On Not Teaching Ethics

Mary Gardner sent me an e-mail sharing with me a couple of blog entries made by her Eng 111 students. She didn’t like what these students had to say about gay people after reading articles on gay marriage – but we teach composition, not citizenship, not ethics. So how does a professor who believes in the dignity and equality of human beings, regardless of gender orientation, respond to student statements like these?*********************************************************************Student Student #1 This is just one of the incidents that I read about. There are more diseases in the gay community than any other community. It has been said that the HIV/AIDS virus started in the gay community. Most gay men are undercover, they have wives and children. So do we just sit back and let them destroy their families because we approve of them being with other men? Not saying that heterosexuals don’t contract diseases too, but most of the major diseases started in the gay community. Could this have been prevented? Yes everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Do I believe it’s going to stop? No. We can do something about it by writing to our congressmen and not supporting bills legalizing gay marriages. Approving of gay marriage is not going to help us in the long run -- it’s going to destroy our country and our children.

Student #2 I believe people shouldn't be bothered by what other people are doing; like, get over yourself, dude/tte. If people want to be gay and touch each others hands, and other private areas of the same sex it's fine by me. As long the gays don't try to sway me to their skippidy-do-dah, "My Favorite Color is Rainbow & do I look fat by the way-ways, I see nothing wrong with people wanting to get married, regardless of what kind of sex they prefer. I don't believe that our birth rate will diminish in the future, it will only grow larger and larger, much like a gays... feelings. But really, there's plenty of straight people in the world to keep the children a pumpin'. Look at Ancient Greece for example, they practically invented homosexuality and abusive older men, as well as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". The Spartans also managed to beat a massive army of Persians, I don't think that would've been possible had they not been in such a spirited mood from their morning shield polishings. Gays are good for many things apparently shopping & war being the main ones, because no one fights like a woman trapped in a man's body - and no one shops can shop like a woman with a man's credit card.
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How would you handle this?

My thoughts: Principles that we already teach in a standard ENG111 class actually cover the issues that these offensive posts raise.

Student #2 was trying for humor. Sometimes subjects that are taboo (sex, race, sexual orientation) are popular targets for humorists, so it’s not surprising that Student #2 took this approach. Making jokes about the situation of gays in America is a way to avoid dealing with a serious topic. Instead of “you shouldn’t make fun of gay people”, I would reinforce some lessons from our English 111 text. Our book describes context. In some contexts, jokes about gays will get a positive response (laughter). Is a writing assignment for a college class the right context for this? Had the instructor already laid out some guidelines for comments that disrespect a person based on his or her gender, race, creed, or orientation? (In this case, she had.)

Our textbook also introduces the concept of appealing to an audience. Is it safe to assume that this audience (his instructor and classmates) appreciates humor that mocks a minority group? This tactic has the instructor not lecturing a student on his civic responsibility to respect every member of our society, but rather reinforcing lessons that every young writer needs to learn as part of his or her ENG111 curriculum.

Student #2 ought to also recognize that sometimes shooting for humor is going to interfere with sending a clear and accurate message. It’s not accurate to describe a gay man as “a woman trapped in a man’s body” – I’m not sure whether he’s trying to describe a person with gender identity disorder/dysphoria, or whether he really thinks that’s what gay men are. And, if I might criticize his humor, “spear polishing” would have been way more suggestive than “shield polishing”.

Student #1 presents a more troubling problem. Where Student #2 just wanted to make inappropriate jokes, Student #1 appears to have some real malice towards gay people. I have often heard that prejudice is founded on ignorance, and this student’s diatribe illustrates that relationship pretty well. He or she says There are more diseases in the gay community than any other community. And most of the major diseases started in the gay community. These are prejudice-generating ideas that just aren’t true. My problem with these statements isn’t that they aren’t PC, it’s that they aren’t accurate. It’s well-known that AIDS in America hit the gay community before spreading out to other groups. But that’s one disease – and it’s not one of America’s major killers, either. What are these other diseases the author alludes to? As for diseases starting in the gay community, does this author imagine that gays gave us hepatitis? Rabies? Diabetes? The author also states that Most gay men are undercover, they have wives and children. When my students use the word “most”, they know that means “this is the case for 51% or more of the subject, and I have a research source to back it up”. I really don’t know how many people are secretly gay, living a heterosexual cover-up life, and I’m sure this student doesn’t know either. “Some gay men are undercover” would have been a supportable statement; “most gay men are undercover” implies that this student has some research, which was clearly not the case.

There’s also a logical disconnect here – is this student telling us that legalizing gay marriage would worsen the problem of covert gays in traditional marriages? I would think it would do rather the opposite, giving gay people a societally sanctioned alternative to their sham marriages. Nor do I see from this student’s argument how legalizing gay marriage would increase the rates of transmission of all these diseases that are supposedly coming out of the gay community. This student’s points should support each other. As disconnected as his or her thoughts are, it comes off as a diatribe: “I don’t like gay people, and therefore I don’t want them to be able to marry legally.” Few rational people could take this appeal seriously.

To correct this student, we don’t have to talk about our social views. We don’t have to tell them how they should feel about gays in the military or gay marriage – that’s not our job. But it is our job to tell them how to construct a good argument. A strong argument has factual information and logical inferences drawn from these facts. This student’s position contains neither. The bottom line is that if you don't have good information, you can't have a reasonable argument. This principle has nothing to do with my political leanings or social agenda. This is just composition class.

How do you respond when a student writes something that is prejudicial or otherwise offensive to your ideology?