UI prof’s warning triggers debate
MOSCOW, Idaho – A University of Idaho professor’s requirement that students sign a “statement of understanding” before taking his courses is being adopted by some of his colleagues, but others worry the approach could threaten academic freedom.
Dennis West, who teaches courses in film studies, asks students to sign the statement before attending classes that can cover such topics as racism, torture, rape, child molestation, pornography and homosexual themes.
The statements advise students that the films they study may contain material that is “morally, politically, culturally or otherwise objectionable, offensive or repugnant.”
“If you’re going to get sickened by watching tens of thousands of fascists worshipping Hitler, it’s a good idea to know ahead of time,” West told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. “If you can’t handle this, study bugs.”
Professor Robert Caisley heads the university’s dramatic writing program, which includes courses that also deal with themes some might consider objectionable. But Caisley doesn’t like West’s approach.
“What is being debated is bigger than content,” Caisley said. “There is a larger argument about academic freedom, and it worries me.”
He said he sees the statements of understanding as a step toward requiring preapproval for reading lists and syllabuses. “I don’t want to do it, but I’m wondering if the day will come,” he said.
Both Caisley and West said the statements of understanding have caught on because students consider themselves consumers.
Some respond to course material with the view that “if I don’t value this opinion then I don’t believe it to be true and, not only that, but I don’t think it should be a part of the curriculum because I’m paying for it,” Caisley said.
Christine Malek, a senior at the university, said part of the problem is naive students who don’t fully understand that classes are meant to be challenging.
“It is truly a student deficiency that is bringing up the need for having these” statements, said Malek, 25.
“Students need to think about why they are in college,” she said. “You’re coming to a university to be challenged. It’s not going to be easy.”
West said students enter the university at various levels of maturity and understanding. He said the statements are intended to advise them of what to expect.
“I don’t want them to walk in and think I’m teaching fascist ideology,” West said. “Perhaps I am protecting myself some, but I see it as protecting the students, too.”
Caisley said he once received an anonymous note after a class that included images of unclothed Holocaust victims. “I felt uncomfortable with the nudity,” the student wrote.
“It was a bizarre moment for me as a teacher,” he said. “It never occurred to me that in a course about genocide the issue of nudity would come up. But the corpses had no clothes on.”