A small college in Massachusetts has shuttered a “men in literature” course based “on the grounds that it created a ‘hostile environment’ for women.”
The course, taught at Springfield College by English professor Dennis Gouws, marks a significant victory of “safe spaces” ideology over academic freedom.
“The real problem was that Professor Gouws was enunciating a point of view no longer welcome to the administrators at Springfield College,” Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, wrote for The Weekly Standard.
After Professor Gouws taught the class without controversy for about a decade, administrators found fault in it and canceled the course as a result of “a long campaign of petty hostility against him because of his scholarly and professional interest in ‘biological maleness,’” Wood wrote in a more detailed examination for NAS.
The expansion of Title IX in its power and control over universities has grown beyond concerns for civil rights and targeted unpopular arguments and perspectives in academia. In this instance, it appears to have squeezed out a teaching interest of a tenured professor. Once that precedent gets established, any professors who appear too conservative or too liberal for university administrators and students could face the threat of harassment.
“The coverage has missed a secondary consequence of the new Title IX regime: that it has handed a powerful new tool to campus feminists in the form of a virtually unlimited concept of ‘hostile environment,’” Wood wrote.
The controversy demonstrates the importance of academic freedom and how little it’s appreciated on campuses. Some bright spots occur, as with faculty at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities proposing a statement that enshrines free speech protections.
Professor Gouws remains at Springfield College, but does not teach “men in literature” anymore, though specialized classes for gender, ethnicity, and niche subjects remain. For students who want to focus on how maleness is used in literature, and argue any perspective, the administration has restricted their academic options.
