My husband and I look forward to Michigan Today . For once a Michigan publication raises a question of serious general concern instead of projecting the usual stuffy, corporate image that is more appropriate for General Motors, your neighbors to the east. Hentoff is certainly right when he avers that the university may be the last place in our society where free speech is possible. Very little learning is done by listening or looking, whether the professor reads the textbook, delivers a brilliant entertaining opinion or scribbles on a blackboard. This holds for all fields and is being seriously considered by public schools now.
Omnipotent professors lecturing the masses are irrelevant to education.
In the new system, grades, if any, or certificates of mastery, come from demonstrated competence, not faculty whim, and might be issued by an outside board. Most faculty would love to lose the adversarial or judgmental role over students' lives. The power issue would vanish. Professors should be permitted to be human, to have biases and make mistakes, but they are also hired for compassion, wisdom and judgment as proven in their fields of research. The bottom line is that the universities should follow the spirit of the First Amendment or the nation will lose it.