It's About Time: UCLA Professor Radicalism Gets a Closer Look

A UCLA alumni group is gathering evidence of radical faculty members who misuse their classes as political platforms.

I am a UCLA graduate (undergrad and law school) and yes, there is radicalism among some of the professors, particularly in certain departments and professional schools. 

The majority of the professors are politically neutral or at least fair-minded in their teaching approach, and generally stick to their course content.  However, some of the professors are off-the-charts radical, liberal, socialist, collectivist and Marxist.  That alone would not be a problem (the professors are entitled to believe whatever they want), but they force the entire class to listen to and parrot back their extreme politics.  It's not fair to students.   

I had one professor who was so liberal that in writing down the name of the class on my notes one day I absent-mindedly wrote "Socialism" instead of the real course title, "Torts."  Socialism is what we were actually discussing just about every day.

By the way, I took a course dealing with Marxism at UCLA.  I had no problem with that professor or the course.  When you sign up to study Marxism, it's certainly fair game to discuss it, teach it, and write about it.  The course did convince me that the Marxist utopia isn't all it's cracked up to be (despite the professor's best eloquence about it), but that's beside the point.

The problem is professors who make courses having nothing to do with politics into venues for imposing their own political point of view on students.

In another course at UCLA having nothing to do with politics, I wrote an academically excellent, thoroughly researched paper, knowing that I was probably taking a position opposite to one held by a professor, but naively hoping that he would recognize the quality of my effort.  Wrong.  I received a mediocre grade.  In yet another course, having learned from that experience, I deliberately adopted a liberal point of view in writing an extensive paper, simply parroting back what I knew the professor believed.  Frankly, my paper was intellectually shallow.  Nonetheless, I received an extremely high grade for the paper and the course.

Sure, I learned things from both experiences.  The main thing I learned was how to "toe the line" -- how to say whatever the person holding the Power of the Grade wanted to hear.  This is actually a useful skill for the real world.  However, since the reason that I was taking these courses was not to learn how to conform to anything, however unreasonable, but rather to learn specific subject matter and to sharpen my academic skills of research and writing, I would say that I lost more than I gained from the experience.

This new attempt by UCLA alumni to identify professors who go overboard in injecting politics into their courses isn't a "witch hunt."  It's an attempt to gather evidence and to rein in the professors who have gone way off the deep end in how they teach their classes.  To grumble that the alumni group should not be willing to pay students for notes or tape recordings documenting the abuse is to focus on a detail about methodology in the hopes of distracting from the need for the overall effort.  If the notes and tapes are handed over without payment, will that make the critics happy?  (Answer:  No.)

What the critics of this new effort and the fans of academic freedom need to think about is what they would consider a reasonable response if a university had a large number of its professors using their courses to promote fascism, as opposed to socialism.  At some point, it would be reasonable to say, "Enough is enough.  Teach what we are paying you to teach."

When you are taking a course, you are literally a captive audience.  When you are taking a subjectively graded course, a piece of your academic and professional future is taken captive too.  It is put in the hands of the professor, at least to the degree that the course affects your overall grade point average.  This has great potential for abuse.

Some of this is unavoidable.  We all have human biases, professors included.  But if nobody ever takes professors to task for going overboard, this kind of thing will continue unchecked and will sometimes run rampant.  It's all well and good to have academic freedom for professors, but students deserve academic freedom too.  In fact, they need it more.

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Update 1/19/06:  Obviously I'm not the only one who has had these experiences.  According to a study published in the UCLA Daily Bruin on December 9, 2004, 46% of students attending some of the the nation's top colleges and universities, including but not limited to UCLA, believe that some professors use the classroom to present their personal political views.  Nearly one third reported that they had to agree with the political views of some professors to get a good grade.  According to the article, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni will be recommending reforms to curb perceived faculty abuse, including adding a question to teacher evaluation forms asking about a professor's bias. 

Here's the link to the UCLA Bruin Alumni Association website, UCLA Profs.com.  I have nothing to do with the Bruin Alumni Association or the website, and I can't personally confirm the accuracy of the content, if only because the sheer volume of material is staggering.  Again, this problem is not limited to UCLA.  It should also be kept in context.  The majority of professors are fair-minded in how they approach their classrooms.  It is only the minority abusing their position who badly need to be reined in.

Comments

[Harkonnendog]

I remember hating such professors when I was at UH. I only had a few, and like you I played along.

Btw you aren't literally a captive audience unless you are jailed... I mean you can walk out, right?

[Tim Hunt]

It's really about time that this sort of behavior in the academic world be brought to justice, or named. As a student who spent his collegiate career in Los Angeles at another institution I found myself, time after time, not only weary of divulging my political beliefs in class... but that it was a detriment to my grade in those classes.

I will acquiesce that while a majority of my teachers were admittedly liberal, only a few were bad enough to impose their opinion and intimidate others out of academia. In one particular class the teacher would check and preach Michaelmoore.com like it was the front page of the newspaper or a page from the gospel. She even made parrallels between him, Jesus Christ and Mahatma Ghandi. We were even given credit to leave class one day to parade around campus with STOP THE WAR signs... ummm... awkward.

[Gina Cobb]

Harkonnendog, you're right about the use of the word "literally." It literally made me jump six feet high when I read your comment. (Just kidding.)

[DRJ]

What a great post, Gina.

Oh, and Harkonnendog: Of course, any money paid as tuition is captive, because the school definitely won't return that if you choose to walk out of class rather than attend.

I guess in an absolutely precise world (are you by chance an engineer or a mathematician?), the phrase "captive audience" is a figurative rather than a literal device. But you knew that, didn't you?

[Peter Jackson]

Gina!

I was wondering: that Marxism course you took, what department was it in?

:peter

[Gina Cobb]

Peter, I don't remember the department at the moment -- I think it was poli sci or sociology. The course also dealt with Hegel and the dialectic.

[CRL]

Gina:

Was you experience in law school similar to your undergrad experience? I “conformed” in undergraduate school as much as I could. However, law school made me feel liberated. Anonymous grading was a godsend. I did write about the Second Amendment once in law school, and that wasn’t wise. But other than that, I felt much better and secure in law school.

[SDN]

Oh, and Hark, you might want to consider just how free you are to walk out when you MUST have THIS course, taught by THIS professor, at THIS time, to graduate on schedule, or at all, and enter a career field you've been working towards your whole life. If I run into this on a job, I can find another one and keep it somewhat quiet. But when I'm trying to get must have degrees, in courses that won't transfer, then I am a captive audience.

[Gene Dillenburg]

While the politicization may be new, the idea of parroting back the teacher's words is old news. Take it from an old man...

In 1980 I was in college studying Advertising. In my copywriting course on Tuesday noghts, the teacher told us to write short, punchy sentences and don't worry about grammar. In my Project Management course on Wednesday morning the teacher told us to write flowing, elegant sentences and observe every rule of grammar. So, I wrote short, punchy sentences on Tuesday nights and elegant, flowing sentences on Wednesday mornings, and got an "A" in both classes.

It goes back even further. In high school lit class, I spent the first semester reading the books, participating in class discussions, and "showing my thinking" on the exams. I got a C. I figured that was way too much work. Second semester, I didn't crack a book, didn't raise my hand once, but took lots of notes which I regurgitated on the exam. As the professor was handing out the final he said "Don't just repeat what you heard in class. Show me your thinking." Half of my answers I wrote "As you said in class...." I got an A.

Nothing new here.

[Dadahead]

I wrote an academically excellent, thoroughly researched paper, knowing that I was probably taking a position opposite to one held by a professor, but naively hoping that he would recognize the quality of my effort. Wrong. I received a mediocre grade.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe your paper just wasn't as good as you thought it was?

[Daniel]

Sometimes students don't understand that whay they thought was a good paper wasn't. Just because *you* call it academically excellent doesn't mean it was. And maybe the second professor (a different one from my reading, thereby blowing your entire experiment) was grade inflating you mediocrity, a common problem at colleges.

[buzz]

Gene, I had close to the same thing. I took a english class in 1980. The teacher was a very nice lady and I dont remember anything about politics in class. I received As and Bs on every paper until about 3/4 of the way thru class. I turned in a paper taking a pro-capital punishment position. I was asked to make an appointment in her office. I was told that this paper wasnt up to my normal standard and should consider rewriting it and she would withhold grading it until the second paper. I wasnt sure what was wrong with the paper, but I thought I would try a expirement and rewrote my paper taking a anti-capital punishment position. Got a A on that paper. It actually didnt bother me as I enjoyed writing papers, and arguing positions I didnt agree with made me understand and defend my positions better. OTOH, if I had been ridiculed in class and treated poorly because of my political viewpoint I would feel differently. As I said, she was a very nice woman and I enjoyed the class.

[MarcBoston]

> Did it ever occur to you that maybe
> your paper just wasn't as good as
> you thought it was?

Let's see the papers!!!!

[dearieme]

I stand astonished that in this litigous age the American University examining system is so primitive and open to abuse.

[Jim Hoft]

Gina- It sounds like you got the game down and survived... Sad that this goes on.

[Greg Wright]

Back in the day, I took anthro class at UCLA taught by a prof who specialized in "Marxian analysis of Inca pottery sherds." We had a guest speaker come in who was digging holes in Siberia (I don't remember why, I was an aerospace engineering major in an Anthro class, they were lucky I showed up). When my prof asked our guest "What would Marx say about this?", our Soviet-trained guest gave him a blank stare. This was 1992, and Marx wasn't terribly hip in Russian academic circles.

[Polo Outlet]

Having read this post, I have learned for myself a lot of the new. Thanks