Ordinarily conservative students at a public university are worried that their conservative views will be held against them. I am sympathetic to those concerns. Honestly, I don't like professors advocating for their personal political views in class, even if the class has to do directly with contemporary politics. The power dynamic of the classroom is such that those who do not see eye to eye with a professor in their politics will feel disadvantaged and self-conscious. To the extent that this does happen at BYU, I think that is unfortunate.Gadianton wrote: ↑Mon Sep 21, 2020 10:25 pmHer platform, at least during moments of reconsideration, is to stand for traditional values but not in a way that disparages anybody. Right there, it's already a contradiction, but I think the bigger problem is that there is no market force that aligns with what she envisions, to the extent that such a vision is viable. The moment she worries, publicly and loudly, about subversive liberalization at BYU, there is pretty much one and only one group ready to get behind that in a re-tweet frenzy.
My memory of BYU is the opposite of Hanna's. I recall some professors sharing their extreme right-wing views. I do not so much recall professors advocating left-wing politics. Ralph Hancock, my American Heritage professor, was obviously a conservative, but even he was not so skewed that it made life unbearable. Of course, I was a conservative at the time, so perhaps I was just more comfortable with that. Never did I hear a professor advocate fringe leftist politics or openly criticize the LDS Church.
Here's the thing, though. I can't imagine how bad it would have had to be to motivate me to become some kind of activist against secular, critical, or liberal messages in the classroom. The most liberal thing I encountered at BYU was criticism of Honor Code personal statements and complaints about editing the Rodin exhibit at the art museum. The "liberal" professors were, in my view, very reasonable and rational, and yet they were treated pretty poorly by university administrators in response to their well reasoned views. And remember, I was a Republican at the time.
I am not saying that things have not become more antagonistic between liberal professors and the LDS Church. I think the Church kind of walked right into that one by deciding to get involved in the culture wars. Any student who sides with the Church and university administration against the faculty I view to be kind of a snitch and a collaborator. That is because it is so obvious that the institutional position is pretty far to the other end of the political spectrum, and any professor sharing a contrary view is already taking a huge risk in doing so, and, lacking tenure, is placing themselves in peril. A student snitch is more of a bully, and I don't care if their snitching is of a very general, impersonal kind. They are calling on Church leaders to insert themselves into campus life.
So what kind of "courage" does it take for the Hannas of the world to do this? None. There is no real courage. She is leveraging her sympathy with the institution and its power against its vulnerable internal critics in a way that is entirely in keeping with the traditions of Mopologetics, which championed the views and interests of the Brethren against fellow members and sought the marginalization and discipline of these critics.