Barely Believable Bias

One of ACTA’s Oases of Excellence—the Alexander Hamilton Institute—recently released an interview with Hamilton College alumnus Elizabeth Farrington, one of the “first undergraduates to be nurtured by the AHI.” The interview primarily highlights how AHI supported her studies—Farrington was a brilliant student, winning the Putnam Prize in American History—but it also includes a peek into some barely-believable cases of bias and intellectual browbeating that she suffered at the hands of Hamilton’s faculty.

Farrington recalls two cases in particular. The first, from her freshman year:

One of my first papers in college was about Gertrude Stein’s “Three Lives.” I happened not to enjoy the book, and so focused my paper on its failings. When I received the paper back, I was completely horrified to discover that I’d gotten an F. The professor’s comments filled the margins—things like “you write like a conservative,” comparisons to Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, and the (still absurd) statement that “an intellectual reads with sympathy for the protagonist.”

Without access to the AHI mentorship Farrington received, experiences like this could shut up a student for good. She describes feeling cowed by the experience and not speaking up in class. Not only a disservice to Farrington, this “lost” period robbed her classmates and professors of the ideas of a talented peer and student.

When the second incident occurred, Farrington was very involved on campus. She thanks AHI for the ability to “ultimately make [her] point” despite feeling “infuriated” during the incident. In the wake of an arguably offensive fraternity party, Hamilton convened a conference which Farrington attended. But the behavior of some faculty there was more offensive than the party itself. She relates:

A particular point of offense was that the invitations to the party featured a professional female golfer kissing a phallic-looking glass trophy … After discussion had ended, one professor continued to rail at the hurtfulness of the photo until one of the fraternity members actually showed it to him. He was visibly surprised by its banal lack of sexiness, but quickly recovered to tell us that “any woman” would find the image offensive. I told him that I (the only woman present at this point) had seen the image previously and was not offended. Surprised again, he proceeded to chastise me for being ignorant of the “history of womanhood” and “cut off from my femininity.”

Infuriating indeed! The professor eventually backpedaled, but later referred to the incident as an “educational moment.”

The idea that bullying of this sort is in any way educational is a pernicious one. It discourages students with minority viewpoints from voicing their opinions and encourages professors to use class time for political grandstanding at the expense of time spent actually teaching.

Thankfully, many students see this for what it is and—like Farrington—they learn to “avoid some of the more outrageous and aggressive professors” and find those who actually teach. Unfortunately, however, some may never learn to question what they’re taught and may, as Farrington did initially, simply retreat into silence when told their ideas aren’t valued.