Iowa State stands by lecturer who assigned 9/11 essay

Amid media attention and criticism from a state lawmaker, Iowa State University administrators are standing behind a lecturer who assigned students to write a historical account of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from the perspective of a terrorist network.

Officials with the ISU provost office have defended the assignment — which was offered in an online class for the ISU Department of World Languages and Cultures — as being in keeping with curriculum used in the university’s Reserve Officer Training Corps programs.The assignment is one the lecturer, James Strohman, has made for years.

“The horrible events of Sept. 11, 2001 are a tragic and painful memory for all Americans,” Rob Schweers, a spokesman for ISU’s provost office, said in an emailed statement. “However, it is also important to study the underlying cultural and political issues that led to the attacks, in hopes that will help prevent another attack in the future.”

Previous coverage

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The assignment by Strohman, who has been teaching classes at ISU since 2007, attracted national attention recently after a screenshot of the assignment was sent to the website The College Fix. The story has since been picked up by other national and higher education news outlets.

“There is no correct answer here, just your ability to look at what we consider a heinous action from other perspectives,” the assignment read. “Don’t worry about the fact you don’t agree with the terrorists; the point of the exercise is to consider completely different perspectives. For this paper only, the minimum is only 500 words because it is a little different and it’s the first week.”

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, said the initial national reports about the assignment made him want to call on ISU to fire Strohman. After reading the explanations issued by the university and the lecturer, however, Kaufmann said Tuesday he no longer will be seeking anybody’s termination.

“I glean zero value from this assignment,” Kaufmann said. “If you are asking students to write from the perspective of terrorists, you, in some way, are asking for some sort of justification for what happened. I no longer believe that was what the professor intended, but that is what the average taxpayer would take away from looking through that assignment."

In a written statement issued Monday, Strohman explained that the assignment was designed “to encourage students to analyze events from a perspective that they had likely never before considered. Its purpose was to generate understanding of different viewpoints and worldviews, and was in no way an endorsement of the attackers or their goals.”

Strohman has used the assignment with about 1,000 students over the past decade. In that time, according to ISU officials, only one student has complained, and that student was excused from the assignment.

“My personal views are irrelevant to my teaching of the class,” Strohman said. “However, since they have been called into question, let me be clear that I consider 9/11 a horrific and devastating attack, and I support all who were, and continue to be impacted by the tragedy.”

Kaufmann, who chairs the House Government Oversight Committee, said the current political climate is heightening animosity across the political spectrum. Professors and instructions, he said, can’t trust that today’s students will react to assignments in same way that previous students did.

"Whether it’s those who are loving the current president or hating the current president, people on both sides are far more pissed off about far more things than they used to be,” Kaufmann said. “In the Statehouse, I’ve seen topics that were non-controversial issues in the past suddenly blow up.”

Kaufmann’s main concern, he said, is whether university instructors are providing a wide spectrum of political analysis or merely presenting a single side of an issue. He also urged Strohman and other instructors to make it easier for student to ask for alternative assignments in such politically sensitive cases.

Kaufmann made national news last year when he said he would introduce a “Suck It Up Buttercup” bill that would prohibit public universities and colleges from using tax dollars to offer extra counseling services or other programs to students upset over election results. After further discusses with the universities, he decided against introducing such legislation.

The backlash against Strohman’s assignment comes at a time of greater scrutiny of the syllabuses and assignments offered in college and university courses nationwide.

The conservative group Turning Point USA last year introduced a website, Professor Watchlist, that includes the names of more than 200 instructors who “advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.” The list has been denounced by faculty organizations as a threat to academic freedom.

Strohman, a registered Democrat, is a former member of the Story County Board of Supervisors. He works for the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals and currently serves as the employee representative on the Iowa Employment Appeal Board.

He has received generally positive comments from students on ratemyprofessors.com — with even the most critical posters praising his classroom demeanor. Students, however, rate the difficulty level of his class quite low.

Reach Jeff Charis-Carlson at jcharisc@press-citizen.com or 319-887-5435. Follow him on Twitter as @JeffCharis.