Dear Colleagues:
I support the Professional Responsibility amendment. I wont be at NCA. However, I would like to raise a few key issues that I believe may be overlooked in the drive to protect academic freedom and free speech at all costs. (1) Predators and miscreants. Some have argued in posts that the University policies of employers are enough to check abuse. If the person in question has behaved egregiously enough, they can be fired. That solves the problem. This is incorrect for a few key reasons: a. University employers often enter into settlement agreements with professors that allow them to exit the university gracefully and with secrecy of past indiscretions. The professor can then get hired on at another university and can resume his or her activities. For example, and merely a hypothetical (cough, cough) example, Professor X coerces his debaters to purchase drugs for them, or a coercive sexual relationship ensues. Professor X is asked to quietly leave his university. He then is hired to coach at another school. This person would be on the circuit with other students and there is nothing that we as an organization can do about it. As a community, we should be able to weed out the bad apples. But, as it currently stands, there is nothing we can do. b. If someone does behave egregiously at a tournament sanctioned by CEDA, there is currently no mechanism for the Association to take action against that person unless it is sexual harassment. Even the sexual harassment clause is so weak that it is ineffective. So, person Y shows up to a round strung out on heroin, or any other bad thing like literally showing your ass there is nothing in the CEDA Constitution that allows the community to enforce any standards or to notify that persons home institution. CEDA should have a process by which, after some element of due process, it can notify the bad actors employer so more action can be taken. c. Sometimes Universities do not take action on issues that we may consider to be unprofessional. For example, take fabrication of evidence. It may be a big deal to those within the community, but I doubt it is an offense worthy of firing someone. Other examples of inconsistent enforcement abound. We need only look at the incident that sparked this discussion to see that there were inconsistent outcomes for the parties at issue. (2) The legal liability issue. I guess its the lawyer in me that keeps worrying about this point. Free speech and academic freedom anarchists in the community just dont seem to get it. There are real world implications our Associations inaction on this issue. If we have a pattern of tolerating everything and anything, then CEDA could be liable at some level for damages. Extending on the predators example given above, if we just have a laizzie faire attitude towards the professionals in this activity, and we have knowledge of their past misdeeds, and something does happen, CEDA is possibly liable. Just being named in a lawsuit is bad enough. Defending such a suit is expensive and could bankrupt the organization. Worse, not having a Professional Responsibility code would hurt the Associations ability to defend itself. Granted, we cannot stop bad things from happening just by enacting an enforceable set of rules. But we can show a judge or a jury that we did everything in our Associations power to protect students. (3) Pathological periods. Martin Reddish, a 1st Amendment scholar wrote an article regarding pathological periods. In a nutshell, he argued that core 1st Amendment rights were in danger of being rolled back because Free Expression was being trivialized. During pathological periods such as a war or national crisis, the trivialization would be used as an excuse to rollback 1st Amendment rights and other rights, even to the detriment of core free speech (political dissent). I personally think that policy debate is about to enter into a pathological period. In fact, I think we have seen the first volley from the administrations at Pitt and Fort Hays State University. We have seen the second volley from some ass Parly coach at Yale who apparently thinks anyone debating from a land grant institution should be shot on sight. In case you have not heard about it, the country is in a major recession. This means that your ivory towers are about to collide with the realities of the markets and the taxpayers in your respective states. Even the Ivy league schools like Harvard are beginning to do cut backs in programs because their stock portfolios have been slashed by as much at 30%. So what is the point? The point is that allowing total and absolute freedom within this activity with little to no real check risks the enemies of the activity using the excesses to crush it. Total freedom and an animal house attitude toward debate risks having competitors for ever dwindling resources point to these excesses as an excuse to cut program budgets. If administrators see debate as having little value, then it is easy to cut the program in a time of fiscal trouble. Mere public relations saying well, that only happens a few times, will not be enough. It really does take only one bad example to ruin the reputation of CEDA. Nobody is going to report the final round in which the competitors ended the debate with a hug. Nobody is going to report when one debater helps another. What will always take center stage is the equivalent of a mid-air collision. My fear is that our communitys tolerance will be used by our enemies to undermine policy debate. I too have concerns about some of the language. In fact, I originally preferred a more detailed list of behaviors subject to sanction. Regardless, the proposed amendment allows for multiple levels of due process, investigation and appeals. As a contrarian on many of the issues within this community, and as someone who has been known to cuss more than a few people out, I too fear a witchhunt mentality. However, I believe the due process sections and the appeals sections provide enough protection for individuals accused of unprofessional conduct. Scott M. Elliott, Ph.D., J.D. Director of Debate U.L.-Lafayette _______________________________________________ CEDA-L mailing list [email protected] http://www.ndtceda.com/mailman/listinfo/ceda-l
