What is Academic Freedom and Tenure, and Why Do They Matter (e.g., for teaching about religion!)?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2024
- Visit www.bartehrman... to shop from Bart Ehrman’s online courses and get a special discount by using code: MJPODCAST on all courses.
Should the administrators of universities, their alumni, or their boards of trustees have any say in what teachers teach -- for example, in classes about religion? Should they be able to control the classroom in any way? What about the argument that university professors are brainwashing their students to follow their liberal agenda, while hiding behind “academic freedom”? Does the U.S. system of tenure allow professors to say whatever they want, safe in the knowledge that they can never be fired? What IS tenure anyway, and why does it matter? These are some of the key issues we'll be addressing in this discussion of academic freedom and tenure.
In this episode, Megan asks Bart:
-What exactly is tenure?
-What do you have to do to be considered worthy of tenure? How long does it take?
-Are people often denied tenure?
-Once you have tenure then it makes it a lot harder to fire you, does this give you the freedom to say whatever you want within the classroom?
-Does having tenure allow you to “brainwash” students, or indoctrinate them into your own ideology?
-What IS academic freedom?
-Why is academic freedom important to professors, and does it also impact students?
-How would higher education be impacted if tenure were abolished?
-Is this a problem in private institutions as well as state?
-How does tenure factor into academic freedom in publication?
I have always loved all of your discussions, so this one today was really exceptional. It is truly mind-boggling what is happening to this country. It is becoming the land of the not so free and stupidity! scary stuff!
Ironically, those that don't agree with your perspective or politics would agree with your conclusion...
33:45 The way I heard it in Catholic Catechism classes;
The group brought the woman accused of adultery before him and Jesus said, _"Let the one without sin cast the first stone."_
Whereupon the men in the crowd dropped their stones and walked away.
Then one large lone stone flew through the air and struck the woman in the temple and killed her.
Jesus then turned and angrily yelled, _"Mom, What did I say about following me around while I'm working?"_
Ha! I'll have to tell that to my dad.
I've often wondered if there was no stones thrown, then NOBODY present, including the speaker, was without sin.
Did a miracle happen or did a jewish girl tell a lie? Ala Hitch
That ain't the way I heared it, young'un! An interesting version of this story is presented in Cecil B. DeMille's silent Biblical epic *King of Kings* (1927), which proposes an answer to the mystery of what Jesus was writing on the ground during this episode. Instead of the crowd being shamed into dispersing when Jesus says, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone," each of the would-be executioners approaches in turn, and as each one does, Jesus writes the name of his secret sin in the dust, causing each to drop his stone and flee.
As a European it is seriously scaring me to so what's been happening in America the last few years. After being a model democracy for more than 200 years, the USA are now at a crossroads and it seems as if they are going to take the authoritarian route.
Thank you Dr Ehrman for raising awareness for these issues!
If someone can believe in god with no evidence, they can believe anything, and the magats do believe anything
A model democracy 😂. When? Please stop!!!
@@blackalien6873 the US were the first modern democracy and a model to the democracies later formed in Europe. It has long since become a retarded system compared to many of its European counterparts, but that doesn't change the fact that it used to be a role model.
Aside from that, the US can still serve today as model to countries that don't have any form of democracy whatsoever. They have by no means the best system out there but they're most certainly better off than say China.
@@hannahg8439 The US may have been one of the first modern *republics*, but that is not synonymous with a democracy. Many of the features of the US system were copied from other countries like Britain, not invented by the Founding Fathers. The design of the US system is purposefully somewhat anti-democratic, at least in the sense of directly representing a precise % of the population.
@@gurigura4457 nothing in history is without a past, there's always gonna be some kind of a precursor, so of course the Founding Fathers looked at other countries when creating their system (in fact they were heavily influenced by systems in antiquity). "Copying", however, is in my opinion not necessarily a fitting term for what they did with regards to the British system. While the Empire did have quite some democratic elements (especially for past standards), it was still a monarchy, with the monarch's position being extremely powerful and the monarch himself/herself being unelectable. So I'd argue that the differences between the British and the American system were striking enough to call the latter revolutionary. When monarchies were overthrown in Europe later on, the revolutionaries were looking to the American constitution to write their own (France maybe being the best known example), so no matter what you call the American system, it most certainly was a role model to other systems later formed.
As for the representation of the population, I agree. With black people, Native Americans and women being systematically excluded from democratic participation, the US had a major flaw in its system. So I understand why some might argue it wasn't a democracy at all. I'm neither a historian nor a political scientist, so I'm not gonna make a judgement here. However, I'd like to throw in that if you follow that logic further, there'd be no democracy anywhere in the western world until at least well into the 20st century. In fact one might even argue there's no democracy now, given how big corporations are arguably much too heavily represented and have much more influence than even big parts of the population.
Anyway, whether you call the initial American system a Republic, a democratic system or a democracy, my intended point remains the same: the US used to be a role model and is now the opposite. I believe that it might even turn into a threat to the liberal democracies in Europe and other parts of the world, and that's truly tragic and ironic given its history.
I'm thankful for stumbling upon this video! What an enlightening discussion that brought forth so much understanding for me.
At one point in my life I thought tenure meant you were teaching for "ten years"😂😂😂
That's a pretty good answer; alas, not completely right.
I knew it meant you couldn't get fired. So maybe a ten year contract? 😅
WTF 😂
@@leedoss6905 yeah, life works better when you're able to laugh at your own mistakes, it allows you to better understand the mistakes of others. For example, I 100% know that I've accidentally cut people off when driving, so when others cut me off I don't get upset.
Me too
Such a critical topic which threatens sentient study in all fields , thanks to you both for your care and attention to this glaring threat to our culture, Arts and sciences expressed sensibly and I think, correctly
As Dr. Ehrman notes, these days a significant fraction of the faculty may not be on a tenure track. This is lamented as the "adjunct" problem, at least seen as a problem by the faculty. The management (the board of regents, etc.) love adjuncts though because they are cheaper. If anything, tenure will continue to disappear as universities and colleges seek to find ever-cheaper ways to hire teachers.
That’s a good point. Political pressure isn’t the only favor here. There’s also economics.
I meant to write “factor”, not “favor”. This iPad is not letting me edit.
This discussion reminds me of this one highly knowledgeable prof. He had problems with the government and religious leaders for teaching his expertise. He was labeled a heretic and murdered for his steadfast devotion to sharing his knowledge. His name was William Tyndale. Though he was strangled and burned at the stake, his Biblical translations and teachings have survived and influenced many Biblical scholars for hundreds of years. As the saying goes, "You can't keep a good man [woman] down."
Dr. Ehrman! Thank you for brining up this issue!
While I agree that academic freedom and freedom of speech are important for the quality of academic institutions, I had two issues during my time in college that made me disagree that tenure is the way to achieve that.
First incident: I took an intro to physical anthropology class - a 300 person lecture class, with half a dozen grad student TAs. There was also a lab component, provided as a separate course, taught entirely by the grad students. The professor in charge gave multiple choice exams that were nearly impossible for students in an introductory undergraduate course. I failed every exam, despite scoring in the top 95% of the class. I finished with a 65/100 as an overall grade.
I couldn’t drop the class because I would’ve had to drop the lab component as well (which I passed with a 100/100), and had to maintain a certain amount of credit hours to keep scholarships. I found out later, while retaking the class in the summer to replace the failed grade and improve my GPA, that no one passed that fall semester class. The professor gave the exams to the grad student TAs before the semester, and the highest any of them got would’ve been a “C”. That professor clearly didn’t want to teach a large lecture class, and took it out on her students. But she couldn’t be punished or dismissed because she was tenured.
Second example: I took a degree-level Public Policy class, about 30 students in the class. One of my two degrees is a BA in political science. My emphasis was political philosophy, but I was required to take a few classes in other sub-disciplines: Public Policy/Administration, International Relations/Comparative Government, as well as a few other broad topic Political Science courses.
The professor in this Public Policy class assigned a book of liberal-leaning policy papers for the class, and the midterm was to write an essay (in a 90 minute class period, not as an actual researched paper) responding to one of a select few of those policy papers. Without using the book as reference, either.
I wrote a paper disagreeing with the methods and conclusions of one of those policy papers - just happened to be the one I remembered best off the top of my head. I wasn’t advocating for a “conservative” position instead, just critiquing the assigned reading on its own merits.
The professor gave me a 32 on the essay and wrote under it “a gift”. I dropped the class the next day, having learned my lesson with that first class and keeping an extra class on my schedule each semester in case something like this happened.
I heard from fellow students in the class that about a dozen others dropped the class as well, some of whom made complaints to the school about their treatment. The university couldn’t do anything because the professor was tenured. All of the students complaining had written essays with conservative views, and got failing grades. No one that wrote “positive reviews” of the policy papers got a bad grade, as far as I could tell.
Those were the only two real problems I had with professors over five years and two bachelors degree programs. Part of that is because, after both of those experiences, I prioritized taking classes taught either by grad students or adjuncts who actually had to fear for their jobs. And I saw plenty of professors with very liberal views in that Political Science program, and who very much advocated their views in the classroom. But not a single one punished their students for disagree with their views - except for that one time.
So yeah, protect academic freedom and freedom of speech for all educators, but kill tenure that protects abusive professors that take out their issues on students. The “bad apples” may not be the majority of professors, but they give universities a bad name. They are the reason why so many conservatives have such a problem with “liberal bias” or “liberal agendas” in college.
Instead of defending the system that protects those bad professors, be more rigorous in expelling the ones giving you a bad reputation.
As a leftist, I have to say that I definitely had issues with a professor who promoted ridiculous ideologies, most of which would be considered on the left-side of the spectrum. And I mean ridiculous as in there was TONS of evidence against their positions and there was not even the option to disagree without repercussions. I didn't drop though, I just read ahead and prepared my evidence to refute her directly in class lol. She passed me just to make sure I didn't take her class again...
Yes, there needs to be at least some kind of check and balance on behalf of students who are paying handsomely for courses only to find out a professor has some odd side agenda instead of the standard course material. I had a sociology prof that taught nothing from the book and ranted each class about the strangest things. A physics prof I had went off on how the use of shampoo was vanity, though at his age he could have been drifting into senility. He would also make personal attacks on students. Students deserve to be taught the actual subjects they paid to learn., and to be graded fairly.
It would seem to be a system that is ripe for corruption.
@@jasonGamesMaster Oh, I’m sure that’s why.
I learned early on to always take one more class than i wanted so I could drop one if the professor or the course turned out to be too off the wall. A couple of times I completed a term with 20 hours, but I usually dropped a course. Of course, that was back in the day when you paid a flat rate for tuition for full time enrollment.
I've found that people get really angry with regards to experts in politics, history, religion, etc. because they see it as anti-democratic and have the idea that in our society that everyone's opinion is equal; or at the very least their own view is equally important to someone who spends a lifetime studying the subject.
Im not even talking about analyzing something from a moral point of view, just looking at institutional structures and trying to observe things in good faith.
Lots of people feel threatened by any form of analysis, as if it removes the purity from their beliefs.
I've had people get mad at me for saying that their complains about a prime minster don't make sense because they are upset over things in a provincial jurisdiction, or the Supreme Court making a unanimous decision saying a law is poorly written and contradicts something else is not the same thing as them saying something is permissible.
Don't even get me started about how upset people get when you explain common patterns of behavior in social movements, but get angry when pointing out similar strategies or actions in their favorite social movements.
It's a pleasure listening to these conversations!
I published a paper on academic freedom in religious institutions so this is a very important topic.
What do you mean by “so”?
I'm surprised that you are not raising alarms about the shift from tenure track positions to non-tenure track positions. Rarely do I see tenure track positions offered any more. And the tenured professors, overall, are quiet about it. I see this happening even in public schools - few tenure track positions are offered.
As a European, i’m amazed this is an issue. Even the most conservative university here would not interfere with academic freedom. US societal dualism never ceases to amaze me…
It’s not really dualism. It’s minority rule. You have to remember that the US has a fairly weak federal government when it comes to education as most of the laws and regulations are controlled by the states…and due to gerrymandering and and altering laws, there are many states that are controlled by right wing legislators.
@@mikewiz1054Thx for clarifying that. Over here we only broadly get informed about the big ideological clashes, which seem very black & white from afar…
Tenure...great...but there are also serious issues with it. It also protects professors who overwork and sexually harass their graduate students (the numbers are staggering, and also speaking from personal experience). And in most state schools, grad students do most of the work of teaching, doing both the grading and handling all interactions with students outside of a 500 person lecture hall, but graduate students have no similar employment protections. So, like, we DO need a better system, one that protects academic freedom, AND also doesn't give professors so much power over the livelihood of their graduate students. PS love to hear Megan's opinions about this as a former grad student, if she's comfortable w it
It’s difficult for me to believe Megan would be (would be now or would have been when she was a grad student, that is) comfortable talking about it, assuming she’s experienced any of it, and that’s part of the problem. Graduate students aren’t really in a safe position to complain. In fact, few people pursuing an academic position at all are in a safe position to complain. I should hasten to point out that most of my fellow graduate students seemed to me perfectly happy with the kind of corruption I described in my own comment (which is different from some of what you describe in your comment). Most of them seemed to care much more about getting a position teaching than in learning about the subject and really contributing to it,.
But grad students are the novitiates of academia. No one who starts a career in the private sector ever has the same protections as a company executive. If you are going to grad school it's presumably to either move along to an academic career that may be tenure track or to earn more money in the private sector. Those are opportunities not afforded to about 70% of the population. I think that one can make an argument that part of the price you pay for such an opportunity is that you have to carry the load of academic grunt work along with lower pay. The payoff is a lifetime of earnings nearly 50% greater than those with a high school diploma. I don't see that as an unreasonable sacrifice for those two extra years of education.
Also, as Bart pointed out, tenure does not protect professors with serious moral violations, which would include harassment. It may be that the enforcement of that standard isn't what it ought to be, but that is a problem with the department and its review process, not the institution itself.
The issue isn’t with tenure, the issue is with the fact that the state is a involved with education. The idea that someone has what is essentially a pass for employment for life is dumb, and the idea that the government can say what can it can’t be taught is even dumber.
"Truth is the daughter of time,not of authority." ~ Sir Francis Bacon
('Tenure' sounds like being appointed a life-time judgeship!) Political leaders dictating what can be taught in schools/ universities, is the road to authoritarianism - Dr Ruth Ben-Ghiat talks/ warns about this.
Freedom of speech is one thing but being absolutely required to teach certain philosophies is another. I would want my student to know about other systems of government and different cultures, or different religions, but teachers mustn't try to convert. As for tenure, if a teacher misuses his privileges, harasses students, or otherwise abuses them, he/she should not be shielded from the consequences.
A friend of mine is a professor and the greatest complement he gets - and he gets it frequently - is that his students can't really tell if he's conservative, liberal, Christian, atheist, etc.
In the UK Margaret Thatcher's government abolished new tenure in 1987. Those who had it were allowed to keep it from then, unless they changed universities. That was 35 years ago, so it is now virtually non-existent.
We live in dangerous times where doublespeak and doublethink are more important than truth and knowledge.
I'd love to hear Dr. Ehrman talk to Dr. Gad Saad.
About what? I'm not being a smartass. I just didn't know if there is somewhere they obviously disagree or whether they even overlap in anything other than both being professors.
@@sethhardcastle4093 Both have tenure and enjoy the purpose of it.
I went to a university where (at least in my department) reflexivity was really trendy so I imagine faculty probably would talk to each other about their personal religious beliefs.
There were experts in 20th century German history too and I assume they've never been asked whether they were Nazis but I imagine they talked about the relationship between their national identity as Germans and the crimes of the Nazis (they certainly talked about how other Germans' national identity affected the historiography in lectures). I'm not sure if their were any Jewish professors in that field at my uni but I think they would speak about how their Jewishness affects their research and teaching of the holocaust.
Easiest way to get tenure is to start networking before a final review. Then impress a higher-up at another institution and get that institution to offer you a position with tenure
Bart is great. As an example, he acknowledged that tenure isn’t written in stone. If a state abolished it, then professors and students may shift to states that protected tenure.
Bart has reminded me of that great movie: Inherit the Wind... 😮
I had a professor for an advanced database course who often snuck in right-wing his views, including things like having us write queries for tables named things like democrats_raise_taxes and republicans_are_strong, and more than a few times it came up in lectures without any attempt to make it about databases. I just did the assignments and no one complained about him, but I do think it showed a lack of respect for the time students paid for.
In my undergraduate or graduate studies, not a single political viewpoint was expressed, though I suppose that's because my computer science and engineering classes didn't cover any subjects where politics would be discussed. Granted, that was nearly 25 years ago, but I have held non-teaching positions at universities and found the employees to be largely apolitical (at work). That is simply my anecdotal opinion, and I value the perspective that people with different experiences than mine can give.
@@sergehychko3659 doesn't really sound like Lisa had the sort of subjects where that would naturally come go, either
@@Agryphos Exactly. That professor sounds like a weirdo, to bring that stuff up in a databases course.
It is a fact that the people who know the most about biology almost all teach evolution; that the people who know the most about early christianity and the history of the bible, while many are Christian, admit that the bible is not perfect and there are many, many grey areas; that the people who know the most about geology have understood for centuries that there is no evidence for a global flood and the earth is ancient; and on and on. Fundamentalists look at all that and, instead of considering they might be wrong, believe it's all a big conspiracy to hurt their faith. I grew up in it. My parents are still there. I truly thank Bart, not for deconverting me, but for being one of several beacons of truth along my journey. If truth leads away from a belief, that's the belief's problem; don't blame the truth.
First: Ehrman tells that tenured professors can be fired for incompetence or immoral behaviour. I wonder what exactly is meant by that. Some reactions mention stories like:
The professor that passed no-one because he didn't like to teach big classes
The professor that used his lecture time for political rants and spent no time on the subject of the class
These will probably be outliers, but this certainly soutnds like incompetence that warrants at least a stern talk with the boss and if that doesn't change anything, firing. Tenure or no tenure.
Second: I think the indoctrination thing is overstated. At least, it doesn't seem very effective. Hete in The Netherlands, in the 1970's, the universities where full of marxists. Now, how anyone even moderately intelligent can be marxist is beyond me, given that that theory has so many obvious flaws, but it was fashionable at the time. Did this create a communist generation? No, on the contrary. Since then, society has leaned more and more to the right. In parliament, left wing parties are smaller than ever, and they are talking about merging in order to stay relevant an retain some kind of critical mass.
In England, Roger Scruton wrote that at the time he and the catering lady were the only conservatives in his university. Some ten years later Margaret Thatcher came to power. If they tried to indoctrinate a generation, they failed miserably.
Third: academics are just like normal people. Fashion plays a big role. For academics this is intellectual fashion, not clothes fashion. Universities are echo chambers too, and always have been. Because they are little worlds of their own, where most people who are in, seldomly come out. Except of course the students: they graduate and never come back.
Such an important discussion. It's so telling that (especially) people with conservative views are "afraid" to speak out because people will disagree with them. [thinking emoji]
I also really appreciate your perspective on tenure. I think when I was an undergraduate, we had a somewhat skewed idea about tenure because we felt it allowed "bad" professors to continue to "torture" their students. Looking back with more life experience and having seen what's happening in this country over the last 20 years since I graduated, I can see the importance of academic freedom and tenure more than ever.
I studied religion as an undergrad, and we used Dr. Ehrman's "The New Testament" textbook in one of my classes. It's been wonderful to see him so active on RUclips and hear his insights "live". He seems like a genuinely delightful human being and a wonderful teacher.
Excellent episode! Many questions answered Bart, thank you both SO much!!
Banning CRT in public K12 schools is harmful. It is true that no one ever teaches CRT in public schools, but the banning still does matter. Teachers become afraid to talk about anything that might be in any way controversial. In social studies, teachers feel they are risking their careers if they question the most traditional conservative tellings of history.
Tenure is a great institution that protects research professors, but it doesn't protect the teachers who aren't researching. And those lower levels (in terms of how they're treated by the universities and colleges) really do need a lot of the protections that tenure offers.
I'm personally of the opinion that college and university professors would greatly benefit from a union - regardless of whether or not they have tenure or on track to gain tenure. K-12 teachers unions have proven to be massively important. And I really think that higher education teachers could greatly benefit from one as well - especially those who just want to teach and don't want to have to do any research. And we do need professors at universities that just teach - such teachers cover several classes that allow the researching professors more time to do their research.
And yeah, I've got personal experience with conservative teachers pushing their particular rather skewed viewpoint in a class. Oof, economics departments in the US are full of them! You have to suffer through tons of "free market" BS to get anywhere near any classes that even mildly question capitalism. Ironically, the best summary of Marx's critique of capitalism that I've gotten was in an anthropology class taught by a professor who was born/raised in Switzerland. He had to introduce it to us in order to point out that our ideas regarding personal property are very much not universal - we were talking about some of the different systems that Native American cultures employed.
My high school Europeean history teacher, "so you're not a Nazi"?
They should limit “contract” employment to maybe 20%. I can’t imagine going to work and 50% of those in my company are contractual.
So, I AM allowed to draw Muhammad?
GET A LIFE
In the U.S. you are allowed to draw Muhammed! You always have been!😊
@@bubbercakes528 why would you want to? You have no idea what he really looks like so why bother???
@@Isaac5123 You may have to label the drawing if you’re hoping for a fatwah. Just don’t draw me.
fascinating convo! _JC
I wonder what the New Testament says about tenure? The Labourer is worthy of his hire, perhaps.
She has a 16-year-old?! I am shook :D
If anyone wants to do a deeper dive into the CRT stuff the channel Ryan Chapman has a good video breaking it down and another channel the sitch and Adam show have more of a long form format with in-depth discussion/debate on the topic floating around
I don't really have an issue with Adam and stich but don't put them on the same level as Ryan.
That's crazy to hear as a non-american and also pretty scary. I understand the angle the conservatives are coming from and all but if they have an alternative view, they should prove it or put in the time and research like these professors. Isn't that what Darwin had to do? What every scientist had to do?
A brave and important discussion. Thank you!
10!
With movement towards fascism in our country, this is scary.
I broadly agree with the view expressed in this video. Never the less, it also seems that there are movements on the liberal side to “de-platform” people with “unacceptable views”… like for instance Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve. DISCLAIMER I know this is an controversial issue, but am not personally aware if it is a real issue, or simply a partisan talking point
Thanks for your video! I’m writing thesis about faculty perception of academic freedom it’s very helpful
The explanation of academic freedom is flawed because Dr. Ehrman describes it as if it applies only to those teaching. It applies to students as well; if writing a paper on any given subject, academic freedom also means that the student is free to pose whichever opinion they hold and are judged based on the merit of their arguments, not how someone else believes. If a professor assigns a paper on whether or not Jesus is God, for example, they cannot grade those answering that in one way harsher than those answering in the opposite way.
'tenure means you cant be dismissed from your job unless you are grossly incompetent or immoral.'
but that would be most professors.
Here’s one that would get a tenured professor fired. “My research can’t find any evidence that the Germans made a concerted effort to exterminate the Jews during WWII. Please review my work.”
This is all literally happening in Texas right now. The killing of tenure has passed the house. Not sure if they have voted in the senate. There are other bills too that have passed in the house to affect other areas of higher Ed.
I am a former professor of studio art and art history. And like Bart I always encouraged my students to explore a variety of viewpoints. Especially, in studio art classes. Creating art is a completely subjective experience. So, of course people will explore the things they know about or want to know more about.
It looks like Bart's blog web page may have been hacked.
I’ve had plenty of teachers in grade school and high school who attempted to indoctrinate students. These teachers invariably subscribed to a political philosophy, such as it may be, broadly and typically described as “conservative”. I don’t recall attempts at indoctrination in college, but my experience in grad school demonstrated to me serious other problems with tenure. One problem is that people are publishing just to get tenure, not because they have something valuable to contribute or because they even really care about what they’re publishing. Academic journals in my field are filled with utter rubbish, some of it dishonest, and it drastically clutters and impedes serious scholarship. Another problem is that at my particular school, at least, quid pro quo was rampant. Teachers seeking tenure would demand special favors from students in return for teaching assistant appointments, job recommendations, and even good grades. In return, among other things, these teachers required glowing teacher evaluation reviews and being cited in the student’s published works. There are also some teachers who seem to think they have proprietary ownership of students’s ideas and work and will plunder them and publish them under their own name with no credit given to the student.
Seconded
I suspect geographic location of the school might play a role, to the extent that teachers in grade/high school have attempted/are attempting to indoctrinate students. It’s not cut and dry to be sure - red towns vs. blue towns - and I imagine there are exceptions, but I suspect the prevailing body politic of a surrounding area might play a role.
I like your take on the problems of securing tenure.
@@balancematters2776 If the prevailing body politic played a role, either I couldn’t tell or I don’t remember. I grew up in a north suburb of Saint Louis. many years ago. Nowadays Saint Louis is generally considered a Democratic enclave in a Republican state (Missouri), but I don’t really know how was it was considered back then. It seemed to me at the time a fair mix. The indoctrination had, as far as I could make out, to do with the particular proclivities of the “conservative” teachers, who tended to follow a strange compulsion to propagandize, evangelize, and generally rant. I don’t know why.
Hard to argue against the importnce of tenure for academic freedom. But I find it odd to that Bart totally ignores the fact that universities has become liberal eccochambers. And I doubt he has to fear being cancelled in todays climate. For comservatives it's a thing you have to live with and decide how honest you need to be. Everybody isn't a fighter. Maybe america is different but in my country academic freedom isn't under threat from any conservatives. His examples were strictly aimed towards ridiculing conservatives (which often is justified, especially in religious subjects) Why choosing the example of creationists oposition to evolution, men the main battle surrounding biology and evolution is related to it's implication för feminist thought. Their discussion is held like the cancelations of the last years hasn't happened or that secular liberal thought hasn't become increasingliy dogmatic. Yes, conservative reactions to what's happening in universities in a kneejerk reaction often based on fear, but that fear is based in reality. But I do aknowledge that conservative christians are often vary closeminded.
Quote Megan “Not an echo chamber” Perfectly said
I suspect that Dr. Ehrman would have difficulty attaining tenure today. I think the powers-that-be would find another candidate more worthy, due to certain characteristics unrelated to qualification or expertise.
I disagree . . . he writes plenty of books . . . that would get him tenure
Thank you (and good luck).
I live in Florida, and, when there is commentary permitted on a newspaper or other media outlest discussint this issue, it would seem that the people who scream the most about liberal professors' and 'indoctrination' are people, who in fact, never went to college themselves, and thus have no idea about what happens in the typical classroom in any field of study. As Bart stated, and as anyone who has attended an accredited college knows, teachers teach about their own area of expertise. There is so much mateirial that needs to be presented that their is no time for going off on ideolgical tangents. Our own governor who graduated from both Harvard and Yale should know better, but he is making his career by pandering to the most ignorant in our society.
Great discussion on an incredibly important topic.
Very interesting discussion - thanks. The few discussions about "Misquoting Jesus " I've followed were also very enlightening - thanks again.
👏🙂
Bart thank you for indoctrinating me❤
To be fair - there are not that many six-times bestselling authors who are also renowned Bible scholars. You kind of cornered the market on that one.
Edit: Fellow blogger and historian Bret Deveraux studies military history, and he gets asked why he loves war. Because if you study something you must love it. Makes me wonder about people who study Nazism.
Bart’s best-selling works are for popular consumption and thus necessarily less scholarly. Usually this sort of publication counts less toward tenure and academic promotion. People who study Nazism love history, not necessarily Nazism-assuming they’re honest, that is. Many grad students and professors are anything but.
I would hope most people who study WW2 do so because they want to prevent WW3. This reminds me of this Buzzfeed video called "I think my dad is a Russian spy" about this son who is creeped out by all of his father's Soviet memoribila and then he finds out his dad is famous in Ukraine for speaking against Putin on news programs and the like. (His dad's name is Gary Yuri Turbach and he has a Russian language YT channel) 🇺🇦
By the way, I’m actually not on a first-name basis. I called him “Bart” because my iPad insists on turning his surname into “Herman”.
Bret Deveraux's blog is a treasure. I wonder what his thoughts are on tenure..
@@SidheKnight He's written about it and about it being under attack in the US. Can't remember exactly when, but he has written about it.
Very well presented and informative. I now understand things I hear about southern states better now. The PNW still follows the views he states
I have long felt that education is a liberalizing experience. Some go so far as to say that facts have a liberal bias!
your argument is fallacious, by making the judge and the advocate being the same person
@@Purwapada Argument? Where are the elements of an argument? I expressed a feeling, and made an observation.
@@milowadlin any claim is an argument
@@Purwapada No, it’s not. That’s a factual and logical error. If you can’t grasp this basic distinction, you can’t fairly expect anyone to heed anything you say.
@@jeffryphillipsburns actually yes. You are using an equivocation fallacy by ignoring the illucutionary reasoning in favour of semantic meaning.
tenure sticks students with insane professors that won't go. dont Iknow it, but I like the idea
Here is what you can do when faced with this academic freedom dilemma: Teach you students to believe the data, not the conclusions.
I don't think you understand the issue here. Academic freedom is, in fact, the freedom to teach the facts.
Florida
Bart does not have the freedom to teach about the Quran because he has no expertise on the Quran. Children between K-12. Are not capable of learning about CRT. Parents have the right to decide what their children are taught!
*TALK ABOUT JEEZUS BEING AN ALIEN FROM NEVADA!* no more secrets. _JC
Maybe this one will come to be known as "The Days of Future Passed" episode (y-ya know that old Moody blues album?)
I'm sorry Megan but I had you pegged for one of those dreadful liberal storm troopers that believe marriage is just patriarchal oppression.
I strongly dislike anything predictable. And Bart always says something I didn't know or realize. And you did too Megan. So, more fun. Think of more topics that might lead to casual chit chat between you two. It works.
Speaking of Sumerians. Megan, the famous Sumerian family statues look suspiciously like Hasidic Jews before hats. What do you think?
@@meenki347 From a quick image search I think a lot of what you're seeing is that long hair and beards are less common today, so long hair and beards looks like long hair and beards.
Three words: *grievance studies affair.*
Three words chosen at random? Why?
@@jeffryphillipsburns Why do you think those are three randomly chosen words? Because you didn't want to bother looking them up all together on the internet.
@@vejeke Because I know how English works and doesn’t work.
How about the very simple fact that left leaning administrators tend to favor liberals-- conservatives are hired less and less since postmodernism has basically become the paradigm and the bible of modern western academia
Sources, please? Because this sounds exactly like what Jordan Peterson is always saying, and the only post-modernist that Peterson ever sees is the one in the mirror.
@@pauldaigle2344It's very easy to test, check any library catalog for major academic western publishers on the BIG FIVE pillars of postmodernist "theory" - Gender studies, LGBTQ, Critical Race Theory, Colonialism & Poscolonialism and Feminism. Literally thousands of titles per year. Read major postmodernist thinkers, and compare them with what you see in the litterature. These are BY FAR the most frequented areas of study - especially in the social sciences and in the humianities.
Genesis 1 is God and Genesis 2 is the usurper/deciever. Obviously.
15:11 “…the bible says nothing about homosexuality…” - this is a disingenuous view that’s exactly the kind of sentiment that discredits liberal academics in the eyes of others.
It’s only because the authors of the bible didn’t have the modern concept of homosexuality which is why they never used the term, but homosexual sex was common in the ancient past and it’s clear from the bible that Christian god forbids it and explicitly states that those individuals are not welcome in his kingdom.
Therefore, the ramifications for homosexuals today are that they must not be ‘practising’ homosexuals i.e. they most not indulge in the act of physical homosexual sex.
But that is really mincing with words, because it is clear that the Christian god does not want homosexuals to have fulfilled lives in terms of the defining nature of what it means to be homosexual.
Moreover, it is pure sadism for an omnipotent god to make his creatures have passions for homosexual sex but then disallows them from doing so. Is this truly a *loving* god, may be he’s not omnipotent as he makes mistakes, or is he a sadist?
True scholarship would reason that homophobic sentiments aren’t a modern phenomenon, because the human genome has not changed sufficiently since biblical times i.e. the disgust that drives homophobic sentiments in some heterosexual men (and women) is as old as the bible.
Logic thus dictates that the authors of the bible will be no less homophobic than modern day counterparts, which means if one could explain to those ancient authors the modern understanding of homosexual sex within the modern framework of homosexuality, they would understand it completely and would be equally against it (insisting the same for their god) for exactly the same reasons why it is still despised today by so many conservatives.
Modern day humans have no historical monopoly over bigotry.
For the reasons given above, it seems evident to me that Prof Ehrman has let his personal biases undermine his scholarship of the bible on this matter.
Completely ignoring DEI administrative practices/boards and their authoritarian effect on hiring, tenure, course content, free speech etc. - all based on political ideology - makes this podcast miss the point entirely. Thumbs down 👎
Of course Christianity is engulfed by motivated cognition and speaking. The foremost example being the threat of eternal hell for those who question dogmatic orthodoxy
“Engulfed by motivated cognition and speaking”? Did you pick words randomly then arrange them in a random order?
@@jeffryphillipsburns
Good catch
Bart proved he isn't an expert on the Bible by lying about it having no words about homosexual sex.
Do you know who Erhman is? the surname Ehrman comes from the Yiddish word erlekh. Although some of the variants of this surname, with the first component Ehren, sound similar to the surname Aaron, they belong to this group. That is, Erhman is a fake jew, a khazar. The khazars were an antichristian empire converted to judaism in VIII century by commercial interest. An ashkenazi, a fake jew, the worst enemies of Jesus. Israle is a khazar state full of fake jews ashkenazis. Now you understand why Erhman has dedicated his life to be antichristian...
I am experiencing cognitive dissonance as a consequence of this interview. I generally find Dr. Ehrman to be reasonable and intelligent, but he says things here that seem to be quite false. Is he mistaken, or lying?
What did you think was false?
@@erichodge567
1. His suggestion that the bible does not mention homosexuality. I did listen to the episode where he interviewed the other gentlemen on the subject, but it all just seemed like so much mental or linguistic gymnastics. I am not an expert, but I must believe that this is an uncommon conclusion, even in the field.
2. The idyllic picture they paint of liberal college faculty becoming liberal because that's what happens when one becomes educated, and then one achieves status totally based on merit, and then teaches only what is objectively true and pertaining to one's field of expertise. Some of this sounds nice, but just a bit too perfect, and SO contrary to what I've heard elsewhere.
Objectively true: Dr. Ehrman has been at the same institution since 1988 and is faculty, not administration. I am inclined to think that these factors limit his breadth of perspective in this area. But again, I don't know what to think.
Question: speaking one's opinions, even outside one's field of expertise, seems to fall outside the categories of 'incompetence' and 'gross immorality.' Does this mean that Dr. Ehrman would still consider such speech protected by tenure?
@@Robert_L_Peters As to homosexuality, I believe what is being is said is that the modern concept of homosexuality didn't exist in Biblical times. In biblical times, it was just a particular behavior - not an orientation.
@@stevearmstrong6758 thank you for a reasonable response, and that would be a reasonable conclusion. Did you gather that from the interview I mentioned, or somewhere else?
@@Robert_L_PetersProbably a previous episode. It's from the interview with Jennifer Knust.
Thats so boring compared to the jesus ones..
Michael Parenti has entered the chat