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February 25, 2005
Banned from Teaching
As reported by Brock Read, in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "The New York City Department of Education will prohibit a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University from appearing in an occasional training program for secondary-school teachers, citing the professor's criticism of Israel.
Rashid Khalidi, director of Columbia's Middle East Institute, had spoken this month at one of a series of teacher-development workshops, paid for by the university, about Middle Eastern culture and politics. But last week, after The New York Sun published an article assailing Mr. Khalidi's involvement in the program, Joel I. Klein, the city's schools chancellor, announced that the professor would no longer be allowed to participate.
"Considering his past statements, Rashid Khalidi should not have been included in a program that provided professional development for DOE teachers, and he won't be participating in the future," Jerry Russo, Mr. Klein's press secretary, wrote in an e-mail message to the Sun....
Mr. Khalidi, in an interview on Monday, criticized Mr. Wiener and the Sun for attacking his institute and the field of Arab studies in general. "I think there's a broad attack on professors of the Middle East, and it's based on calumnies, innuendo, and taking situations out of context," he said.
Mr. Khalidi also blamed the Columbia administration's "supine" response to the controversy, which, he said, has emboldened the institute's critics...."
Posted by sparks at 3:08 PM | TrackBack
Ward Churchill: Ground Zero
The following is from Emma Perez, the Chair of Ethnic Studies at U of Colorado
We've done some preliminary research and analysis and it's become clear
exactly what's at stake and what we're up against. CU-Boulder has been
made the national frontline of the neocon battle for dominance in academe.
CU-Boulder has likely been made their "test case," their break-the-mould
moment in a national strategy. Their local resources and troops
(thinktanks, legislative, rank-and-file followers) are already fully
mobilized and their national resources are mobilizing in our direction (if
not already mobilized), and the infrastructure they already have here is
formidable. On Ward's specific case, they are already *at least* 3 weeks
ahead of us in organizing, and they are using tactics they have been
testing since the 90s.
Some details from preliminary research:
* The CO governor, Governor Bill Owens, is no ordinary Republican governor.
He is an activist leader in their battle for higher education through his
role in ACTA. (American Council of Trustees and Alumni).
ACTA is Lynn Cheney's organization, which hit the headlines a few years ago
for creating the rightwing National Assoc of Scholars (NAS) and for
proposing post-911 to monitor faculty nationwide for ideological
(liberal/left) bias. Gov. Owens is especially active in ACTA's "Governors
Project" (http:// www.goacta.org/programs/govproject.html). He has already
hosted an ACTA-led conference in CO for state trustees, probably for
training them (wouldn't be surprised if some of our regents aren't in this
same loop). He is already implementing the Governors Project strategy at
less visible institutions. For example, last month the trustee structure
at Mesa State College was revised and he appointed 3 new trustees, one of whom
is "the intermountain coordinator for the American Council of Trustees and
Alumni for teacher preparation reform."
http://www.mesastate.edu/info/media/releases/05/New_Trustees.htm.
Also leading in this "Governors Project" is Pataki in NY-no doubt connected
with the Hamilton College incident that started all of this.
* The general strategy in forcing and then manipulating this
"investigation" of Ward's scholarship shares key tactics with the neocon sinking of Emory historian Bellesiles in 2001 www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2003feb/wiener.html. There are also likely to be parallels with the campaign against Linda Brodkey at UT in 1991 as well as other campaigns through which they have been testing and developing their methods and tactics.
* Besides suggesting "treason" on the part of Ward and calling for his
firing, Governor Owens has already requested Ethnic Studies' budget, one of
the most important neocon institutional targets. In a parallel de-funding
move, see their successful campaign to pass H.R. 3077
http://ga.berkeley.edu/academics/hr3077.html. Further, by going after
Ward's tenure, they are essentially targeting the scholarly legitimacy of
the entire field that, through external and internal review, granted Ward
tenure. If Ward's tenure (and his promotion to Full, and his successful
post-tenure review) was a "mistake," the next question is "who gave it to
him?" Ultimately, by undermining the integrity of tenure in one national
field, the neocon Right will pave the way to an attack on the very
legitimacy of tenure as an institution. CU Regent Lucero did not mince
words in his public statement at the emergency meeting where the 30-day
investigation of Ward was announced:
"My displeasure with Mr. Churchill's essay should be abundantly clear,
however, the issues regarding faculty responsibilities are still my focus.
While the language in the Laws and Policies is in place, setting the
standards for faculty expectations and the grounds for discipline, I would
argue that they are subjective and dependent on the faculty for
interpretation as to whether a professor has crossed a line. I would
suggest that the time has come for a revision to the Policies that allows
for other forms of adjudication that are not reliant on the faculty for
determining subjectively the fate of one of their own. (Feb 3, 2005)"
* Neocon students at CU-B (College Republicans) are likely connected with
CampusWatch and/or AVOT (Americans for Victory against Terrorism); they are
already connected with a very hostile right-wing talk radio talk show host
in Denver (that is then feeding to the national level) and they have been
using tried-and-true CampusWatch/AVOT-type tactics to create the steady
stream of racist, violent hatemail that not only Ward, but ES faculty and
students are receiving.
* While we are confused and disoriented by the barrage of attacks, the
state legislature is already moving to get tenure changes written into the books. The tactic is for Owens to make radical demands and push the envelope to
the right, opening up space for a conservative Democrat to propose a more
"moderate"-looking bill (Senate Bill 85, which includes tenure law changes)
that should, if they're smart, pass quickly and easily, possibly even
before the next Regents meeting. Reported in the Colorado Daily on Friday Feb 11, the tenure changes appear minor but will be used as footholds for the next
deeper round(s) of legislative actions.
* The CU-Boulder administration seems well-intentioned but to have
misjudged the stakes and their opposition. They may have believed they could keep control of the investigation by doing it in-house but the Right is already
outflanking them by using this investigation to launch an ideological
show-trial; it's a war of public opinion in which the administration has
already been outmaneuvered. By the end of 30 days, they could easily be
backed into a corner, unable to resist the Right's larger agenda. The
Admin's investigation can find whatever it wants (it could even decide to
make no move against Ward), but by that point, it won't matter because all
the legislative momentum/power will be out of their hands. Ultimately, the
neocon agenda doesn't even have to succeed in getting Ward's tenure
revoked;the attack on Ward is only one key piece of a larger campaign with several objectives beyond the firing of Ward.
* Ward is a prime target. He is vulnerable and, at the same time, has
extremely high strategic value. In terms of his vulnerability: he can be
isolated from support forces who would traditionally make it hard to attack
a tenured faculty. There are faculty who have problems with his being
American Indian or who have something against Ethnic Studies, etc etc-these
faculty will be reluctant or refuse to defend him (until it's too late).
As a revolutionary, he can be counted on to have a significant number of
colleagues who strongly dislike him and will be reluctant or refuse to
defend him (until it's too late). On top of all this, in the post-911
climate, moderates who would normally disagree with his views but then go
on to defend his free speech rights and academic freedom, will hesitate
because they are afraid of being cast in with his "anti-americanism" (much like the McCarthy period). In terms of his high value as a target (David Horowitz
has already written on this): he's not only tenured, but he's a full prof;
he's not only inside ethnic studies but he was chair; he's not in just any
university in CO, he's at the institutional flagship of "liberalism" in the
middle of a red state.
We have to be as clear as possible about the big picture. This is much,
much bigger than an individual attack on Ward. What we're looking at is a
carefully developed, pre-existing national strategy that has been searching
for exactly the right breakthrough "test case." It has found extremely
favorable conditions in Ward's situation and in the post-911 climate. As
they've been doing already in other areas they want to dismantle the
structural footholds (academic freedom/tenure, ethnic studies) that social
movements gained for people of color and liberal and progressive
intellectuals inside academe during the 60s & 70s. If they are successful
in Colorado, it could set a precedent like Bakke. Raising the stakes even
higher, Governor Owens has ambitions that reach as far as the White House.
The next phases of his career hang on this crucial campaign that will give
definitive proof of his leadership ability. If he pulls it off, it's a
glorious triple coup-de-grace: undermine the legal foundation of
tenure/free speech, hurt/ruin Ethnic Studies.and at no less than the strongest
"liberal" campus in the state. His personal investment in this campaign is very high and he is likely to throw his whole weight behind it.
This is a fight to make history.
Posted by sparks at 2:58 PM | TrackBack
February 15, 2005
Historians Under Attack
It is now a given that academic research has been corrupted by corporate influence. Lawrence Soley’s Leasing the Ivory Tower, demonstrated how right-wing organizations have created a network of campus-based think tanks dedicated to spreading conservative philosophy. Geoffrey White’s Campus, Inc. portrayed how government legislation, such as the Bayh-Dole Act, allowed corporations to use the university as an incubator for scientific research – research that is seen as the private property of the corporation and therefore not made public for the common good. As reported by Jon Weiner, author of Historians in Trouble, corporations have now expanded their reach beyond simply injecting the profit motive into academic research. Corporations are now infringing on the very concept of free speech by harassing scholars and issuing subpoenas to university professors who document corporate abuses and potential illegal activities.
As Jon Weiner writer in The Nation:
Twenty of the biggest chemical companies in the United States have launched a campaign to discredit two historians who have studied the industry’s efforts to conceal links between their products and cancer. In an unprecedented move, attorneys for Dow, Monsanto, Goodrich, Goodyear, Union Carbide and others have subpoenaed and deposed five academics who recommended that the University of California Press Published a book Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. The companies have also recruited their own historian to argue that Markowitz and Rosner have engaged in unethical conduct. Markowitz is a professor of history at the CUNY Grad Center; Rosner is a professor of history and public health at Columbia University and director of the Center for History and Ethics of Public Health at Columiba’s School of Public Health.
According to Weiner, Rosner and Markowitz first initiated a study of vinyl chloride and its cancer causing possibilities when they were given access to company documents first made public in response to a civil lawsuit. Apparently, the strategy of the corporate lawyers was to “bury� the lawyer with paper. This strategy backfired when Rosner and Markowitz used the materials to demonstrate companies were aware as early as 1973 of the cancer causing properties of vinyl chloride.
Weiner believes the companies response to the research is not hard to grasp. The corporations “face potentially massive liability claims on the order of the tobacco litigation if cancer is linked to vinyl chloride-based consumer products such as hairspray. The stakes are high also for them, because when authors are charged with ethical violations and manuscript readers are subpoenaed, that has a chilling effect. The stakes are highest for the public, because this dispute centers on access to information about cancer causing chemicals in consumer products.�
The effect of these subpoenas and ethical charges of ethical is to create an atmosphere hostile to free speech and anti-corporate research. Weiner quotes the words of subpoenaed Blanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City Univeristy of New York, former vice president for research of the AHA, award winning biographer of Eleanor Roosevelt. Cook calls such“harassment [an attempt] to silence independent research� and an effort to create a “chilling effect on folks who tell the truth.�
Posted by sparks at 10:16 AM | TrackBack
February 3, 2005
Ohio Legislature Bill to Limit Academic Freedom
In a state already unexamination for attempting the rights of its citizens to cast their ballots and have them counted, comes another example of the state attempting to surpress political speech. As reported by Kathy Lynn Gray of the Columbus Dispatch:
Legislation that would restrict what university professors could say in their classrooms was introduced yesterday in Ohio….
Marion Sen. Larry A. Mumper's “academic bill of rights for higher Education� would prohibit instructors at public or private universities from “persistently� discussing controversial issues in class or from using their classes to push political, ideological, religious or anti-religious views.
Senate Bill 24 also would prohibit professors from discriminating against students based on their beliefs and keep universities from hiring,firing, promoting or giving tenure to instructors based on their beliefs.
Mumper, a Republican, said many professors undermine the values of their students because “80 percent or so of them (professors) are Democrats, liberals or socialists or card-carrying Communists� who attempt to indoctrinate students.
“These are young minds that haven't had a chance to form their own opinions,� Mumper said. “Our colleges and universities are still filled with some of the '60s and '70s profs that were the anti-American group. They've gotten control of how to give people tenure and so the colleges continue to move in this direction.�
Joan McLean, a political-science professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, said Mumper's legislation is misguided and would have a chilling effect on the free-flowing debate that is a hallmark of democracy. “This is not the kind of democracy we think we're spreading when we hear President Bush's words. What we're celebrating is our ability to not control information.’
Besides, McLean said, who would define what issues could not be discussed?
The language of Mumper's bill comes from a 2003 booklet by conservative commentator David Horowitz that lays out how students can persuade universities to adopt the ‘bill of rights.’ The booklet says it is ‘dedicated to restoring academic freedom and educational values to America's institutions of higher learning.�…
Mumper said he's been investigating the issue for months and has heard of an Ohio student who said she was discriminated against because she supported Bush for president
“I think the bill asks that colleges and universities be fair in their approach to their education of students,� Mumper said, “They need to have their rights defended and need to be respected by faculty and administrators.�
In a Kenyon College publication, President S. Georgia Nugent called
Horowitz's thinking “a severe threat� to academic freedom. “I see this so-called bill of rights, the platform that he has constructed, as one that would explicitly introduce into college and university appointments a kind of political litmus test,’ she said.
Mumper said he will “push this all the way� so that it's approved by either the legislature or by individual universities….
To see the actual legislation, go to: http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=126_SB_24
Posted by sparks at 2:36 PM | TrackBack
February 1, 2005
The Religous Right and Textbooks: Stop Unhealthy Changes to McGraw-Hill Health Textbooks
While the media has been focused on President Bush's attempts to "reform" social security, the Religous Right continues their work unabated. As detailed in the petition below, major textbook companies are now bowing to this pressure. In addition to recording such attacks on intellectual freedom, as this site has attempted to, it is also important to speak out collectively against such efforts. For that reason, please go the following site (http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mh2004sm/petition.html) and sign this important petition.
To: The McGraw-Hill Companies
Harold McGraw III
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
The McGraw-Hill Companies
1221 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020 USA
Henry Hirschberg
President
McGraw-Hill Education
2 Penn Plaza New York, NY 10121-0101
To Messrs. McGraw and Hirschberg,
In November 2004, under pressure from members of the Texas State Board of Education, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill publishers, together with Holt, Rinehart and Winston publishers, changed language in health texts for Texas middle and high school students. The revised texts now stipulate that marriage is a union only between a man and woman, promote an abstinence approach to sex education, and omit information related to contraceptive use. We are writing to protest your actions and to inform you of our response to your decision.
This decision by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill signals its abandonment of a commitment to science, education, and to the welfare of the children it claims to serve. In bowing to political pressures you are negligent of your role in education. Children in Texas are now going to be provided with inadequate and non-scientific information regarding birth control, STD prevention and sexual health. In addition, gay,lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth will experience even greater isolation and stigmatization from their schools and community and will have to endure prejudiced information that has been shown to be harmful to their identity development and health.
Decisions made in Texas have larger political consequences. Your decision demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice the well-being of youth for profit and to further ingrain the oppressive beliefs and assumptions that lead to exclusive marriage policies nation-wide.
Until Glencoe/McGraw-Hill reverses its decision regarding health in textbooks and issues a statement that it will not capitulate to pressures from school boards, we plan to exclude all McGraw-Hill textbooks from courses we teach at the college level and to encourage our colleagues in higher education to do the same.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned