Educational malpractice taken to a new level
Training the next generation to abandon critical thinking for unthinking dogmatism or bias
There may be better ways to take a wrecking ball to critical thinking than the Loudon County, Virginia, School Board’s threat to discipline or rebuke students for speech that disturbs the dogmas or prejudices of their classmates, but if there are, they do not readily come to mind.
What is even more alarming is that the LCSB war on critical thinking is epidemic plunging the nation into an intellectual Dark Age where ignorance, stupidity, or bigotry are the coin of the realm. If the epidemic is not cured forthwith, the United States will be succeeded by a second Age of Dinosaurs.
Mastering freedom of speech does not require archeology. A handful of snippets does the job. It means eagerly encountering opposing ideas to sharpen and refine thinking and to recognize falsehoods. A person who does not grow wiser by the day is a fool with greater reflection amidst the marketplace of ideas. Voltaire captured the spirit in avowing, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Indeed, as John Stuart Mill pointed out in On Liberty, defending and inviting opposing views benefits defenders by enhancing understanding why their own views are superior, or, if not, should be jettisoned. Freedom of speech is further necessary to awaken us from intellectual complacency or stupor with thunder and lightening. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas explained in Terminiello v. Chicago (1949): “[A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.”
Clueless to the purpose of free speech and the urgency of critical thinking, the LCSB sought to document incidents of perceived student bias through a “Share, Speak Up, Speak Out: Bias Reporting Form.” The reporting is anonymous, an encouragement to prevarication, exaggeration, or fabrication to retaliate against a disliked classmate. Anonymity prevents cross-examination, the greatest engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.
LCSB’s infinitely vague definition of bias reached so-called microaggressions, i.e., commonplace interactions that communicate views of historically marginalized groups that might occasion mental or psychological animosity (which reflects free speech at its best according to the U.S. Supreme Court). Microaggressions said to manifest bias included celebrating a color-blind society, treating persons as individuals based on character and achievement not as members of groups who all think or act alike, and a conviction that genius is 99 percent perspiration, 1 percent inspiration, and zero percent skin color.
The counter-educational purpose of LCSB’s anonymous student reporting of alleged bias was to shield students from views that might disturb their dogmas, prejudices, or gospel. Contrarians should be treated as heretics to be hunted down and burned at the stake. Students are infallible, and any idea that disputes their infallibility and causes them intellectual trauma or fright must be suppressed.
The LCSB is seeking to raise a generation of effete, bigoted dunces unfit for self-government by stunting intellectual, psychological, and emotional growth and maturity.
For the good of the country and Loudon County students, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit placed a dark free speech cloud over LCSB’s program of anonymous bias accusations in Menders v. Loudon County School Board (April 14, 2023).
But more is needed. The LCSB members swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the First Amendment. Aren’t perjury prosecutions in order? An oath should mean more than mere words.
It is imperative to contemplate the equilibrium between promoting open debate and maintaining a safe learning environment. Although the anonymity intrinsic to the bias reporting system may engender certain quandaries, it concurrently offers indispensable protection for susceptible students. I think we ought to exhort school boards to meticulously reassess their policies, ensuring that they adhere to the principles of both free speech and student well-being.