Last December at the Modern Language Association annual convention, MLA President Gerald Graff delivered an address that should be heard by conservative critics of higher education everywhere. (Go to www.mla.org and scroll down to “Listen to the 2008 Presidential Address.”) It’s a remarkable statement to hear from the organization that many have regarded as the bad guys, and from a man of solid liberal beliefs. Here are two paragraphs from a section on the need to make the classroom a genuinely open space of ideas and ideologies:

These issues have taken on special urgency because critics of higher education, many though not all on the political Right, have loudly denounced today’s academic humanists as politically correct thought police (or as their enablers), and these insulting characterizations have gained traction in the popular media. Many of us have reacted to these denunciations as an outrageous interference with our academic freedom, one that at worst is aimed at cutting off our public support. I would argue, however, that to respond effectively to these charges we need to become less dismissive and defensive and more willing to ask whether some of them may be true.
Unfortunately, in responding to the conservative charges we too often deny or minimize the possibility that abuse of classroom authority is a genuine problem, evading the issue by accusing the accusers of being the ones who are motivated only by ideology.

And later:

All this might be the end of the story if it were not that, sinc ethe sixties, ‘transforming’ the political consciousness of students has been widely defended in print as a legitimate goal of teaching, as is seen in such self-described trends as ‘the pedagogy of the oppressed,’ ‘critical pedagogy,’ ‘teaching for social justice,’ ‘radical pedagogy,’ and ‘anti-oppresive education.’ Having complained earlier in this address that we know shockingly little about what our colleagues do in their classrooms, I won’t now claim tyo know that unethical clasroom behavior is taking place on a significant scale. What I do know, however, is that what the advocates of these pedagogies say in print is often disturbing.

Graff doesn’t concede to the conservative position very much, to be sure, and he maintains that many of the advents in the humanities that traditionalists decry were, in fact, necessary and positive developments. But he does insist on more “fair play” from his colleagues, fewer ad hominem attacks on conservatives, and even the presence of more conservatives in front of classrooms. This is a welcome sign that requires conservative critics to adjust their conceptions. It should be distributed widely among off-campus organizations and discussed in their meetings.