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Why 'Professor Watchlist' Gets My Teaching Values Completely Wrong
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_values_completely_wrong_20161129/
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Posted on Nov 29, 2016
By Robert Jensen
Robert Jensen, who teaches at the University of Texas at Austin (pictured
above), is among the college-level instructors singled out by Professor
Watchlist. (Larry D. Moore / Wikimedia Commons
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_Texas#/m
edia/File:University_of_texas_at_austin_main_building_2014.jpg) ) (CC-BY-SA
3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) )
Editor's note: This story was originally published by Waging Nonviolence
(http://wagingnonviolence.org/2016/11/why-professor-watchlist-gets-my-femini
st-teaching-values-completely-wrong/) .
From a "critique" of my work on the recently launched website Professor
Watchlist (http://www.professorwatchlist.org) , I learned that I'm a threat
to my students for contending that we won't end men's violence against women
"if we do not address the toxic notions about masculinity in patriarchy .
rooted in control, conquest, aggression."
That quote is supposedly "evidence" for why I am one of those college
professors who, according to the watchlist's mission statement
(http://www.professorwatchlist.org/index.php/about-us) , "discriminate
against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance
leftist propaganda in the classroom." Perhaps such a claim could be taken
more seriously were it not coming from a project of conservative nonprofit
Turning Point USA (http://www.tpusa.com/aboutus/our-mission/) , which has
its own political agenda - namely educating students "about the importance
of fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government."
This rather thin accusation appears to flow from my published work instead
of an evaluation of my teaching, which confuses a teacher's role in public
with the classroom. So, I'll help out the watchlist and describe how I
address these issues at the University of Texas at Austin, where I'm
finishing my 25th year of teaching. Readers can judge the threat level for
themselves.
I just completed a unit on the feminist critique of the contemporary
pornography industry in my course "Freedom: Philosophy, History, Law." We
began the semester with On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (I'll assume the
Professor Watchlist approves of that classic book), examining how various
philosophers have conceptualized freedom. We then studied how the term has
been defined and deployed politically throughout U.S. history, ending with
questions about how living in a society saturated with sexually explicit
material affects our understanding of freedom. I provided context about
feminist intellectual and political projects of the past half-century,
including the feminist critique of men's violence and of mass media's role
in the sexual abuse and exploitation of women in a society based on
institutionalized male dominance (that is, patriarchy).
The revelations about Donald Trump's sexual behavior during the campaign
provided a "teachable moment" that I didn't think should be ignored. I began
that particular lecture, a week after the election, by emphasizing that my
job was not to tell students how to act in the world but to help them
understand the world in which they make choices.
Toward that goal, I pointed out that we have a president-elect who has
bragged about being sexually aggressive and treating women like sexual
objects, and that several women have testified about behavior that-depending
on one's evaluation of the evidence-could constitute sexual assault. Does it
seem fair, I asked the class, to describe him as a sexual predator? No one
disagreed.
Trump sometimes responded by contending that Bill Clinton was even worse.
Citing someone else's bad behavior to avoid accountability is a weak defense
(most people learn that as children), and of course Trump wasn't running
against Bill, but we can learn from examining the claim.
As president, Bill Clinton abused his authority by having sex with a
younger woman who was first an intern and then a junior employee. He settled
a sexual harassment lawsuit out of court, and he has been accused of rape.
Does it seem fair to describe Bill Clinton as a sexual predator? No one
disagreed.
So, we live in a world in which a former president, a Democrat, has been a
sexual predator, yet he continues to be treated as a respected statesman and
philanthropist. Our next president, a Republican, was elected with the
nearly universal understanding that he has been a sexual predator. How can
we make sense of this? A feminist critique of toxic conceptions of
masculinity and men's sexual exploitation of women in patriarchy seems like
a good place to start.
In that class, I spent considerable time reminding students that I didn't
expect them all to come to the same conclusions but that they all should
consider relevant arguments in forming judgments. I repeated often my
favorite phrase in teaching: "Reasonable people can disagree." Student
reactions to this unit of the class varied, but no one suggested that the
feminist critique offered nothing of value in understanding our society.
Is presenting a feminist framework to analyze a violent and pornographic
culture politicizing the classroom, as the watchlist implies? If that's the
case, then the decision not to present a feminist framework also politicizes
the classroom, in a different direction. The question isn't whether
professors will make such choices-that's inevitable, given the nature of
university teaching-but how we defend our intellectual work (with evidence
and reasoned argument, I hope) and how we present the material to students
(encouraging critical reflection).
It would be easier to dismiss this rather silly project if the United
States had not just elected a president who shouts over attempts at rational
discourse and reactionary majorities in both houses of Congress. I'm a
tenured full professor (and white, male, and a U.S. citizen by birth) and am
not worried. But, even though the group behind the watchlist has no formal
power over me or my university, the attempt at bullying professors-no matter
how weakly supported-may well inhibit professors without my security and
privilege.
If the folks who compiled the watchlist had presented any evidence that I
was teaching irresponsibly, I would take the challenge seriously. At least
in my case, the watchlist didn't. But rather than assign a failing grade,
I'll be charitable and give the project an incomplete, with an opportunity
to turn in better work in the future.
Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University
of Texas at Austin, and author of "The End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism
for Men," to be published in January by Spinifex Press. Other articles are
online here. (http://robertwjensen.org/) He can be reached at
rjensen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
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