The Observer, March 3, 2006
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 19
Case fails vision through lack of diversity in ideas, opinions
As Case becomes embroiled in its own President versus Arts and Science Faculty battle, I am fascinated to read more about Harvard's recent steel cage death match that ended with President Summer's resignation last week. Last March, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a no-confidence vote against their president. Interesting, and different from Case's situation, has been the central role that politics and political ideology have played in the melee. Larry Summers is certainly no right-wing ideologue; he was President Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury, but he earned his confrontation by riling up the far left-wingers that make up much of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. President Summers did not obey the strict political-correctness code that runs modern universities.
So far it is unclear where the student body and faculty outside of the Arts and Sciences stand in the Hundert-Krauss match, but at Harvard there is no doubt: they stood with President Summers. Two recent editorials in Harvard's student newspaper, The Crimson, were titled "No confidence in 'no confidence,'" and "Faculty forgive Summers." No one would argue that The Crimson is a bastion of conservative punditry, but even they described the Summers' affair as a politically-motivated melodrama.
Alan Dershowitz, one of the nation's most well-known law professors, said something about the ordeal that made me think about our faculty at Case: "I'm clearly in the left 20 percent of the country, nationally. I'm a Ted Kennedy liberal. In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, I'm in the 10 percent side of the conservatives." Would that be true at Case? If Alan Dershowitz came to Case to teach political science where would he fit on the political spectrum? Unfortunately, here at Case a Ted Kennedy liberal would be well to the right of much of the faculty.
Thus far Case has avoided the kind of political shenanigans that have caused most of the nation to laugh at its oldest and most revered university. However, this is not the product of a less radically liberal faculty, but because President Hundert has more carefully restricted his words to the politically correct. Most of the faculty at Case, especially in the social sciences and humanities, love to express their far left-wing ideas to their students. And to be perfectly honest, I have no problem with this; I even prefer that to professors who feel the need to do everything in their power to hide any of their biases. It is a lot easier to understand a professor's explanation for something if you understand the lenses through which they view the world. My personal antipathy toward the oft-beloved FDR and JFK makes much more sense once you understand my free-market, conservative paradigm.
The real problem with Case's faculty is something much more discouraging. On Case's website there is a page within the President's page that discusses the university's vision. The first adjective used to describe the type of academic environment for which we as a University strive is "diverse." Well, looking at the faculty alone, we have utterly failed at that part of the university's vision. Sure, Case is incredible for check-the-box kinds of diversity, but that is easy to ensure: all you have to do is look at someone's last name. However, if diversity is so important to institutions of higher learning, it must mean something much more important, something much more consequential, than the color of one's skin.
Diversity must also mean diversity of ideas and viewpoints. As long as the majority of our faculty is left-wingers and socialists then we are failing ourselves. The only way Case can aid students in developing their personal viewpoints of the world is by providing multiple perspectives for students to debate freely and vigorously. There is no marketplace of ideas if there are only one or two ideas in the market. I know one professor who voted for the president, and who has asked me to help keep this secret because of a fear that it could hurt career opportunities within the department. Any university whose faculty is scared to share their true opinions and beliefs because of the intolerance of colleagues is a long way from becoming "the world's most powerful learning environment."
