One year ago today, Northwestern psychology professor John Michael Bailey held a voluntary extracurricular event after his Human Sexuality class.
At that event, Jim Marcus and Faith Kroll used a motorized sex toy to demonstrate female sexual response.
The result was a storm of publicity that made the front pages of newspapers, outraged parents and donors and ultimately led to NU officials banning Bailey’s course from being taught again.
NU’s initial response to the controversy was courageous and principled: “The University supports the efforts of its faculty to further the advancement of knowledge.”
That defense of academic freedom quickly evaporated as outraged parents, pundits and donors expressed their anger. NU investigated Bailey’s course and decreed that “Human Sexuality” would not be allowed to be taught during the 2011-12 school year.
Though the machinations of a dildo-modified reciprocating saw may be worthy of a few jokes and even public criticism, they cannot justify the banishment of an important academic course taught by a well-qualified professor.
As conservative writer Robert VerBruggen noted on the National Review blog Phi Beta Cons, “This seems like an overreaction to me; human sexuality is an important field of study, and Bailey is one of the nation’s leading experts.”
NU’s ban on Bailey’s course is far more than an overreaction - it’s an attack on academic freedom and a betrayal of the values that every university must uphold.
This Sunday, the Chicago Tribune reported on what it depicted as a replacement to Bailey’s course, Lane Fenrich’s introductory gender studies course “Sexual Subjects: Introduction to Sexuality Studies.”
But Fenrich’s course is not a psychology course. Mary Weismantel, program director for gender studies, told the Tribune the department was planning the course “when this whole debacle came with the psychology class. That was our opportunity.”
The censorship of a college course should never be regarded as an “opportunity” for other programs to expand academic turf. Nor should anyone accept a quota of one on classes dealing with sexuality. Bailey’s alleged transgressions did not occur during course sessions, so there should have been no punishment.
But if a course is alleged to be taught in an unprofessional manner, then faculty experts in the field should evaluate it, not administrators imposing their personal opinions on the issue.
As with the suspension last spring of journalism professor David Protess (which occurred without the due process required under NU’s own rules), administrators have simply ignored faculty and students by unilaterally banning classes taught by controversial professors.
NU should never fear controversy. For more than 35 years, NU has courageously defended the academic freedom of Arthur Butz, a Holocaust denier who continues to teach in the department of electrical engineering and computer science despite expressing views I find a thousand times more offensive than anything displayed in the extracurricular activity organized by Bailey.
Academic freedom must include the liberty of faculty to teach controversial subjects and the liberty of students to take these classes.
NU officials, by continuing to ban Human Sexuality, are violating that freedom.
John K. Wilson
Evanston resident
