Possibly you have never heard of Citrus
College. We confess that
we were unacquainted with the community college in Glendora,
California—until Professor Rosalyn Kahn catapulted the school to
temporary notoriety last month. Professor Kahn is apparently one
of those teachers who find it difficult to separate politics
from pedagogy. Among her duties was teaching Speech 106, a
“strongly recommended” course in “small group communication.”
This winter, the communication concerned war with Iraq. Professor
Kahn offered her students an extra-credit assignment: write to
President Bush to protest the war. Note well: the extra credit
was available not for a well-written letter, but only for a
letter protesting the war. It transpired that Professor Kahn
made a similar assignment with a state senator as the designated
recipient.
Now, many teachers will try to hone their students’ rhetorical
skills by asking them to argue for opposing sides of a
contentious issue. Professor Kahn’s purpose here was different.
She was not endeavoring to sharpen her students’ mastery of rhetoric
and argumentation. On the contrary, she exploited her students in
order to further a private political agenda.
We wonder how common is such blatant abuse of pedagogical authority
and injection
of politics into the classroom. It is difficult to
say. We suspect that it is far more common than is generally
thought. Professor Kahn’s letter-writing campaign would never
have
been exposed
had not some dissenting students
contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
(FIRE), a Philadelphia-based organization dedicated to free
speech and academic freedom: values that are conspicuously
imperiled on many college campuses. FIRE’s quick intervention
sparked a strong response from the college, including a letter of
apology to President Bush. We can hope that FIRE’s action will
also serve to remove Professor Kahn from the classroom. A news story
reported that the college has required her to apologize to her
students. A real apology would require her to leave academia
altogether. Rosalyn Kahn has demonstrated contempt for her
students and a failure to grasp the most elementary requirements
of academic freedom. Why should she be welcomed back to the
classroom?
