Hollywood depictions of bloviating professors and decades of right-wing concern over faculty proselytizing to undergraduates have led to a common belief that professors are all too happy to disclose their political views in the classroom. If that was ever the case, it is not so now. In this era of extreme partisanship, educators often feel uncomfortable voicing those opinions to their students.
They should consider doing it anyway. Research I’ve done on K-12 teachers has shown that political disclosure, when done conscientiously, benefits students. The need is even greater in college settings, given the suspicion among many conservatives that the true aim of higher education is to subversively create legions of liberal voters.
We first must dispense with the myth of the politically neutral classroom. All educational spaces are political. Even if instructors do not disclose their ideological stances, their beliefs can be found in the structure of their syllabi, the readings they assign, the students they call on during class discussions, and the nonverbal expressions they — often unknowingly — make. Intent here is immaterial; by merely engaging in the act of teaching, one is sending political messages to students.
Context matters, of course. It would probably not be appropriate to offer one’s opinion on a border wall, for example, during a mathematics lecture. However, most courses in the humanities and social sciences, and even some in the hard sciences, offered on university campuses touch on contemporary political issues in some form or another, unless we strain to avoid any consideration of their social relevance.
The key for instructors is to make their classes political and not partisan, as the researchers Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy advocated for in their book, The Political Classroom. Disclosure aids that goal if instructors take what Thomas Kelly, an education professor at John Carroll University, called a “committed impartiality” approach to their instruction. This means that educators should disclose their political opinions but in a way that allows competing, rational beliefs to receive a fair hearing.
In short, educators should say, “Here is my opinion on this issue, but it does not mean I am right; I am interested in hearing what you have to say about it.” Professors must make it clear to their students that there will be no negative consequences for anyone holding a differing viewpoint.
A committed impartiality approach offers numerous pedagogical benefits. The most obvious one is that it provides transparency. Whenever I hear educators boast that their students have no idea where they stand politically, I always cringe. I have sat through many “neutral” instructors’ classes, and I am always able to make lists of the things they said or did that were not politically neutral.
The question then becomes whether the students picked up on the instructors’ ideological positions. Some politically astute students occasionally do, but too often students interpret political opinions expressed by their instructors as facts. Disclosure allows students to process instructors’ opinions as just that. If instructors masquerade opinions as fact, charges of indoctrination have greater merit.
Disclosure with committed impartiality also provides students with a model for how to engage in tolerant civic discourse. Today’s undergraduates have come of age in an era defined by extreme partisanship, in which the tenor of political dialogue is set by competing cable-news networks and social media. Moreover, we may have reached a point where expecting respectful disagreement from politicians themselves is wishful thinking. Modeling how to acknowledge and respect opposing viewpoints while defending one’s own opinion is a civic skill that needs to be incorporated into all college courses.
Being upfront with students about political opinions also establishes a level of trust. Course assignments often force students, either explicitly or implicitly, to reveal their political beliefs to their professors and/or classmates. Disclosure levels the playing field a bit because it prevents professors from forcing students to do something they would be unwilling to do themselves.
Even if the professor is in the ideological majority, the fact that he or she actively encourages and respects opposing viewpoints provides an element of security for students worried that their views may be ridiculed by others. Finally, in this current political environment, in which traditionally marginalized groups have been vilified by those in power, disclosing opposition to discriminatory policies sends the message that one’s classroom is a safe space for all students.
Some instructors may still worry that disclosing their political opinions will earn them negative course evaluations. My research has shown, however, that students prefer to know where their instructors stand politically, provided they do not feel pressured to conform to those beliefs. If instructors take a committed impartiality approach, they should not fear disclosure; rather, they should happily embrace it.
Wayne Journell is a professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.