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Resolution on the Teaching of Evolution
The Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, at its fall meeting on October 16, 1999, passed the following resolution:
Be it resolved, that the Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors is concerned that the teachers in our public school systems, as representatives of professional disciplines that define the nationally recognized standards of their subject areas, must be free to follow those professional standards without political pressure. Accordingly, we urge the Kansas State Board of Education to return to the recommendation of its advisory committee for standards of science education as the best informed judgments of the disciplines.
The Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, at its spring meeting on April 12, 2003, directs its president to send a letter to Governor Sebelius
Dear Governor Sebelius,
I write on behalf of members of the Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors to express our concern about recent efforts by the legislature to eliminate funding to K.U., as well as to introduce a bill under which professors could be prosecuted for showing "obscene" videos. These efforts are in response to a single student's complaint about one professor's approach to teaching a human sexuality class. Even if the allegations against him are true, the appropriate response is not to threaten the academic freedom of all faculty members, thereby jeopardizing the education of all students, but to handle his case on an individual basis.
As president of the Kansas American Association of University Professors, I am especially concerned that educators be given the freedom to address essential issues in ways that they feel are most appropriate. AAUP's policy on academic freedom maintains that "institutions of higher education are conducted for the common good [which] depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition."
As a professor at K.S.U., I know how essential it is for future educators, counselors, doctors, nurses, and health practitioners to offer courses that provide opportunities for frank discussions of issues relating to sexuality. If professors must face budget cuts or prosecution for including "obscene" material in their courses, who will define what constitutes "obscene"? If, as K.A.S. 21-4301 states, obscenity is whatever "the average person applying contemporary community standards" determines to be obscene, could the definition of "obscene" be made so broad as to infringe on our rights to teach meaningful, mature, thought-provoking courses? For example, I'm now teaching two sections of African literature, and, because it's a "World Literature" class required for education majors, I have about sixty future educators enrolled in my courses. I showed them a film called Everyone's Child, which considers the ramifications of the AIDS epidemic in Africa by focusing on one particular family. It obviously deals frankly with issues like homosexuality, male and female prostitution, and the consequences of unprotected sex. The responses of my students including the most Christian fundamentalist of them -- have been overwhelmingly positive. The film made them confront directly and personally a problem that until now had been only abstract and general. As a result, several students are searching for opportunities to travel to Africa -- whether to work for health care organizations, build houses, or offer instruction in English. In short, a video that might well have been regarded as "obscene" by the average Kansan (who might well not be collegeeducated, nor well-informed about the plight of Africa, nor much inclined to travel there) provided precisely the kind of educational, social, and moral enlightenment that universities are supposed to offer their students. If we truly want to produce responsible, openminded, well-informed citizens, we need to uphold the principle of academic freedom in our institutions of higher education. Thanks very much for your efforts to speak out on our behalf thus far.
Best regards,
Donna Potts
President, Kansas A.A.U.P
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