More On Teaching Democratic Citizenship And Educators’ Freedom Of Political Expression

On his New York Times blog, noted literary critic Stanley Fish has taken on the UFT’s defense of educators’ right to wear political campaign buttons in schools, criticizing Randi Weingarten’s public pronouncements and my Edwize commentary on the issue. The author of There Is No Such Thing As Free Speech, And That Is A Good Thing, Too and Save The World On Your Own Time, Fish has cultivated a national reputation as self-styled academic iconoclast and a proponent of an anti-foundationalist literary analysis most commonly associated with the school of deconstruction.

Contrary to Professor Fish, there is a First Amendment right to free political expression for educators, and that is a good thing for American democracy, too.

Perhaps the quickest route to understanding the flaws in Fish’s argument is an examination of two examples of what it would require, if its logic was applied consistently. The First Amendment protects not only freedom of speech, but also freedom of religion and freedom of press. These two latter freedoms involve precisely the same classroom and school issues as the wearing of political campaign buttons.

Take the case of freedom of religion. Many Americans and many educators wear outward symbols of their religious faith – a cross, a Star of David, or a crescent and star hanging around one’s neck, a skull cap, a turban, or a veil covering one’s head. If a teacher’s wearing of a political campaign button, and thus the simple knowledge on the part of students that one’s teacher is an active supporter of a candidate or political party, amounts to the exercise of undue political influence on students, then a teacher’s wearing of a religious symbol, and the simple knowledge on the part of students that one’s teacher is a member of a particular faith community, must also be the exercise of undue religious influence on students. Conversely, if there is no educational harm from the mere knowledge that one’s teacher belongs to a particular faith community, and even some good in terms of learning the rights and obligations of citizenship in a pluralist society, it follows logically that there is no educational harm from the mere knowledge that one’s teacher is an active supporter of a candidate or a political party. There is a common sense distinction to be drawn here between modest expressions of political and religious belief which are entirely unexceptional and active proselytizing of a particular political and religious creed which is clearly unacceptable in the public schools of a democratic society.

Or take the case of freedom of the press. Many American schools regularly provide their students with daily newspapers or weekly newsmagazines in order to develop a number of vital skills and habits of mind – most importantly, reading comprehension, the critical consumption of information provided from a particular perspective and an appreciation for the importance of being an informed and knowledgeable citizen. Now, newspapers and newsmagazine do not simply state a preference for a candidate or a party, much as a political campaign button does. They actively seek to persuade their readers to support their choice; in some cases, this advocacy is limited to the editorial pages, but in other cases, it clearly pemeates the news coverage as well. So if students must be protected from the most innocuous of political messages, a campaign button, then they would certainly need to be protected from the vigorous advocacy of news media during election campaign seasons. Even the New York Post recognizes the issue here: while it launched its usual unthinking attack on the UFT over this issue, it was careful to say that there may be First Amendment issues at stake – since it would have to invoke a similar constitutional principle to defend the presence of its papers in schools during an election campaign.

While we find much in the New York Post with which we disagree strongly, we would defend their right to be in schools, even during election campaign season. The educational issues raised by giving to students media engaged in political advocacy are best resolved not by censorship, but by more free political expression. Teacher should ensure that students read a variety of different views, and not just one. Moreover, teachers should make sure students develop the tools to be critical consumers of information, learning how to distinguish fact from opinion and how to assess the quality of the evidence and the argument made on behalf of a claim. But certainly a standard that would find the wearing of a political campaign button objectionable would also have to find the distribution of media engaged in political advocacy objectionable.

Note that the NYC DoE has not directed educators to remove all personal religious symbols in schools or told schools to remove newspapers and newsmagazines engaged in political advocacy during the election season. Rather, they pick and choose what parts of the First Amendment they will honor. Given his views of the First Amendment, Professor Fish may well be more consistent, and demand that all three forms of First Amendment expression be prohibited from schools. But this consistency would be based on an impoverished view of the civic purposes of education in a democratic society. According to Fish, schools should not be teaching students “ethical, social or political virtues,” but “[to] introduce students to bodies of knowledge and traditions of inquiry… and equip [them] with the analytical skills that will enable them to move confidently within those traditions and to engage in independent research.” But in a democratic society, it is necessary but not sufficient for students to acquire the knowledge of how their government and other governments work, and how different schools of thought have approached the various questions associated with government. Just as importantly, students do need to learn civic virtue – the commitment to embrace the duties as well as the rights of citizenship and to promote a common good that extends beyond personal and factional interest. Civic virtue is the foundation of citizenship in a democratic society, and it must be taught in public schools. Indeed, there is perhaps no more important function of public schools than an education which fosters a sense of our public purposes as a nation, of that which unites us in a republic [res publica]. Those who seek to privatize public education fail to grasp this central public purpose of those schools.

It is precisely because we must teach civic virtue, because civic virtue can not be taught by lecture or dictate but must be modeled and practices, that students need to see and understand their teachers as active citizens, embodying the same civic principles they teach. It is precisely because Fish does not grasp the important of educator as citizen that he is prepared to deny teachers the citizen’s right to free political expression in the school.

[Sherman Dorn responds to Fish on this issue here.]

Tagged: First Amendment, New York Times, rights

 Print