Tufts is not performing to its educational potential. The symptoms vary from its uncharacteristic lack of prestige (see drop in U.S. News and World Report ranking) to unfortunate embarrassments (see Andrew Fastow, CFO Enron), and most of all, a lack of expression in the classroom. The cause is a lack of academic freedom.
Academic freedom is the spirit that drives all great universities. It promotes debate, free speech and ethical behavior. The necessary preconditions for academic freedom are: the ability of students to conduct coursework without fear of ideological discrimination, a faculty commitment to characterizing unsettled issues as such while exploring the different viewpoints fairly, and the affirmation that ideology does not play a part in faculty hiring and firing. At Tufts, inadvertent abuse of the faculty-student relationship is increasingly threatening academic freedom.
Students trust Tufts educators to explain the world in analytical terms, only to find after they graduate that they were presented with a pseudo-reality. While at Tufts, students are made to understand that the faculty is much smarter than them. They are discouraged, for fear of losing a perfect transcript, from challenging anything the professor has to say. While it may have once been the case that Tufts students were disparately less intelligent than the faculty, today's students must be seen as qualified pupils. They can readily challenge their professors on a variety of issues, and are eager to do so - if it were not for fear of unconscious retribution. Founded or not, these fears must be actively diminished by professors to promote the values of education.
Perhaps worse is the way in which professors seldom portray disagreement among peers in their field. If they do, they do not adequately assert their position by presenting their opponent's views with authority. Though teaching styles and practices vary across Tufts from good to bad, the overall climate is one where students are never prepared for the real world: where people disagree and individuals must be able to seek the truth themselves. Professors can do more to welcome viewpoints that challenge their own.
Unfortunately, there are many instances where the principles of academic freedom have been clearly violated. Students have been berated by their instructors in post-election disgust. A professor insisted without remorse that the military is full of "Jesus-freaks." Students hardly have to guess what position they should take in that class to appease the teacher. More recently, students were contemplating whether to take a course pass/fail so that they could express their opinions in the classroom without fear. Good work in some classes earns suspiciously-low marks. These are only a few examples.
If students look to the prestigious Tufts faculty for role models (and they do), they risk learning some very bad habits. Tufts graduates are increasingly involved in the public sector where ethics and integrity are paramount. Yet, in the classroom, students learn that the best way to ensure one's intellectual legacy is to misrepresent, undervalue, omit, or otherwise obscure the arguments of one's peers. This works well in political warfare, but is otherwise destructive to meaningful discussion.
In real terms, the restoration of academic freedom at Tufts will benefit every member of the student-faculty community. The faculty will reexamine its course lists to assure that they reflect the challenges faced by students today (ensuring their intellectual legacy outside the University). Liberal students will finally be assigned a book written from a conservative perspectiveto read and tear apart - giving them ammunition against the Bush administration's policies and scholars. In the same class, conservative students will be challenged by the reasoning of great liberal scholars. The result: a community of Tufts students that is prepared to disagree, and to defend their ideology with understanding of the opposition. Liberals need not fear that the introduction of alternative viewpoints will ruin an otherwise hegemonic institution. The principles of academic freedom can be used to promote controversial thinkers and debate on both sides unapologetically, and nondiscrimination does not entail affirmative action.
Most importantly, if certain thinking is to be taken as universal truth, it is essential that faculty and students learn to prove the worth of their ideas against formidable challenges. After all, the leaders of America's tomorrow will always need to convince the people who disagree with them. Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale produce students who are capable of such debate. Why not Tufts?
By supporting the ability of students to conduct coursework without fear of ideological discrimination, by committing to a fair characterization of unsettled issues, and by affirmation that ideology does not play a part in faculty hiring and firing, Tufts can rise to the level of its peers, and in time, exceed them.
Brandon Balkind is a senior majoring in computer engineering. He is the spokesperson for Tufts Academic Freedom Project.
