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Grappling with worries about teaching content in the current political environment?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I teach at a state school. In light of recent developments at the executive level, I am worried about potential blowback from teaching a class on the philosophy of race (in addition to content on race in my other classes).

I'm open to strategies as to how to minimize my exposure to negative attention. More fundamentally, though, I'm also considering not teaching this content until I get tenure. Assistant Professors are vulnerable, and I just worry that, at best, I won't get hurt by teaching this material, and at worst, I will get hurt.

I'm sorry the OP is grappling with this, and suspect there may be other readers with similar concerns. Do any readers have any helpful tips, experiences, or other insights to share?

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18 responses to “Grappling with worries about teaching content in the current political environment?”

  1. stop indocrination

    It is not at all clear what you are doing that makes you worried. But if you have been aiming to indoctrinate students, as is the common practice at many Ed Schools across America, then you should curb your behavior. Not because there has been a change of government, but because that shouldn’t ever have happened.

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  2. thoughts

    I would suggest that the OP get to know state laws and school policies, and when they protect freedom of speech or when they do not, and then follow them. If you have some sort of center for teaching at your school, they may have guidance for you.

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  3. seriously?

    @stop indoctrination What an incredibly bad-faith comment. Given the breadth of current executive orders and the fact that even mentioning words like “gender” or “empathy” might be problematic, anyone who even raises questions about these topics in class has reason to ask about the scope of the executive order (at least for those who work at publicly-funded institutions). It’s rather aggressive to assume that this OP is asking because they’ve been “indoctrinating” students.

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  4. anxiety

    Given your concerns, it sounds like you should not teach this content. This is not because you are necessarily at risk. However, given that you are worried, that will affect your ability to do your job and may have consequences for how you are experiencing your sense of ease and comfort on campus. Why put yourself through that needlessly? As you note, you have fewer protections as an assistant professor. It is stressful enough to be in academia without adding additional stressors.

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  5. Bill V.

    There may never have been a more important time to teach subjects like race, gender, and class dynamics. Until there is a specific law or university policy against teaching such subjects, don’t obey in advance, as they say. Depending on what state OP is in, there is unlikely to be much attention from the outside. If there is, the university and government should provide protections. If not, you don’t want to work there anyway. Assistant professors are not more vulnerable than others on these fronts, I think: Academic freedom protections apply to all of us. If your chair and department want you (or someone) to teach the class, and if there is student demand for it, that should mean departmental and decanal support for it. I recommend discussing your concerns with your department chair for reassurance re: tenure, and with your colleagues around the university who teach related subjects (sociology of race, ethnic studies, and so on) to feel better about doing the right thing.

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  6. No trolls please

    I agree with “seriously?” that “stop indoctrination”‘s post is blatant bad faith. If they are seriously concerned about “indoctrination” being widespread across America, let them produce some examples, or an explanation of what they think constitutes indoctrination. I see only good-faith attempts to teach and nurture students. Without any evidence or argumentation, it seems extraordinarily presumptive and hostile to suggest the OP might be indoctrinating students.

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  7. Politics Junkie

    Those who have emphasized your rights to freedom of expression as a TT professor are correct. As a public prof, you are protected both by AAUP principles incorporated into your contract and the First Amendment. This all holds true before tenure.
    I would add that how much danger you are taking on depends on the politics of your institution and your state. If you are in a state dominated by the Democratic Party, your job will be safe, though you might have to endure the real stress of a smear campaign by a right wing student group (for example) using aspects of your class to tar you as an unacceptable radical.
    If you are in certain Republican states, then there is a greater risk that you could end up fighting for your job against hostile figures in state government and their cowardly or willing enablers in the administration of your institution.
    So, I would say that you should assess risk by taking a look at the politics of your colleagues, your dean, provost, president, trustees, etc. Consider also their courage, integrity, and material capacity for withstanding pressure (e.g., do they have strong alumni support that will intimidate hostile politicians).
    Beyond this, consider the politics of your state. Do you have a moderate, pro-business Republican that loves the university for the prestige and jobs it brings to the state–not to mention the football team? If so, don’t worry as much. Or do you have a firebrand governor with an eye on a White House run? If so, there’s a greater risk that some committee will make an example of your philosophy of race class and try to have you fired.
    As for strategies to minimize your chances of controversy, I would have a rule against recording lectures. I would try to read the room and determine if any students are hostile to the idea of philosophy of race and likely to become snitches/complainers. I would consider adjusting the name of the class and using a minimal syllabus. Finally, I would make the course description in the catalog and syllabus sound as scholarly, neutral, and detached as possible, including references to openness to all points of view.

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  8. Noah

    While I’ll second the suggestions and inclination to minimize unnecessary risks, I think it would be an act of moral cowardice to preemptively censor yourself from teaching content that goes against the current administration. This is a time for philosophers to show that we are willing to stick our necks out for our beliefs; and this goes not just for the most secure of us with tenure at healthy institutions.

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  9. Survived a version of this worry

    I taught in the South in a heavily Republican area and a state school during the first Trump administration, and I deliberately chose to teach classes on gender and classes on immigration. A few things I did– one, I focused some of those topics more in seminars, where I had the chance to get to know the students and so could feel my way around to us both thinking of the other as humans in a way that avoids some problems. The other thing is that I tried to confuse the students by doing most of our early work on things that relate to the topic directly, but not in the ways they expect (think David Benatar on sexism that hurts men, or Javier Hidalgo defending the sale of citizenship). That, I think, left them unable to feel like they could “nail down” the politics of the class. By the time we got into more clearly politicized issues, we had some built up trust with each other.
    Honestly, I was scared a bit, though nothing ever went wrong. But I decided I thought it was important– and I was willing to lose my job if I had to because I could live with myself as a person who lost a job teaching well things that are important, and I couldn’t live with myself not talking about things that are important. But I also had an employed spouse and no dependent child– I know that not everyone faces the same circumstances, and not everyone comes down the same way on that judgment. I also knew that my colleagues had my back, and so the issue would have to go pretty high up the chain before it would become a problem. That matters.

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  10. anon

    The Teaching Philosophy Facebook group is full of people who adamantly object to “being neutral” in their teaching. If one thinks that “indoctrination” requires a maniacal, Mr. Burns-style attitude, then sure, that type of indoctrination is rare. However, if it includes teachers who only teach what they think is right, and teach it as right, then it’s not rare at all. IF your content on race is political and includes no conservatives (e.g., Sowell) and merely ranges from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Angela Davis, then yes, you should be worried, and it would be in your interest to adopt the anti-transparency tactics used by “Survived a version of this worry”; whether you would then be validating the blowback you fear, though, is a separate question. (Note the “IF“)

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  11. survived a version of this worry

    For what its worth anon, I didn’t think of those moves as anti-transparent (that is, my aim in using them was not to disguise the fact that I was trying to get them to come to a particular position and thus make that move more effective). My goal, instead, was that there is a kind of student who comes in with their own ideological agenda and/or convinced they are going to ideological war in class. They won’t listen or engage or really think if you start them off with a topic that they are “sure” they know the answer too- even if they actually have never thought carefully about the matter at all (abortion is like this, gun control is often like this, at least in the US) and so on. So you need to build up trust and get them in the habit of thinking more carefully and seeing issues as possibly more complicated than they were initially inclined to before you are in any position to have a useful or thoughtful discussion. That’s true whether or not your teaching is intended to get them to come to a particular position or not (mine is not– though of course we all can’t help but pick the topics we think have significance, and moral significance mostly for those of us who teach normative topics— nobody is teaching a class on the ethics of tapping your toes to the beat of music alone in the privacy of your own bedroom, or of sipping water holding the glass in your left hand v your right, on the whole.

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  12. Peter Finocchiaro

    I would like to briefly register the irony of recent posts like this. It wasn’t too long ago that some of us were raked over coals for daring to teach at places with less than perfectly safe environments. The good news is that, because others have dared to do this before, there are historical and more contemporary examples to follow.
    Personally, I think it is most important to start with an honest assessment of what risks you are willing to take and why. Be specific. I mean this with respect to the content you teach as well as with respect to whom you make yourself vulnerable. I am okay with being taken down by a student, less so by a faceless administrator.

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  13. Politics Junkie

    In talking about your legal rights or the politics of your institution, it may be the case that you will be able to hold onto your job, be promoted, become a full professor, etc., despite any controversy. It may even be the case that the controversy boosts your standing within the confines of academia or the profession.
    That all can be true, but not worth it if you are made to feel miserable and anxious by engaging in these fights or suffering this negative attention. Some people relish a fight and take pleasure in asserting their rights against enemies. Others find it very unpleasant to be criticized publicly, much less be in a high stakes fight like a lawsuit.
    So, I think a good piece of advice for OP is to think not only about whether your job is safe or you could successfully defend it if something goes wrong, but how you feel about going through the struggle of fighting for your job or just being smeared in right wing media.

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  14. don’t bare it alone

    I would recommend you either connect with your faculty union (if you have one) or otherwise work to organize with large groups of faculty around free speech protections. There’s power and protection in numbers.

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  15. Anonmous

    Why not approach the class like one would approach teaching any introductory material. Teach the subject matter (don’t censor yourself) but include alternating views in class. We do this sort of thing all the time. In ethics classes we teach arguments both for and against Egoism, Relativism, Utilitarianism, etc. In this sense the teacher isn’t trying to defend a particular conception against all others but trying to help students acquire a more sophisticated, balanced understanding of the subject. Unless this is some sort of graduate seminar which is more topical, this sort of approach should be fine and make clear you don’t have an agenda. It’s also generally a good way to proceed if your aim is to educate.

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  16. Ethics Prof

    As a purely pedagogical point (one that certainly doesn’t cover the breadth of your concerns), I have found that our class discussions on controversial topics are far more productive when I am careful about “hot” labels which sometimes produce kneejerk reactions from students. For example, I never use the words “woke” or “equity,” even though I cover content associated with those labels. Alternatively, when I think a controversial label is indispensable, I will start by asking students if the label has political connotations. e.g., I ask them, “If someone uses the word, ‘structural,’ to talk about justice what would you guess their political views are?” They always have a ready answer. I then tell them it’s unfortunate that the word has a political association, because we need some word for the phenomenon. This has the effect of telling students that I do not assume they must adopt the lexicon of an opposing political party, while still communicating that they must learn the concept with mastery.

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  17. anon

    Apologies to “Survived a version of this worry.” My characterization of what you said was probably unfair. Sorry.

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  18. ChastenedAuthor

    In a political philosophy class, I show students why most of them are fascists. I can’t say, specifically, how that would translate to a class on the philosophy of race as that subject bores me to tears, but I can say that teaching controversial topics can be fun and engaging–especially if you do as one poster above stated and begin by “confusing” the students.
    So, for instance, showing students that they’re probably fascist, or support elements of fascism more than they might realize, brings about confusion and instant engagement as they push back on the idea.
    And voila, we’re right into the crux of the discussion, which is “What in the world is fascism”?
    I’m not sure, again, how you can directly translate that to philosophy of race, but it may be worth playing around with.

    Reply

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