Conservatives love to attack us liberal college professors. According to the critique, we are all radical atheists who indoctrinate our students into hating America. This movement is trying to abolish tenure and academic freedom in our universities.
The first problem with this critique is that it is not true. Three recent studies all show that college professors do not alter the political beliefs of their students. In a debate about truth, the truth should matter.
The second problem with the critique is that tenure and academic freedomare bedrock principles of a modern democracy. Truth is a common good- it benefits everyone and no one in particular, and it enables us all to flourish and lead a decent life. A functioning democracy requires citizens to have access to the truth. The radical nature of a modern democracy is that powerful institutions like the state, the church, and large corporations no longer get to tell us what the truth is. Citizens get to decide that for themselves. And academia, protected from the state, the church, and corporations by tenure and academic freedom, provides citizens with the evidence required to make that determination.
Democracies should rely on evidence rather than ideology when deciding public policy. Citizens require access to evidence to have a reasoned debate, and this access requires tenure and academic freedom in our universities. Academics must have the capacity to pursue truth by following the evidence wherever it leads. The political agenda of academia is to provide citizens with the evidence and skills necessary for them to pursue the common good.
My job as a political science professor is to foster this modern notion of democracy. I do not serve the state by teaching the current party line. I do not serve capitalism by telling students that markets trump everything else and that life is about accumulating stuff. I do not serve the church by telling students that everything their clergy says is true. I serve our democratic society by training citizens to gather evidence, think, speak, write and argue - that is, to seek the truth and pursue the common good.
This is very threatening to traditional institutions used to having a monopoly on truth. What the conservative movement to abolish tenure and academic freedom is really about is to create space within the culture to dismiss arguments based on evidence rather than ideology. Conservatives do not like what biologists tell us about evolution, what psychologists tell us about homosexuality, what sociologists tell us about poverty, or what political scientists tell us about terrorism and the Middle East. So they go after the messenger to enable the state, the church, and corporations to dictate to us what the truth is.
The Bush administration consistently ignored evidence that contradicted its ideology. It suppressed scientific studiesabout alternative energy sources, stem cell research, emergency contraception, abstinence only programs, endangered species, climate change, and the impact of mercury on public health. Can all these scientists be wrong? Who is following the evidence wherever it leads and thus pursuing the common good? And who is pursuing special interests - particularly, for example, when the oil industry funds global warming deniers?
We desperately need evidence generated by scientific methods to counter all the ideological junk that drives our political discourse. Tenure and academic freedom are core democratic principles that enable citizens to have access to that evidence. Conservatives seem to want corporations and Fox News to tell us what the truth is. But there is a real world out there. We have made too many decisions based on ideology rather than evidence. The truth has a way of resisting our ideology and biting us in the ass. We ignore it at our peril.