Ignorance is Strength

Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in North Carolina suspended one of its faculty members for showing Fahrenheit 9/11 in class. Yahoo's AP has the story on the suspension, which happened because March, the teacher, was in violation of a memo ordering staff to be non-partisan in the classroom. March teaches rhetoric, and I for one, wonder how a person can teach rhetoric and argument without actually discussing rhetoric and arguments. Um...articles on stem cell research? Nope. Articles on war? Nope. Foreign policy? Nope. Better construct a syllabus that discusses TV and pop music (oh, but no West Wing or Eminem please). It's a slippery slope and universities and colleges really must err on the side of academic freedom.

"If I'm wrong about this, I've been wrong my entire career," said March, 54, who has taught at the school for two decades.

Go here for the American Association of University Professors' Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure:

Institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.
Academic freedom is essential to these purposes and applies to both teaching and research. Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth. Academic freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to freedom in learning.