EDUCATION BEYOND POLITICS
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addressing, and to think of how we might convince the larger culture to
institute changes.
* * *
William Phillips:
We want to spend the second installment of our
meeting on the question of what can be done. We've talked a lot about
the situation as it is, trying to define it, analyze it, distinguish different
elements of it. I've been trying to find some kind of consensus in what
has been said this morning, and I'm not sure that I've found it. How–
ever, I get the impression that there's some disagreement among us as to
how bad the situation is. Some think it's very bad; some think it's been
exaggerated. Whether it's this bad or that bad or totally bad, I don't
think matters. I think we're all agreed that the situation is bad. As I said
earlier, I'm not sure just how much we can do about the general system
in education and its deterioration in the country as a whole. I guess Al
Shanker is a little more optimistic than I am.
AI Shanker: I
didn't say that.
William Phillips:
I'm sorry. But I think we should concentrate on the
question of what's been called the politically correct, on the intolerance
that's been taking place in the universities.
Celeste Colgan:
At the National Endowment for the Humanities, it is
required of all public programs - specifically of films produced for public
television - that perspectives be heard out in an evenhanded way. This
requirement is necessary because, as a federal agency, the NEH has a re–
sponsibility to the taxpayers who make its programs possible. Taxpayers
do not want their dollars spent on projects that harangue them. There–
fore the NEH must not support a film that seeks to persuade its viewers
of particular political, philosophical, religious, or ideological points of
view, or that advocates a particular program of social action or change.
It's a criterion against which our evaluators judge all applications, and
it's part of an informal contract that we at the Endowment observe be–
tween ourselves and the people of the United States. The rationale of
the requirement, however, is not just a prohibition against waste, that is,
not just to keep offensive and polemic programs from being underwritten
by the federal government. Even more important than such a great good
is that people gain understanding in an unprejudiced atmosphere. And
that they learn. People add to their store of knowledge when in–
formation and opinion are presented evenhandedly. It's the difference
between indoctrination and education, between re-education and en-
