[news] Fw: "The most ominous threat to academic freedom in decades looms..."

[Paul Browning]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <kammerer at sfu.ca>
To: <sfss-corp at sfu.ca>; <amtyab at sfu.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 4:49 PM
Subject: "The most ominous threat to academic freedom in decades looms..."


>
> >>http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/167348_academic02.html
> >>
> >>Seattle Post-Intelligencer April 2, 2004
> >>
> >>Be careful what you say on campus
> >>
> >>By Beshara Doumani
> >>
> >>The most ominous threat to academic freedom in decades looms
> in a seemingly innocuous Senate bill expected to come up for vote
> shortly. A short but critical clause would rob our society of the open
> exchange of ideas on college campuses that is vital to our democracy.
> >>
> House Resolution 3077 passed last fall. It included a provision
> to establish an advisory board to monitor campus international
> studies centers in order to ensure that they advance the national
> interest. While the law would apply to all federally funded institutes
> with an international focus, the target is clearly the nation's 17 centers
> for Middle East studies. The driving force behind this provision is the
> same group of conservative ideologues who
> >>have long promoted the war on Iraq and who support the extreme
> right-wing politics of the Sharon government in Israel. Their aim is to
> defend the foreign policy of this administration by stifling critical and
> informed discussion on U.S. campuses.
> >>
> >>The Senate vote comes at a time in which conservative activists
> walk the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. They include
> Education Secretary Rod Paige, who in a moment of failed but
> revealing levity, recently described the National Education Association,
> with 2.7 million member teachers, as a terrorist organization.
> >>
> >>For professors like me, entrusted with teaching facts as well as
> critical
> >>thinking and the ability to analyze all sides of an issue, the pending
> >>legislation must be viewed against the backdrop of other recent
> and chilling
> >>developments.
> >>
> >>Be careful what books you buy or check out from the library. You
> could be
> >>monitored under the terms of the U.S. Patriot Act. A further
> provision of
> >>that law threatens criminal prosecution of anyone alerting you to
> government
> >>inspection of your selections.
> >>
> >>Be careful what readings you assign. The University of North
> Carolina at
> >>Chapel Hill was sued by the American Family Association Center
> for Law and
> >>Policy for assigning a book on Islam for incoming freshman
> students. The
> >>university held firm, and, fortunately, the court of appeals
> dismissed the
> >>suit.
> >>
> >>Be careful what you say in or out of class. Campus Watch and
> other hawkish,
> >>pro-Israeli right-wing organizations have launched campaigns to
> pressure and
> >>discredit professors judged to be un-American for questioning
> U.S. policy in
> >>the Middle East. Some organizations openly recruit students to
> inform on
> >>their teachers.
> >>
> >>Students and faculty connected academically or culturally to
> Muslim and
> >>Middle Eastern countries have been especially targeted. Some
> have been
> >>subjected to hate mail blitzes and their institutions pressured to
> >>short-circuit their careers. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn.,
> announced his
> >>intent last April to introduce legislation cutting federal funding to
> >>institutions of higher learning where students or faculty
> criticize Israel,
> >>labeling such criticism -- regardless of its content or basis in
> fact -- as
> >>anti-Semitic.
> >>
> >>All of this will seem like child's play, though, if the attempt
> to stifle
> >>academic freedom is formalized through Congress.
> >>
> >>If the legislation before the Senate passes, an advisory board
> would monitor
> >>area studies programs that receive money from the U.S.
> government
> under the
> >>Title VI program. The Association of American University
> Professors, the
> >>ACLU and most professional organizations have raised alarms
> about this
> >>unprecedented government invasion of the classroom. Among their
> concerns are
> >>the board's sweeping investigative powers, lack of accountability
> and
> >>makeup, which would be composed in part from two agencies with
> national
> >>security responsibilities.
> >>
> >>Should such a government-appointed board be allowed to police
> the
> classroom
> >>by deciding what constitutes a diverse or balanced lecture or if
> a teacher's
> >>research is in the national interest? Yes, if HR 3077 is passed,
> because it
> >>will replace the professional standards of the academy with
> arbitrary
> >>political standards.
> >>
> >>These are dangerous times indeed when politicians and private
> interest
> >>groups are willing to sacrifice academic freedom in order to
> achieve their
> >>domestic partisan or foreign policy goals. A key supporter of the
> current
> >>Senate legislation, Campus Watch founder Daniel Pipes, shared
> his
> thoughts
> >>with Salon.com. In discussing MIT linguistics Professor Noam
> Chomsky --
> >>recipient of numerous honorary degrees and scientific awards --
> Pipes said,
> >>"I want Noam Chomsky to be taught at universities about as much
> as I want
> >>Hitler's writing or Stalin's writing. These are wild and
> extremist ideas
> >>that I believe have no place in a university."
> >>
> >>Should academic freedom be effectively shelved in order to pursue
> a war
> >>against terror without end? Are these dark clouds hanging over
> U.S. campuses
> >>a passing storm or the harbinger of fundamental changes in the
> freedom to
> >>teach, learn, question, discuss and debate? How will universities
> and
> >>colleges respond when they are starved for resources and more
> dependent than
> >>ever on the funding that would be withdrawn if a professor were
> deemed out
> >>of line?
> >>
> >>At stake is the continuation of the academy as the bastion of
> informed,
> >>independent and alternative perspectives crucial to a better
> understanding
> >>of the world we live in. If teachers and students cannot think
> and speak
> >>freely, who can?
> >>
> >>
> >>Beshara Doumani is associate professor of history at the University
> of
> >>California, Berkeley. He organized a national conference,
> Academic Freedom
> >>After September 11th, which was held at UC Berkeley in February.
> >>
> >>
>