Double Standard in Academic Life

This was reported this week. A student mentioned that there were several Islamic countries that murder sexual minorities. A professor then made an implicit threat of reporting him to something called “Behavioral Intervention Team.” I thought I was living in 2017 and not 1984.

To be fair it was clarified by a college office that the Behavioral Intervention Team does not engage in discipline. The professor may have merely wanted to use the scary sounding name to intimidate the student. Of course even if this team is not engaging in discipline today, there is no reason that they will refuse to do so in the future. This would not be the first time that an organization has evolved into something that it was not meant to be. At the very least those who established the Behavioral Intervention Team were pretty careless in the way they named this group.

But even if the professor’s threat was groundless, it is disturbing that she thought it appropriate to intervene in a discussion between the student and a classmate. Now it may well have been that the student was rude in the way he expressed his attitude towards Muslims. Talking about how bad some Muslims are does not seem like an appropriate topic right after finding out that a classmate is engaged to a Muslim. Indeed when I was engaged to my wife, had someone told me about how some whites were nationalists and supporters of the alt-right, then that person would not have enjoyed the way I would look at him/her. I do not know if the student originally was rude but it would not surprise me if that were the case.

But you know what? Some people are rude. That is life. I would not need some professor to intervene for me. (By the way I do not know if the engaged student told the professor and that is why she got involved. Even if that is the case, it is the responsibly of the professor to decide what to do.) This is the sort of action that gives higher education a bad name. It is why sometimes students are called snowflakes. By the time one is in college, one needs to know how to deal with rude people. I am not taking about those who threaten them or harass them. But plain rudeness is part of the human condition. By the time you are in college, you should have realized this and have learned how to deal with it.

But let us not miss the elephant in the room. It cannot be ignored that the professor was very eager to protect the dignity of Muslims. Note this portion of the exchange the professor had with the student. Browning is the professor and MacDonald is the student.

MACDONALD: I said that I was bothered that I could be killed in 10 Muslim countries. I’m bisexual. So they’d definitely do that in the 10 countries where I would be— you know.
BROWNING: Doesn’t that strike you as an inappropriate thing to say about someone’s fiance?
MACDONALD: I wasn’t talking about the fiance. The fiance could have whatever interpretation of the religion that they want. I said something like…(thinking) that I…yeah it wasn’t about the fiance, it was about the religious practices in those countries.
BROWNING: How is it appropriate to bring that up in connection with someone’s fiance?
MACDONALD: They brought it up. The Islam part.
BROWNING: And you brought up the threat to your life as posed by this fiance?
MACDONALD: No. We got to the subject of Islam, not the fiance.
BROWNING: Do you understand how someone would find that offensive?

Now imagine whether we would see an exchange like this:

MACDONALD: I said that I was bothered that a lot of Christians do not like bisexuals. They definitely do not— you know.
BROWNING: Doesn’t that strike you as an inappropriate thing to say about someone’s fiance?
MACDONALD: I wasn’t talking about the fiance. The fiance could have whatever interpretation of the religion that they want. I said something like…(thinking) that I…yeah it wasn’t about the fiance, it was about the religious practices among those Christians.
BROWNING: How is it appropriate to bring that up in connection with someone’s fiance?
MACDONALD: They brought it up. The Christian part.
BROWNING: And you brought up the threat to your life as posed by this fiance?
MACDONALD: No. We got to the subject of Christianity, not the fiance.
BROWNING: Do you understand how someone would find that offensive?

Do you think we will see such an interaction by a college professor in the near future? Me neither.

Quite simply there are religious groups that academics are willing to defend and those that they are not. This professor is willing to defend the reputation of Muslims even though there are Muslim countries where sexual minorities are killed. But we know that this professor will not defend Christians who are guilty of the much lesser crime of not approving of the practices of sexual minorities. It is a classic example of a double standard.

I know that some will argue that I cannot know that the professor would not defend Christians in the same situation. Please! I have done the work documenting the higher level of tolerance academics have for Muslims relative to Christians. Anyone who thinks that academics treat Christians, particularly conservative Christians, with the respect that Muslims are given is living in a fantasy world.

Furthermore, I challenge anyone to produce a situation whereby an academic has stood up for Christians in the way Browning has for Muslims. And do not make the argument that there is no such case because Christians are not disrespected in academia. I have my experiences and the experiences of many Christians who have talked to me that say otherwise. There is even research documenting the reality of anti-Christian incidents on college campuses.

I do not look at this particular episode as proof of the double standard. The evidence for this academic bias has already been well established. I do see this episode as an illustrative example of that double standard. It is a reminder that academics have a lot of work to do if they want to exhibit the tolerance so many of them profess to have.