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Stanley Fish’s latest warning about the dangers of academic freedom is a work of surpassing nonsense. As usual, Fish would have his readers forget that academic freedom is threatened by the accelerating pace at which temporary lecturers are replacing tenure-line faculty at American colleges and universities. And he’d be grateful if onlookers would also ignore the fact that academic freedom isn’t guaranteed, that many scholars — sometimes even those who are dedicated to their jobs — are fired because their colleagues don’t believe they merit tenure. Instead, Fish focuses on the bad apples who hide behind the shield of academic freedom, getting away with all manner of misdeeds. Which, sure, does sometimes happen, though far less frequently than consumers of Fish’s drippings likely believe.
In this instance, Fish writes about Denis Rancourt, a physicist at the University of Ottawa. Rancourt, it should be said, sounds like buffoon:
Rancourt is a self-described anarchist and an advocate of “critical pedagogy,” a style of teaching derived from the assumption (these are Rancourt’s words) “that our societal structures . . . represent the most formidable instrument of oppression and exploitation ever to occupy the planet”…
It turns out that another tool of coercion is the requirement that professors actually teach the course described in the college catalogue, the course students think they are signing up for. Rancourt battles against this form of coercion by employing a strategy he calls “squatting” – “where one openly takes an existing course and does with it something different.” That is, you take a currently unoccupied structure, move in and make it the home for whatever activities you wish to engage in. “Academic squatting is needed,” he says, “because universities are dictatorships . . . run by self-appointed executives who serve capital interests.”
Rancourt first practiced squatting when he decided that he “had to do something more than give a ‘better’ physics course.” Accordingly, he took the Physics and Environment course that had been assigned to him and transformed it into a course on political activism, not a course about political activism, but a course in which political activism is urged — “an activism course about confronting authority and hierarchical structures directly or through defiant or non-subordinate assertion in order to democratize power in the workplace, at school, and in society.”
So gosh, yes, Fish must be right: if academic freedom protects a miscreant like Rancourt, it must be a terrible thing. But wait! Administrators at the University of Ottawa are now “recommend[ing] to the Board of Governors the dismissal with cause of Professor Denis Rancourt from his faculty position.” Which is to say, he may be fired. So Fish’s claim that someone like Rancourt, so long as he’s working in the halls of academe, will be “celebrated as a brave nonconformist, a tilter against orthodoxies, a pedagogical visionary and an exemplar of academic freedom” is drivel. In his conclusion Fish admits as much, allowing that Rancourt isn’t resting comfortably under the parasol of academic freedom. So the first several hundred words of the column were just a misunderstanding, then? And academic freedom functions properly after all, Professor Fish? “But only till next time,” he answers. That sound you hear, readers, is the clutching of pearls.
Luckily for Fish, he’s a regular contributor to the New York Times, which means that he’ll keep his bully pulpit even though he’s clearly incompetent.
37 comments
February 9, 2009 at 12:22 pm
politicalfootball
Well, yeah. But what about Ward Churchill? They let him keep his tenure right up until they fired him.
February 9, 2009 at 12:24 pm
silbey
I think we should list the people that should be immediately fired from the Times. I’ll lead off with Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, and Ben Stein.
February 9, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Matt Lister
The only bad thing about criticizing Stanley Fish is that it’s so easy. I must say, though, that I resent him even more now that I found out that he was the model for Morris Zap in the _Trading Places_ book (I suppose it does make sense in retrospect) because it’s sort of ruined that book for me.
February 9, 2009 at 12:25 pm
kid bitzer
denis rancourt…
i’m guessing here, alex, but would that be
“how do you say ward churchill in canadian?”?
February 9, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Colin
You’re being Fished.
February 9, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Ahistoricality
I read Fish only because I know that people will respond, and I do so hoping that nobody will…. I thought the comments on his post pretty much captured the absurdity as well as Ari. I could be a good liberal and point out that there are issues with tenure that are troubling, but it just legitimizes Fish’s flamethrower approach to let him start a conversation.
February 9, 2009 at 2:47 pm
jacob
I know this isn’t quite your point, but in fact what’s happening to Denis Rancourt is an outrage. He’s basically being fired because his colleagues and administrators don’t approve of his grading methods. That’s the sort of intrusion into the classroom and specific teaching methods that tenure really is designed to prevent. Moreover, his firing is a dangerous signal for tenure throughout Canada. Professors are being told that since they work for public institutions, they are civil servants and that tenure is meaningless. It’s a dangerous precedent for Canada, and I think we in the United States need to take it seriously.
February 9, 2009 at 3:00 pm
dana
He’s basically being fired because his colleagues and administrators don’t approve of his grading methods.
It seems like it’s a little more than that, if the reporting in the article is at all accurate. Plenty of people who are easy graders aren’t marched out the door in handcuffs.
February 9, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Jonathan Dresner
He’s basically being fired because his colleagues and administrators don’t approve of his grading methods.
Not if Fish is being at all honest about the situation. He’s being fired because he’s giving people grades which don’t in any way reflect the work students have done on the subject matter of the intended course. He’s not even trying: this isn’t inflation, it’s culture jamming. Grades are a product and a form of communication to a variety of constituencies and there are serious implications to the institution if they become meaningless.
February 9, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Vance
Here’s a brief account from the Globe and Mail. It confirms the detail Jonathan picked out — R announced at the beginning of one class that every student would get an A+.
(On the other hand, Dana, let’s not take the fact that the university reacted harshly to his return to campus as evidence in itself.)
February 9, 2009 at 3:23 pm
jacob
As I understood it from the Globe and Mail (admittedly, my blood pressure can’t handle reading Fish, so I haven’t), Rancourt gave everyone A+s because he didn’t approve of grades. While, yes that’s “giving people grades which don’t in any way reflect the work students have done,” it’s also grading in a particular way that others don’t approve of. My point is not about whether or not this is good pedagogy (indeed, I have mixed feelings about grades, and also about how one should deal with those mixed feelings). My point is that I don’t want my colleagues or administrators telling me what grades I can give my students. If I want to give them all A+s, my right to do so is a small price to pay for my right to autonomy in the classroom.
February 9, 2009 at 3:24 pm
jacob
Sorry: I should have included the URL to the Globe article in the comment above: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090206.wprof06/BNStory/National/
February 9, 2009 at 3:31 pm
ari
In defense of the post, I did include a link to the Globe and Mail story. So did Fish, in his editorial, by the way. Not that I’m defending him.
February 9, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Jonathan Dresner
Actually, I think the stronger point isn’t that he’s giving out all A+’s (though I do have pretty strong views on grade inflation) but that he’s teaching a different course than that described in the catalog. (in the end, the “all A+” thing was finessed by making the course pass/fail, which seems obvious to us in the US but is apparently rather unusual in Canada)
I’m not talking about a little slippage in topics or some supplemental projects: I’m talking about providing an educational experience so different from the advertised material as to constitute a form of fraud. It’s true, real investigation of complex topics can take you down unexpected roads, but certain courses exist for a reason, and it’s hubris to assume that the instructor can abandon those reasons without doing harm to the curriculum.
I’m all for autonomy in the classroom, but within the context of professional responsibilities. If social responsibility trumps professional responsibility, as Rancourt seems to think, then it’s time to give up the profession.
February 9, 2009 at 3:36 pm
dana
(On the other hand, Dana, let’s not take the fact that the university reacted harshly to his return to campus as evidence in itself.)
Not in and of itself, no. But… I don’t think this just about giving too many high grades. (And the article suggests more.) And this.. disciplinary procedure doesn’t seem to be coming from the state, but from the rest of the faculty.
Which means it’s a really weird example to choose to try to show that the academy is full of people who couldn’t get Real Jobs.
February 9, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Vance
No kidding. Anyway, Fish’s writing these days (well, in my experience, for a long while now) seems to be a kind of typing practice — he has a bag of rhetorical tricks, long on paradox, and just keeps pulling them out for their own sake. But the case is strange.
(And Ari — oops, I too missed your link.)
February 9, 2009 at 4:38 pm
rea
My point is that I don’t want my colleagues or administrators telling me what grades I can give my students.
Well, but there’s a catagory difference between your colleagues or adminstrators telling you what grades to give to particular students, and your colleagues or administrators requiring you to participate in the same grading system that everyone else at the university follows.
It would infringe you academic freedom for your colleagues and adminstrators to tell you what you can or cannot say in the classroom–but that doesn’t mean you have the right to deliver your lectures in Serbo-Croatian without anyone complaining . . .
February 9, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Jason B.
If I want to give them all A+s, my right to do so is a small price to pay for my right to autonomy in the classroom.
Seems like that’s a philosophy that belongs somewhere other than academia. Rights? A right to give grades? Give grades? Is this a college classroom or a sandbox?
You’re not the boss of me. Everyone gets ponies!
February 9, 2009 at 6:59 pm
andrew
I had a professor for a freshman seminar in English who, concerned that people were too hesitant to participate in class discussions, suddenly declared about half way through that he would give everyone A’s in order to take any grade-related fears away. The course was substantially in-class participation focused. His comments on the few written assignments were thorough and critical – in the good sense of critique. And the course was exactly what the description said it would be.
February 9, 2009 at 9:44 pm
tf smith
Apparently the Times was really hard up for copy to fill the space around the Hermes ads that day…
When nothing in the article actually supports the lede, you really have to wonder…
February 10, 2009 at 6:07 am
jacob
I should say that the Globe article that Vance and I read makes no mention of Rancourt not teaching the class he promised, and describes the issue solely as about his refusal to give meaningful grades. I agree that not teaching the class as promised is a greater breach of trust–although still not worth of being banned from campus and fired. Moreover, I suspect that the harsh treatment he’s faced comes more from the fact that he’s heterodox in his research (he’s a global warming denialist) and politics (he’s an anarchist), and that in the past he’s sided with students against the university.
The point of Ari’s original post, as I read it, was that the system worked well in this case, in that Rancourt was a bad egg and was fired for it, so complaints that academic freedom protected bad eggs were moot. My point was that Ari was conceding too much, because Rancourt’s offense in fact shouldn’t have caused him to be fired. This is not to defend Rancourt’s actions tout court.
February 10, 2009 at 6:48 am
Barry
politicalfootball: “Well, yeah. But what about Ward Churchill? They let him keep his tenure right up until they fired him.”
Wow. And Timothy McVeigh was reportedly allowed to live right up until his execution – criminal coddlers!
February 10, 2009 at 7:00 am
ari
jacob, to your point: I don’t know enough about the case to make judgments. But you’ll note that in the post I’m pretty careful with my language; I say that “Rancourt sounds like a buffoon.” I later suggest that his case is really lousy evidence for the point Fish is trying to make. Nowhere do I say that Rancourt should be fired. Two more things: reiterating, I don’t think I have nearly enough information here to make an informed judgment about Rancourt’s fate; and it’s possible that Fish is making up the facts, but I assumed that wasn’t the case.
February 10, 2009 at 7:56 am
Jonathan Dresner
From a quick look at Rancourt’s website, including his two teaching-related blogs, Rancourt seems quite proud of his “course squatting” and encourages students to engage in “course hijacking” (in which they collectively decide to discuss topics and engage in activism unrelated to the instructor’s agenda).
February 10, 2009 at 9:31 am
jacob
Ari: Fair enough. And I think we can agree that Stanley Fish is in any case the greater fool.
Jonathan: Fair enough as well. I don’t mean to deny that Rancourt has done that, only that it appeared from the Globe article that it wasn’t the offense for which he was fired.
February 10, 2009 at 9:42 am
Matt L.
A couple quick points:
Yes, Fish is being a blowhard and cherry picking the evidence to make his case against a particular case against academic freedom. But I also think he has a larger point: for some people academic freedom means the ability to skip meetings and foist administrative chores on junior colleagues while reserving the right to shoot them down at a later date. No news there.
But come on, Rancourt is clearly not doing his job and being a bad colleague. His academic freedom ends when it starts screwing over students and colleagues. If dude was slated to teach a course on anarchist political theory and practice then his grading scheme and course hijacking shenanigans would be relevant to the material.
Let me ask a question: if a Micheal Bauerline type English professor decided to “course hijack” his Intro to Shakespeare class and turn it into Biology 101 focused on creation science, do you think that the ‘academic freedom’ argument would hold water? Especially once the Bio department got wind of it?
February 10, 2009 at 10:19 am
dana
But I also think he has a larger point: for some people academic freedom means the ability to skip meetings and foist administrative chores on junior colleagues while reserving the right to shoot them down at a later date. No news there.
Also, like, not unique to the academy.
February 10, 2009 at 11:34 am
Buster
Meh, this thread illustrates exactly the problem of Fish’s essay. When you start with a ludicrous example, it’s pretty hard to get back to a sensible discussion of the topic at hand. Or as my engineer father succinctly puts it: “Garbage in, garbage out.”
Might I suggest that we agree that Fish’s column is foolish and that discussion of Rancourt’s case will not lead to a very interesting conversation about academic freedom. (I think this was Ari’s original point.)
February 11, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Timothy Burke
We can have perfectly autonomous classrooms if we choose, without any institutional obligations. I can put a notice in Craigslist that I’m convening a course on anything I want, taught however I want it, and tell people to meet me on my front lawn. If we work for an institution and with colleagues and under the banner of some kind of procedures or common agreements about the systems of our instruction, then we’re not so autonomous that we can unilaterally abrogate those agreements. If I’m teaching in a system where there are grades, I can make autonomous choices about my grading philosophy, but that autonomy doesn’t extend to basically declaring that I will not grade (which giving everyone an A+ on the first day is doing, and Rancourt has said explicitly that his intention is to refuse to participate in grading).
So yeah, it’s foolish to even try to convene an interesting discussion about autonomy and its character around Rancourt, and even trying to do it basically concedes way too much to Fish right from the outset.
February 13, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Yarrow
If we work for an institution and with colleagues and under the banner of some kind of procedures or common agreements about the systems of our instruction, then we’re not so autonomous that we can unilaterally abrogate those agreements.
Well, actually we can — as indeed Rancourt did. Of course there are consequences.
He claims (http://academicfreedom.ca/) that he gave all A’s because he wasn’t allowed to use a pass/fail system. Possibly it’s terminally immoral to use leverage the way Rancourt did, because he works for an institution. But then most of do — most of us have to. We may have a choice of which set of dysfunctional rules we are required by force to obey, but that doesn’t make the requirement a moral one.
February 14, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Jesse
I read Fish often, but only from an uninformed perspective. I’m not an academic, so reading his pieces (and moreso the comments they elicit) provides a rare point of access into discussions on topics that otherwise I don’t get to discuss, quite frankly. But the comments reflect a consensus of Fish-crit. Can anyone offer a few bullet point criticisms of Fish or his most recurrent views? Is it mostly his pathos, or his actual positions? I may be begging “how” to read Fish, but only in the sense of a “how” among other “how’s”. Thanks!
February 14, 2009 at 8:10 pm
silbey
We may have a choice of which set of dysfunctional rules we are required by force to obey,
Are the use of grades part of a set of dysfunctional rules? Why? (I recognize flaws, surely, but ‘dysfunctional’ implies to me that they are literally unworkable).
February 14, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Ahistoricality
Can anyone offer a few bullet point criticisms of Fish or his most recurrent views?
It’s always the fault of the faculty.
February 15, 2009 at 2:47 am
Michael Turner
It’s the Single Bullet Theory of Fish-Crit!
February 15, 2009 at 11:51 am
Yarrow
‘dysfunctional’ implies to me that they are literally unworkable
I was thinking more on the line of dysfunctional families, whose rules “work”, but cause unnecessary pain. Grades may not, indeed, be dysfunctional in that sense, but preventing someone who believes them to be from experimenting with pass/fail starts to verge on it (and arresting such a person for coming back on campus in the course of a dispute about such a rule seems to me to be squarely within it).
February 15, 2009 at 12:10 pm
silbey
Grades may not, indeed, be dysfunctional in that sense
It was the way that you had universalized it in your first statement that brought me up short. So you were more talking about Rancourt’s particular situation?
February 16, 2009 at 9:29 am
Fish Filet. « The Edge of the American West
[...] towers of academe | by dana In the comments to this post on last week’s Fish column, Jesse asks: I read Fish often, but only from an uninformed perspective. I’m not an academic, so reading his [...]