If Roosevelt University has its way, students would not be allowed to ask any questions that department heads do not approve. This can not be allowed to stand.
If Roosevelt University has its way, students would not be allowed to ask any questions that department heads do not approve. At Roosevelt, a department head declared that particular topics she was uncomfortable with should not be discussed or even mentioned in class. Professors should not bring up those topics and should not answer any student questions on those topics.
The course the department chair censored was World Religions. It is a course she has never taught and is not even within her academic field. The topics she demands censored are anything that opens up her religion to criticism or reflects poorly on that religion and certain topics about a second religion she disapproves of. The Roosevelt administration has defended the department chair saying she was acting within her rights as a department chair to determine curriculum and control speech within the classroom.
Bad
When I, an experienced adjunct professor of philosophy and religion, refused to censor my students as the department head demanded, she fired me. It is important to realize that I was fired not for anything I did, not for anything I said, not for any complaint. No, I was fired because I refused to be the instrument of the department chair's censorship of academic freedom.
Worse
As chilling as all of the above is it gets worse. The department chair objected not only that I allow student questions in class, but that I allowed members of a particular religion to speak in class. She called members of that religion "animals" who "do not have a side."
Worst
The Roosevelt administration has defended the department chair completely. They claim that censoring the content of a course "is not an issue of academic freedom but a pedagogical one." They claim that "as chair of the department, she had a right to express her views." Apparently, Roosevelt believes free speech is a right reserved for administrators, not professors or students. Most incredibly, they even defend her calling members of a major religion "animals," saying she was merely an academic being passionate.
I write this not just because of my job (I am happily teaching at another school which honors academic freedom). I write this because the implications of this censorship are chilling. When a university allows its administrators to demand that their own religious prejudices be instituted in the classroom, the effects on education will be disastrous. University administrators can not be allowed to tyrannize professors and students.
More information is available at: http://groups.yahoo.com/.... An online petition demanding that Roosevelt University retract its censorship is at http://www.petitiononline.com/....
Douglas Giles
profgiles@worldfusionradio.com