To the Editor:

I read Cynthia Tufaro’s opinion column: “Can Professors be Unbiased?” (Feb. 3) with admiration and sadness; admiration for her courage and forthrightness, sadness for an institution and faculty that, even in the twenty- first century, does not fully recognize the proper boundaries between teacher and student.

President Hansen’s comments on expanding diversity, “openness to a variety (of) ways of being,” egalitarianism, self-awareness and self-discipline appear as platitudes and hypocrisy juxtaposed to Miss Tufaro’s comments. Most unfortunately, this is a national problem in secondary and higher education in America, but since Bates is my alma mater, I shall address a community for whom I care but about which there is one matter for shame.

I would argue that no teacher (instructor to tenured professor) should discuss his or her political view in the classroom! To do so is an abuse of their role of power over the student. Political views are deeply personal. For a teacher to impose political views on students in a class where that student is to be graded by the teacher is no different from that teacher imposing religious or racial views or making sexual advances on that student. Outside of the classroom, faculty are free to engage in whatever political action they wish and faculty can and should debate their opinions with each other and with students to fulfill each person’s First Amendment Rights. However, political innuendo and sarcasm, whether from the right or the left, has no place in the context of the teacher-student relationship and academic work.

Robert Frost wrote about good boundaries making for good neighbors. Boundaries are the cornerstone for all healthy human interactions. This is especially true in therapeutic relationships. Should the teacher-student relationship be held to lower standard? I think not. I would argue it is even a nobler and more sacred relationship since it shapes a life and mind over many years, not just temporarily healing it. It is a form of narcissism and hubris for a teacher to think his or her political preferences warrant mention in a science, art, or psychology classroom or even in a political science classroom.

I would challenge the Bates student body to be the first in the nation to hold their faculty accountable for “political incorrectness” and President Hansen to provide national leadership on this matter as well as encourage debate of this subject during this political season. Parents, alumni, and trustees should expect and demand this. Only then can there be true intellectual honesty, diversity, and most of all, freedom in Academia.

-Paul Millard Hardy, M.D. ’67
Hingham, MA




Respond to this article