Erin O'Connor writes interesting commentary on an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Michael Berube, an English professor at Penn State. Here is an excerpt that shows the tone of his article.

Over my 20 years in teaching, I've had many conservatives in my classes. I think I've even had a few Stalinists, too. I've had many intelligent, articulate students who behaved as if they had a right to speak more often and at greater length than anyone else in the room; I've had versions of Reese Witherspoon in Election and Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series, who knew the answers to every question ever asked; I've had my share of blurters with very little sense of social boundaries, a few of whom may genuinely have had some degree of Asperger's syndrome, with various autistic or antisocial symptoms. To all such students -- indeed, to all students, those with disabilities and those without -- I try to apply the standard of disability law: I make reasonable accommodation for them. The challenge, though, lies in making reasonable accommodations for students whose standards of "reasonableness" are significantly different from yours.

Professor Berube's article is centered around "John, a large white student." Berube mentions three novels that the class read that got John particularly upset. John complained about one novel on Black Nationalism that the Back to Africa movement was silly; about another one, an allegory on racial uplift and the history of elevator inspection that there were no white characters, and about a third, a fantasy about Japanese internment in World War II, that the internment camps were not just just different from Nazi concentration camps (contrary to the arguments of some people) but actually a good idea. Berube did give John an A in the class, and let him talk a lot, but John proved quite a handful.

You must read the article to really know its tone-- and that is worth doing. You must also read between the lines. Here are a few observations:

• Despite his efforts to appear compassionate, what Professor Berube is doing here publicly disparaging one of his students, in print in a national publication, in great detail. Moreover, he is telling us about comments other students made confidentially about John, comments the other students definitely would not want made public. Even if "John" is not the boy's real name, so many details are given that people at Penn State, at least, would know who he was. And, just as important, if John reads this article, he will recognize himself, and he will not be happy.

  If John had actually committed academic violations or crimes, I would not object to the story being retold. But what Professor Berube is telling us about are merely embarassing moments in class. There should be a sort of "classroom privilege" for dumb things students say in class (or smart things that are embarassing), to encourage open discussion.

  A minor part of this, though the only part that is formally illegal rather than just inconsiderate, is that Professor Berube tells us that John got an A in the class. Federal regulations, stupid though they are in most cases, forbid us from publishing student grades in magazines.

• We only get one side of the story--Professor Berube's. From his account, we can see that he has no understanding of the conservative student's way of thinking-- he views it as a minor mental illness-- so we should not be surprised if other students or John saw things quite differently. It would be amusing to have a second article by John on "How to Handle the Liberal Professor". If I had more time, I might write a fictional one from John's point of view, taking the same Berubic tone of the compassionate mental therapists.

• Professor Berube is totally amazed when John says of the World War II Japanese internment camps, that

  ... Far from being "outrageous" and "indefensible," they were a reasonable security precaution in a desperate time and, furthermore, the detainees were treated quite well.

  At that point, I have to admit, I was flummoxed. I rarely challenge students directly in the course of class discussion, but I was so stunned that I almost blurted out, "You've got to be kidding." Even if I had, though, I'm not sure John would have heard me: The entire classroom was in a minor uproar, everyone from the pacifists to the drug-law libertarians to the undecideds chiming in at once to criticize; to say, collectively and incoherently, OK, pal, this time you've gone too far...

  The internment camps were, admittedly, unjustified. There was, I believe, no treachery or sabotage by Japanese or Japanese-Americans, even in Hawaii, where there was no internment and many potential saboteurs (quite a contrast to the treachery of some Moslem-Americans we have seen recently). But the teacher, at least, should not have been flummoxed by John's position. Indeed, if he is trying to get discussion going of whether the internment camps were like Nazi death camps (as he was), he should also have been trying to get discussion going on whether the internment camps were justified. President Roosevelt, a large majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, and, apparently, most U.S. voters approved of the camps. Why? Were President Roosevelt and Justices Frankfurter and Douglas evil or crazy? (My guess, by the way, is that unscrupulous people in California wanted to get the internees' land and shops at fire-sale prices and misrepresented the facts to the average citizen in Iowa, who did not follow the matter closely, Roosevelt wanted to win California in 1944, and the Supreme Court by this time was made up of Roosevelt appointees.)

  At any rate, it is interesting that the class jumped unanimously on a student who took the same position as the U.S. President and Supreme Court, but apparently were unoffended by the extremist idea that the internment camps were equivalent to the Nazi death camps.

• All three books mentioned are obscure (at least I, a well-read person, have never heard of them) modern leftwing novels that, it seems, disparage White Americans. What kind of course is this, anyway, and how did John get in it? Could it be that he is upset over finding himself required to take a course comprised of low-quality, stupid books seemingly assigned for no reason other than the political views of the professor? And might he not be frustrated that none of the other 16 students in the class (a) seems to realize this, or (b) is brave enough to tell the emperor that he has no clothes on?

• Why does Professor Berube's perceive conservative students to be obnoxious and mentally disturbed? Here is one possibility: only a loony would reveal himself to be a conservative in Professor Berube's class. It is not quite that bad, because he does note in his article that he discovered that some other students in the class were very much in favor of Bush's Iraq policy. But the great majority of undergraduates don't like to talk in class, and they especially don't like to talk if they think the professor might not agree with them, and they especially especially don't like to talk if they are sure the professor will strongly disagree with them and will think they are loony for saying such a thing. This leaves only abnormally brave or obnoxious students talking much.

  "I have always thought that in the revolutions and especially in democratic revolutions, madmen, not those to whom one gives the name metaphorically, but real ones, have played a very considerable political role. This at least is certain, at least, that a half-crazy false messiah in this time soften goes on to success." [Alexis de Tocqueville, Souvenirs 195 (1978 [1850])]

• Suppose this were a literature class of mostly Jewish students, and the instructor, also Jewish, had assigned The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, The Merchant of Venice, Mein Kampf, and a few other anti-semitic works or works with unsympathetic Jewish characters. The instructor is scrupulously neutral in class discussion, even noting that the historical accuracy of the works is not to be taken too seriously and they have just been assigned to stimulate thinking. He asks the class to discuss whether or not the Jews really do have a master plan for taking over the world, how Shylock and Portia compare in what they value, whether someone who has converted to Christianity is really still Jewish or not, what solutions the authors might find to the Jewish problem they perceive, and other topics raised in the readings. The class discusses these things calmly. Imagine our student John as one reading after the other puts Jews in a bad light, and nobody else in the class seems even to notice. Might John-- a teenager, remember-- get a bit frustrated? He would be in a mind-boggling situation--- everyone in the class, including the professor, would seem to have gone out of their minds--- or is it John himself, and all the other Jews except him really are trying to take over the world?

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