If you look up the word liberal in the dictionary, you will find a whole slew of definitions. The ones that really stuck out to me were "open to new behaviors and opinions" and "free from bias, prejudice, or bigotry; open-minded, tolerant."

In today's politically charged climate, we sometimes forget those meanings of the word. Instead we think of liberalism as a left-leaning political persuasion that is responsible for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Yet liberal does not refer only to a political persuasion. It also describes the education we are getting at Brandeis. And it is here that we get back to the other meanings of the word. We are not being taught to be politically liberal: rather, we are being taught to approach the world with an open mind and to be tolerant of new opinions and behaviors that we might encounter. This is what it means to receive a liberal arts education, and thankfully, Brandeis has done very well by me in that respect.

Unfortunately, not all liberal arts institutions have lived up to this definition of a liberal education as well as Brandeis has. According to a Nov. 15 article in The Huffington Post, Texas' Baylor University has allegedly offered a sociology course titled "Homosexuality as a Gateway Drug." After coming under fire for this course title, the university changed the name of the course to "Special Topics in Sociology" and stated that the previous course title was meant to be an independent study for one student rather than a group course.

Baylor University's website describes the institution as "a private Baptist university, and a nationally ranked liberal arts institution." If Baylor is a liberal arts school, and assuming that this course actually was intended as an independent study, why would they allow a student to conduct such a study on a topic that is clearly bigoted and biased?

One could argue that a student's right to conduct any independent study they want is protected under the First Amendment. However, freedom of speech in academia works a little bit differently. An academic certainly has the right to say whatever he pleases, but if he hopes to get his work published and widely accepted, that work must be supported by substantial evidence and deemed unbiased by a body of his peers.

A rigorous university should treat all student work as if it were going to undergo this process of peer review. That being said, no professor should have ever agreed to mentor a student on a topic of independent study that is biased and bigoted even before any research has been done. If a student believes that homosexuality is a gateway drug, it will be difficult for her to conduct unbiased research and create an unbiased finished product, even if the evidence is clearly to the contrary.

Furthermore, academic research is largely defined by its ability to contribute to generalizable knowledge on a particular topic. While it might be possible to conduct research about homosexuality as a gateway drug among a very specific population of homosexuals, it would be quite impossible to reach viable, generalizable conclusions about homosexuality in general, especially since homosexuals account for a huge range of genders, socioeconomic statuses, races and areas of residence, among other factors, that could also contribute to drug use.

Clearly, there is quite a bit wrong with allowing a student to conduct an independent study on homosexuality as a gateway drug. That aside, why did the study title appear on Baylor's course listings in the first place? If the university's claim that it was intended to be an independent study rather than a group course is true, the name should never have appeared in the course listings at all. It is a grievous error indeed that a student's paperwork to begin an independent study somehow ended up on the course listings for the entire university. Of course, I can only speculate as to whether or not the university's story is true, but it seems to me as if Baylor is offering a shoddy excuse to cover up some very poor academic judgment by claiming that a class that was originally open to all was offered by mistake.

This incident is an embarrassment to academia. Liberal arts institutions pride themselves on providing an education that allows students to come away with an open-minded approach to real-world problems. Yet by publicly announcing that it is allowing a student to pursue a biased topic of study that does not meet the requirements of rigorous academic work, Baylor University has lowered the standards of a liberal arts education.