MONDAY,AUG.20,2001
ON THE HILL
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN - 15C
Minor: Open-minded professor speaks for equality
CONTINUED FROM 13C
Minor said he found feminist readings to be insightful.
I've always had a sense about justice and fair play and nondiscrimination. It just always made sense to me." Minor said. "I was never threatened by feminism. It was never the case where I felt I had to defend my masculinity or that feminist teachings were male-bashing."
He said he never felt personally bashed. He said he always felt his masculinity was something he was conditioned around and the way to deal with that was to undo it, not to deny it or get caught up in guilt or shame about it.
"You can't love manhood and justice."
Minor said. "Because if you go for manhood, justice suffers. I really believe the key is breaking this masculinity stuff up."
Minor said men are the ones who need to begin to do that.
"You can't create an oppressor without taking away his feelings," Minor said. "If he feels too much, he won't be able to oppress people."
Minor's philosophy also carries into his feelings about the unfair treatment or harassment of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender people.
Holcombe said Minor's workshops on homophobia have been a much-needed addition to the University.
"His homophobia workshop has brought a more comprehensive, institutional systemic understanding to me about that," Holcombe said.
LAURIE SISK/KANSAN
Bob Minor, left visits with a customer at Hastings in Topeka during a booksigning for his latest work, Scared Straight.
Minor said, "you have to have homophobia to create an oppressor. Without homophobia, we would all feel more free to hold hands.
"If we start holding hands, it is hard to hit each other." The University Myth
While serving on the University Senate Executive Committee, Minor began to see things. Some of those things he believed were very wrong.
Although Minor's love of teaching never has waned, his faith in the institution of higher education is anything but strong.
"There are two universities," Minor said. "There's the university that is the myth — that we are all colleagues and that we all work together. Then there is the other university — the one that's real."
Minor describes this "real" university as one where certain people have power and certain people don't. Faculty, Minor said, don't have a lot of power — only that which is occasionally allotted to them by administration.
Minor said when he sat on university governance, it would try to make decisions like going against line-item tuition.
"We'd just get told by the administration that we were embarrassing the University. They would allow us to only make the decisions they wanted us to make. Faculty would get surprised when the administration would reverse decisions or not go along with them." Minor said.
Minor said he thought a lot of professors were in denial about their role in the University community. He said they deny they are working class and prefer to think they own the University. Not so, Minor said. Administrators decide when and where professors can have input.
He said it wasn't just Kansas. He said all universities were conservative institutions.
"You can warehouse liberals here, but you can't be liberal," Minor said. "You can be a little more liberal than some businesses, but we're supposed to run the University like a business."
Minor said he didn't like to see the University run as a business. He also resents the imposed silence that comes with the University structure.
"We can't talk about it," Minor said. "The Emperor has no clothes and we're not supposed to talk about it."
Minor is one of the few that does.
It is the lifeblood of his activism - placing more importance on what he
feels he should do, rather than what he's told he can or cannot do.
In that sense, Minor's self-imposed title of "radical" rings true.
"Bob has kind of reaffirmed my feeling that the University is on kind of a fine line between being sold out to the interest of the predominant culture over being true to its mission of educating people in terms of supporting life-long inquiry, education and personal growth," Holcombe said.
Tim Miller, department chairman for religious studies, admits that Minor is a vocal, intense activist, but said his activism has never created a problem within the department.
"I don't know if I understand the totality of all his philosophies," Miller said, "We tend to get it in small bursts within the department."
Miller said the department had a history of people who were activist about their own particular agendas.
then own tradition. "In that way, he fits into a grand tradition here," Miller said, "The big difference between Bob and other people in the department isn't so much in the kind of activism they participate in, but in their level of outspokenness."
Robert Shelton teaches in the same department as Minor and said Minor pushes both students and colleagues to think.
"He's very committed to the task of learning and teaching." Shelton said. "He has a lot to offer as a way of raising questions and issues in a way that can't be avoided." Conservative U
Minor says many places within the University are conservative. He points out the School of Law and especially the School of Journalism.
"There are a few pockets of more progressive people in these places, but basically this is a very conservative institution." Minor said.
"This journalism school is the most conservative journalism school I've run into." Minor said. "I was shocked they actually gave Molly Ivins an award this year."
Minor's experiences with the University and local press have been tenuous at times. Years ago, Minor served as one of the on campus organizers for the National Education Association, and worked to get a union at KU.
"The Lawrence Journal World called us outside union agitators," Minor said. "That was funny because we were all
professors here."
Minor remembers going into the journalism offices at KU to talk to faculty about organizing a union.
"I was literally kicked out," Minor said. "I thought it used to be that newspaper people knew the importance of unions and supported them."
Through all its conservatism, Minor said the University was committed to human rights as a formal status.
"And as long as it doesn't cost too much money," Minor said.
Minor said he doesn't want to analyze and tell people "its worse than you think," or tell people the history of problems. He wants to be more solution-oriented.
Holcombe said he agreed that the University could do more to promote a more liberal environment.
"The goal of education itself is to provide a critique of our society and to raise questions. Bob sees the University at least to some extent as representing the dominant culture rather than an alternative to that - almost to the extent that the University has been captured and seduced by the common culture," Holcombe said.
The Fairness Project
Minor is convinced that because of its conservative nature, the university environment will do little to serve as a catalyst for social change.
"Change in society is not going to take place here," Minor said.
Class, race, and gender issues are at the top of Minor's hit list.
He thinks these changes must be made in the working middle class to have real, lasting effects.
"I don't like discrimination," Minor said. "I don't like when people aren't treated fairly."
So Minor created what he calls The Fairness Project, a Web site aimed at pulling together a lot of the things he has done for equality and justice.
And while Minor continues to work for equality and fairness at the University, he also works tirelessly outside of campus to promote change.
"I don't want to see people in oppress sor or victim roles." Minor said.
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