IP: final on RE: American Council of Trustees and Alumni

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 12:35:39 -0400
> To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com
> From: John Noble <jnoble () dgsys com>
> Subject: Re: IP: two RE: American Council of Trustees and Alumni
>
> The ACTA report is not just a "point of view". It is propaganda, and it is
> a lie, and it is intended to silence criticism. The ACTA is a group of
> trustees and alumni, headed up by VP Cheney's wife, who control university
> purse-strings and academic careers. The report says that "College and
> university faculty have been the weak link in America's response to the
> attack." The report lists 117 comments or incidents as evidence that
> academics are generally hostile to the US government "Indeed," the report
> says, "the message of much of academe was clear: BLAME AMERICA FIRST." The
> author, Anne Neal, says "For the most part, public comments in academia
> were equivocal and often pointing the finger at America rather than the
> terrorists." According to Neal, "It's hard for non-tenured professors to
> speak up when there's such a chorus on the other side."
>
> In fact, criticism of the government from any quarter, including academia,
> has been remarkably muted. There is no "chorus" of anti-Americanism -- just
> rare "equivocal" classroom comments that became "public comments" when ACTA
> or someone else makes them public only because they aren't unequivocally
> supportive of the government. Does anyone believe that patriots have been
> intimidated by anti-American sentiment on campus or anywhere else? It is a
> lie.
>
> The obscenity here is not that ACTA would criticize 117 professors that
> they disagree with. That's fair game. It is that they would broadly paint
> academia as "the weak link." The professors who might have an "equivocal"
> point of view are silenced, not by fear of criticism, but by fear that
> their comments will be used to tar the entire academic community. ACTA is
> doing exactly what it accuses its targets of doing -- using intimidation to
> silence dissent and even support that is only "equivocal."
>
> John Noble
>
> >>From: "Hiawatha Bray" <watha () monitortan com>
> >>To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
> >>
> >>I for one am heartily sick of people who accuse their critics of
> >>"censorship."  I've glanced at the ACTA report and it seems to me rather
> >>overwrought and extreme in its assertions.  But what of it?  It's just a
> >>document expressing a particular point of view.  However wrongheaded it
> >>might be, it doesn't pose a threat to anybody's freedom of speech.
> >>Certain academics have expressed various views on the war and other
> >>matters; the folks at ACTA respond.  Last I heard, that was how freedom
> >>of speech was supposed to work.


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