. Despite their explicit claims, the perception of an environment as being hostile predicts that most folks, most of the time, will decide academic freedom does not apply. This result renders academic freedom a largely meaningless educational ornament that can only be relied upon when it is not needed (i.e., when no one has been offended).
The scenarios themselves were sorted into three groups. Some scenarios (#s 8, 28, 30, 32, 35, 37, & 39) were seen as hostile environments (m = 4.58/6.00) by most respondents and deemed not to be protected by academic freedom (m = 2.24/6.00). Another seven scenarios (#s 13, 20, 22, 26, 43, 51, & 56) showed the opposite pattern: most respondents saw them as not creating hostile environments (m = 2.49/6.00) and being protected by academic freedom (m = 4.09/6.00).
The seven remaining scenarios (#s 6, 16, 18, 24, 41, 47, & 55) had average ratings near neutral for both hostile environment perception (m = 3.31/6.00) and academic freedom protection (m = 3.65/6.00). Even more interesting is our discovery that respondents’ perceptions and judgements were predicted by their gender, sexual orientation, and political identity. Lesbians who identified as being very liberal saw most scenarios as being hostile environments that should not be protected by academic freedom. In contrast, heterosexual, politically moderate, males saw very few scenarios as being hostile environments and judged that most scenarios deserved academic freedom protection.
These results could have been used by the College to educate the community about Title IX, academic freedom and the dynamics underlying relevant perceptions and judgments by members of the campus community. Such an educational program would have been very helpful. However, the administration did all that it could to suppress the results and keep most of the information about Title IX and its application “confidential.” One consequence of this star-chamber strategy has been to terrorize our college community. One of the questions on the survey asked about individuals’ comfort in expressing opinions or asking critical questions. Nationally, about 50% of undergraduate students express discomfort at doing this. At our college, the proportion of community members expressing discomfort was 80%.
Berea is not unique. A recent study by FIRE ((3) The campus DEI bureaucracy is a threat to free speech (substack.com) ) concluded: “[T]he greater the relative size of the DEI bureaucracy at a university, the more discomfort students feel expressing their views on social media and in informal conversations with other students in the campus ‘quad, dining hall, or lounge’ (r=.49, p=.00).”
In addition to providing quantitative ratings, respondents to our survey left comments concerning the survey and the climate at the college. Some were critical of the survey but others were supportive:
As an African American male, I do not find any harm in this survey, in its efforts to be uber liberal Berea College has increasingly made me feel isolated as though I am under constant scrutiny for simply being male. It should be acceptable for a liberal institution to accept the reality of all its members whether it is coming from my African American or from my Male identity, they ought to be equally respected if presented in a non-hostile manner. I thank you for creating this survey…
Please look at the survey How Hostile Environment Perceptions Imperil Academic Freedom: The Effects of Identity & Beliefs on Perceptions & Judgments. | Researchers.One I would welcome your comments, questions, or concerns.