Bill offers opportunity for dialogue

To the editor:I am curious about the bill proposing to prevent student indoctrination in universities. As a person with strong Cape Girardeau ties, I am particularly interested in the bill's import for the community. The bill promises that professors will give fair, accurate representations of all viewpoints on a given issue. The meaning and promise of "fair, accurate" representation eludes me. Value-free education appears impossible to me not only because of postmodern critiques of neutrality, but also because of the criticisms of objectivity present in my own evangelical Christian heritage.

Many evangelicals have accused scientists who claim objectivity, and humanities professors who champion pluralism, as being dogmatically materialistic and selectively open-minded. Although they have not similarly critiqued their own agenda, these evangelicals raise challenging questions.

In this discourse, someone else is always perpetuating false ideology. Conservatives claim professors fool students into endorsing liberal ideology as fact. Liberals claim religious dogmatists, posturing as fact-defenders, are assuming control of the academy -- the ostensible bastion of free inquiry. Both sides have internal quibbles. We seriously err in considering either group ideologically monolithic.

My localized hope is that mutually sympathetic and sustained conversation between Cape's "liberal" campus faculty and "conservative" populace might arise out of this bill. The story quotes two professors who exemplify gracious usage of their historically afforded professorial freedom in challenging all students. The story also quotes one of my former students, whose willingness to take on significant issues is inspiring. Regardless of the bill's fate, I hope they and others in the community keep talking -- and listening.

RYAN HARPER, Princeton, N.J.