ABSTRACT
THE CALL FOR ACCOUNTABILITY AND FEMINIST EDUCATORS' RESPONSE
Since external pressure on higher education to be “accountable” emerged nationally in the 1980s, institutions and disciplines have been under fire from so-called “opinion leaders,” highly visible “public intellectuals”—for example, during the Reagan and Bush administrations, William Bennett, Lynne Cheney, and Linda Chavez of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and academics such as Thomas Sowell, Allen Bloom, and the National Associa tion of Scholars.2 Their influence, fomenting the backlash against multi culturalism and affirmative action, has prompted politicians at federal, state, and local levels to adopt an aggressive and intrusive stance regarding higher education, threatening both its traditional autonomy and intellec tual viability. Their accusations-that postsecondary educational access to other than the children of economic, social, and political elites has led to grade inflation, dumbing down of the curriculum, and a disregard of the various traditional disciplinary canons-and their attempt to persuade the public, including employers and students’ families, have resulted in broadbased accountability expectations intended in new ways to validate not only the competency of graduates but also, indeed, the competency of the professoriate.
