College classes are oozing with bias. Ohio State's Chase Center much needed.
Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, this is a slightly expanded version that goes into more detail. I truly appreciate the Dispatch for their willingness to include contrarian voices and headlines that help to sell newspapers.
Salmon P. Chase, Civil War era politician, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Governor of Ohio said: “The cause of constitutional liberty in America is not the cause of one political party or another, but the cause of every American citizen.”
While these wise words remain relevant, far too few of us have a well-informed understanding of our history or the responsibilities that produce the “blessings of liberty” promised in our Constitution. And this excess of ignorance leavened with a dearth of civility in our public and private discourse threatens the constitutional order .
Politicians reflect this worrisome culture as much as they influence it. And – setting aside ideology – we deserve the government that stems from such undisciplined discourse.
Fortunately, enough of us share these concerns to do something about it.
I was heartened by a recent meeting with Professor Lee Strang, Executive Director of the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at Ohio State. This month marks the first anniversary of his appointment to lead this new independent academic unit. It also marks the start of the Center’s first class on “the nature, rights, and responsibilities of American citizenship.”
This educational endeavor arrives just in time as decades of relative peace, inadequate education, and “Great Society” entitlements have deprived three generations of citizens of an understanding that the rights they alternatively belittle and demand also come with responsibilities.
Political partisans habitually identify their adversaries as a grave threat to our republic. But a far greater threat than this mutual finger pointing is the partisan biases that have oozed into the teaching of American history and civic responsibility.
The account of history that many of us learned four or more decades ago painted the United States in an overwhelmingly positive light that too often glossed over the reality of slavery and treatment of native Americans. More balance was needed. Unfortunately, what some called this whitewashed version of our national story was replaced with an even more skewed and less historically or contextually accurate version that found little to love and much to loath.
Rather than sowing the seeds of individual and engaged citizens that grow together to meet our constitutional promise of “a more perfect union,” such self-loathing instead yields a harvest of divisiveness.
Ohio lawmakers established the Chase Center in response to the reality that our taxpayer supported colleges and universities — including our flagship Ohio State — had become left-leaning, politically ideological monocultures. Rather than being bastions of free inquiry, dialogue, and debate, they were instead too often cloistered venues of dogmatic progressive activism.
Plenty of digital ink has been spilled by those horrified at what they deem to be political interference with academic freedom. While it would have been better for taxpayer-supported university faculty, administrators, and trustees to have managed their affairs without injecting their partisanship into their scholarship and university affairs, they had consistently failed to do so.
That the university senate, made up of faculty, students, administrators, and staff voted against establishing the Chase Center only proves that legislators were right to hold them to account.
The good news is that, despite overwhelming Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, our legislators were actually quite circumspect and balanced in crafting the measure that created the Chase Center and other similar entities at universities around Ohio. Even a quick review of this state law reveals entirely non-partisan language focused on intellectual diversity, informed citizenship, free speech, and civil discourse.
Equally good news is the leadership of Professor Strang himself. Beneath his easy-going demeanor is a teacher dedicated to the Socratic method, my favorite of all teaching styles. It’s less about professing and more about questioning. Students must rigorously defend their answers, which helps ensure that comprehensive understanding replaces dogmatic ignorance.
Modern pedagogy stresses the importance of critical thinking. While it’s hard to disagree with that objective, in practice it often puts the cart before the horse as it’s impossible to think critically about much of anything without having a comprehensive knowledge of it first.
At Ohio State, the Chase Center joins the Center for Ethics and Human Values with a related but different focus on teaching the skills for effective civil discourse. (Full disclosure, my family proudly provides financial support for the CEHV.)
When teachers prize inquiry over ideology, they train not just students, but citizens. By demanding civility, balance, and intellectual honesty from our educators, perhaps our politics will follow. The reverse has failed us too often to ignore the lesson any longer.
While it took a legislative shove, a new university president, and new trustees, I’m hopeful that my alma mater will return to its land grant roots to provide a classical, practical, scientific, and technical education for a well-informed and engaged citizenry. Which would be a nice addition to a world class football program and the Best Damn Band in the Land.