Mike's pointer to the Althouse blog dissecting Stanley Fish writing on indoctrination and academic freedom offered me a freeby to post my own take on Fish's discussions of academic freedom during years as a contributor to The Chronicle of Higher Education. This essay has been rattling around in my computer with nowhere to go for a year and a half. (Warning: it is long and better printed out and placed on the back of the WC than taken as a blog post)

It was inspired by an exchange between Fish and David Horowitz, but draws on the range of Fish's work for the Chronicle. There are probably numerous links I ought to add to this essay but Horowitz is easily found. I will offer this link for the most notable other character, James Panero, who is the editor of the New Criterion and a bit of the hero of this essay. His work is well worth a click -- and despite the fact that much of the New Criterion content is no longer free, I'd much rather see hard earned dollars going in that direction than to the apologist for the status quo Chronicle of Higher Education.

Continue reading "Fish story" »

Posted by Brian Bishop at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A great discussion here.

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 03:26 PM | Permalink

Is the American Academy reformable? Mitchell Langbert writes:

…[T]oday's universities foster totalitarian ideologies and support intolerant extremism that, though cloaked in left wing garb, is little different from Nazism…Not only are universities culturally adverse to performing what the public expects (balanced education, for example) but their hiring and assessment policies are impossibly skewed toward favoring faculty who support totalitarian approaches and state-based solutions, and to suppression of any who disagree. The notion of reform in the real-world university context thus is a…charade.

Professor Langbert’s observations, as quoted by Candace de Russy, are indeed provocative and rather disturbing, as they portray a system disastrously corrupted by totalitarian ideologies. He has the facts largely right, I believe, allowing for some rhetorical flourishes, though I would suggest that reform of universities should proceed anyway. Our institutions of higher education don’t have to be nearly as bad as they are today, and we’re surely going to have them for some time to come. Hence, it would be best to minimize the damage to the extent possible.

Continue reading "Reforming the Academy: Is the Market Enough" »

Posted by Michael Van Winkle at 09:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)