(I began writing this last week, but didn't have a chance to finish and post it since I was so busy with class prep, etc. Anyway, here it is, referring to 9/22)


When I first decided to attend this university, I knew that it was arguably the most liberal (in the political sense, this time) campus in the Pacific Northwest. I decided to attend anyway, meet individuals open-mindedly, eschew stereotypes, and prove myself as a thoughtful, non-judgmental, intelligent, Christian academic. I found that without exception, my fellow grad students were respectful of my beliefs, valued my opinions, and became my friends. However, in some classes (though not all), the professors assumed a left-wing, secular audience and often referred to "the religious right" in derogatory terms, magnifying their paranoia and downplaying their intelligence and critical thinking skills.

Today, my friend H gave a paper in our Composition Conference, arguing that as an undergraduate at the UO, she had repeatedly experienced professors rigorously interrogating students with conservative views while accepting students' liberal opinions without question. As a graduate student now, she realizes that such a habit hurts all students: it silences conservative students, who perceive the hostility directed toward them, and limits the learning of liberal students whose reasons are not challenged, though they may be just as nebulous as conservatives'. She gave an example of a time that this had happened to her and also a time when she herself had been guilty of the same bias. She brought in support from Derrida (which I was frankly impressed by) and all in all gave a great, academic, fair-minded presentation.

Well, when all four panelists had spoken, it was question time. The first question was directed to H: a philosophy grad student and instructor asked the following: "In this world of moral relativism, is it not our ethical responsibility to interrogate conservative students more rigorously, since their opinions are based on logical fallacies." (Hmm. You have to admire the purity of that.)

The second question was from an English grad: "H, I've heard you grind this ax before. Forgive me, but is it possible that you're making this argument because you feel outnumbered?"
"No--" she began, and he interrupted with, "Are you a conservative?"
"No, I'm not," she answered, and he apologized for being mistaken but didn't take back his other comment. Anyway, after that, the responses became more respectful, but they all still centered around H's presentation rather than the others'. And in fact, after the panel many other students came up to H and told her they appreciated her addressing the issue, etc.

Now, before I comment on this experience, let me share another one, which happened later in the day.

The final panel was made up of professors, rather than students, and the writer of the textbook for all the University's composition courses was the first speaker. He opened with a "joke": "I think there should be a new committee in the federal government," he said. "It would be called 'The Critical Thinking Committee' and its job would be to monitor the level of critical thinking. It would be made up of gays and lesbians and it would commission a task force of radical environmentalists, who would go out and kidnap all the Paranoid Religious Right and take them to Area 51, where a chip would be implanted in their brains that would cause them to think that war is bad, Bush is crazy, aliens aren't real, school vouchers are a bad idea, and women are people. But the most important thing this implant would do is force all the Paranoid Religious Right to accept reason as the basis for critical thinking and examine all sides of an issue rationally."

Now, here's the thing. I'm certainly no champion of right-wing fundamentalism; frankly, Dobson makes me a little nervous and Bill Gothard makes me want to run for cover. H, when I expressed my frustration over the speech to her, said that she dealt with such comments by telling herself that they aren't really about her. She's not in that targeted group. She's a different kind of Christian. But if I've learned anything from this past couple years of spiritual upheaval, it's that if I choose to be a Christian, I belong to the Christian community whether I like it or not. I may not agree with all of its members, but they are my community, along with those I see more eye to eye with.

However, I also belong to the academic community, one that prizes open-mindedness and works to overcome bigotry and stereotyping. And as my experience in this panel illustrates, one of the last stereotypes left standing in academia is that of the aggressive, judgmental, paranoid, ultra-conservative, women-, minority-, and homosexual-hating Christian fundamentalist. The very fact that this speaker did not differentiate between "those of the religious right who are paranoid" and "the religious right, which is paranoid" suggests that he was perpetuating this stereotype. Furthermore, the responses of those two grad students towards H show how blind academics can be to their own, dare I say, bigotry. And when conservatives or religious individuals speak up to defend themselves, they are "too sensitive" or "preachy."

Frustrating as all this is, what really angers me is that this was presented in a formal public forum, to a varied audience, at a conference dedicated to inquiry and critical analysis, by an author whose book urges readers to "acknowledge the possibility of other views being just as reasonable as our own." Essentially, he implied that I, as a member of the Christian community--the so-called Paranoid Religious Right, am unable or unwilling to think critically. And yet, I have spent a year in this graduate program and have proved my ability to succeed as well as anyone. Moreover, I am one of the instructors who will be taking his book and representing him and his ideas to freshmen students over the coming year or two. And if an unspoken "present company excluded" were implied in his speech, he still ridiculed my religious community, dismissing anything they might have to offer to public discourse, thus contradicting his own definition of "ethical argument."

*sigh* I'm debating writing an email to him--albeit an email that is calmer and less rant-like than this post--expressing my frustration with the inappropriateness of his anecdote and the double standard it perpetuated. After the session, I vented to a few of my classmates, all of whom were likewise troubled by the speech. Which suggests at least that I'm not completely off-track here. We'll see.

On this topic, see also the post just previous to this one, which I wrote last winter, but really didn't have the guts to post until now.



([...and as promised, the psycho neighbor transcripts] "Leave me alone, Eric. Just shut up. Ok? Just shut up. I was worried sick. You left your ****ing phone, and therefore I'm blaming you. You know your cousin is ****** fifteen, why would you expect her to do anything ****** responsible. No! Shut your *****. Don't ever talk to me like that again. If you're such a big ******* boy, why don't you... no, you shut up. Shut up. Oh, aren't you cute. Good, you know, blame your cousins. No, blame yourself. I just find it highly coincidental that two, three seconds after I called, .... said 'no, we don't know where he is.' Forget that ****** party.")

Labels: grad school, neighbors, rants

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