Northwestern University President Issues Statement

Below is the statement issued by Northwestern University President Morton Shapiro concerning the controversial classroom incident of which I have recently written. It appears on NU's webpage.



"I have recently learned of the after-class activity associated with Prof. Michael Bailey’s Human Sexuality class, and I am troubled and disappointed by what occurred.




Although the incident took place in an after-class session that students were not required to attend and students were advised in advance, several times, of the explicit nature of the activity, I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member. I simply do not believe this was appropriate, necessary or in keeping with Northwestern University’s academic mission.




Northwestern faculty members engage in teaching and research on a wide variety of topics, some of them controversial. That is the nature of a university. However, in this instance, I have directed that we investigate fully the specifics of this incident, and also clarify what constitutes appropriate pedagogy, both in this instance and in the future.


Many members of the Northwestern community are disturbed by what took place on our campus. So am I."
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That's fine, but I believe that this incident points out that there is an underlying problem which affects so many American universities; the utter un-professionalism and intellectual dishonesty of many of the faculty-principally in the Humanities. Time and time again, faculty from Northwestern to Berkeley to DePaul to Colorado to Irvine to Santa Barbara ad infinitum have brought embarrassment to the universities that employ them. Nothing less than an institutional revolution will change the face of academia in this country. Problem is that the people who universities really need to bring quality and sense to the classrooms have little interest in being associated with the world of academia. Thus, the universities have been abandoned mostly to the intellectual misfits who seek to infect their students with their own version of twisted logic and upside-down loyalties.

And they are succeeding.