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Missouri “Intellectual Diversity” Legislation
By Gwendolyn Bradley
The Missouri state senate took up a bill in its recently adjourned session that would have allowed students who feel they have been "penalized for the expression of an opinion" to file grievances against faculty and would have required institutions to report on the number of such grievances filed. The bill passed out of the senate's education committee in May but was not brought to the floor for a final vote.
A version of the bill passed in April by the Missouri house included language saying that colleges should report on "intellectual diversity concerns in the institution's guidelines on teaching and program development and such concerns shall include but not be limited to the protection of religious freedom including the viewpoint that the Bible is inerrant."
The Missouri bills are part of a wave of so-called intellectual diversity bills that were introduced in various states this year; these are a slightly different take on the "Academic Bill of Rights" legislation that was unsuccessfully introduced in many states over the past few years. (See the Legal Watch.) Critics, including the AAUP, have strongly challenged these bills for their simplistic and misleading characterizations of academic freedom and intellectual diversity.
Although the Missouri senate bill would not have specifically included protection of "Biblical inerrancy," it would have imposed its own criteria on academic decision making. "The senate bill still would have granted student opinion more authority than the professional judgment of faculty, and the quantity of grievances reported could presumably have been used to justify punitive budget cuts to higher education," says Patricia Brodsky, president of the University of Missouri–Kansas City AAUP chapter. "The bill would have resulted in self-censorship by faculty who fear being branded as liberals if they do not give equal credence to all student opinions, including creationism and intelligent design. This outcome is guaranteed, since the overwhelming majority of faculty at Missouri public institutions are vulnerable contingents who lack academic freedom protections afforded by tenure." Like similar measures considered in other states, the Missouri legislation would have had the effect of curtailing the very academic freedom it purported to protect.
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