I had a very challenging student some years ago. Extremely bright, attentive, focused, curious, well-read–all the things you want. But they answered every question immediately upon its asking, never raising a hand (sometimes answering while it was still being asked). Sometimes they finished my sentences as I was lecturing. By most reasonable standards, the student was being disruptive. I found them disruptive, other students, more so. I’m not a therapist, but I–and other faculty–agreed they appeared to be “on the spectrum” somewhere.
Initially my instinct was to deal with it somehow. If the much heralded “learning environment” was being negatively affected by literally inconsiderate behavior, malicious or not, isn’t that a problem?
But I thought about it. I’d never seen the student behave rudely or egotistically toward me or any other students. When I had asked them to help another student who was struggling, they responded promptly, cheerfully, and effectively. 99.9 percent of their answers were right. Their contributions were entirely–even unusually–positive in everything but timing and manner.
I decided to let it go, and hope that an accepting environment, one that leaned toward open encouragement and quiet forgiveness, would work a change. (It did. Or maybe the student just grew out of it.)
I thought about that event again, as I read about the recent free speech case at the University of Chicago. A student posted the information about a course being offered on some social media sites–misrepresenting it as an example of “anti-white hatred” and included the professor’s picture and email.
The usual harassment and abuse of the professor followed, as was expected and intended by the student, who appears to be a conservative-activist-in-the-making, well-skilled in the tools necessary to manipulate the cyber mobs into doing what he wants. The class was postponed, and then its location moved to another, more secure, building.
The university did nothing, citing its free-speech statement. The student wasn’t expelled, they weren’t even talked to.
Geoffrey Stone, a law professor, explained, “Do you really want to get into the business of trying to figure out what the purpose was?
Speaking for myself, you bet I do. I think every university should be concerned about this kind of incident. I took into account the benign intentions behind my student’s behavior, and I would consider it my responsibility to consider malign intentions as well. A university is all about intent.
Chicago’s own statement cites former President Robert M. Hutchins on the necessity of the “freedom to discuss … open discussion …” if a university is to fulfill the core of its mission. It cites former President Hanna Gray’s observation that “education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think”; “hard thought” must “flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom.”Â
The statement concludes that the university is a community where members are committed to encouraging one another and themselves to “speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.”
This student’s actions were not in any way pursuant of that vision. He did not open up, or engage in, a “discussion.” He was not helping anyone to “think.” His actions were designed to harass, intimidate, and chill the free inquiry taking place in that classroom. The student didn’t argue, challenge, listen, or even attempt to learn. He sought to impede a discussion others wished to have, without even understanding it himself. Such aims are more than corrosive to the ideals of a university, they are deadly.
This incident is not an indictment of Chicago’s commitment to free speech. It’s an indictment of the administration for failing to live up to its own ideals.
Fostering “debate and deliberation in an effective and responsible manner,” says the statement, “is an essential part of the University’s educational mission.”
No kidding. By its own standards, the university failed to pursue that mission. Inasmuch as they ignored the malicious intent of the student, they have encouraged similar behavior from others. In the process, they do no favors to themselves, this faculty person, this student, or the wider society of which we are all a part.