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Thursday, May 20, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION
I
once had an interaction with
my high school physics teacher
that has stuck with me ever
since. During one of the weekly
chats we’d have in her classroom
after school, I wondered out loud
why neither evolution nor the Big
Bang theory were covered in the
biology or physics curricula. My
teacher explained to me that being
in a town drenched in parochial
ideology, there was a don’t ask, don’t
tell policy covering the teaching
of evolution. Science instructors
were encouraged to not teach the
subject and to only field questions
when asked. While not surprising
to me in light of the culture of my
hometown — Ortonville, Mich. — it
was infuriating to know that social
pressure was pushing my science
teachers to avoid evolution in their
general science courses. No law was
restricting them. Only the fear of
becoming a social pariah was in the
way of them providing students with
a scientifically complete education.
What
is
happening
in
my
hometown is not an anomaly in the
contemporary United States. A 2019
survey reported that only 67% of
public high school biology teachers
present Charles Darwin’s theory
of evolution by natural selection
as the scientific consensus. This
is an increase from past surveys,
but still quite low given that the
theory of evolution is one of the
most championed theories in all
of biology. One out of every three
teachers is not portraying evolution
by natural selection as the robust
scientific theory that it is — a theory
that has been fortified with new
evidence every year since it was first
proposed. This presents obstacles to
students who wish to further their
science education at postsecondary
institutions. More worrisome is
that evolution denial propagates
ignorance and scientific illiteracy —
issues all the more pertinent in light
of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Legal prohibitions on the public
instruction of evolutionary theory
do not hold anymore, but teachers’
apprehension
about
teaching
evolution as agreed-upon science
indicates that traditionalist mores
still weigh down the American public
education system. Bans on teaching
evolution in public schools is as old
as the theory itself. One of the first
major conflicts between scientific
educators and conservative policy
makers in U.S. history was the
Scopes Trial of 1925. This legal case
concerned a Tennessee public school
teacher who taught evolutionary
theory despite a Tennessee law
prohibiting instruction of human
evolution in any school that received
state funding. This trial catalyzed
the debate between creationism and
evolutionary theory. From then on,
legal challenges to the instruction
of evolution and natural selection in
public schools have been mounted
by many Christian groups — usually
those from evangelical traditions —
with varying degrees of success.
Now, I cannot criticize those
1920s Tennessee creationist policy
makers too virulently, as at that time
evolution was not a majority-held
belief among Christians nor society
at large. But criticism is warranted
for contemporary teachers and
education boards who are still
reluctant to teach evolutionary
theory and natural selection in light
of the now 160 years of evidence —
including the crucial discovery of
DNA and genes — that provide robust
support for evolution. And while I
understand that some regions of the
country have intense negative social
sanctions against anti-creationist
rhetoric that can be hard for teachers
to overcome, it is more important that
teachers plan science curriculum
around empirical observations than
socially-pressured traditional beliefs.
This is not to say that learning
about religious practice has no room
in education — just that it does not
belong in scientific curriculum at
the expense of silencing scientific
fact. A more apt place would be in
the domain of social studies, with an
emphasis on the diversity of religious
practice. But having evolutionary
theory not presented to students
within
their
science
courses
promotes widespread ignorance
and scientific illiteracy, two issues
detrimental if a society wishes to
better itself. Denying students the
knowledge that many biologists view
as foundational to their discipline
serves ideology much more than
it serves education.
O
n
Thursday,
April
22,
representatives
from
the Graduate Employees’
Organization met with University of
Michigan administrators to discuss
an important campus free speech
issue — the right to exercise freedom
of conscience through the refusal
of letters of recommendation. The
discussion revealed the University’s
policy for what it is: an attack on
academic freedom designed not
to protect students or faculty, but
only to shield the University from
controversy and liability.
This right has been under attack
at the University of Michigan since
2018, when two instructors, in
separate incidents, declined requests
for recommendations from students
wishing to study in Israel. Writing
these letters would have gone against
the academic boycott of Israel in
support of Palestinian human rights,
and both instructors declined them
for that reason. Even though Professor
John Cheney-Lippold was exercising
his constitutional right to free speech,
University leaders nevertheless issued
severe sanctions, including the loss of
his upcoming sabbatical and a denial
of a merit-based raise for one year. The
graduate student instructor received a
formal letter of admonishment from
her department chair with implied
threats of dismissal from the graduate
program if such behavior were to
happen again. What’s more, President
Schlissel and then-Provost Martin
Philbert issued a public statement that
denounced both instructors.
The punishment meted out to
Professor Cheney-Lippold and the
public statement from the most
powerful University leaders was
meant to warn campus faculty of
the price for academic freedom, and
potentially had a chilling effect on
those who might otherwise speak
out if they did not feel threatened. But
the University wanted to make sure
this wouldn’t happen again, so they
convened a so-called Blue Ribbon
Panel to devise a policy that would
govern letters of recommendation.
The resulting policy is a strident
attack on free speech. It doesn’t
prohibit instructors from denying
letters
of
recommendation
for
political or ethical reasons, but only
from vocalizing those reasons. This
did not sit well with GEO members,
who
voted
overwhelmingly
to
oppose the policy in our 2020
contract negotiations. Much has
been written about “The Palestine
Exception to Free Speech,” which
describes the way norms of freedom
of expression are so often bent to
exclude those who would speak
out for justice in Palestine. Despite
the ongoing assault on Palestinian
lives and human rights, however,
our problem with the University’s
policy on letters of recommendation
is not just about Palestine. More and
more, instructors are starting to see
letters of recommendation as an
important site of political opposition
and learning. There is a growing
movement among mathematicians
to refuse to write letters for privacy-
violating surveillance organizations,
like the National Security Agency.
There is also the longstanding
trend of declining recommendation
requests for Teach for America
applicants. We can think of a whole
host of objectionable organizations
—
ExxonMobil,
Raytheon,
U.S.
Immigration
and
Customs
Enforcement or U.S. Rep. Marjorie
Taylor Greene’s, R-Ga., congressional
office — to which an instructor
may want to vocally refuse to write
letters of recommendation. Being
able to voice the reason for denying a
letter of recommendation is a critical
component of any boycott, and
GEO is proud to stand against this
indefensible policy.
GEO ultimately won a meeting
with U-M administrators to discuss
the policy and how it will be
implemented. The discussion left
us only with a clearer sense of how
poorly thought-out and difficult
to implement the policy is. While
U-M administrators made repeated
reference to fears of discrimination
as justification for the policy, they
were never able to explain how Teach
for America applicants could be
understood as a group that could be
discriminated against.
Let America’s educators teach
science without the stigma
GEO’s Fight for the Right to Boycott
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AMIR FLEISCHMANN | CONTRACT COMMITTEE CO-CHAIR
BENJAMIN DAVIS | OPINION COLUMNIST
Benjamin Davis is an Opinion Columnist
and can be reached at bendav@umich.edu.
Amir Fleischmann is the Contract
Committee Co-Chair at the University
of Michigan’s Graduate Employees
Organization and can be reached at
contractchair@geo3550.org.
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