The AAUP released a new statement on freedom in the classroom to respond to many concerns over faculty indoctrination of students to specific political views. The protection from indoctrination and for faculty to pursue divergent perspectives without fear of being removed from their posts is the genesis for the AAUP. However, freedom for faculty to present their views of things in the context of the classroom is a continual source of debate.

Peter Wood recently posted an article on Inside Higher Education in response to this AAUP statement that is somewhat misleading of the problems even though he does hit a couple of issues square on. His usage of some terms and how he relates them in his rhetoric is misleading. The problem here is that the terms “postmodernist” and “indoctrinate”, and “truth” are used in direct competition with one another as if this is the case.

First, is the problem the espousal of a postmodernist reasoning in the disciplines? Why is this a problem? To say that truth is a social construction to some degree is certainly not without its own reasoned arguments from the sociology of knowledge and Rorty makes a good case for the impact of social systems rendering some discourses legitimate and others illegitimate. So what is the real problem with any kind of reasoning that employs a postmodernist deconstruction of assumptions? Wood’s monolithic sense of this as a “school of thought” is misleading at best.

Second, I must say that any mode of teaching that does not introduce the skill needed for critical thinking and for independent analysis of argument can be considered indoctrination. Wood has this point correct, even if to focus to narrowly on the problem of the liberal idea as related to something “postmodernist”. If you are telling a student that what you are saying is of a just representative logic without even saying this, then any student - especially within the first couple of years of an undergraduate education - has no choice in the matter but to trust you. That is the responsibility with which the instructor is endowed. This is neither a conservative nor a liberal problem, but a problem of authority and the ability to train students how to think critically and independently with effective and good reasoning strategies and a sense of the nature and power of rhetoric in the formation of ideas and thought.

Third, there is a rather explicit idea here that truth is somehow a concept that is quite static and also universal. Yet Wood does not offer a reason for why this is so. What kind of truth are we talking about here? Why is this the issue? It goes back to the nature of discourse and its relationship to the position of power that the faculty member inhabits. The instructor is in the judgment seat for many an undergraduate not trained in the art of critical thinking and rhetoric. Moreover, to say that each discipline does not operate with its own set of assumptions and discourses that regulate truth is also misleading. It is not clear what Wood wants here and his criticism does not render any clear alternative.

The cure to any kind of indoctrination is for the instructor to train their students to think independently and critically. This is not a postmodern problem nor is it a liberal/conservative problem - it is a knowledge legitimation problem. And to ignore the criticism of knowledge/power from many a postmodernist which allows students to have power over their own thinking is to sorely misrepresent and misdiagnose the issue with the AAUP statement which does not absolve faculty from this responsibility.