Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: Re: CUNY condemns professors
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2001 16:31:20 -0400
Editor comment: I don't want to prolong this round. Let me stick my 2 cents in. I lived during the Joe McCarthy era and have read a lot about it. The real damage was done by not the HUAC but the corporations, Universities etc. ( read the history). One young faculty at Princeton who was on a black list and , if my memory served right took his constitutional right against self incrimination was told to get off the campus and NEVER step foot on it again. Tenured faculty at other places were fired. People had their lives ruined etc. Many, who were not at all associated with the Communist party, were asked to and refused to incriminate their friends. It was not a proud era and only ended when Joe started accusing the Army of harboring "unamerican" people.
Witch hunts are exactly what terrorists want. It disrupts a society and sets citizen against citizen. Law , the constitution, and the spirit of our citizens are what makes this nation great. Lets not damage it by refusing to allow open debate.
Dave
From: Kobrin <KobrinS () wharton upenn edu> To: "'farber () cis upenn edu'" <farber () cis upenn edu> Subject: RE: Re: CUNY condemns professors Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 14:17:12 -0400 With all due respect to my esteemed colleague Gerry Faulhaber, it stretches (at least my) credence a bit to believe that the Chancellor and Trustees of CUNY were speaking as private citizens exercising their constitutional rights when they publicly condemned faculty for their opinions. They were speaking as officials of CUNY. While I have no doubt they expressed what they themselves felt, I also have no doubt that they were just as interested in disassociating CUNY from these statements. Furthermore, I am sure that we both recall that it was not HUAC who fired faculty during the early years of the Cold War but chancellors, trustees and administrators of universities acting for a variety of reasons, including both their own politics and a desire to show that their universities were on the "right side." I find myself angry at attempts to blame the victim, to argue that it was U.S. policy and arrogance that motivated the attacks. I do not think that Bin Laden much cares about cross-national income distribution or the Kyoto Treaty. What makes me angry, however, is not that important; we need the freedom to reexamine a lot of aspects of American foreign policy ranging from unilateralism to efforts to deal with poverty and inequality in the light of the September attacks. While the constitution never allowed one to scream fire in a crowded theater, it is important to maintain a climate where a range of opinions are not only tolerated, but encouraged. Publicly condeming faculty for their opinions or labeling any divergence from the mainstream -- anti-globalization protesters or human rights activists, for example -- as supporting terrorism is not going to accomplish that end. Stephen Kobrin
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