“… is this what we want …?”
Posted by MichaelW on 24 Apr 2007 at 4:59 am | Tagged as: Domestic Politics, MichaelW's Page, Education
Nicholas Winset is a professor at Emmanuel College in Boston, Mass. Or, at least, he was until a few days ago:
A professor at Emmanuel College has been fired for his in-class re-enactment of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Nicholas Winset was terminated and permanently barred from the Boston campus after a lecture he gave on Wednesday showed the gunman could have been stopped if another student was carrying a gun, according to a Boston Herald report.
According to Winset, he used a magic marker as a gun in his re-enactment of the Va. Tech shootings during a discussion on gun control. The college fired him soon thereafter. The ex-professor explains himself in a series of YouTube videos which you can fin below the jump.
Some might reasonably question what gun control has to do with the financial accounting class Winset was teaching, and in fact I’m wondering that myself. Winset claims that the gun control topic came up in the context of the ethics issues and a general discussion of non-violent philosophies that are often made a part of his lectures (and to which he says that he ascribes). Since he teaches taught at a Jesuit school it is not terribly unusual to have such moral issues raised even in a financial accounting class. However, while the school has thusfar declined comment, it seems pretty clear that he was fired not for having off-topic discussions in class (indeed, the semester ends in just few weeks), but because of the content of those discussions.
Now, for all I know, Winset is a horrible teacher and a jackass to boot. If so, then the school should have gotten rid of him well before this. To fire him for taking a postion opposed to gun control, encouraging his students to stand up for themselves in the face of violence and to refuse to live in fear, seems petty and unhelpful to the students.
To be sure, Emmanuel College did not infringe on Mr. Winset’s First Amendment rights since it is a private institution. Depending on his contract (he was an adjunct professor) and state law, I assume they could fire him for any reason or no reason at all. According to Winset, he was fired for promoting something contrary to the Catholic teachings upon which the school is based (although, if you know anything about Jesuits, I’m hard pressed to comprehend what those teachings are). The Catholic Church teaches that life is a precious gift from God, thus abortion and capital punishment are forbidden. It would seem to follow from that, therefore, that life is worth protecting, even if a gun is necessary to do so. Whatever the reason, the college had the right to get rid of Winset.
The more important issue is, as the title of this post asks, is that what we want? Do we really want professors fired for taking controversial views? How does that help the students? College students should be learning how to think critically and they can’t learn to do that unless they are exposed to a variety of views, most of which should be controversial. Otherwise college is nothing more than an indoctrination center.
Some will argue that the right screams bloody murder and pitches a fit whenever some lefty professor spouts something controversial, and immediately calls for such professors to be tossed out on their keister, so this is just desserts. To a certain extent they are right. They will point to Ward “Roosting Chickens” Churchill as an example of someone spouting controversial and ridiculous things, or to Kevin Barrett, the University of Wisonsin visiting professor who teaches that 9/11 was an inside job. But Churchill was fired for plagiarism and Barrett wasn’t fired at all. Moreover, the issues staked out by those two were a far cry more controversial than opposing gun control. Nevertheless, when professors are fired simply for expressing a view on a controversial subject, the school sullies its reputation as a learning institution and the students education is severly devalued. In short, universities should be in the business of teaching students how to learn, not what to learn.
Oh, about the title of this post. It’s a quote from aikoaiko posting at … Democratic Underground. When denizens of DU comprehend how ridiculous it is for someone to be fired for arguing that gun control is not such a great idea, you really have to wonder why Emmanuel College can’t figure it out.
Below are Mr. Winset’s video explanations of the incident:
[tags] Emmanuel College, Nicholas Winslet, gun control, Ward Churchill, Kevin Barrett, academic freedom [/tag]
3 Responses to ““… is this what we want …?””
Trackback URI | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed
Hey, Mike:
I agree with you one hundred percent. Whoever fired that guy was a tool.
You think they were thinking about legal liability - or was it loss of revenue from potential bad reputation?
They may have been worried about a student in the class suing the school, but I’m not sure what the claim would be (intentional emotional distress?). The school later claimed that they don’t support “obscene language” or some such, so I’m guessing the guy was simply expressing something not in line with the sensitivities of the administration. And maybe that’s what they, quite literally, bank on — i.e. the reputation for non-violence, etc.
Of course, I’m also betting that the guy was not performing up to standards and may have been on his way out no matter what. If true, that only begs the question, why fire him with so little time left in the semester. They could have quietly reprimanded him, and then sent him packing after grades were in, and no bad publicity would have resulted. Instead, they overreacted and set a really bad precedent for academic standards.
And that’s the real point, IMHO. Professors do need to be able to express contentious views without fear that they will get canned. That being said, those views should have some educational, academic value and not just be the rantings of a madman. And universities should be able to cultivate an academic community that is conducive to their overall educational goals. But if the desired result is to produce critically-thinking, well-rounded and studied young adults, then “protecting” them from views that are contrary to convential wisdom is self-defeating.
Oh, and BTW, I’m saving this little bit for future use:
I may even frame that ;)