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Academic Self-Censorship

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Reader Z writes:

That still bothers me and I don’t know that the advice was correct – although it of course was
the safe path for me. It is unfortunate that we self censor in this way since, after all, abortion is still legal!!!

And this is precisely what bugs me!

A colleague had a student complain because he showed a movie in class where adultery was portrayed.

Another colleague is doubting whether he should offer a course on Spanish horror film because he doesn’t want to be sued for traumatizing students psychologically by showing these movies.

A colleague at a different university had students lodge a collective complaint against him because in his lecture he listed the legalization of gay marriage as a positive achievement for Spain.

I have spent several days searching for a movie in Spanish that doesn’t contain any nudity, profanity, references to abortion or adultery.

I stopped showing one movie in class because students complained about a scene of spousal violence. I stopped showing another movie because there are “bad words” in it.

I don’t know how to teach my Hispanic Civilization class because students keep complaining that we always end up discussing tragic and depressing things in class. As if it were my fault that these tragic events occurred.

I sit there, self-censoring myself like an idiot, wasting time and energy on trying to make my language and literature classes as innocuous as possible. It has gotten to the point where the texts I assign in my advanced language class are all fairy-tales or stories about animals because those texts are inoffensive.

And then we read a text about Salvador Dali’s college life and one of my students says, wistfully: “I wish we also had intellectual and political debates in our classes, like Dali and his friends did. Why do we never get to discuss any controversial topics in class?”

Good question, that.

33 responses to “Academic Self-Censorship”

  1. charlesrowley Avatar
    charlesrowley

    Your students are all adults, not children. So it is appropriate to ignore political correctness entirely.

    The boundaries regarding movies should prohibit the screening of x-rated materials since many adults find these disgusting. You should warn your class if a movie is R-rated and invite each student to skip the movie but read the reviews if they do not find such materials acceptable.

    Karl Popper’s book, The Open Society, explains how censorship destroys liberty in any society.

    Universities are among the worst censors of all in democratic countries, because the low-grade bureaucrats who run them are addicted to political correctness for career enhancement reasons.

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  2. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    “Universities are among the worst censors of all in democratic countries”

    I know!! I hated it when the entire academic community sued CBS for Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple during the superbowl halftime show. Or when those commie Berkeley professors twisted Walmart’s arm into selling censored versions of books, films, and music in their stores.

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  3. P. rhoeas Avatar
    P. rhoeas

    And yet when I was a high school freshman my class saw the “Romeo & Juliet” where Romeo sucks on Juliet’s naked breasts on screen. It was standard viewing for the Shakespeare unit and had been for years.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Have you seen Nine Queens? A cute feel-good comedy with zero erotic content? I got complaints about that movie.

      So definitely no breast sucking in my classroom. 🙂

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      1. Private Miss Avatar
        Private Miss

        Wow. I took a movies as literature class and the prof. had us watch all kinds of subversive materials–one called, are you ready….The Graduate. Talk about nudity, adultery and fornication…I had to watch all kinds of foreign movies too with similar adult situations. I don’t recall feeling traumatized, although I did like some movies better than others. No breast sucking scenes come directly to mind, but other situations definitely.

        I tend to not appreciate cute feel-good comedies, in favor of much darker material…wonder what that says about me.

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  4. E (The Third Glance) Avatar
    E (The Third Glance)

    charlesrowley :
    Your students are all adults, not children. So it is appropriate to ignore political correctness entirely.

    Yes yes yes. that was exactly my thought. Besides, you’re supposed to be teaching culture, right? That doesn’t mean culture of the age 0-6 demographic.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      On principle, this sounds great. But I don’t even have tenure yet, so I’m not willing to risk it. I’ve seen what happens to people who do and the prospects are not attractive.

      What do people think, could I show this in class? It’s definitely relevant to what I teach. But imagine what would happen if I did discuss it.

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    2. Z Avatar
      Z

      But what the general public means by “culture” *is* the 0-6 demographic, plus high culture in the sanitized version presented in some museums. I can hardly require *any* film or authentic tv/video for Portuguese because of the Christians, some of whom think admiration of dubbed Disney animations is appropriate material at the graduate level. I mean, I do require it, but they walk out, so I give them Cs, so etc.; it’s ridiculous.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “But what the general public means by “culture” *is* the 0-6 demographic, plus high culture in the sanitized version presented in some museums. I can hardly require *any* film or authentic tv/video for Portuguese because of the Christians, some of whom think admiration of dubbed Disney animations is appropriate material at the graduate level.”

        – Exactly! And because of a few stuck up folks everybody suffers. I could be bringing so much interesting cultural content to class but I just do cartoons and fairy-tales.

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  5. Oksar Avatar
    Oksar

    Teaching social work is full of “hot” topics….People have strong opinions, personal issues are triggered, values and morals are underlying much of the topics we discuss. I show films and create discussion even at a 2nd year level that can cause much discomfort for people.
    Before the class, and when appropriate during discussion, I emphasize that we are at a University level, where critical thinking is further developed and that of any place, it is here where uncomfortable discussions can be had.
    Teaching self-awareness and using Socratic questioning is key. If people are uncomfortable they are free to leave the class for self-care. That is acceptable and understandable.
    I’d warn them ahead of time of potential deviances from political correctness, and allow them to leave, but I’d also offer room for discussion afterwards.
    I find there is a sense of relief and welcoming from students when they are allowed to discuss taboo subjects safely and respectfully with peers. It becomes more engaging for everyone….but as a facilitator you have to be on your game in order to direct conversation in a healthy way.
    Hate, Hostility and bullying are not tolerated, and although I have not encountered it outright, socratic questioning is always useful to preempt discussion from heading in that direction.

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  6. bloggerclarissa Avatar
    bloggerclarissa

    I think my blog readers would agree that I’m an interesting person with interesting opinions. And I know how to start interesting discussions. Right? Just look at the recent discussion threads.

    However, my students don’t get access to any of that. I just bring the most bland, self-evident, non-controversial stuff to them. And I do it because being pilloried for doing something more engaging in class is not worth it for me.

    It’s kind of sad that we baby university students – who are legally and to all intents and purposes adults – to the extent where we are afraid to mention anything that might bother them or prick their sensibilities. I hoped that graduate students would at least be considered adults but, as I recently discovered (https://clarissasblog.com/2012/01/16/can-you-sexually-harass-with-a-public-lecture/), that is not true either.

    Maybe I should start teaching retirement age people. Something tells me that those folks are less likely to be scandalized by things that are not completely bland.

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    1. Oksar Avatar
      Oksar

      Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.
      – Paulo Freire

      How do we move past this then? I agree, losing your job over it is not worth it….but isn’t the culture of academia to create meaningful discussion, question ideologies. Is that what separates profanity? If a meaningful learning experience evolves from it? How about harnessing an environment that also holds students accountable to the values of working through challenging/difficult situations instead of turning them into highly educated complainants? I thought that’s what higher learning was all about…sad administration seems to be forgetting this….take it to the next level…. frusturating.

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  7. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    If Hispanic Civilisations are retarded people for you, why study them?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I don’t teach to Hispanic people. I teach to Americans. 🙂

      My few Hispanic students never complain about “inappropriate” things.

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  8. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    Won’t it solve the problem to merely put in your syllabi a notification reading something like:

    Topics discussed in this class may be offensive to some people. To really understand the breadth of cultural context and differences, it is necessary to touch on and discuss potentially offensive topics. Students who do not agree to this should probably take a different course, or enroll in a different major.

    Even the ultra-conservative church-owned college I attended a half century ago did not shy completely away from topics that the church would not have approved of.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      The prof with the antique vibrator is including the waiver in his syllabi. I want to see how it goes for him. He has tenure, too.

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  9. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    Come to think of it, you could suggest that the students who might be offended by nudity, blasphemy, radical politics, adultry, or whatever might consider becoming mathematics majors. Unfortunately, we have little opportunity to discuss such issues.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Come to think of it, you could suggest that the students who might be offended by nudity, blasphemy, radical politics, adultry, or whatever might consider becoming mathematics majors. Unfortunately, we have little opportunity to discuss such issues.”

      – This is hilarious. 🙂 🙂

      But I can’t do that because retention and enrollment numbers are our sacred cows right now.

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  10. David Bellamy Avatar
    David Bellamy

    But, i bet the math department would return the favor and send you majors who were more suitable!

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  11. FD Avatar
    FD

    So bizarre… my university group are freshers and the vast majority are 18 or possibly just 19. (Apart from me and a few others.) In the past few months we have discussed, in quite graphic detail, rape, child abuse, homosexuality, torture, sadomaochism, pornography, polygny, contraceptive access for minors, human embryo research, physician-assisted suicide and a bunch of other contentious or distressing issues. Although we are reminded of the availability of free confidential counselling services if the subject matter distresses us, distress is not an acceptable reason to not attend or participate in lectures/seminars and yet nobody has objected to the content for religious or other reasons. Neither have we been asked to sign disclaimers. And the course demographic is not ‘flaming liberal’; socially conservative people not surprisingly quite attracted to law.

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  12. Pub Editor Avatar
    Pub Editor

    “In a Society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by ‘thou shalt not’, the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by ‘love’ or ‘reason’, he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.”
    -George Orwell
    “Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels”
    1946

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  13. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    They should watch dora the explorer if they only want to learn clean cutesy stuff. Hispanic cultures are full of sensuality, controversy, and violence -passion, in short. people who cant handle that have no business in advanced classes.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      You’ll laugh but I once had a student who chose to write her final paper in the Hispanic Civ course on Dora the Explorer. AND she found that topic too hard, so she plagiarized from some website. Apparently, there was nothing of more interest about the Hispanic Civilization than Dora. (Obviously, we did not discuss Dora in class.)

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  14. nominatissima Avatar
    nominatissima

    I’m just completely dumbfounded that this could happen. When I was a freshman (Due to a quirk involving my birthdate, I arrived to college at age 17, just a few months before my 18th birthday) I took courses on Eroticism in French Literature, read texts by Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburo Oe (both are very bloody, gloomy authors, and Mishima wrote a lot on homosexuality) and watched films that had oodles of ultraviolence, nudity and sex of all kinds at academic film festivals (Perfect Blue, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Betty Blue, Like Water For Chocolate, Black Rain, Barefoot Gen, Les Mepris, Vivre Sa Vie, The Wages of Fear)
    I wasn’t traumatized at all by this, even though I wasn’t quite legally an adult, in fact, the conversations they generated overjoyed me by teaching me how to hold my own in a discussion, and gave me a head start on the rest of my university career.
    How are your students going to learn to hold such profound and interesting conversations when they’re suffocating themselves with such a tight grip on their pearls?

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    1. V Avatar
      V

      Nominatissima,
      I am with you, but you are making unwarranted assumption that the goal of all students is to learn. For many it is to get a degree. And getting through the university, and being exposed to different views, is some sort of a weird hazing ritual. Thus, everything which makes a student uncomfortable should be outlawed. For the same reasons hazing is outlawed… Well, mostly…

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        And what’s especially sad is that the interests of those pearl-clutching kids override the interests of students like nominatissima who want to learn and are eager to explore facets of life that are more controversial than Dora the Explorer.

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      2. Z Avatar
        Z

        This is the problem and disclaimers are not protection enough.

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    2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Oh yes, Y Tu Mama Tambien! A colleague and a close friend got really persecuted for showing that one and discussing homophobia in Latin American societies.

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      1. nominatissima Avatar
        nominatissima

        … What?
        When we showed that one, the worst that happened was two rather immature fellows, who had spent most of the movie hooting whenever Maribel Verdu took her top off, walked out while making loud, disgusted noises when the boys started kissing.
        What’s it going to take to teach students like that a lesson? Reinstating snack time and afternoon naps?

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  15. scratchy888 Avatar
    scratchy888

    Australians tend not to be so religious. We are kind of libertine in a way. French people prefer us to the British for that reason. Also, we get some weird comedies that would never be shown in the US. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_(TV_series)

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    1. Isabel Avatar
      Isabel

      Why do you think that show would never be shown in the US?

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  16. Liz Avatar
    Liz

    This reminds me of the time that a professor of ‘human sexuality’ got in a lot of hot water for having a hired couple come in and demonstrate different sex toys on themselves. Keep in mind, the students of this class chose willingly to enroll in this class, the demo was a special event outside of class that the students were no way required to attend and the professor had explicitly said what would be happening at the demonstration! He didn’t get fired, but the psychology department may never offer the course again. The demonstration seemed a bit silly to me, but come on people, you were warned!

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    1. Liz Avatar
      Liz

      * at northwestern
      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/09/northwestern-human-sexuality_n_859667.html

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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