>What do you think? Is my Dean's request "censorship", which should be
>resisted? Or, is the request "just common sense", which I should follow?
At the risk of handling a hot potato, I'll stick my neck out here...since
you asked...
IMHO, in situations like this I've learned to ask myself, "Is this issue
worth falling on my sword?" I mean, sure, you could defend your "right" to
keep your question, but at what cost to your respect, your job, your
reputation, your career, etc? There ARE some things worth "dying for." I
personally doubt that this is one of them. I don't think your dean is
"censoring" anything as much as sharing some of his/her wisdom with you. My
advice: heed it and move on. (...unless, maybe, you are an ACLU activist
who hasn't had a good court fight in a few years. ;-)
With your obvious motivation and ability to seek out real-world data on the
Internet, I'm very sure you can come up with a dozen or more similar test
questions that are equally relevant and educational and yet not so possibly
offensive to any particular group of students (or parents).
Here's a thought: reword your test question to refer to "two groups of
Americans" rather than "pour gasoline" on the race issue. I'll bet this
would make most everybody happy! And consider defining "t" as the number of
years after January 1950. Also, you can address the "who-cares?-atitude" by
including a reference to insurance tables used by a life insurance agent.
Just my opinion...
+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+
+ John Chamberlain Senior Research Associate
+ chamber@cord.org Amateur Radio AC5CV
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+ Center for Occupational Research and Development
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