House Resolution 177 (PA)

Pennsylvania is a state that is taking part in an ongoing trend that has captured the attention of many legislatures across the nation. House Resolution 177, which has been dubbed the Academic Freedom Act, would create safeguards for students enrolled in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The bill would allow for numerous legal outlets that would empower the student to challenge intellectual bias within the classroom setting. Instead of just petitioning unresponsive school administrators or deans, students can take academic grievances directly to civil litigation, bypassing those initial avenues.

The issue stems from numerous grievances filed by students who cite that their grades have been adversely affected by professors who held the student’s political viewpoints against them. Therefore, their coursework has not been graded on individual merit or quality, but instead on irrelevant factors such as whether the professor and student share common values.

Whether one supports the legislation proposed in the state house or vehemently opposes it, pretending that political bias does not adversely affect students and their academic career is insidious and disingenuous. While my limited government tendencies have me weary over the enactment of legislation that allows for more government intrusions into societal institutions, my libertarian economic principles have me questioning the setup in universities that promulgate academic bias and grading discrimination. After mulling it over, it becomes readily apparent that professor tenure is the major culprit in intellectual dishonesty among the profession, instilling mediocrity and complacency, not to mention shielding the culpable professor from certain retaliatory avenues.

This is not an overarching indictment on all college professors. While most college professors tend to be politically liberal, (in a contemporary sense, not classical) they nevertheless tend to have the ability to separate their value judgments from objective course material to be taught in the classroom environment. Eliminating tenure would do nothing to those instructors, since their intellectual integrity and individual merit precludes them from being singled out for punishment. All tenure does is shelter professors who want to pass their personal preferences off as absolute fact, not to be questioned in any regard. They often ask loaded questions in their exams that eradicate any sort of retort to the underlying theme of their bias. Moreover, they enact course requirements that have a profound political tilt, like requiring students to be political activists or champion a political cause that meshes with the instructor’s own individual philosophy. Such professors don’t deserve to be teaching at higher institutions because they are inherently intellectually dishonest for disregarding varying perspectives from their lectures and material. If tenure — which practically ensures for lifetime employment once attained — would be scrapped, teachers who present material in the most effective manner would hold the proper positions. Such principles work marvelously in every other profession in the United States, which allow merit to trump over simply ‘time served.’

While adding more regulations might not be the answer, dissolving protections such as tenure that simply facilitate a sense of invulnerability might be a better solution. Introducing competition into academia will add much needed pressure for professors to stick to the course material.