Is indoctrination of students by a professor protected by academic freedom?

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Dear Mr. Beck,

At your invitation, I submit what I think of the situation on campus. In 2005, shortly after I retired after 35 years of Mathematics instruction at a polytechnic university, I was part of a group that met with the campus president, the provost, the dean of the liberal arts college and two other high ranking officials to discuss our concerns following the visit of Ilan Pappe. At this meeting I posed the following two hypothetical questions to the president:

  1. If a professor in his own classroom advocates the destruction of a country to his students, is his speech protected by academic freedom?
  2. If a professor in his own classroom advocates the destruction of a race of people or a religious group, is his speech protected by academic freedom?


The answer to both questions was delivered by the provost. His answer to both questions was an unqualified YES.

I was stunned by his answers as well as by the silence of the president and the other campus officers. Thinking about it afterwards, I distilled the issue to this: Is indoctrination of students by a professor protected by academic freedom?

Everyone, I think, believes that indoctrination does take place in benighted areas of the world. But confronted by the charge that indoctrination is occurring on college campuses in the United States is – or should be – a very uncomfortable idea. I would expect that most professors would duck the issue by saying “that all depends on how you define indoctrination.” Imagine the difficulty of defining indoctrination! Others would go out on a limb by saying that there is no such thing as indoctrination, that the issue is moot, and so the professor can say anything in his classroom under the first amendment right of freedom of speech. Still, the twin feelings that indoctrination does occur in the world and that we do not countenance indoctrination in our own schools leads us to a despair. Maybe we need to examine this issue seriously. (As an aside, we all saw film footage of German university students consigning books to the fire. Surely they were victims of indoctrination? Has that era been studied and written about?) I would propose academic conferences that examine this question: Is indoctrination of students by a professor protected by academic freedom?

Besides academics, citizens of all walks of life have a stake in this debate and ought to take part in the discussion. The destiny of our democratic experiment is bound up in this issue.

-Gary Epstein, Emeritus Professor
California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, CA
221 La Camarilla Place
Nipomo, CA 93444
Telephone (805) 929-6301
E-mail address: gepstein@calpoly.edu

Is indoctrination of students by a professor protected by academic freedom?

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