Posted on 01/12/2007 11:10:32 AM PST by SmithL
A Duke University professor resigned from her committee assignments, saying she was upset by the administration's decision to invite two lacrosse players accused of sexual assault back to campus.
"The decision by the university to readmit the students, especially just before a critical judicial decision on the case, is a clear use of corporate power, and a breach, I think, of ethical citizenship," Karla Holloway, an English professor and former dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, wrote to Duke's black faculty caucus.
"Despite our judgments about the prosecutor's own lack of principled conduct, it is not ours to become the judge or subvert the process," she wrote.
Earlier this month, officials at Duke said charged lacrosse players Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann could return to school as students in good standing. They were suspended last year after a woman hired to perform as a stripper at a lacrosse team party accused them of rape and sexual assault. A third player, Dave Evans, graduated the day before he was indicted.
. . . Holloway was one of 88 faculty members at Duke who endorsed an ad last April in the campus newspaper that included anonymous quotes from students discussing racism and sexual assault on Duke's campus. She said she receives angry, racist e-mails attacking her for being among the school's critics.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Actually, I don't agree. I think education should be enjoyable. Students learn better if they enjoy being in class. But they should learn their discpline, not idealogy that is spewed at them at the discretion of a given teacher.
But I completely agree with you that there are no standards anymore. The problem is, that is being worked on at the college level and not the way we would want to see. Standards are being written as we speak. The aim is to get all schools the country over teaching the same thing and then have students pass a general standardized test in order to pass the class. There will be standards, but you will not be happy with them. But even so, I agree completely with the point you are making. There needs to be some agreement on the substance on the displine taught.
Unfortunately, the humanities do not have objective standards. Plato would tell you that the state should apply them. Certainly the academy, through consensus or otherwise, cannot be trusted to impose them anymore. That's who we've depended upon in free societies.
As a believer in a free society, I don't want the state to do so.
There are still conservatives here, but some liberals are much more activist and loud-mouthed.
I took an American literature class here two years ago with a wonderful English professor (specialized in Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn) who, yes, was definitely liberal, but tried not to interject too much liberalism into his lectures. Of course, the class was at 9 am, so most of us were totally asleep.
Now, I don't make too many forays into the College of Arts & Sciences, other than for math classes, so what I write here suffers from a limitation in my perspective.
I don't mind liberals who are honest about it and try not to force it on you. Glad to hear that there are still conservatives there. And so sorry to hear that the libs have taken over. I would never have expected that in a million years. The best church I've ever gone to is in Charlottesville and I've missed it--still do--all these years.
I wish you the best with your studies.
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