In his column last Friday, Shawn O'Donoghue suggests that the political science department, and me as its chair, are not fulfilling our responsibilities "to make sure a broad variety of political philosophies are discussed in depth with students." He seems to believe that the department should take a more activist role in specifying course content to professors. Although I share Mr. O'Donoghue's interest in non-mainstream perspectives, and frequently teach them myself, I cannot support any proposal for administratively-mandated course content. One of our core values is the notion of academic freedom, which means that as professional scholars we should be free to research, publish and teach to the best of our knowledge and ability, according to our best professional judgment, without administrative censorship. This norm protects the teaching of dissenting, unconventional or unpopular perspectives in our classes. While Mr. O'Donoghue seems to believe administrative intervention would be helpful in broadening the range of viewpoints represented in the classroom, I suspect the opposite would result from the suspension of the principle of academic freedom. Professors would be pressured to exclude unpopular or heterodox viewpoints from our classrooms, and we would be vulnerable to the retribution of the most powerful groups in society if we did not conform. Therefore, instead of mandating course content for individual instructors, as a department we try to offer a variety of courses, taught by an intellectually diverse group of faculty. Not every course will include every viewpoint, but our overall curriculum should expose our students to a range of perspectives.
Mark Rupert Political Science Department Chair
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