This is a guest post by Professor Aaron Kindsvatter, associate professor at the College of Education, University of Vermont.
Earlier this year, I read that at Northern Colorado University conversations about gender identity were shut down to spare the feelings of a student who was offended. Moreover, the professor overseeing the class was investigated by the Northern Colorado University Bias Response Team. I believe that open discussions about gender identity are necessary to decrease hostility against sexual minorities, because prejudicial beliefs can be interrogated rather than be suppressed, and was disappointed that such discussions were being shut down. Upon checking the bias response policy at my own university, the University of Vermont, I felt compelled to write the following open letter.
Dear University of Vermont Students,
As many of you know, it’s been a difficult year in our country. We have seen our men of color shot under what seem to be extraordinary circumstances by police, and we have seen our police officers shot. In a tragedy that has impacted the entire country, we have seen our LGBT citizens gunned down in the worst shooting in U.S. history. Further, there is a Presidential campaign in progress in which outrageous bigotry has been expressed with such regularity that it has almost lost its ability to shock. Although you have to be careful about how you talk or write about these issues at the University of Vermont, you may take some comfort in knowing that these issues are being thoroughly discussed at the University of Chicago. If you don’t know what I mean, please read on.
This is a time when we need our very best thinkers to get the very best educational experiences that they can, and to take those experiences out into the world. I am proud to say that I think both you (the students), and we (the faculty) are up to the challenge. Perhaps as we learn to engage contentious ideas together we can contribute to a society where words are used more and bullets are used less. Although this sounds straightforward, it is not. If words, and by extension ideas, are to be thoroughly interrogated in the University setting, and if we are serious about contributing to a culture in which we engage one another rather than enacting violence against each other, then we are required to express and critique ideas freely and reject the notion that ideas and violence are synonymous. The necessary end to which such freedom of inquiry leads is that students across the ideological spectrum will be exposed to ideas that they find uncomfortable, wrongheaded, annoying, and even offensive. If you have classes with open inquiry at the University of Vermont, you may be exposed to the biases of other students or of the faculty. Bias, according to the University of Vermont Bias Response Team is:
…a personal inclination or temperament based on unreasoned judgment or belief. Bias may be reflected in behavior (verbal [i.e., speech], nonverbal, or written [i.e., ideas expressed in words]) that is threatening, harassing, intimidating, discriminatory, hostile, unwelcoming, exclusionary, demeaning, degrading, or derogatory and is based on a person’s real or perceived identity or group affiliation, including (but not limited to) race/ethnicity, age, disability status, gender, gender identity/expression, national origin, sexual orientation, veteran status or religion.
If, during the course of interacting with others in your classes, you observe another person, a student or professor, having a belief (or thought) pertaining to a social issue that you deem to be unreasoned, or engaging in a judgment pertaining to a social issue that that makes you uncomfortable, one option you have is to let the Bias Response Team know. They will look into matter and may provide the offending person with education, enact restorative justice, or engage in some other intervention to change the offending person’s thoughts. Keep in mind that your perception of bias need not conform exactly to the parameters noted above. The University of Vermont Bias Response Team notes:
“This definition of a bias incident is intentionally broad to reflect our values to create and sustain an inclusive, safe, and productive community for all of our members.”
Bear in mind that the Bias Response Team has committed to keeping any report you choose to file with them a secret. So though you may feel some concern that if you participate fully in the interrogation of thorny ideas, a professor or student may secretly report on you, you as a reporter will most likely be able to remain anonymous. Although this policy goes a certain distance towards protecting those who report bias, it also creates an inevitable tension for everyone across the ideological spectrum who expresses a thought that someone of a different ideological strain may find offensive. Given the breadth of the Bias Response Team definition of what constitutes a bias incident, any expressed thought from any place on any ideological spectrum pertaining to a sensitive social issue that is not expurgated to the point that it is leeched of meaning could be considered biased, and potentially appropriate for reporting.
The fear of being reported or investigated, which stems from vaguely worded speech codes and a tendency towards intellectual isolationism, has been termed the “chilling effect.” The result of the “chilling effect” is that issues relevant to our most serious social concerns may go unexplored, or may be presented in a circumscribed manner in order to fit narrow interpretations deemed to be “safe” (i.e., unreportable or unpunishable) within the context of the intellectually isolated community.
Hopefully the fear of being reported will not interfere too much with the sophistication, quality or expanse of your education at the University of Vermont. However, it is worth noting that at universities like the University of Northern Colorado, Northwestern University, Seattle University, Yale University, and the University of Oregon, the Bias Response Team model, or closely related policies and values designed to protect students from harmful ideas, have significantly interfered with pursuit of critical inquiry and the benevolent exchange of views into issues around social justice and diversity. Unfortunately, despite the stark lessons inherent in these unfortunate incidents, the broad and restrictive language of the Bias Response Team at the University of Vermont remains in place.
To some, the implicit assumption in the language of the Bias Response Team at the University of Vermont; that adults who attend the University of Vermont are unable to tolerate or resolve difficulties arising from the expression of a diversity of views on their own, may seem to be at odds with the concepts of agency, independence and intellectual, emotional and spiritual fortitude that the university experience is designed to foster in students preparing for participation in a pluralistic society; but the maintenance of intellectual safety always comes with a cost of some kind. The same could be said of intellectual freedom by the way, which brings me to my final point.
If you were to reach the conclusion, after reading this letter and investigating and reflecting on this matter on your own, that the language of the Bias Response Team at the University of Vermont does not, in fact, foster the inclusivity, the sense of safety or the productive community that its creators purport that it does; you may be interested to know that the University of Chicago has a somewhat different set of ideas pertaining to academic inquiry and the fostering of diversity and resilience that is inherent in their policies on academic freedom and the language of their bias response system. You can read about these ideas here and here.
If you find the University of Chicago approach to bias response and academic freedom preferable to the Bias Response language of the University of Vermont, I urge you to contact the Dean of Student’s Office at the University of Vermont and let them know. You can do so at this webpage. If you do so, you may wish to inquire as to who is presently in charge of determining if a belief or judgment expressed in a University of Vermont classroom is unreasoned, and what that person’s qualifications to do so are.
If you find anything in this letter suggestive of unreasoned thinking or judgment, and if it offends or otherwise upsets you, you can report the author to the Bias Response authorities at the University of Vermont.
Kind Regards,
Aaron Kindsvatter, Ph.D.
Aaron,
I’m so excited to read through this thread after our many discussions on the matter.
Me too Matt, thanks for helping me to think about this over the years and for introducing me to heterodox academy. By the way Seven Days interviewed me and is running a story on the letter in the next few weeks. I’m fairly hopeful that as word gets out, UVM will seriously consider changing their policies pertaining to bias response.
I believe it is far too late to counter orthodox academia’s shut down of free speech with either reasoned eloquence or satire. This movement is far too strong at this point for this to be effective. It is also counterproductive to frame it as a movement to shield snowflakes from certain kinds of speech and behavior. This is buying into the orthodoxy’s framing.
There is no shielding of ANY language or behavior from the orthodoxy directed at its many enemies.
People who are open to treating fairly those who may have an openness to an eternal being, Jesus Christ, a Torah-guided life, free enterprise, treating Israel fairly, traditional marriage, life begins at inception, merit systems of reward, problems with Sharia law, “all lives matter,” the police are not evil racists, and so many other people with unorthodox thoughts, are now being cleansed out of the campus. The people who are actually open to such thoughts are largely gone from many departments of the university already. The success of the orthodoxy is beyond dispute. I do not consider the existence of token classical liberals, moderates and conservatives to be substantive proof otherwise.
I believe the proper framing is the one chosen by the orthodoxy with far less accuracy when describing the GOP. The orthodoxy is well on the way to cleansing the university of alternative thoughts. If a person is actually open to one of the above beliefs, that person has three choices: shut-up, convert, or leave.
This is the reality and it should be described as such.
Hey Doug,
I can hear that you are discouraged, but I wanted to share with you that I don’t think all is lost on campus. I am teaching about this issue using Jonathan Rauch’s Kindly Inquisitors. Many students have commented on how much they are enjoying the book. Also, response to my open letter has been 100% positive (the responses I know about, I should add). So I see hope for flexibility and tolerance in the near future. Hang in there!
Aaron Kindsvatter,
RE: Kindly Inquisitors
YES! YES YES YES!!!
That book is a door to wide avenues of inquiry and learning. Carefully considered, it begs as many questions as it answers. I wonder if, prompted by the book, your students or class discussions have wandered into topics like the following:
Basic rules of debate, argumentation, and evidence. [I suspect that these alone, if they were taught in schools, would go a long way toward ameliorating today’s hyperpartisanship. [e.g., rule of debate: take turns. Rule of evidence: Evidence type should match claim type https://theindependentwhig.com/2016/03/03/evidence-type-must-match-assertion-type/ ]
The low hanging fruit on the tree of cognitive biases; e.g. confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, reason based choice. [The Argumentative Theory by Sperber and Mercier, on Edge dot org https://www.edge.org/conversation/hugo_mercier-the-argumentative-theory ]
The function and purpose of reason itself: i.e., to serve the passions. [Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman, Argumentative Theory (again), Haidt’s concept of The Rider and the Elephant in The Righteous Mind and The Happiness Hypothesis]
The passions themselves (i.e., intuitions), and their source(s) [Haidt’s moral foundations, The Righteous Mind, sacred value]
Distinct, identifiable, cognitive styles. Different “algorithms” that connect the dots of evidence and passions in clearly different ways [The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization, by Arthur Herman. ]
The world views, or moral matrices, or “realities,” or visions, or ideologies that seem to follow from the different combinations of moral foundations and cognitive style. [Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions]
The fact that we humans are “groupish,” (Haidt’s term). We tend to gravitate toward, and like, and identify with, people who are of like mind with ourselves, and THEN we develop irrational commitments to the group and its shared values (e.g., visions, world views, etc.) where the first thing that’s thrown under the bus when they’re threatened is truth (evidence, facts, solid logic)
It is my humble opinion that much of the reason for today’s hyper-partisanship is widespread ignorance (not meant pejoratively, just descriptively) about how and why we humans react, think, talk, and act as we do. The human “Social Animal” has a poor understanding of its self. To varying degrees, it is largely unaware of all of the above.
The vacuum left by that ignorance is filled with assumptions and presumptions about what makes us tick that are just wrong. A very small start of a very long list of those false assumptions is the three examples of “Entrenched yet questionable orthodoxies” listed on Heterodox Academy’s “Problem” page.
We characterize each other as something we’re not, and then we vilify each other for being that something, which we’re not.
Bringing all of this back around to where I started, I’m pleased as punch to hear that you’re using “Kindly Inquisitors” because it chips away at the ignorance that underlies many, if not most, of today’s problems.
It is my strong belief that education – replacing the myths about human nature upon which many of our most contentious disagreements rest with truths about how we actually function – is the closest we’ll ever be able to come to a magic vaccine that can
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t see education as a panacea. It won’t lead to utopia. There will always be disagreement, and groups will always compete with other groups. As Haidt suggests, we evolved to divide into “us” and “them,” and then do battle with “them.” We’re wired for war.
But within that unchangeable framework, I honestly, truly, believe that it is within our power to establish far greater regions of common ground than we currently enjoy. That common ground – that common “sense” – should be an improved understanding OF the human animal BY the human animal, such that we’re all operating on a COMMON set of CORRECT assumptions about how and why we think, say, and do what we do, rather than DIFFERENT sets of INCORRECT assumptions – myths – as we now do.
https://theindependentwhig.com/thesis-of-the-independent-whig-part-one-introduction-why-moral-foundations-and-cognitive-style-matter/
LOL appreciate the enthusiasm about Kindly Inquisitors. I also really appreciate the language such as “low hanging fruit” you’ve used to describe typical errors in thinking that are taboo to bring forward in some circumstances. We can’t quite get to that depth in a Human Development class, but we are talking about the “rules” of liberal science and how humanitarian and egalitarian impulses some times lead to the blocking of free inquiry. Appreciate all the thoughts, I’ll need to re-read your post a few times to process them.
State legislatures and trustees can repair these institutions. They cannot be bothered. It’s a reasonable inference that they are hollow men.
The very concept of a bias response team is, in and of itself, anti-education, anti-“openness,” anti-free-speech, anti free and open exchange of ideas, anti-intellectual, and infantilizing.
The very EXISTENCE of a bias response team is antithetical to education and to free society.
It’s the institutionalization of PRECISELY that which it purports to remedy.
That any teacher anywhere would not only tacitly accept such a thing but worse, would actually condone it, or worse still encourage it, proves how exceedingly beyond the pale extremist the left has become.
Yes, it’s hurting much more than it’s helping, thanks for weighing in
Yeah, but somebody needs a job. Leave No MEd Behind.
re: “Further, there is a Presidential campaign in progress in which outrageous bigotry has been expressed with such regularity that it has almost lost its ability to shock.”
This is true.
The other candidate, Trump, also said some oddball things.
There are plenty of alumni waiting to contribute, or not, based on what they see and hear about campus activities. Reason and adult critical thinking are to be encouraged, as the real world continues without regard to special snowflakes.
thanks, I hope the alumni do weigh in, and am glad to know they are paying attention to this issue
The alumni are largely insensitive to campus controversies and it’s not in their interest to undertake acts which would call into question the market value of their degree. Ditto the trustees in spades, who busy themselves with important stuff like the athletic teams.
Even when alumni donations drop, the purveyors of this tripe within the institution are functionally and psychologically protected from the effects. And, in any case, they commonly have state and federal agencies promoting this, as well as accreditation services.
The way to fix this problem is to give them a lesson that their a$$ is grass and here comes the lawnmower.
Missouri alumni, and potential admittees, are voting with their feet and pocketbooks. Other universities subject to less egregious nonsense might have lower backlash participation rates.
Spin those wheels!
That such a letter is necessary is sad, distressing and infuriating.
That thought police feel that they can interpret the inner person and, if such a person is found wanting, administer correction is frightening. Who are these people, who are they answerable to? Do they in any way represent the attitudes of the University at large?
This situation is so wrong that it leaves one speechless.
Thanks Ed, for reading my thoughts and for sharing your own
Hi Aaron,
Your name pastes a smile within — the juxtaposition of empathy and “Kind…vatter” along with your obvious thoughtfulness — so I checked it out on ancestry.com last night. Alas, I mostly saw lineage history so I’m stickin’ with my original impulse to smile.
I had a second thought for you.
Offence and pain are not the inevitable byproducts of a micro-aggression. At the intersection of human interaction, a CHOICE is made.
Negative responses lead to more pain. Positive responses will lead to less. Positive choices do NOT negate reality; nor do they ignore reality. They simply allow a process of moving forward.
Anyone who has ever watched someone who triumphed over extraordinary odds [17-year old Sam Berns in the deteriorating body of a 99-year-old or Nick Vujicic who has “no arms, no legs, no worries” come to mind] grasps the fundamental truth that how one CHOOSES to respond matters far more than the painful reality/perception of reality.
Schools that focus on only the latter do a grave disservice to their community…ALL of the community. In the end, academia has a choice to make, as well. It revolves around the ultimate goal of community and the choices that best make it happen.
Thanks so much. There’s a great deal in your message to consider and I will be thinking carefully about it. Thanks for sharing.
Frankl put it quite eloquently, speaking of his time in the Camps: “There were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate… In the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the results of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore any man can even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him — mentally & spiritually….. It is this spiritual freedom — which cannot be taken away — that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”
I really have to read Frankl, brought goosebumps to read the paragraph you shared
Thank you for the post, Professor Kindsvatter,
The distinctly unGhandian Vermont letter debauches the golden rule on both ends. It fundamentally reads “do unto others the violence you imagine/believe their words have done to you.” Burn them at the stake. But, pyromaniacs do not feel joy. I cannot imagine a better prescription for misery making such an Orwellian outreach to youth almost malpractice, albeit well-intentioned. It causes a state of deprivation, a loss of ‘lovely.’
Empathy makes life beautiful because it allows one to see a shared humanity…the common struggles, pain, and suffering — the joys and the triumphs –- even the ordinary – that makes us unique…and the same.
It defuses the ‘sting’ of things to imagine the ‘why’ of things and then to unite in the ‘we’ of things.
If, instead, one spends a life searching defensively, angrily, filled with righteous judgment– desperately searching for specs in the eyes of others to pluck out – one loses the ‘lovely’ and magnifies the ‘ugly.’
I’ve been twizzling for years on the intersection of empathy and victimhood, especially how it gains traction in the upper echelons of academia. I want to touch on one small idea.
Society now places a heavy emphasis on authenticity. Keepin’ it real. “You can’t know what I feel!” “Don’t even try.” The media now spends more time dissecting the right of the messenger to speak than the ‘right’ of the message.
This rubric fundamentally denies the possibility of empathy, [even as it augments the possibility of fabrication, exaggeration, self-absorption, and cruelty.]
The Yale Christakis debacle exemplifies this painfully. This, by all accounts lovely, couple endured harassment, rejection, and stinging rebukes for a year before they left their jobs. The ingrained loss of empathy in the victim group, aided by the enabling group, stripped the possibility of empathy from the process. The loss? Unimaginable. For everyone.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. They help me to think. You may be interested in Jonathan Rauch’s book Kindly Inquisitors which helped me to clarify my thinking on this issue. My grad students love the book
Thought Police… George would be so proud!
“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
“We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject submission. When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us; so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. It is intolerable to us that an erroneous thought should exist anywhere in the world, however secret and powerless it may be. Even in the instance of death we cannot permit any deviation . . . we make the brain perfect before we blow it out.”
And although Prof. Kindsvatter treads softly, exercises great caution in his approach, is careful to walk gently about these explosive issues and only suggests, sotto voce, that just maybe, perhaps, could be a different way of looking at the policy & practice of University Thought Police — still he commits the absolute heresy of Question. When he hints at the possibility that a world in which we anonymously inform on each other for the sin of Bad Thought might not be the Best of All Possible Worlds, he demonstrates too clearly that he is NOT One of Us.
Cast him out Vermont! Cast him out!
“The (University) had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.”
It’s hour come round at last.
LOL. Thanks for the response I almost named the letter “Learning like it’s 1984”. You may be interested to read Jonathan Rauch’s Kindly Inquisitors which explores this subject with compassion and complexity. It is simply one of the best books I’ve ever read.
I will do that! Always interested in ‘one of the best books I’ve ever read’. Thanks for the recommendation.
I concur with Dr. Kindsvatter regarding Rauch’s book. Indeed, Dr. Kindsvatter recently gave it to me and I found it brilliant.
“Bias Response Team” sounds eerily Orwellian already, but your description cemented it.
“If, during the course of interacting with others in your classes, you observe another person, a student or professor, having a belief (or thought) pertaining to a social issue that you deem to be unreasoned, or engaging in a judgment pertaining to a social issue that that makes you uncomfortable, one option you have is to let the Bias Response Team know. They will look into the matter and may provide the offending person with education, enact restorative justice, or engage in some other intervention to change the offending person’s thoughts.”
Excellent letter.
thanks for responding Jon, I look forward to all thoughtful replies whether folks agree or not. They help me to think.