Jammie Price, a tenured professor of sociology at Appalachian State University, was suspended last month after showing a documentary about pornography in her introductory sociology class. She’s fighting the charges, saying the university is attempting to punish her for exercising her right to free speech in the classroom....It was an anti-porn documentary. But the students were not warned that these sequences were part of the movie. And there were other charges against Price.
Price said the film, which she checked out from the university library, was graphic at times but academically relevant to that week’s topic of gender and sexuality. A Wheelock College professor who helped make the movie said it was “ludicrous” to discipline an instructor for showing the documentary, noting that interviews with gender studies scholars figure prominently in the film, which is critical of the porn industry but also includes brief explicit scenes of porn.
According to the disciplinary letter, she "'made disparaging, inaccurate remarks about student athletes,' strayed from her syllabus, forced her political views on students, said she didn’t like working at the university and criticized the college for having an old white coal miner as its mascot."
Price, a tenured full professor, said she had originally planned a lecture for that day but decided to show the film instead after a student complained earlier in the week that Price was hostile toward athletes. That allegation, which was included in Price’s disciplinary letter, centered on a classroom discussion about sexual assault accusations leveled against Appalachian State athletes and a resulting campus protest....It sounds as though the film was experienced by the students as a form of retaliation for the students' resisting what they felt was political indoctrination. But so what? Are students entitled to feel comfortable?
Price said she feared the athlete who complained would think her lecture on gender and sexuality was a form of retaliation, so instead she decided to screen the film.
But it's usually the left side of the faculty that pushes for university rules and policies that protect the students from free expression that makes them feel bad. It's an interesting turnabout when a faculty member is suddenly confronting the students with shocking, sexually demeaning images. What happens to all the usual worries about sexual harassment then? And what if the professor really does feel hostile to the students, hostile to them because of their political viewpoint — specifically on the subject of the sexual subordination of women?
Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College, was a senior consultant for “The Price of Pleasure” and was interviewed in the film...Talking about.... Are images different?
While she said professors should warn students about the content of the film and tell them they can leave without any repercussions (something Price didn’t do), she can’t understand why Appalachian State is taking action against Price. “This is what education is,” Dines said. “You expose them to the reality of the world they live in and you use that exposure to develop a critical scholarly discussion in class, which is exactly what she did.”...
“Sometimes students are going to be uncomfortable,” Price said. “The material they learn isn’t always going to be rosy. They talk about racism, they talk about sexism. Nowhere does it say we’re supposed to make them feel good all the time. Talking about pornography is one of those examples.”
Let's flip the politics and try this hypothetical:
A law professor is conservative, and the students tip leftward. The subject has been abortion, and the students have manifested a staunch commitment to abortion rights and seem to reflexively reject any efforts to explore the rights or interests of the unborn entity. So the professor puts together the next day's Power Point slide show, beginning, in typical fashion, with case names and key quotes from cases. "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
Without warning, the next slide is a highly detailed picture of a delicate fetus sucking its thumb, with a quick click forward to the most gruesome dead-fetus photo the professor could find on the internet. The lecture continues, and the professor starts calling on students, requiring them to participate in Socratic dialogue — which counts for part of their grade. As individual students are speaking, trying to articulate the rationale in the abortion rights cases, the professor from time to time clicks back to a grisly or charming fetus photos.
The students go to the dean and complain. Questioned, the professor says: Students might like to feel comfortable, but this subject isn't rosy. Nowhere does it say we’re supposed to make them feel good all the time. Talking about abortion is one of those examples.
Discuss. Be consistent!
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Similarly, would it be appropriate for a professor to show a picture of Obama devouring a dog?
Seems to me the real issue is that we have coddled an entire generation and brainwashed them into being hypersensitive about anything that might be perceived as offensive by someone, somewhere.
The Onion had a video of porn actress career ruined by enthusiastically dropping the n-word on her partner, and everyone was scandalized and offended.
That's the video to show.
The sociology of taking offense.
First - no one has a right to feel comfortable. However,
This: "She’s fighting the charges, saying the university is attempting to punish her for exercising her right to free speech in the classroom...."
What right to free speech in the classroom? The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot restrict your speech. It does not restrict employers from controlling what's said by their employees within their facilities.
In math, just cover the material.
In sociology, I'd suggest Goffman, who would have used the film to demonstrate norms and pretend norms and how the gaps are covered so that everybody feels good about themselves.
Putting aside whether to study a particular subject, if you are going to do so, it is best to face it head on in reality, not in some sanitized or theoretical manner.
If discussing porn, a look at what it actually consists of reminds you of what you're talking about; same with abortion.
interviews with gender studies scholars figure prominently... made disparaging, inaccurate remarks about student athletes... forced her political views on students... criticized the college for having an old white coal miner as its mascot.
Hard to be outraged. Let her twist in the wind.
Let's flip the politics and try this hypothetical
A conservative doing this with abortion would have been burned at the stake.
Oh sure, there was a day when I would defend her right to free speech. No longer. I'm weary of extending rights to those who would deny me the same rights.
Abortion hypothetical: somebody says it's not the sacredness of life but its cuteness.
That would undercut the Althouse technique.
Let's take a step back...
It's a sociology class. There are no right answers. What did you expect to learn?
Snickers and sideways glances not withstanding, why is porn demeaning? Is it to be attacked by using terms like "demeaning" because it threatens the complete monopoly the fairer sex has on access to the vajayjay?
Full disclosure for a teacher to his/her students should always be the default.
It sounds like the professor spends too much time lecturing her students on non-class material. And lecturing I mean hectoring.
What right to free speech in the classroom? The First Amendment guarantees that the government cannot restrict your speech. It does not restrict employers from controlling what's said by their employees within their facilities.
The employer is the state. Appalachian State is a public university.
"Discuss. Be consistent!"
Well sure, but that hardly seems appropriate in discussing an academy unmoored from teaching and committed to ideological indoctrination.
Once the academy cleanses itself of its now earnest commitment to indoctrination, we can discuss consistent standards across the board.
Right now, it's just a jungle of loony leftists of one degree or another.
After the postmodern revolution, the professors were surprised to find their own weapons used against them, their history now repeated as farce.
I would normally defend a professor's ability to have discussions about disagreeable things, but will not, much as the left has refused to allow hiring anyone not also a leftist, and has long denied this same latitude for anyone but themselves.
"The Price is wrong, bitch."
It is encouraging that the showing of graphic human acts such as war, torture, infanticide, and Nazi medical experiments can still cause a reaction.
Why human sexuality remains the taboo in the internet age is the big question.
Is it more of the pretense of moral standards kept in a museum and rarely raised aloft under a "save the children" emotion?
20 years ago a showing of homosexual criminal acts were not permitted either. Today the major Christian denominations openly honor gay persons into their leadership.
But if morality still requires setting a standard of what is prohibited and what is rewarded, then a discussion of all ideas is needed and can be made to sound all scientific.
Ergo: Be consistent and let them teach pornography too.
So the professor puts together the next day's Power Point slide show... with a quick click forward to the most gruesome dead-fetus photo the professor could find on the internet. The lecture continues, and the professor starts calling on students... As individual students are speaking, trying to articulate the rationale in the abortion rights cases, the professor from time to time clicks back to a grisly or charming fetus photos.
That's less a discussion of "what's out there in the world" than a professor administering a half-assed "A Clockwork Orange" aversion therapy.
So long as the course description described (in general terms) what the course was actually about, it seems like fair game to me. On the other hand, I've seen arguments from Stanford legal counsel that free speech form students should be stifled for political correctness.
Also, from my experience, leftists have a difficult time compartmentalizing. As an instance, one of my history exams was marked down when I said "Hitler was a military genius." For instance, he took out the Maginot line by thinking out of the box. I was told "But he killed so many Jews!" Argue against that. I was marked down.
First, stare decisis is fully operative here except to prevent the well-known legal ratchet effect.
[Ratchet (răch'ĭt) n:
1. A mechanical device that transmits intermittent motion or permits a shaft to rotate in one direction but not in the opposite one.
I think shaft is the crux of the definition.]
I believe the correct conclusion is that if the sluts are walking it is favored and no further analysis is required, but if the sluts are on the screen, further analysis is required.
Unfortunately, that further analysis is bifurcated by the 'circuit split', so to speak, on whether porn is degrading to women or exalting of women who made personal choices.
"The employer is the state. Appalachian State is a public university."
Yes, but they didn't let that stop them from instituting a speech code.
You, undoubtedly, missed that.
Freder Frederson Fails, again.
Dante, I would say Hitler was far from a military genius. The more control he took over the military, the worse they performed. Stalingrad was all his doing.
Disputing due to him killing Jews is retarded. He is evil for that. He is a military idiot for Stalingrad.
My first question is Why is this a course that leads to any degree of any sort at all?
Introductory sociology is just Underwater Basketweaving with words.
Free speech in the classroom because it's a State school? The employee is required to perform the work for which he/she was hired. A secretary can't spend the day gabbing and then decry her termination as a violation of her "free speech" rights just because her employer is the government. A professor is hired to teach a particular subject in an appropriate, professional manner. Failure to do so is not protected under "free speech" or any other clause. As for the porn/abortion comparison, do prochoicers really get upset about images of fetuses, dead or alive? Don't they always just say, "that's no more or less icky than footage of surgery from TV documentaries"? Isn't the complaint about showing those images at protests the fact that they can be disturbing to children?
When I was in graduate school, a guest lecturer once showed a Czech gay porn movie featuring young men having sex on a jungle-gym in the middle of a forest, followed by Douglas Sirk's "Imitation Of Life". I don't recall the ensuing seminar discussion, except that the lecturer remarked that Lana Turner's first name is "anal" spelled backwards.
People were embarrassed and shocked (about the gay porn, not the Sirk), and the chair of the department left early, but no one complained and no one was suspended, at least that I recall.
Introductory sociology is just Underwater Basketweaving with words.
It's harder than that, though, as every single section available is also left-handed. They couldn't find a right-handed instructor that would stop asking why it had be to taught underwater.
I dont have a dog in this particular fight, but I submit this is more of an issue of academic freedom than free speech as posited by the professor.
IMO "free speech," and "academic freedom" overlap and honestly, I have no idea to where the draw the line, as long as the academic institution has attempted to draw the line somewhere.
just my .02
If a professor is mocking students, many of whom have to take her course...then why shoukd I empathize?
Condemning student athletes as a whole due to accusations of some is absurd. Sounds like Prof pitched a hussy fit.
the employer is the state
True. And as long as her speech isn't ILLEGAL, it is not relevant. The state as her employer can fire for speech.
If she called students the "n" word, how long would she remain employed?
I am listening to President Obama right now. He is especially ponderous this afternoon.
This doesn't sound like actionable behavior, although for an introductory class a warning would have been nice.
I like the idea of gender studies scholars.
I am listening to President Obama right now. He is especially ponderous this afternoon.
Where is Obama speaking that it's currently after noon?
First, there's all kinds of uncomfortable - it's one thing for a prof to intellectually challenge students, it's quite another to hold specific ones up for ridicule.
Second, this sounds like a junior or senior year subject, not something for introductory Soc (which I barely remember from sophomore year) and, yes, she should have warned people about the movie.
Third, sounds like Jammie (she's got problems with athletes with a name like that?) needs to get over herself. She sounds like she's a poster child for everything wrong with a lot of Liberal Arts profs today and has been since I was in undergrad school.
So, discipline her (if she reads "Fifty Shades Of Gray" (and I'll bet she does), she might like it), reprimand her, but that's it.
PS Is this gonna be on the Final?
P0rnography is demeaning. Except when it is empowering.
I have a completely different take on this.
--Price said she feared the athlete who complained would think her lecture on gender and sexuality was a form of retaliation, so instead she decided to screen the film.---
Why did she feel she needed to show a porn documentary to get the kids talking about this topic?
She did this for shock factor because she thought she could.
There is no such thing as a "gender studies scholar."
--So, discipline her (if she reads "Fifty Shades Of Gray" (and I'll bet she does), she might like it), reprimand her, but that's it.--
Wait a couple of years and I think she'll be able to show the movie in class.
Scott-
He is not speaking where it is afternoon, but I am listening where it is afternoon.
--P0rnography is demeaning. Except when it is empowering.---
The recent episode of Glee, one of the characters put their sex tape out on the net.
So is it porn or empowering?
The recent episode of Glee, one of the characters put their sex tape out on the net.
So is it porn or empowering?
That depends on the career you want to pursue. It could be a resume.
I should revise my comment; upon reflection, I'll wager that most the students in that class didn't give a shit. It was a small, perhaps tiny minority, who are offended at everything. The dean Now Must Do Something; the solution can't possibly be to tell the immature alarmist to fuck off and grow up.
So, once again, regardless of the merits of the professor, the whiners again win the day.
Yes, but they didn't let that stop them from instituting a speech code.
Wow, suddenly speech codes are okay? As Althouse says; be consistent. Don't whine about how conservatives are persecuted using unconstitutional speech codes as justification and then turn around and endorse them when it's speech you don't like.
The mistake is viewing college students as adults, I suppose. Certainly, whenever I got in trouble as an adjunct it was from making that assumption ...
One cannot make a porno movie starring Madame Albright. One cannot fashion a gourmet meal out of dog food. If porn is defined as material that arouses one's prurient interest in sex, one cannot show pornography in a sociology class. The aims and purposes of these activities are just too contradictory. The purpose of modern sociological studies is to make the penis wither and die. I'm sure that this documentary was the antithesis of pornography. Whatever indiscretion the professor committed, it was not showing pornography.....To be consistent with your example, it would be like an anti abortion professor showing the The Bad Seed or Mommy Dearest to illustrate the evils of abortion.
@Joe
Yes, but they didn't let that stop them from instituting a speech code.
Wow, suddenly speech codes are okay?
I don't think that was his point. Someone asked what free speech rights exist in a classroom, to which Freder said it was a public university in an attempt, I suppose, to say that 1st Amendment protections applied. The answer, to which you replied, was addressed to Freder and made the point that if a teacher or student has 1st Amendment protections in a public university's classroom, how can a public university arbitrarily set up a speech code?
FIRE's efforts in this realm have been stunning, to say the least. A perfect example of using light to disinfect.
Feminists are Sociopaths.
The purpose of modern sociological studies is to make the penis wither and die.
If you're saying that the assault by moderns (read leftists) on traditional social arrangements under the guise of sociological studies is an assault on joy and therefore an assault on the stiff prick, I'm with you. But maybe you're saying something different?
The recent episode of Glee, one of the characters put their sex tape out on the net.
So is it porn or empowering?
Neither. Santana was mortified that it was out there, even though she understood why Brit did it. It was a good lesson for Santana.
ricpic said...
There is no such thing as a "gender studies scholar."
Of course there is. You can get a PhD in it, but you'll owe $87,000 in student loans and you won't be able to get a job, but it will give you an excuse to join the Occupation and hold up a sign bemoaning your fate.
--One cannot fashion a gourmet meal out of dog food.--
KranMar's Delicious Mystery Appetizer.
One of the best shows ever. LOLOLOL
I've been thinking of that one a lot lately.
I would love for the Dean to tell the insignificant whining tenured lecturer to fuck off.
I don't think that's going to happen. Maybe she needs a sabbatical?
"I'll wager that most the students in that class didn't give a shit. It was a small, perhaps tiny minority, who are offended at everything. The dean Now Must Do Something; the solution can't possibly be to tell the immature alarmist to fuck off and grow up.
So, once again, regardless of the merits of the professor, the whiners again win the day."
yep- This. She's got good reviews on rate your professor, for whatever that is worth. But she was criticizing the administration. That is far more dangerous then showing the film in class and it is most likely why she was suspended.
Profs should warn students about shocking images. I'd go further --Profs shouldn't show shocking images for career reasons. Too dangerous. Administrations feel they must do something, and legislators sometimes get involved.
North America is a culture of whiners. Did you hear of the academic who was suspended for screening Paris Is Burning? Or the gay faculty who was targeted by state legislators in Atlanta?
The problem with your analogy and discussion, Althouse, is that you are completely missing the moral aspect of the story- at least from the perspective of some of those students.
The act of watching pornography is not one of mere uncomfortableness. Many religious (and no doubt some non-religious people as well) believe that the act of watching the video is morally wrong. Yes, you can argue that the students who believe this can shut their eyes, but that is not a very good solution, is it?
North America is a culture of whiners.
Assume this is true. Was it always thus? If not, how did we get to this point?
If this was an introductory class it's likely to almost a sure thing that there was at least one student who is not yet 18.
Also, as a student, you're trapped. You pay. You have to get a good grade. You're never Sure how much freedom of speech you have or dare to have.
If students are not entitled to be comfortable, is the same true of the professor?
Free speech is awesome.
Censorship sucks.
She should fight. I hope she wins.
A conservative doing this with abortion would have been burned at the stake.
I think there's a tremendous amount of repression over abortion. But I don't know if you can blame liberals for this repression, if you don't have pro-lifers risking their careers for the pro-life cause.
Marxists risked their careers all the time! If you want free speech for your cause, fight. You're going to have suffer, too, probably.
You have to commit to free speech.
Also, you need to recognize that you are going to have people who have had abortions sitting in your classroom. I think one of the reasons we repress is a sensitivity to people who have already had abortions, and feel bad about it.
All those Marxists from the free speech cases in the 1950's didn't have to worry about upset women fleeing their classrooms in tears.
But the problem with that is that a whole new generation of unsuspecting women grows up thinking that abortion is no big deal. Our failure to talk about it, to warn people, is a disgrace.
Look, people need freedom of speech. And room to make mistakes. That dean is a coward and I don't have much respect for him, at least on those facts.
Free speech would be like this:
Every day the class met, before it started, one of the students (possibly an athlete, but any student this teacher disapproves of would do) stands up and says, "This class is a waste of my time. My brain gets smaller when ever I'm in this class. It's a scam to get my money and taxpayer support for utterly unemployable and worthless professors. Thank you. "
Find out who is the whiner then.
"Assume this is true. Was it always thus? If not, how did we get to this point?"
I think it's relatively new. Maybe it was the every-kid-gets-a-trophy-culture. The gentleman's C is a think of the past. Everybody gets a gold star and an A.
Grade inflation is out-of-control. And grade complaints are common. Administrations just want to keep everybody happy and raise tuition. Students pay a lot of $$$ for tuition.
So A grades (or B plus) for everybody! And don't ever say or assign any materials in class that might cause a complaint.
The act of watching pornography is not one of mere uncomfortableness. Many religious (and no doubt some non-religious people as well) believe that the act of watching the video is morally wrong.
I took Psychology of Sex/Sexual Deviation as an undergraduate. We saw academic porn all the time. Believe me, there's no lust. What kind of porn do you think they have in the school library?
In any event, censoring porn does not make sex go away. We've had sex (and infanticide, and rape) a lot longer than we've had porn. Better to talk about these things freely and not repress. Open and free discussion, that's the ticket.
Comfort (with strength) is a precondition of learning. So is relaxation. A teacher who wants/allows a student to be uncomfortable in a pedagogical context, or, a student who wants/allows a teacher to be, attacks that context. Learning and teaching are not warfare. They are gardening.
Furthermore, a student paying for an education reverses the economics and therefore the authority of the pedagogical enterprise. The teacher should pay all costs of a student's education. This rights the economics and therefore the vector of authority in that enterprise.
And whining to authorities is the mark of the wussy.
Also, as a student, you're trapped. You pay. You have to get a good grade.
According to Rate My Professor dot com, all you have to do to get an A in the class is show up.
Lame!
@Canuck, do you live in North America, ya whiner? :)
Better to talk about these things freely and not repress. Open and free discussion, that's the ticket.
Really? How has that worked out for us?
Why would anyone think a professor has something to teach them about sociology (or porn for that matter) when they have the internet at their fingertips?
Why pay for what you can get for free?
having an old white coal miner as its mascot
Interesting, either she's not very bright or Inside Hihger Ed didn't do it's homework very well. Yosef the ASU Mountaineer has always been a hillbilly. There is no coal mined in that part of the Blue Ridge, so a coal miner would make little sense.
"@Canuck, do you live in North America, ya whiner? :)"
:) right now yep! & not whining about it. A beautiful spring day!
Maybe she's in trouble because most of Appalachian State's student-athletes are black, and so she's racist.
Or maybe, because of her propensity to go off syllabus and push her political agenda, she's simply unprofessional.
Frankly, I'd fire her for that alone.
"I don't think that was his point."
Bingo.
Thanks Scott. M, for getting the point, and for making it clearer to those who would intentionally misread or misstate my point for their own ends.
Dante said, “one of my history exams was marked down when I said "Hitler was a military genius. For instance, he took out the Maginot line by thinking out of the box. I was told "But he killed so many Jews!"
Well, obviously you would have done better to point out that Hitler supported abortion rights. Thus leading to the not-entirely-logical syllogism:
Hitler favored abortion rights,
You favor abortion rights,
Therefore you are like Hitler.
In any case, while your history exam grader was illogical, few have considered Hitler a military genius. “Military bungler” is a more common assessment, especially when it came to throwing away troops’ lives with orders forbidding retreat under any circumstances (especially during the campaign against the USSR).
As for going around the Maginot line, this is just what many (including at least a few French) expected. After all, Germany had attacked France through Belgium in World War I, so the idea that they just might do so again shouldn’t have been a great surprise.
Even if one admitted that it was possible to go around the Maginot Line (and after looking at a map, who could deny it?) it would still have had military value just because it would force an invader to go around it.
What was a surprise is that Germany attacked through the Ardennes forest. Many apparently thought that all but impossible- until it was done, of course.
Although you might have confused your grader even more (but reduced your grade) if you’d noted that Hitler was said to be kind to dogs, and children seemed to like him (when he wasn’t murdering them, of course).
ripic opines,
"There is no such thing as a 'gender studies scholar.'"
Please, ripic and like-minded know-nothing-know-it-all babblers upthread, do elighten us as to why there is no such thing. Please, august expert that you are on what is and is not scholarship, do fucking tell.
How can the University complain that she showed something in their own library?
Here's a trailer from the film she showed in class.
Ugh! I detest feminism so much, especially the sex-is-rape crowd, with their pornography rants.
You know, if you are going to teach sex, really teach it, you ought to bring in a hooker for a discussion. Then you would bring in a nun for a discussion. You would bring in a baby. Make the class watch a breast-feeding.
Maybe show them some veneral diseases. Here's what untreated syphillis looks like.
Field trip to the abortion clinic. Yay!
You'd show them gay porn, transvestites, S&M. You'd have to be open to it all. And if you can't teach that, if all you know is "sex is rape," then you shouldn't really teach it.
Tell us, harrowgate, what scholarly merit does hate white males propaganda, i.e. gender studies, have?
ripic, you reveal your knowledge of the field of gender studies to be astounding. I wonder what you've actually read. I mean, seriously.
No doubt harrogate learned about some interesting gender roles in his prison.
So the flick was named "The Price of Pleasure", and the professor's name was Jammie Price?
Really???
What was a surprise is that Germany attacked through the Ardennes forest. Many apparently thought that all but impossible- until it was done, of course.
Uh no. When Churchill visited and inspected the Maginot Line, he noted that gap in the Ardennes and inquired about it. The French told him that the gap was deliberate, as a way to "channel" the German forces into a kill zone.
The French were not surpised by the German attack, they were surprised by the quickness of it.
The sad thing is that professors at small mountain colleges used to be proud that they were teaching dirt poor Appalachian people who worked hard to get to college.
This woman apparently despises her job, her school, her students' families, her students' beliefs and ideals, and her students. But since she chose to teach "gender studies", we know she already despised half of the human race.
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