by Sara Russo

University of Southern Maine tenured psychology professor John Broida was publicly reprimanded by the provost of his university and was prevented from teaching a summer course after a student accused him of making racist and anti-homosexual remarks in a series of videotaped class lectures. A committee convened as a result of the student's complaint has led to cries of censorship among the school's faculty because of its recommendation that all taped lectures should henceforth be reviewed for "accuracy and integrity" before being released to students.

The Affiliated Faculties of the University of Maine (AFUM) in conjunction with Broida has retained legal counsel and has filed a grievance against the university, charging that the union's contract was violated by the university's treatment of Broida and that the proper procedure for student complaints was disregarded.

The complaint against Broida was issued in February 2002 by USM Junior Rachel Morales, who viewed the tape of his lecture as part of the University of Maine's program of distance education courses, which are taken by over 4,000 students each semester. Seventy students were enrolled in Broida's class during the term in question. Among the remarks Morales found offensive was his statement that, "Do you know that on average blacks have a lower IQ than whites? Yes, have you noticed that? It's true."

Morales, who in addition to being a student at the university works as an employee in USM's Office of Campus Diversity and Equity, attributed this remark to racism. She brought it immediately to the attention of the campus diversity office. The complaint was then taken up by the office of the University provost, Joseph Wood, who convened a committee to review the incident, and make "broader recommendations concerning University policy."

Wood also issued a statement to the local paper, the Portland Press Herald, calling Broida's comment "a dumb, stupid, offensive statement," and repeated that statement in a letter sent to all USM faculty in which he personally attacked Broida and insinuated that he was merely one among many of the faculty who were insensitive.

"I think the letter that the provost sent was really bargaining through fear, because he suggested by association, he didn't say it directly, but by association, if we don't do peer review of teaching, maybe we're all going to be labeled as dumb and stupid and irresponsible and insensitive," noted USM AFUM co-president Bill Steele.

Immediately following the student's complaint, students were told that they could drop Broida's distance learning class without penalty, and no new students were allowed to join the course. Broida's distance learning courses which were scheduled for the Summer and Fall 2002 terms were also cancelled.

"Of course, I believe that that was a mistake," Broida said of the University's decision to cancel his classes, "but, big surprise, I don't think I did anything wrong in the first place." He noted that, "The review was of the lectures that I gave from September through December of 2000," whereas "the cancelled classes were ones based on tapes made September to December 2001."

"The course in question was indeed cancelled during this review process," University spokesman Bob Caswell confirmed. "As far as where we're at in the grievance process, I'm not entirely sure." Caswell also told Campus Report that the cancellation of Broida's fall class was a clerical error, which the University is attempting to correct, and notes that even without that class he is teaching a full course load this fall.

Don Anspach, a sociology professor at USM, and co-president of the USM branch of the Associated Faculties of the University of Maine, views the cancellation of Broida's classes as further punishment for his remarks in class. "The guy's been severely, as far as we're concerned, punished for what we consider to be issues of academic freedom," Anspach told Campus Report.

The union's complaint also alleges that the immediate transfer of the complaint to the provost's office violates the established system for dealing with student complaints, and blew the matter way out of proportion. "If a student has a problem with a faculty member, what they're supposed to do is talk to the faculty member," Broida explained to Campus Report. "But if they can't do that, and I can understand why that might not work, then they should go to the department chair. And if they don't get resolution from the department chair they should go to the dean, and then to the provost. By the time it gets to the provost it's a big deal, but this should not have gotten there."

When asked why his comments might have offended the student, Broida responded,"I can't tell. I have not talked to the student. I have been asked not to talk to the student."

"If the student had come to me, we would have sat down, we would have figured it all out, and everything would have been kosher," Broida remarked to Campus Report. "If I insulted her, I certainly would have apologized, and I would work to make sure that I don't make similar stupid mistakes."

A committee should never have been called in the first place, noted Don Anspach, co-president of the USM branch of the AFUM, because the correct person to review Broida's course lecture would have been the chair of the psychology department. "Actually, the provost of the university and the dean of the college bypassed that by stating that the chair of the department was non-responsive. He actually was responsive, but didn't do what the administration wanted, so the administration appointed a committee," Anspach told Campus Report.

Anspach attributes this failure to follow the normal complaint process to political motives on the part of the provost. "The provost of the university used the occasion to say, 'well we want to visit all the classrooms of all the faculty here,' because there was a diversity meeting campus-wide, and a number of students said there are a number of faculty that are not sensitive to diversity issues," Anspach described.

As for the Broida's comment about race and IQ, Anspach noted that he had reviewed the lecture and had found nothing amiss in the professor's statement. "The tape matches perfectly with the text…he was following the text argument," Anspach said.

Both Anspach and Broida also object to the composition of the committee that reviewed Broida's lectures. "There are elements in the contract that say any review of work must be done by a committee of peers, and I don't think that most folks would call this a committee of peers," Broida said of the committee that saw his lectures, noting that one of the committee's four members, Roy Partridge, is a professor of sociology and Africana studies at Bowdoin College, a private institution entirely unconnected to the seven campuses of the University of Maine.

"There are all kinds of rules about what can and can't be evaluated, and my reading of the contract says you cannot evaluate tapes," Broida told Campus Report, noting that he believes the committee's actions violated the faculty contract.

The committee recommended creating "a code of responsible teaching practices for the USM faculty," establishing "diversity education and programs for faculty and staff," and reviewing tapes of class lectures before they are released to the public.

"[Distance learning] broadcasts and course tapes represent public statements that reflect the quality and integrity of the individual making the statements and the institution issuing the statements. As such, the accuracy and integrity of such statements is a matter of concern for all members of the USM community. We urge this committee to examine whether a procedure should be developed for assessing the accuracy and integrity of such statements prior to their release to the public," stated the report.

These suggestions met with immediate opposition from the USM faculty and its union, which feared that they constituted an attack on academic freedom.

"The problem is, when you start teaching courses that have controversial subjects-I'm a sociologist, Broida is a psychologist-you always ruffle somebody's feathers. It's almost unavoidable," Anspach told Campus Report.

He described how the atmosphere on campus has been affected by Broida's ordeal. "Academic freedom has been affected by how this issue has come up. People are sensitized to diversity issues, but I think at the expense of academic freedom," Anspach told Campus Report. "People don't feel they can teach. Some of the content of their courses may change. They may avoid the more sensitive issues. I mean, what would you do if one of your faculty peers just got chastised for a discussion of intelligence and race, and the next day you had to do a presentation on intelligence and race?"

"The committee, we believe, offered some thoughtful recommendations," USM spokesman Bob Caswell said. "We're not yet prepared to say what we will or will not do with the recommendations, other than to say that the report offers a great opportunity for the administration and faculty leadership to get together and determine how those recommendations can be used to improve our teaching and learning environment while protecting academic freedom."

Broida has consistently received high marks from his students. USM maintains a database of student evaluation of instructors, and in the Fall 1999 semester, the last term for which data is available on the website, more than 80% of responding students in each of his three classes (one of which was a videotaped distance learning course) gave him an overall rating of "excellent."

Junior psychology major Lauren Carr defended Broida's confrontational teaching style in USM's student newspaper, The Free Press. "Most of the psychology professors will just stand there and lecture," she commented. "Sometimes his style is too extreme, but I know I personally learn a lot more when I'm asked questions. He makes you think. He just doesn't regurgitate what's in the book."

As for the comment about blacks and IQ, she notes, "Maybe he was just presenting something about the race issue and waiting for someone to pounce on it and say, 'Where's your proof, John Broida?'"

"You see, the problem is that political correctness is an ideology, and the ideology of political correctness is also a form of social control," faculty union co-president Anspach told Campus Report. "And our argument is, we don't want academic freedom to be sacrificed at the feet of political correctness."

"If there were two people in the class, and one said it was bad and one said it was good, then you have to pay attention," Broida mused. "If there are a billion in the class and one said it was bad, you probably don't have to worry."

Bill Steele, co-president of the USM faculty union, agreed that the administration had acted out of proportion to the scope of the incident. He told Campus Report, "If I had to choose one word about how the university handled this particular incident, it would be: they overreacted, they grossly overreacted."