LETTER: Activism curbs academic freedom
In last week's Thresher , Maryana Iskander wrote an opinion article in which she outlines the Student Association's 1995 agenda. In the article she talks about the need to encourage activism at Rice. On the same page, Carolyn Gill wrote an article putting forth her views on academic freedom and academic integrity.
Ms. Iskander may not realize that activism and academic integrity cannot coexist.
She does not seem to realize that trying to make Rice an activist campus may jeopardize my academic freedom.
While Ms. Iskander and Ms. Gill were elected to head the SA and the Honor Council, they do not represent the only views at Rice.
Academic freedom is the right to study and the right to choose what to study, but it is also the right to choose where to study.
It is the right to not attend Rice if it is not politically active enough for you.
To Ms. Iskander, I would say that there is enough activism in American universities that with very little effort, he could have found a university teeming with activism. I, on the other hand, found a rare jewel when I discovered Rice: a place not overrun by activism, but full of open, intelligent discourse.
I agree with Ms. Gill's assertion that academic integrity is important, but I feel that intellectual integrity is nobler and far more important. Intellectual integrity is forming your own opinions, giving fair court to the opinions of others and allowing your opinions to reflect new information and insight.
It is intellectual integrity that promotes learning and insists on intellectual vigor and growth. Where intellectual integrity is not present, people hold views for the sake of holding views and defend them vigilantly out of obstinacy.
The university setting would ideally be an arena where scholars could share opinions so that they might form and reform their own beliefs. In such a milieu, where ideas are backed with facts and arguments are cogent and coherent, opinions and beliefs can change without activism.
This ideal of intellectual integrity is rarely found in American universities. More often we see activism, where people allow ideas to be their sextants and their opinions to be their tyrants.
Views become unassailable dogmas, not subject to revision even in the light of new and better information.
Students allow opinions to lead them to conclusions, when they should allow conclusions and then opinions to follow from facts.
This activist mentality might appeal to Ms. Iskander, but it would be a blow to intellectualism and a sad corruption of the meaning of education.
When I applied to Rice in 1991, it was a place where students could choose to join in a political discussion. It was also a place where they were allowed to lay low while their opinions matured.
This was the Rice I knew and the Rice to which I humbly submitted my application for enrollment. This was a Rice not overrun with the arrogant belief that at 19, 22 or 23 we knew all the answers.
While Rice students are more gifted than those at most institutions, they are not more experienced and in the end we are all just a bunch of smart kids.
We do not have the experiences to be sure that our views are right. Once we admit that, we can make great progress gathering information that will help us form intelligent views.
In Ms. Iskander's scenario, Rice would become a university dedicated to the advancement of activism, not letters and sciences.
In the new Rice, people would stand in picket lines, carrying poster board signs and shouting epithets. They would entrench in the foxholes of political dogma and refuse to surrender their fragile views to the assault of intelligent discussion. But they would be more activist.
And yet, intellect would wither as all surrounded themselves with others who affirmed their views.
The same activist group that brought us "political correctness" without bringing us any real tolerance would bring us innumerable other albatrosses.
We would be lucky to escape without eradicating dissension.
If Ms. Iskander's goal is truly to make Rice a more activist campus, I hope she fails.
For, in bringing Rice activism, she may well destroy the refreshing intellectualism that is found here.
And in destroying intellectualism, we may all be reduced to shouting mindless epithets designed for media appeal rather than for intellectual merit.
As for the other problems she addresses such as student-athlete relations, a service ethic, shuttle and parking issues and diversity awareness, may she approach them prepared for ideas, not for battle.
While we are at Rice, I hope Ms. Iskander allows us to gather the information we need to form intelligent opinions and ideas later on, rather than shelling us with half-baked ideas in the form of unwanted activism.
Charles Koontz
Lovett '97
This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 1, 1995 issue.
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