As the saga of the disposition of the neurotic
Louisiana State University law professor continues to drag out, it tells us
more about the media and higher education than the actual demerits of the
subject in question.
That guy ensconced at the Paul M. Hebert School of
Law, Ken Levy, almost a month ago found himself suspended from teaching duties
because of some unfortunate remarks of his. Besides insulting a politician or
two in a semester-beginning lecture, he also managed to convey the impression that
students with different political sensibilities than his needed reeducation
that could begin with grading them on that criterion and that he could toss
them into the hoosegow if they dared record his lectures (the complex
legal question aside, he had no such authority), citing controversy that
percolated from somewhat less openly jaundiced recorded remarks by one of his
colleagues.
After retaining counsel, Levy alleged his remarks
were in jest, which he appeared to mean served as a prophylactic against any
unprofessional offense. To which I say, pulling out the old as-I’ve-been-teaching-in-higher-education-nearly-four-decades
card, even if joking around it was unprofessional enough to warrant not just
his suspension, but dismissal. You don’t even need four decades, not even four
minutes, as a higher education instructor to know you don’t levy, even if a
joking fashion, threats against assignment of a course grade that don’t have a
direct relationship to a student’s demonstration of course mastery. Simply, too
much is at stake for a student when it comes to a grade, where even a letter
grade difference could mean the difference between staying in or out of school,
retaining or not retaining financial aid, eligibility for job recruitment
possibilities, and the like.
That noted, since his initial suspension in the
course of legal hearings to ascertain whether LSU legally suspended him with
pay, even more evidence has surfaced about his competency to teach effectively,
in the form of a test question
that in previous centuries might be referred to as bawdy. Briefly, the question
graphically set up a scenario where students had to determine whether criminal
behavior had occurred involving copulation with a jack-o-lantern, followed by
recording and disseminating sexual abuse of minors, and with a direct insult to
Republicans thrown in.
Demonstrating yet again that sophistry
and irrelevancy often rise to the top in legal argumentation and
decision-making, his mouthpiece argued nothing was wrong with the material
in the question because a lawyer potentially could run into all of this in the
profession, to which the judge assented in ruling Levy back into the classroom.
A day later, the First
Circuit Court of Appeals vetoed that.
Note the red herring shift in force here. The
issue isn’t that students may encounter cases involving sexually-oriented
criminal behavior, but in the presentation of these kinds of cases by the question
material demonstrates a behavior sanctionable by the university. Keep in mind
the idea of the university (to paraphrase John
Henry Cardinal Newman) is to enlarge and illuminate the mind to view many
things at once. But you can’t do that if you alienate your audience from the
start by appealing to vulgarity (mistaken for cleverness) and insults (mistaken
for virtue signaling).
All too often these days academia ends up the
refuge of those who use instruction as a kind of therapy, to allow modes of
behavior dressed in the trappings of teaching, making the classroom a
playground for indulging in the instructor’s psychological insecurities. For
example, undoubtedly one can write a question that more clinically and less
floridly, and without partisan slurs (that have nothing to do with the subject),
makes the same inquiries. You would want to do that because a more salacious
rendering distracts some students of more delicate sensibilities while the political
insult distracts others of that partisan stripe. Your job is to help students
to learn and express that learning, not to throw up impediments via shock and
provocation.
Why would an instructor do this? (For readers with
college experience, think about these archetypes you may have encountered in
the course of your studies.) Maybe he fancies himself a rebel who believes
untraditional discourse signifies he is more creative and imaginative than the
herd. Or sees himself as a provocateur who to change academia must thumb his
nose at it through attention-grabbing rhetoric and actions. Or maybe he views
himself as an academic Übermensch, to whom the rules don’t apply and he
can take this power trip that disparages the beliefs of many of his students with
impunity. Or perhaps he conceives of himself as the “cool” professor, who
imagines such discourse increases his popularity among the students as it has
him climb down from the ivory tower to become more relatable to their
supposedly more earthy lives. There are others unrelated to the conceit that
lies behind those so far explicated, even less salutary, that deal with
neuroses.
The point is posturing in these forms detracts from
effective teaching. And when these have the effect of denigrating students for reasons
beyond academic performance, if not creating a hostile learning environment, that
is something for which a university can bounce from its hallowed halls even a
tenured professor.
Yet reading much of the media coverage of this protracted
case frames it in free expression terms that in reality don’t form the basis
for his suspension, implying if not asserting that LSU is trying to punish the
cretin for his political opinions, which included in class vulgar exhortations
about conservative elected officials. Some, like the Baton Rouge Advocate,
at least mention that LSU’s disciplinary attempts involve comportment, while
other like the far left-funded Louisiana Illuminator web site entirely and dishonestly
ignores the basis for LSU’s action. This all is done as a method to advance a false
narrative that somehow the rise of conservative elected officials that now
dominate Louisiana government and hold majorities in the federal government
threatens free expression and cows what should be the bastions of that, higher
education.
Quite the opposite. For this guy is but the tip of
the iceberg. His insecurities may have been such that he too openly and
stupidly displayed them, but there are plenty of others more circumspect populating
academia, both in Louisiana and across the nation. And as academia has sympathy
for their political views, ordinarily it won’t bother with them no matter how
much they may invest in indoctrination instead of (see Newman above) education.
This creates an echo chamber of orthodoxy that experiences excavation only when
its excesses become illuminated to the larger world, which introduces the real
heroes of it all, the students whose recording and revelation of class
materials exposed the poverty of Levy’s approach to instruction. It takes
courage to enter into conflict with a guy who holds tremendous power over your
future, and that is fortified by knowing in government you have elected
officials that will hear you out and will apply pressure for a fair resolution of
the conflict. Knowing that greater capacity exists to expose idiocy in the
classroom has the effect of exposing more of that idiocy, which then at least
drives more of that idiocy underground and away from interfering with genuine
education.
In other words, maybe having a Republican Gov.
Jeff Landry, who appoints members of the LSU Board of Supervisors confirmed by a
state Senate with a GOP supermajority, makes LSU (who like most higher education
institutions otherwise practices “don’t ask/don’t tell” in this regard) pursue
more aggressively punishment of faculty stupidity in the classroom. In that
respect, the real story the media is missing is how conservatives controlling
elective offices instead of threatening free expression are restoring the idea
of free inquiry thereby enhancing the mission of superior education within
academia.
