Did you ever turn in a paper, only to have your professor demand that you undergo psychiatric counseling? No? Well, me neither. But this is precisely what happened to Ahmed Al-Qloushi, a seventeen-year-old Kuwaiti studying in California. The Foothill College freshman had the temerity to disagree with his professor on a take-home final exam, which, in the professor's jumbled mind, apparently qualifies one as a mental patient.

Check out the question--it's really a politicized statement--that Al-Qloushi objected to: "Dye and Zeigler contend that the Constitution of the United States was not 'ordained and established' by 'the people' as we have so often been led to believe. They contend instead that it was written by a small educated and wealthy elite in America who were representative of powerful economic and political interests. Analyze the US constitution (original document), and show how its formulation excluded the majority of the people living in America at that time, and how it was dominated by America's elite interest."

In response to the loaded exam question, Al-Qloushi wrote this essay. His instructor, Professor Joe Woolcock, refused to grade the paper, threatening to report Al-Qloushi to the dean of international students if he didn't seek psychiatric treatment. The teenaged Al-Qloushi submitted, with the psychiatrist dismissing him without finding anything wrong. When the media picked up on this outrage, Professor Woolcock filed a complaint against Al-Qloushi for harassment. The young Arab, thankfully, has been in this country long enough to have caught on to the American spirit of defiance. He declares: "I did not leave my country and my family to come to the United States to receive further brainwashing."

This is typical of most modern college professors. They are "tolerant of others' beliefs" so long as those beliefs agree with them. For example, I had a feminist professor who thought the Promise Keepers were dagerous for suggesting that men actively participate in raising their own children!

From the looks of it he had a choice to write on some selected number of topics. He chose #3 and didn't bother to answer the question. It sounds like there is another reason the prof would question to his mental instability. For all we know he was calling his professor at 3am every morning and totally wigging out.

Professors should not be tolerant of wrong answers. The question called for him to an@lyze the original Constitution, but instead he went off discussing amendments, listing a few presidents, and quoting Jefferson and Bush.

WTF? It would be one thing for the professor to fail a student for giving an incomplete assignment... but what the professor did was totally uncalled for. Psychiatric treatment? A harrasment suit? There is no evidence to prove that the professor was justified in asking for either.

This is bewildering. I consider myself pretty well insulated from the absurdities of leftist academia, but this story absolutely stupefies me. Forget about the fact that this "professor" has no clue; what on earth is the Dean thinking allowing students to be forced into psychiatric therapy!? If I were the student, I would name everyone from the Board and President on down in a massive discrimination lawsuit. Someone get that kid a lawyer!

It is obvious to me that this student needs to be re-programmed. Doesn't he realize that if he disagrees with his professor that he could be charged with egregious violations? He should be re-instructed in newspeak and given healthy doses of milk of mesc.What is this world comming to.

Obi Juan: the correct response from a teacher's point of view is to grade an essay poorly if it doesn't answer the question, not to demand psychiatric councelling.

The correct response from the student's point is writing an essay that refuses to answer the jack-idiot's _loaded question_. If the question were "when did you stop beating your wife?", the student shouldn't be punished for not "answering the question." Same here.

It is a violation of the students academic freedom that such a loaded question is put on an exam.

I agree that this is a poor essay for really not answering the question. It should've at least been graded though, something like a D. And what's up with the ALL CAPS? Suggesting that the guy needs counseling is especially troubling but where is the other side of the story? This guy should consider transferring to a different college.

I went to Kansas State University and encountered my share of professors that weren't open minded to opposing views but never had anything remotely like that happen to me. The worst I experienced was an English professor that disagreed with my views on "A & P" by John Updike and asked me to discuss my paper with her before grading it. At least she graded my paper.

The kid is wrong on lots of things; especially thinking that Lincoln, Grant, FDR, and both Bushes are examples of great presidents. His grammar is poor - although probably no worse than most native students' grammar - and he should be graded down for that. On the other hand, the question is extremely loaded and the professor is an absolute nut for what he did.

We don't know that the paper wasn't graded. Most likely, this arab student got a C and went jihad on his prof.

Actually, Obi Juan, part of the story is that the prof refused to grade the paper.

You also assumed he had some choice just because he labelled it essay #3. But often there are multiple essays to write on an exam and when you write them in a blue book you have to label them by number. And granted that profs shouldn't be "tolerant of wrong answers", but there is no right answer to this question. Why are you so determined to defend this teacher, who is clearly an arrogant jerk misusing his professorial power?

There ought to be a way to sue teachers for malpractice - and I say this as a former history professor of 20 years.

This Dye and Ziegler thesis is a valid criticism of the creation of the Constitution, and worth studying in class, but trying to tell students that it is the only correct view of the creation of the Constitution and insisting that they write a paper to specifically agree with it is totally biased. Woolcock should be ridden out of his department on a rail.

BTW, the essay isn't actually terribly good. I'd give it a C+ but with a nice comment for effort. I'm surprised Woolcock hasn't run into a truly talented student who took the Dye and Ziegler thesis and demolished it on its many real flaws.

Dave
http://www.diablog.us

(btw, your content checker is insane. It blocked the word a+n++a+l+y+s+i+s because it contains the world a+n+a+l and the word b+i+z+a+r+r+e because it had the questionable word b+i+z - might want to fix this)

Good post, Dave. The content checker isn't half as insane as the amount of spam I receive--on some rough occassions, more than 1,000 comments in a day or so. I just spent more than an hour clearing all of the October and November posts of spam comments, so I view the content checker as a necessary evil.

I have to agree with obi juan. Al-Qloushi just did not do the assignment. Dye and Zeigler's contentions are what they are. The Constitution did exclude a majorify of the population from being represented by vote. Slaves + women + children > Free adult males. You can even make an argument that it was "dominated" by elite interests--as our current politics are people by elites with interests (some apparently for the little guy).

But Al-Qloushi is also right. (although he doesn't make his point via the subject matter.) It was progressive for it's time. It deals with the government/people split of power--and for that it is marvelous. (Does forced quartering in any way benefit slaves, women, or children?)

It is a liberal affliction to expect Athena fully clothed from the constitution---it is their particular neurosis that they must have some emotional attachment (i.e. "love" for the Constitution), it is symptomatic of their impatience at process.

Few of us yearn to be under the Magna Carta. Does that mean that a guarantee of rights under the Magna Carta was a bad thing? No. The MC has proven to be was necessary for the development of liberal democracies.

However, the professor did a pretty good job to stay away from overly tainting words, IMO. D & Z "contend". The constitution did have that first split of power and that inherent weakness in influence (still a risk today). So the issues can be engaged without truckling to the the liberal view.

One thing we can't say is how much Al-Qloushi--or the professor--are reacting from an ongoing dialog with each other. Al-Qloushi might have some idea, through lectures, just what the professor would typically imply with that wording.

On the other hand, this might not have been the first time that Al-Qloushi has broadly waved the flag on an essay. While the professor does have the option of gently pulling the student aside--demanding that he seek counselling before getting a grade is a misuse of a priviledged and educated elite status.

If power in the hands of an educated elite need be suspect, then it is suspect. Even had he wanted to "prove" what Al-Qloushi infers, he cannot while being an educated elite using his elite power. Because if there are exceptions, there are exceptions.

Sea King, the Constitution didn't "exclude a majorify of the population from being represented by vote," as you contend. The Constitution left such regulations on voting up to the states. During the founding era, one could find the propertyless voting in New Hampshire, women voting in New Jersey, and blacks voting in Massachusetts. In other words, different states had different rules.

Dan, good point. But it's not my contention. You caught me forgetting facts and misstating the professor's claim. He stated that "its formulation" excluded. I just didn't notice the difference--and didn't recall that fact at the time of the writing.

So let's take your point and his wording and merge them. The Cons. did not exclude, the state chose the criteria of voters, but the way it was formulated does delegate this power to the states did end up excluding people.

(I never expect that I will get every fact correct, which is why I try to make "fault-tolerant" arguments.)

Let's consider that a majority of the state constitutions were already drafted or in process. Let's consider that they were known enemies. The north knew enough about the voting laws in the south to know that the white intended to cast the slave "vote" (as counted by census), that they pretty much called it a dirty trick.

Let's also consider that the delegates were already prominant in their home states. Thus they reserved the power of qualifying voters to a power structure that they already had a considerable amount of say in. Let's consider that the delegates largely came to prominance by economic, social or even academic standing.

They knew largely who was going to cast the census-based vote. They knew what the southern states were planning after all. Thus theoretically, the state could reserve the power to 100 power elites to cast the popular vote in that state.

So arguably we get more concentration and not less. Moreso because of the debate whether or not the Bill of Rights needed to be in the mix.

My point remains: The problem that certain liberals have with the constitutional history is that it can clearly be shown to be the work of men living in their time. It is not the political, social, economic, if intellectual blueprint and manifesto that they like to pass it off as. If we take the professor's "topic" as an argument, then his problem stems from the fact that the founders did not draft a constitution to fit a 21st-century citizen's view of "All that's Fair".

They have a problem foisting on us some sort of enforced and mandated blueprint for society, but find the actual constitution so troubling that they argue the morality of unmooring ourselves from it. Aha, they say, my freedom of speech means that you cannot glower at me while I am speaking--that's the beauty of the Constitution, it was meant to open our minds and stimulate the flow of our tolerant juices. (Of course I'm taking liberties here.) But the sins of the Constitution bring it back down to Earth and are all the more reason that the idea of the Constitution is more important than the facts. The "Living Constitution" would reject that idea as part of its misspent youth. It's lived. It's learned. It wants to make amends for the error of its ways.

My other point is that liberals tend to be impatient with process. Centralization means that people do not suffer from the distributed actions of free individuals--who might choose to look down their nose at you for various reasons. A responsive Constitution means that you don't spend another night deprived of porn if that is what you want to watch.

The liberals tend to be unhappy with the idea that democracy (or representational republic) was the goal. That people could decide what course they wanted to take individually--and as a community. And that by dispersing the powers a state may choose to become unhinged (by popular vote) but such could be contained within its borders.

My answer to the professor's "topic" would be: "Yes Dye and Zeigler do contend that [or no, they don't if he's wrong]. Here is this quote, and this one, and this one." If the professor has a bias he wants to propagate, my history tells me that withholding judgements will just infuriate the professor. In that case, he has to advocate his position more strongly:

Professor: "Don't you think that's wrong?"
Me: "You didn't ask that. You gave me a topic about Dye and Zeigler's contention. Yes, they indeed contend that."
Prof: "But don't you think it's wrong?"
Me: "No, they can contend that. That's their right."

Soon, he will either ask me to "give an assessment" or he will ask me whether I think it is wrong the way the Con was set up. "Give an assessment", may still be fishing. And I would list the same facts that I have in this (appropriation with your webspace that I like to call a) comment. He will either shoot himself in the foot, or reveal that he had a much more academic purpose in mind (where I would have otherwise overreached to accuse him of an agenda), or back off because he realizes that he can't pursue the course without revealing his hand, and he specifically crafted his "topic" to hide it.

Of course this is just a variation of the Socratic method: "My good Dr. Woolcock, of course you must be right! But first let's consider...."