Are Universities Becoming Too Concerned With Feelings, Not Facts?

StFX students often equate university life to living in a bubble. It sure feels that way, at least, and arguably the main function of a university is to provide a space for the unrestrained questioning of the world beyond our school’s walls. In a way, a healthy university culture is like a bubble and those who sign on endeavor to challenge their knowledge free from the pressure of social conventions. In today’s politicized world, should our “bubble” break its hermetic seal and accommodate the social and political currents running through our country?

To unpack such a complex debate, students shuffled into Schwartz on December 1 to attend a guest lecture by Dr. Mark Mercer who spoke on the topic of “Respect as an Academic Value.” From the StFX English department, Dr. Khoury opened the lecture by describing a need for speakers to respect listeners’ dignity while still challenging their knowledge. After all, as Dr. Khoury emphasized, “shouldn’t we leave university with a perspective that’s not exactly like the one we came in with?” He continued to set the tone for the rest of the lecture, posing the question: “Can we call ourselves an academy if we don’t have freedom?”

No one can deny that Mark Mercer has the expertise to speak on academic freedom. As the president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS), a renowned champion of liberal education, and the former chair of St. Mary’s Philosophy department, the civil libertarian draws from both experience and credentials when speaking on the issue of respect as an academic value.

Mercer opened his speech unconventionally, making use of the whiteboard behind him to literally illustrate his point. The difference between ‘you should x and not do y’ can very quickly become ‘you should be required to do x and be institutionally punished for y,’” Dr. Mercer says, and academic freedom seems to serve as a bulwark against such tyranny.

True to his philosophical roots, Dr. Mercer posed a question to the audience: “Would you rather reach sound conclusions from a place of social coercion or reach false conclusions in following your own will?” Mercer characterized a properly functioning university as a unique milieu where people are free from concern for other people’s feelings in the pursuit of the truth. According to Mercer, any coercion from a university’s administration infringes on one’s intellectual autonomy—a term Mercer uses to describe people’s right to think for themselves.

Respect then, as an academic value, means leaving people’s intellectual autonomy alone. “Hands off,” as the libertarian put it. Furthermore, he described it as fundamentally anti-academic to regulate people’s intellectual autonomy on a university campus. As Mercer stresses, people need to be able to say what they want. And according to Mercer, any policing of professors’ intellectual autonomy risks polluting the academic mission. “People need to be free to investigate things without the threat of sanction, manipulation, or humiliation.”

As can be expected from a lecture on such a divisive issue, an enthusiastic Q&A period ensued. Audience contributions ranged from questioning whether university is a social good, if professors should be regulated in their extra-curricular projects, and what considerations should be made for concerns for racism, homophobia, etc... when unregulated free speech can potentially open a door for hate speech. While debates between students and Mercer were, at times, quite heated and contentious, the dialogue was impressively impassioned and constructive.

After the event's conclusion, attendees followed StFX Philosophy professor Dr. Louis Groarke back to his Mockler Hall abode to socialize and further delve into the content of the lecture. There, I was able to steal Mercer away from inquiring students and conduct an informal interview. Over the course of our conversation, Mercer described how the 44% growth of university administration since 2014 has allowed university presidents and deans to appropriate power from academic senators and governors. The result of this, according to Mercer, is an undermining of checks and balances on the university administration’s power, which Mercer describes as “tyrannical.”

When asked, “how can this issue be fixed?” Mercer described a pressing need to “articulate academic values and create enclaves where people can keep the academic tradition alive during the Dark Ages.” Such a message is hopeful but characterizes the contemporary campus culture as one that has become infiltrated with political agendas. “I want an institution where it is not only possible but easy to investigate in academia without putting your livelihood on the line,” Mercer hopes. “Professors shouldn’t have to be courageous to do their jobs,” says Mercer, and one can only hope that such a world will prevail.