In the April issue of the PAW there is a description of a new course on “The Constitution and the Presidency.” In the description, the course is noted to require students to read multitudes of documents, some hundreds of years old, “to support their judgments on pertinent issues, including some cases currently before the courts.” The article goes on to indicate that the professor teaching the course intentionally shields the students from his own personal views. Finally, the article ends with a quote from a student in the course: “I think it’s very helpful to just genuinely be able to enter a political theory class that is relatively unfettered by political biases.”
In the same issue of PAW, President Eisgruber expounds again on his support for academic freedom. While I agree fully with him that faculty should be able to pursue their research and their writings unfettered by political considerations, I continue to wait for a statement that Princeton is committed to developing the thinking and analytical skills of its students free of the pressure of classes, unlike what is described for this new course, in which the faculty push their own views on contentious issues as “the truth.” Let Princeton be the model: We are here to teach you how to think, not what to think.
In the April issue of the PAW there is a description of a new course on “The Constitution and the Presidency.” In the description, the course is noted to require students to read multitudes of documents, some hundreds of years old, “to support their judgments on pertinent issues, including some cases currently before the courts.” The article goes on to indicate that the professor teaching the course intentionally shields the students from his own personal views. Finally, the article ends with a quote from a student in the course: “I think it’s very helpful to just genuinely be able to enter a political theory class that is relatively unfettered by political biases.”
In the same issue of PAW, President Eisgruber expounds again on his support for academic freedom. While I agree fully with him that faculty should be able to pursue their research and their writings unfettered by political considerations, I continue to wait for a statement that Princeton is committed to developing the thinking and analytical skills of its students free of the pressure of classes, unlike what is described for this new course, in which the faculty push their own views on contentious issues as “the truth.” Let Princeton be the model: We are here to teach you how to think, not what to think.