WTVH reports:
A graduate student at LeMoyne College has been expelled for writing a paper on his opinion that corporal punishment should be allowed in the classroom. Scott McConnell was working on his master’s degree in the science education program at LeMoyne. He wrote his “Classroom Management Plan” paper in November. After receiving an A- on the paper from his professor, the college decided to expel McConnell. . . .
LeMoyne released the following statement on the matter: “If we believe a student is not suitable for classroom instruction based on his or her educational philosophy we have an obligation that is consistent with the College’s mission and that upholds New York State law and education regulations.” . . .
Now it’s possible there’s something omitted from the story, and LeMoyne’s actions were based on something other than just McConnell’s opinion about what should be allowed. But if the story is accurate and reasonably complete, this seems just appalling: A student expresses his views that some education policy is changed, and then he’s expelled?
Here, in fact, is a powerful criticism of LeMoyne College’s actions:
A college or university is a marketplace of ideas, and it cannot fulfill its purposes of transmitting, evaluating, and extending knowledge if it requires conformity with any orthodoxy of content and method. In the words of the United States Supreme Court, “Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die.”
These words come from The LeMoyne College Faculty Handbook — Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.
UPDATE:
This news story provides more data. First, it suggests that the student wasn’t expelled as such, but rather that he had been “conditionally accepted last summer and fall and was expecting to be fully accepted this spring,” had taken classes at the school (including the one for which he read this paper), but then had his conditional acceptance revoked. I don’t think this changes the academic freedom issue, but I thought I’d note it in any case.
The story also quotes the acceptance withdrawal letter, written by the program’s director, as saying that “I have grave concerns regarding the mismatch between your personal beliefs regarding teaching and learning and the Le Moyne College program goals.” It goes on to say that the student “said he’s also been trying to find out what Leogrande meant by ‘mismatch.’ College administrators have told him, he said, that it stems from the four-page ‘Classroom Management Plan’ he submitted Nov. 2 for his Planning, Assessing and Managing Inclusive Classrooms class.
“In the opening paragraph of his essay, McConnell wrote: ‘I do not feel that multicultural education has a philosophical place or standing in an American classroom, especially one that I will teach. I also feel that corporal punishment has a place in the classroom and should be implemented when needed.’ He got an A for the course.”
The story goes on to give more details; please read it here. Nonetheless, this suggests to me that the initial press accounts were substantially true: The student expressed a view about the way education ought to be conducted that was contrary to the established orthodoxy; and as a result he was kicked out of the program to which he’d been conditionally admitted. Sounds like the university is “requir[ing] conformity with . . . orthodoxy of content and method.”
If they want to insist on such conformity, they are legally free to do so (as a private university, they aren’t bound by the First Amendment). But if that’s so, then they should make it clear to students, donors, and others, rather than singing paeans to academic freedom and then kicking out students for the very “inquir[y],” “evaluat[ion],” and participation in “a marketplace of ideas” that the university supposedly praises.
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