THE BLUE NOSE OF ACADEMIA I

THE BLUE NOSE OF ACADEMIA I

One of the most insidious aspects of the present political correctness on campus is the puritanical hysteria that now establishes the guidelines for the relations between the sexes. I will argue that such Puritanism is indeed properly described as hysterical, that it threatens academic freedom and civil liberties, and that it hinders the cause for the equality of women.

Speaking about these subjects is very painful. It is painful because it will upset many friends whose goodwill means a great deal to me and for whom I have the highest respect. Nonetheless it seems to me that it is imperative to criticize their views, views which have become quite prevalent among those who feel deeply about the goals of feminism, and among some others who have very lofty ideals about the nature of teaching. It is painful because I had never imagined that the day would come when questioning the intellectual grounds for a point of view might lead to personal censure. And it is painful because as I realize that these things must be said, I also realize that they must be said plainly and in a very personal way. I would rather hide behind the euphemisms under which these topics are often discussed, and thus not risk being thought crude, gross, and offensive, in addition to politically incorrect. But I can’t.

If men and women are to be truly equal in academic life, or in any professional endeavor, they must be able to work side by side, and they must be able to participate and be treated as full human beings. This seems plausible enough, but apparently it isn't. For a full human being is, among other things, a sexual being. This means that some of those men and women together at work or higher education will be attracted to each other, will fall in love, or at least will want to engage in sexual relations. But this unavoidable consequence of bringing together men and women is highly unpalatable to the makers of the present climate of opinion. They feel that sexual allure or tension creates an atmosphere that makes inevitable the oppression of women, and so they move to eradicate what they see as the cause of the problem. Although the ramifications of this attitude affect many areas of campus life, I cannot discuss them all in this article. I will concentrate on the worst possible case: sex between professors and their students.

On my former campus, and to some extent on my present campus also, as on most other universities and liberal arts colleges across the country, most male professors, and many female professors, leave their office doors open when they are talking to students of the opposite gender -- "you have to protect yourself," they say (I always prefer to make a point of closing the door, whatever the gender of the student, as used to be required when I first became a professor: to protect the student’s privacy). In a place that emphasizes close contact between professors and students, the advice on how to protect yourself could fill volumes. Professors are terribly afraid of being accused of sexual harassment. I, for one, worry about it whenever I have a personal or academic problem with a female student. But there is also a generalized fear that even students with whom you have hardly spoken may accuse you, for in the present obsession with sex practically any remark in class or at a social event may be seen as potentially seductive, and thus as requiring chastisement. When I came to this country in the sixties I felt liberated, freed from the prudishness of my native Colombia. But now I feel the same sort of burden that Sister Victoria placed on the boys of my first grade class, when she repeatedly sent us to rip the glossies used for advertisement in the movie theatre across the street from the school - particularly offensive were those photos showing men and women dancing, or worse, kissing (remember all those porno musicals of the fifties, and those perverted flicks with Cary Grant?). That is a sick way to live. But that is the way we are expected to live as academics in this country.

This description of the situation may seem too outrageous, but I will back it up in the postings to follow. Indeed, I will claim that the situation is actually more outrageous than that: the present attitudes encourage some students to make up false and malicious charges against their professors. The result is a climate of fear and intimidation comparable only to that which exists in the universities of countries ruled by religious tyranny.