HASS senator proposes a Bill of Rights
Preventing political and religious views from being a detrimental factor in classes and in the hiring and firing of faculty is a major goal of a proposed Academic Bill of Rights.
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Senator Gabe White presented a resolution to the Associated Students of Utah State University Tuesday recommending the adoption of the document. The document would provide guidelines for the university to follow regarding issues of religion and political views of individuals.
“This is not a mechanism to force the university necessarily to do anything,” White said. “It’s a guideline. It’s something that we can support and say it should be carried out by the university and supported.”
White said there is a problem in some places on campus with political tolerance. He said some professors hesitate to get involved politically unless they have tenure. He also said problems are found in some classes where professors will give lower grades to students who disagree with their views.
“A lot of students feel like it’s not OK to disagree with their professor,” White said.
He said USU is definitely not the worst institution, but is not the best either.
The proposed resolution focused mainly on academic areas like the humanities and social sciences – areas where there are not always clear-cut answers to questions.
“There’s more of a problem there [in HASS] because students may disagree with the professor and still do the work and put together a reasoned paper in a reasoned format and deserve just as good a grade as if they had agreed with the professor,” White said. “I know of instances where there are professors who don’t like to tolerate certain viewpoints.”
White said the beautiful thing about the resolution is that it would “cut both ways.”
“If we had a professor on campus that’s a communist, this would also protect his rights,” he said. “I think it’s something that has benefit universitywide.”
Arts and Lectures Vice President Bethany Youngs asked White what would happen with the resolution if it were approved.
“How is this enforced?” Youngs asked. “What happens after that even makes a difference?”
White said the resolution would be shown to USU President Kermit L. Hall and from there could be shown to the Board of Trustees, Board of Regents and the Faculty Senate.
For enforcement of the document, White admitted that would be difficult.
“You look at the Bill of Rights of the United States and there’s no way to make sure that, 100 percent, every time, it’s guaranteed to every citizen,” he said.
The main issue addressed by the Academic Bill of Rights, White said, would be allowing students and faculty the opportunity to express their views on religion, politics and controversial issues without fear of punishment by professors or administration.
“When we’re dealing with something that’s unsettled, there should be an attempt to discuss both sides of the issue,” White said.
Whether the issue is social political policy or abortion laws, everyone should make an attempt to show both sides of the issue. White said professors should say if their real intent is to educate students, they should make the attempt to present and accept both sides of an issue in class.
He said professors could tell students that they can disagree with their views as long as they work as hard as everyone else, and that the student shouldn’t be punished because they don’t agree.
The resolution was approved to move to next week’s council meeting as a second-reading item. A decision on the issue can be made next week.
HOWL seeks volunteers
Activities Vice President Tara Bradshaw made a request for volunteers to help out with the HOWL on the night of Friday, Oct. 31.
A volunteer meeting will be held Wednesday at 9 p.m. on the third floor of the Taggart Student Center.
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