To the Editor:
I would like to thank Professor Fish for taking the time to read the National Association of Scholars’ report “Making Citizens,” and make a thoughtful response to it (The Chronicle Review, January 17). I would also like to respond to a few of his points.
First, a clarification: “Making Citizens” points to the action by Pomona College’s Draper Center of Community Partnerships to pay to bus students to an anti-Trump rally. This action prima facie violated Pomona College’s Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, which forbids such organizations “from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” As we stated, Pomona College is being sued for violating this regulation of the tax code. We believe that the rampant politicization of the New Civics will encourage more and more such slippages into direct partisan activity by universities, and we can indeed think of no better way to encourage proper oversight of the New Civics programs than lawsuits, and the threats thereof.
But this is not a matter of academic freedom: It is a matter of adhering to the Internal Revenue Code. When we recommended suing universities “for each and every political act they commit,” it should have been fairly clear in context that our recommendation was to sue universities “for each and every partisan political act they commit in contravention of the limitations they have accepted, as a matter of binding law, in return for Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.” We ask future readers of our report to take the recommendation with this emendation, and we are grateful to Professor Fish for prompting us to make this clarification.
As for the supposedly apocalyptic tone of “Making Citizens,” we do think it is important that (1) the New Civics advocates have stated their intention to “infuse” the New Civics throughout the university; (2) they now have bent the weight of the U.S. Department of Education to favor such general infusion; (3) the rate of growth of the New Civics programs over the last two generations bears witness to the New Civics advocates’ skills at forwarding their mission; and (4) no one until now has spoken to oppose the New Civics advocates’ stealthy advance. “Making Citizens” is meant to be a wake-up call — although against a powerful human force, not against a beast from the sea.
Now to the substance of Professor Fish’s critique: We do not think our practical recommendations to require traditional civics education are revolutionary. Since 1925, Wyoming has required all institutions of higher education in the state that receive public funds to offer a civics course to their undergraduates. Wyoming offers statutory guidance that the course shall include “the study of and devotion to American institution[s] and ideals.” To my knowledge, the University of Wyoming has for 92 years been free of any accusation that its civics requirement abrogated academic freedom. The NAS recommends nothing more unusual in principle than that the other states adopt best practices in American civics education — Wyoming standards.
This does then leave a quarrel as to the content of abstractions such as “civic” and “virtue.” We do not agree with Professor Fish that “unabashed patriotism” is synonymous with “conservative activism,” or believe it proper to build a wall between patriotism and the proper goals of education. The first premise separates Professor Fish from every unabashed patriot in American history who was also liberal, while the second separates him from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. On the whole, the NAS is comfortable making common ground with liberal patriots, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
But let us put matters at the most practical level. Setting aside the gross politicization of the New Civics movement, which Professor Fish states he joins us in opposing, the National Association of Scholars thinks that in a properly run university, a young Stanley Fish gunning for tenure ought to teach about Milton, the law, or any other humanistic study; shouldn’t have to change his courses a jot or tittle so as to prove that he is “civically engaged”; and shouldn’t have to include “civic engagement” in his tenure portfolio. We think that this young Stanley Fish is already promoting civic virtue, by dint of his disengaged inquiry into truth. Contrariwise, the New Civics advocates want to force this young Stanley Fish to make a tithe of his time toward “civic engagement” — not least because they don’t think there is such a thing as disengaged inquiry into truth, and so they don’t think it has any value in itself.
Professor Fish is free to declare a moral equivalence between the NAS and the New Civics advocates, but we decline to reciprocate. When the New Civics advocates come for any Stanley Fish, we will defend his academic freedom against the importunate claims of service and civic engagement — because of our foundational commitments toward civic virtue.
Professor Fish — and every Stanley Fish in the country — may call on us for our support at any time.
David Randall
Director of Communications
National Association of Scholars
