Professors getting too preachy? Some Ohio senators think so.

State Senators Mumper, Jordan, Cates and Wachtmann are endorsing a bill introduced in the Ohio Senate late last month, titled the Academic Bill of Rights for Higher Education.

If it becomes law in Ohio, instructors at colleges and universities — both public and private — would be discouraged, and in some cases, prohibited, from presenting “controversial matter” in the classroom.

So what’s okay to discuss and what’s not?

That’s a tough one.

The bill doesn’t really say. Its drafters spent a lot of time detailing how students need to be protected from controversial, one-sided professor rants, but not so much on exactly how a professor might overstep the boundaries.

It doesn’t define what ” controversial matter” is. It also doesn’t specify just how many times a professor must bring up that “controversial matter” in order for it to be considered an infringement of students’ rights. Under Bill 24, there is no way to determine if a violation has occurred, until it is battled out in court.

The four legislative masterminds who endorse this bill must know what they meant when they wrote it, though. Senator Larry Mumper, the primary sponsor of Bill 24, definitely knows.

Mumper’s perception of college professors is summarized by the idea that “80 percent of them are Democrats, liberals, socialists or card-carrying communists.” I won’t disagree that many university faculty members lean left politically. However, I don’t think that universities in Ohio face any imminent threat of a commie takeover anytime soon.

Even if professors are conspiring to brainwash us, isn’t it insulting that it is just assumed that we will so blindly follow?

In the four semesters I have studied at this university, I have only had one class where I felt the professor went overboard voicing political opinions. With each rant, the students took him less and less seriously. Nobody — and I mean nobody — who disagreed with the professor just sat there and took it. I witnessed eye-rolling, sighing, groaning and a variety of remarks made directly to that professor.

People may think that we need a law to keep faculty like this in line. What they fail to realize is that professors like this turn students off from considering their views. They never persuade anyone, because students are intelligent enough to understand the difference between being taught objective course content, and being subjected to some unrelated, ideological tirade.

So have some faith in us.

And have some faith in our faculty. They understand that if they abuse their power, they hurt both themselves and the practice of education in general.

These are people who have worked to earn multiple degrees and are dedicating their time to fueling the minds of the next generation.

These are people who had the determination and the ability to do nearly anything with their lives — and they chose to be here, educating us.

I doubt that is a responsibility they take lightly.

These professors do not deserve to have intellectual conversation stifled in their classrooms on account of Bill 24. They do not deserve to be intimidated out of discussing issues that matter just because a student might take offense to a comment that gets made in the process.

The bill also instructs professors that if they must discuss controversial subject matter which may be offensive to students, they must present all possible alternative viewpoints, and place equal emphasis upon each one.

All alternative viewpoints. Okay. So if I’m taking a class about, say, World War II, then my professor has to spend a day or two explaining that the Holocaust never happened? That’s an “alternative” take on the situation that I think we’re all familiar with, isn’t it?

Should a science professor instructing a biology class be forced to say, “and now, we move on to Creationism…” ?

This bill claims that it means only to protect “the academic freedom of students,” but quite frankly, I don’t want that protection if it forces my instructors to worry so much about being maintaining a “posture of neutrality” that they neglect to engage classes in discussions which are relevant and thought-provoking.

And what exactly is there to protect us from? From hearing someone voice an opinion we disagree with?

Listening to other people say things you don’t like is something that will happen a lot in your lifetime. You can’t enact a law for every situation where your opinion could potentially meet adversity.

Accept it. Embrace it. Have a heated discussion, become passionate, let someone offend you every once in awhile. It’s not going to kill you.

If you disagree that wholeheartedly with someone, a professor or anybody else, it will only remind you of why you feel the way you do. It will affirm your views and make your convictions that much stronger.

After all, isn’t that what becoming an educated person is all about?

Send comments to Megan at [email protected].