This past weekend I went to a political science conference in Athens, Ohio. A college town with streets still paved with brick, Athens is gathered in the oxbow of the Hocking River in the western reaches of Appalachia. The conference was organized by members of an emerging movement in political science, known as American Political Development. We were there to share with one another our research on race, gender, sexuality and the law, and to think more deeply on how law constructs these identities over time.
Unlike Southern Vermont, the weather in Athens was sunny and warm. On Friday night, college students strolled the streets in flip-flops and tank tops and the porches of frat houses were filled with guys having fun. I walked to the Middle Eastern restaurant with an established political scientist from Northeastern University, who was making a case that monarchies might not be so bad. She was concerned that an argument in favor of a formal hierarchy might not go so well with a group of social scientists trained to expose the making of social hierarchies.
In fact, her presentation went surprisingly well. “When I first presented this work I received a lot of criticism,” she explained during the next morning’s session. “Should I advance or retreat? I thought it over and determined to advance.” Because inherited monarchies are organized around family units, they accommodate women rulers. When no male family members are available, inherited monarchies expect women to rule. Reaching the end of her allotted time, she explained, “Monarchies, then, are less patriarchal than republics.”
I told her at lunch that I admired her performance. She had averted confrontation by describing her research as an act of courage. Had she not explained her dilemma, had she not revealed to her audience the risks involved in pursuing an unpopular argument, she might not have been received so warmly. As it was, she got our attention by appealing to our sense of intellectual adventure. Maybe inherited monarchs had something to offer American political development. Maybe a queen could make for a more caring state.
I took heart when I saw how the audience received her unpopular argument. They were more willing to revisit some of their assumptions about hierarchies than I had previously imagined. My colleague John Brigham, from the University of Massachusetts, and I were also presenting unpopular arguments. If these committed critics of legally-constructed social inequalities could consider the benefits of monarchy, maybe they would be willing to entertain our argument that the Violence Against Women Act and Department of Justice funds were constructing rapists and victims on college campuses.
Our presentation was the last of the day and I delivered mine with a heavy heart. My travel arrangements were such that I could not retreat. I had to advance even though I feared I would be accused of not taking rape seriously, of not recognizing its harm. I talked about the amount of money coming out of the Department of Justice for mandatory rape prevention programs for undergraduates. I described the history of a feminist jurisprudence that linked women’s moral authority to the experience of victimization. And I pointed to a growing trend on college campuses in which sexual assault charges were not directed to the criminal court system but were handled in house.
“I’m concerned that we are producing a class of young women whose access to authority is enhanced through victimization,” I explained. “If these students are only taken seriously when they talk about what has happened to them, they lose the capacity to talk about what they can do.” At least, that is what I hope I said. As it was, I had a sense that somewhere, someone was speaking and, from the looks on the people’s faces, it appeared that someone was me.
One emerging scholar from the University of Minnesota suggested I was blaming eighteen-year-olds for having been raped. “I’m not blaming the victim,” I said rather heatedly. “I want us to see the effects on our students of handling sexual assault cases in house.” Another emerging scholar criticized John for asking for due process with sexual assault cases. Due process never protects minorities, she said. To which John replied, “Don’t we still care about the presumption of innocence?”
When the session was over we were directed once again to one of Athen’s bohemian restaurants. I walked over with a provost from the University of Texas and a political scientist from the University of California at Santa Cruz on the verge of retirement. She was eager to convince him to get on a task force and then move into an administrative position. Now more than ever, explained the provost, it was necessary to get concerned educators into the ranks of the administration. Public universities were under attack by state legislatures. Politicians wanted to see advances in science, technology, English, and math. They didn’t seem to recognize the importance of intellectual freedom.
I myself was wondering about the place of intellectual freedom in this emerging movement in political science. There didn’t seem to be space in this particular Athenian chamber to question how sexual assault charges are handled. To raise concerns about due process was to be labeled an apologist for rape.
Retreat, it turns out, is a hard thing to do. Once the mind starts chewing on a question, it wants to keep chewing. Even if the initial offerings of that mental mastication are not well received, the mind has its own audience. “But what about this? What about that?” it continues as it advances down the road. These determined advances are one of the things we prize most in higher education. They challenge political orthodoxies and established practices. They also challenge progressive remedies to past wrongs. When we don’t advance our unpopular positions, the space in the room gets narrower and narrower and there is less and less to say.
State legislators don’t keep us from advancing unpopular arguments. We do that to ourselves.
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