At Least They Won’t Be Surgeons

by John Stevenson

Under this banner on Nov. 9, 2016, in an essay titled “Shielded from the Truth,” I reported to you on an exceptionally hare-brained scheme cooked up and implemented by a New York private boys school.  They had made a blanket offer to all the parents that school officials would raise report card grades if the parents thought their student would be emotionally traumatized by actually seeing his earned grade. 

Assuming any parent would go along with it, the effect of this plan would be to deprive the student of knowing his need to put forth more effort.  It would therefore ensure his delusional understanding of his own performance.  And in turn it would virtually condemn the deceived student to unexpected but inevitable failures in the world awaiting him after his bogus graduation.  I refrained from naming the school or staff involved

Could anything be stupider than concealing a student’s performance from him?  Well, maybe so.  Along comes a professor at a respected state university.  As in the earlier column, I refrain from naming the professor or the university.  Let’s just call him Professor Plum.  (If you feel compelled to fact-check, all the gory details are available on campusreform.org.) 

Professor Plum  teaches business courses at his university.  He apparently wants to make his courses as stress-free as possible for his students.  To that end, the syllabi for two of his courses described his “stress reduction policy.”

Examples of his stress reduction efforts, quoted from the syllabi, include these:

All tests and exams will be open book and open notes, including the use of material on your laptop.

All tests and exams will…assess low level mastery of the course material.

Only positive comments about [students’] presentations will be given in class. Comments designed to improve future presentations will be communicated by email.

And best of all:

If you feel unduly stressed by a grade for any assessable material or the overall course, you can email the instructor indicating what grade you think is appropriate, and it will be so changed.  No explanation is required…

Apparently Professor Plum felt the need to square his approach with reality, so he added:

While this approach might hinder the…mastery of the course material, ultimately these are your responsibility.  I will provide every opportunity for you to gain high level mastery.

In a nutshell:  the exams will be without rules; the exams will be geared to assess only minimal achievement; students will never receive criticism in class; and students get to choose the grade they think they deserve. 

So for Professor Plum, mastery of the course material is less important than a stress-free experience.  But to be fair, he does indicate willingness to help any who really want to “gain high level mastery” (translation: learn the material).

I confess that I am congenitally incapable of learning a foreign language.  In fact, to pass the required three college semesters it took me five tries.  Where was Professor Plum when I needed him? I could have saved myself two wasted semesters.  And had a better GPA to boot.

The sad thing here is that Professor Plum’s students are being cheated by his leniency.  They are being passed along through the system without being prepared for whatever they will tackle after graduation. Stress-free undeserved grades will inevitably lead to stress-inducing future failures.

In addition, it is significant that Professor Plum holds the title of “Regents Professor,” which is “bestowed by the Board of Regents on truly distinguished faculty.”   

It may be of some comfort that the “stress reduction policy” has been removed from the course syllabi.  But not before campusreform.org managed to archive it for historical value and also for well deserved and eternal ridicule.

I suppose we should look for the silver lining, so here it is.  The ill-prepared students of Professor Plum will go on to fail in the business world.  At least they won’t be failing as air traffic controllers or cardiac surgeons.

Can Freedom of Speech Survive in America?

by John Stevenson

If you think that freedom of speech is under assault on college campuses, you are correct.  But how widespread is that assault?  Is it just a tiny minority of students and professors, or is it more serious than that?

A Brookings Institution Senior Fellow, Professor John Villasenor, has studied this issue.  He designed and conducted a survey of 1500 undergraduate students at colleges across the country.  Only students who were U.S. citizens were included, since foreigners could not be expected to be familiar with the Constitution.  Of the 1500 respondents, 46% identified as Democrats, 17% Republicans, 29% Independents, and the remainder didn’t know.

Villasenor concluded that “freedom of expression is deeply imperiled on U.S. campuses….including many public campuses that have First Amendment obligations.”  Here are the highlights.

“Hate Speech”:  As long as it does not involve “fighting words” likely to produce imminent lawless action, even “hate speech” is protected by the First Amendment.  Villasenor asked “Does the First Amendment protect hate speech?”  Fewer than half of the respondents thought it did.  This was true regardless of political affiliation, although Republicans were more likely than Democrats or Independents to think “hate speech” was protected.

Silencing Controversial Speakers:  A narrow majority (51%) of students thought it was acceptable to silence a controversial speaker “by loudly and continuously shouting” so that the speaker cannot be heard.  Republicans and Independents disagreed but, taken as a whole, the respondents agreed this was acceptable.

Violence:  A very large majority (81%) of all respondents thought it is unacceptable to use violence to silence a speaker with whom they disagreed.  This was generally true regardless of political affiliation.  Villasenor points out we should not be too comforted by this finding, because the reciprocal is that one student out of five thought violence is appropriate:  “It’s important to remember that this question is asking about the acceptability of committing violence in order to silence speech. Any number significantly above zero is concerning.”

Providing Opposing Viewpoints:  A large majority (62%) of respondents erroneously thought that “compliance with the First Amendment requires offering a counterpoint” speaker.  Again, this was true of students regardless of political affiliation.  Villasenor says: “respondents appear to be confusing good event design…with the completely different issue of what compliance with the First Amendment requires.”

Learning Environment:  Respondents were asked to choose whether colleges should provide “a positive learning environment…by prohibiting certain speech” or should provide “an open learning environment where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints.”  Majorities of Republicans and Independents chose the second option (allowing all viewpoints), but a large majority (61%) of Democrats chose the first option (prohibiting certain viewpoints).  Villasenor writes: “in the aggregate, the majority of students…prefer an environment in which their institution…shelters them from offensive views.”

Villasenor points out that colleges “are places where intellectual debate should flourish. That can only occur if campuses are places where viewpoint diversity is celebrated, and where the First Amendment is honored in practice and not only in theory.”  Villasenor concludes that among students “there is a significant divergence between the actual and perceived scope of First Amendment freedoms” and that “students have an overly narrow view of the extent of freedom of expression.” 

Finally, here’s the scary part.  As Villasenor points out, “what happens on campuses often foreshadows broader societal trends. Today’s college students are tomorrow’s attorneys, teachers, professors, policymakers, legislators and judges. If…college students believe, however incorrectly, that offensive speech is unprotected by the First Amendment, that view will inform the decisions they make as they move into positions of increasing authority.”

This is how poorly today’s college students (tomorrow’s Constitutional lawyers and professors) understand the meaning and importance of the First Amendment.  A dismal prognosis for the future of free speech in America.

“Don’t ever be the first…”

by John Stevenson

Do you ever wonder why the North Koreans clap so enthusiastically and for so long?  Turns out there’s a reason.

Public displays of enthusiasm and support for the ruling family are strongly encouraged.  When Kim Jong Ill died, the regime organized public mourning, featuring highly visible emotional wailing and crying.  Aya Ilan, North Korea watcher, observed that “It can be assumed that many are indoctrinated and were seriously shocked and sad to hear the news.”  At the same time, “expression of ‘proper’ emotions during these type of events is heavily encouraged by the regime.”

When Kim Jong Un took power, his uncle Jang Song Thaek failed to follow the proper protocol.  According to NPR’s Frank Langfitt, Kim was “angry his uncle disrespected him.”  The North Korean official news agency reported that “Jang clapped ‘half heartedly’ when Kim was elected…”  Jang was found guilty of treason and executed.

So in North Korea there’s strong incentive to show enthusiasm for the regime.  And there’s an interesting historical backdrop for this.

In his widely acclaimed “The Gulag Archipelago,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the critical importance of enthusiastic and sustained applause.

At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name)....For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the stormy applause….continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion….However, who would dare to be the first to stop?.…NKVD [secret police] men were….watching to see who would quit first!....the applause went on---six, seven, eight minutes!....They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly---but up there with the presidium [executive committee] where everyone could see them? The director of the local paper factory….stood with the presidium….Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop….With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood…Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat….a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved!....That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years [prison sentence] on him….But after he had signed….the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.” 

The next time you see images of Kim’s countrymen smiling joyfully and applauding enthusiastically, notice that they clap unnaturally high---at chin level or even higher.  Why?  So that their rapture is visible.  So that they will not be mistaken for half hearted supporters.  So as to reduce their chances of meeting the same fate as Kim’s late uncle Jang. 

As the interrogator advised: “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”