When a professor at Slippery Rock chose to parody The Vagina Monologues with handbills for the fictitious play that incorporated the name of the male organ, fliers for the event were torn down by female members of the faculty, incensed at the use of academic freedom to satirize their favorite play, a professor from the Pennsylvania school told disbelieving state assemblymen.
Professor Alan Levy also said students have complained to him that the education teachers said if there were a teacher strike and any of the students crossed picket lines, the teachers would see to it that they never got a job in teaching again.
Female faculty members’ preference for hiring more female faculty members, simply because they are female, is also a concern of Levy’s.
“Students have complained regularly about substandard teaching from faculty who appear to have gained positions via political connections based on irrelevant matters like lifestyle. In first-year College Writing classes, some students complain about the fact that the main things they learn in their classes is that it is best to agree with the political views of their teachers and that it is pointless to disagree,” Levy testified.
Levy’s conclusion was that “The campuses of SSHE [State System of Higher Education] have seen the steady erosion of academic quality and academic freedom because of the cowardly and apathetic indulgence of professionally inadequate, sometimes openly dishonest, politically-correct schemers.”
Some committee members reacted with disbelief, including Rep. Dan B. Frankel (D-Allegheny) who told Levy he “seem[ed] to be prosecuting without evidence” and is “alone in the wilderness.”
Levy was bullied by Rep. Lawrence H. Curry (D-Philadelphia) during the questioning with Curry’s subtle threat that the budget [that would include funding for Slippery Rock] “hasn’t passed yet.”
Upon returning to his university, however, Levy received some positive feedback for his statements at Millersville.
One email to Levy said, “I am a recent graduate of SRU…I know exactly what you were talking about when you said that if a student doesn’t agree with a professor’s political viewpoint, they may not succeed in the class, and what you were talking about when you mentioned the possible strike. I have heard professors say the things you were talking about, and I have experienced firsthand how professors can hold the student back from succeeding simply because they do not agree with certain viewpoints.”
The student continued by saying he had dropped classes because of viewpoint differences, had heard professors make anti-white statements, anti-gay statements [ironic given the avowed sensitivity of the institution], and put students down.
“It seemed as though the people there were giving you a hard time about your testimony, but I wanted to let you know that I truly appreciate what you said, and I admire you for going there and telling an honest viewpoint, on that is shared by many, many students and alumni. So thank you, for everything you said, and for finally letting our voices be heard,” the student finished.
A second email that was in Levy’s inbox when he got back to Slippery Rock was from a sophomore, thanking Levy for “openly speaking about what many students here, including myself, have been thinking for quite some time.”
Julia A. Seymour is a staff writer for Accuracy in Academia.
