Compromising Scholarship: Religious and Political Bias in American Higher Education

1 Introduction

1 CHAPTER ONE Introduction On May 1, 2009, U.S. District Judge James Selna issued a ruling that James Corbett violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment when he called creationism “superstitious nonsense” during a high school history lecture. The lawsuit cited more than twenty statements made in the classroom that, according to the plaintiff Chad Farnan, favored “irreligion over religion.” However, only the statement on creationism was found to have violated Farnan’s rights. The ruling ended this particular conflict, but this type of complaint has become quite common at educational institutions . A group finds evidence that it is being insulted or faces bias and complains about intolerance. Usually the complaint does not rise to the level of a court case, but the objectivity of the educational institution is quickly called into question by that group, and social conflict ensues. At the other end of the political spectrum, on May 12, 2006, the California Senate passed a bill requiring school instruction material to contain discussions on the contributions of homosexuals , bisexuals, and transgendered people while banning teaching or books that denigrate people based on their sexual preference. The argument by Sheila Kuehl, a state senator from Santa Monica, 2 || compromising scholarship is that ignoring such individuals is similar to the way the contributions of people of color and women have been ignored. Thus a perceived bias against sexual nonconformists was the stated reason behind such a law. Here a different group, based on sexual preferences and not religion, makes claims of bias within educational settings and attempts to find a solution to that bias. Thus members from both the Left and Right make claims that they face intolerance in educational institutions. The above cases concern issues surrounding high school students , where the potential for influencing underage individuals brings additional levels of scrutiny. However, charges of bias and intolerance are also quite common in institutions of higher education . While professors enjoy protections of free speech that high school history teachers do not have, concerns about bias against certain social groups remain a hot topic. This is so not only because of how the possibility of prejudice may affect students in college classrooms , but also because institutions of higher education are the places where science is conducted. If bias and intolerance influence professors in the classroom, then they also likely affect the way they conduct scientific research and knowledge discovery. Intolerance has become the new curse word in contemporary society. No one wants to be seen as biased toward members of other social groups. The cost for obtaining such an image is ridicule and social ostracism. Given such penalties, accusations of unfair bias have proven to be powerful mechanisms for motivating individuals toward social expressions of acceptance. Accusations of intolerance help to curb the use of racial, sexual, and gender epithets by encouraging individuals to accept members of different social groups into their friendship networks and to curb the most egregious workplace discrimination. The flip side of intolerance is the providing of undue favor for those in-groups that are admired. This favor allows some individuals to profit at the expense of others . Thus bias toward those similar to ourselves in appearance or ideology also has been seen as an undesirable trait. In this way, charges of bias have taken on much of the same moral weight as accusations of intolerance. introduction || 3 The notion of intolerance, or bigotry, has generally been used for those who opposed equal rights for people of color and women. But as we saw in the above examples, accusations of bias are not merely tied to those who seek to victimize racial minorities and females. Political conservatives and liberals are often quick to accuse the media of biased treatment in favor of those they disagree with (Alterman, 2004; Brock, 2004; Coulter, 2004; B. Goldberg, 2001; McChesney, 2004; Medved, 1993; Olasky, 1988). Both religious (Howse & Reagan, 2005; Medved, 1993; Olasky, 1988) and nonreligious (Bishop, 2007; Dawkins, 2006; Gey, 2006) individuals argue that they are the victims of bad treatment due to unfair bias. Individuals with lifestyles that differ from the norm in sexual preference (Leland, 2000; Long & Sulton, 1987; Padilla, 2004), eating habits (Iacobbo & Iacobbo, 2004; McColgan, 2005), and even clothing choices (Ince, 2005) argue that society is unfairly biased against them as well. Charges of bias are often used in an attempt to humiliate those who oppose certain social groups and so to...