Ignoring the Smoke and Fire

I must admit that I left the Millersville hearings on academic freedom angry, because I had the nagging feeling that the Pennsylvania House Select Committee was missing the point.

I felt like I’d been had.

It has been my responsibility to report on the hearings at Temple University and Millersville University for The Campus Report, and I will be attending the final hearings on May 31 and June 1, as well as reading the committee’s report when it comes out.

When I learned of the committee several months ago, I had high hopes for Pennsylvania students that the investigation by committee might shine some light into the typically unseen world of academia. I hoped that the potential oversight would cause professors to improve their teaching and empower students. My focus is still on Pennsylvania, but I have become more critical and less optimistic about the committee’s effectiveness and intention.

The conclusions I have drawn so far are not pretty.

Some have labeled this committee a solution in search of a problem, but such criticisms typically come from those disingenuous enough to deny that being a registered Democrat can have an influence on how a person will teach. I doubt that the same people would say being a registered Republican would have no effect on a person’s teaching (they simply avoid that issue by believing Republicans are too stupid to work in academia).

I disagree. This committee is not a solution in search of a problem, rather it is a committee that sees a problem and is doing a poor job of investigating it. In Pennsylvania, there’s smoke and fire, but the committee seems to be determined to ignore it.

Professor Kurt Smith of Bloomsburg who came before the committee to condemn it at Millersville accused the committee of being dishonest, saying they could have easily made phone calls to check that policies are in place in Pennsylvania’s state and state-related colleges. If nothing else, Smith was right that policies could be confirmed by telephone, however, the effectiveness of such policies could not be confirmed by phone.

Others have said there simply is not a problem with academic freedom in Pennsylvania and pointed to the very low turnout of students who have come forward to discuss breaches of academic freedom. Between Temple and Millersville, four students complained individually of problems, three in public comment.

I also disagree with this assessment. Students I spoke with including Danielle Murphy of Millersville said they were misinformed about the hearings and only found out the time and location the day before through their affiliation with Students for Academic Freedom. If a young woman as connected to the academic freedom movement as Murphy had trouble learning of it, the average students don’t have a chance at being able to tell the committee what they think.

Millersville President Francine McNairy also told the committee she wished they had been more informed before the hearings, been told what to expect and who could testify. If the university President has no idea what to expect, the committee shouldn’t expect students to.

The hearings at Temple were held when school was not in session and the final hearings scheduled at Harrisburg Area Community College on May 31 and June 1st come after most colleges have wrapped up their regular semester.

So how is it that an investigative committee is doing such a poor job of getting out information on the hearings, of scheduling the hearings when students cannot attend, and lining up witnesses the majority of whom say there is no problem—out of self-preservation or delusion? Is it ineptitude or are these hearings an intentional put-up job? Or is it simply that each member of the committee already has their mind made up in one of two ways? These are questions I wish I knew the answer to, and are questions all concerned Pennsylvanians should be asking.

I spoke with Dustin Gingrich who has been working for the committee about some of my concerns. He said testifiers have been selected in three ways: at the suggestion of a committee member, by individuals contacting committee members with a request to speak, and choosing a number of groups by joint decision of the committee.

Gingrich also said that the problems with the hearings at Temple and HACC not being during semester were logistical in nature because the hearings had to be set up when all 18 committee members were available. I asked him how the committee expected to hear from students when they do not know about the hearings. Gingrich said the committee has no way to directly inform students, so they could only contact groups interested in the hearings so that they could inform students. I would have suggested that they request that all state-funded colleges send out an email announcing the hearings to their “all students” lists.

Julia A. Seymour is a staff writer for Accuracy in Academia. For more of her thoughts on the Pennsylvania Academic Freedom Hearings click here.