Disputes about\u00a0the content of a\u00a0number of courses raged during the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n
In Sesame<\/em> (5, 3 May 1976) Caroline Cox wrote a piece called, \u2018D302:\u00a0 a platform for blatantly political views\u2019 and the course chair, Andy Blowers wrote a response, \u2018Students have freedom to decide for themselves\u2019.\u00a0 The following issue (5, 4 June\/July 1976) had two letters on this debate.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1977 a study group of the CIA-funded Institute for the Study of Conflict produced a report which was critical of Open University courses, notably Schooling and society, E202 and in particular a course text book called \u2018Schooling and Capitalism: a sociological reader\u2019 edited by Roger Dale, Geoff Esland, and Madeleine MacDonald. There were a number of accounts in The<\/em> Guardian, The Observer<\/em> and The Times<\/em>. The Daily Telegraph<\/em> reported the publication of Julius Gould\u2019s Attack on Higher Education: Marxist and Radical Penetration<\/em>, 1977 as \u2018several distinguished scholars have joined together to draw a map of hell\u2019.<\/p>\n Joining Professor Gould in this exercise in fictional cartography were, among others, the director of the Nursing Education Research Unit, Chelsea College, London University, (Caroline Cox), academics from Reading (Antony Flew) Sheffield (K. W. Watkins) and the LSE (David Martin and Kenneth Minogue) and an honorary professor at the University of London, (Edward Shils).There were also a journalist, Brian Crozier, the founder of the Institute for the Study of Conflict and politicians including Rhodes Boyson, the co-author in 1977, with Prof. C.B. Cox, of one of the series of Black Papers on education, \u2018Fight for Education\u2019 and John Vaizey, a Conservative peer.<\/p>\n Open House<\/em>\u00a0ran a story headed \u2018Marxist bias: authors hit back\u2019 (OH<\/em> 147 22 February 1977) and\u00a0the Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, said that the claim of Marxist bias was \u2018absurd\u2019 (OH<\/em> 153, 5 July 1977). In Sesame<\/em> August 1977 (6, 5) Julius Gould and Geoff Esland presented their views about E202\u00a0and in the following issue (6, 6 September\/October 1977) there was a postscript on the E202 debate by Robert Nicodemus, who had collected student views. There were also letters.\u00a0 Bernard Crick in The Observer,<\/em> 25 September 1977, commented that: \u2018The study group seems to believe with Professor Hayek and his disciple, Sir Keith Joseph, that true liberty is possible only in a capitalist, free market civilisation\u2019. In November Sesame<\/em> (6, 7 November 1977) produced a summary of the issues and reactions in a piece headed \u2018Marxist plot theory finds few takers\u2019.<\/p>\n History Workshop Journal<\/em> was targeted by Gould in his \u2018Attack\u2019, Its response was to suggest that Gould\u2019s work\u00a0was \u00a0<\/p>\n a covert invitation to blacklisting. It is not a rallying \u2013cry to engage in the battle of ideas, but a sly whisper in the ear of the authorities\u2026 his report makes plain that marxists can\u2019t be trusted with any teaching job. (HWJ<\/em>, 4,Autumn 1977, Editorial, p.2).<\/p>\n Other came to similar conclusions. Robert Moss, editor of The Economist<\/em>\u2019s Foreign Report during the 1970s, a columnist with the Daily Telegr<\/em>aph and a founder member of the National Association for Freedom argued in \u2018Free Nation\u2019 (30 September 1977):<\/p>\n We need to insist that university vice-chancellors should represent the wishes of the community \u2026 routing out those who seek to use the lecture platform for promoting the class war.<\/p>\n The attacks on the Open University were part of a wider series of allegations about left-wing bias in the 1970s. In 1978 David Harris argued that \u2018Marxist ideas and analyses are already effectively \u2018balanced\u2019 by ideas in general circulation\u2019 and that anyway students did not arrive at university with blank minds but in fact came with many ideas. He added that students typically found Marxism \u2018strange, counter-intuitive and \u2018unrealistic, in my experience\u2019. He noted that many of the OU students who were teachers were motivated to study as a way of gaining additional pay and did not seem very engaged with Marxist ideas;<\/p>\n among students of Education courses at the Open University cynicism about theory of any kind is widespread. It is thus perfectly possible for students\u00a0to see the contents of even Marxist courses as consisting of a series of reified \u2018facts\u2019 and \u2018recipes\u2019 which must be acquired, exchanged for grades and then forgotten, while personal beliefs are left untouched.<\/p>\n In addition, the OU\u2019s method of teaching \u2018reproduces the features of advanced capitalism [and] sterilises the content of courses\u2019. (David Harris, \u2018On Marxist Bias\u2019 Journal of Further and Higher Education<\/em>, 2, 2, 1978, pp. 68 \u2013 71).<\/p>\n Although the allegations were refuted other attacks followed. In 1981 Peter Harris criticised D324, Business economics in Sesame<\/em> (74 September 1981) under the title \u2018The anti-profit prophets\u2019. There were responses from staff in the next issue (Sesame<\/em> 75 October\/November 1981). In 1982 the analysis of the relationship between art and politics of T J Clark and others was criticised in The New Criterion<\/em>. Three years later Hilton Kramer wrote \u2018T J Clark and the Marxist Critique of Modern Painting\u2019, The New Criterion<\/em>, 3, 7 March 1985, pp. 1-8. Clark was an external assessor of A315, Modern Art and Modernism: Manet to Pollock<\/em> and in 1985 an anonymous complaint about A315, Modern Art and Modernism: Manet to Pollock<\/em> was sent from the DES to the OU. It claimed that the course was \u2018revolutionary and subversive \u2026 with the ultimate objective as the destruction of the democratic parliamentary system\u2019. A Pro-Vice Chancellor investigated and found the complaint to be misconceived.<\/p>\n In the same week as the complaint arrived at the OU, George Walden, Under Secretary at the DES wrote \u2018Painting and politics\u2019, The Spectator<\/em>, 13 July 1985 pp. 28-29. This too was critical of A315, Modern Art and Modernism: Manet to Pollock<\/em>. He complained that \u2018letting the ideologues loose on painting is dangerous enough; giving them \u2018new interpretive tools\u2019 as well is lethal. Semiotics in the hands of a leftist art critic are like computers at the fingers of sociologists: whole new permutations of misconceptions become possible\u2019 (p. 28).<\/p>\n There were complaints about D102 and E200 Contemporary issues in education in 1982 but Sesame reported \u2018left-wing bias story refuted by OU\u2019 (82 September\/October 1982) 1984 from economists Sesame<\/em> reported that the \u2018Bias bogey returns\u2019(94 July\/August 1984). The DES claimed that it received complaints about D102, the third foundation course in social sciences that the OU had produced. As a result the DES commissioned some unnamed economists to investigate. They concluded that the students could come away with a \u2018bias towards Marxist perceptions of the primary importance of class conflict and inequality\u2019. There was particular unease about the associated television programmes about which the DES claimed \u2018it would not be surprising if they had given rise to considerable irritation\u2019. Furthermore, Third Way<\/em> September 1984, p9 reported, it also noted that monetarists are made to appear rather sinister\u2019. There were a number of opportunities for students to contribute to this debate as there was both a large-scale survey of D102 carried out by IET and opportunities for correspondence (see for example Sesame<\/em> No 94 July\/August 1984 and No 98 January\/February 1985). The Dean of Social Sciences, Frank Castles also addressed the issue (Sesam<\/em>e 84, January\/February 1983).<\/p>\n