more on sad but true -- Michael Berube on threats to academic freedom

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Harvey Silverglate <has () harveysilverglate com>
Date: January 31, 2006 3:30:23 PM EST
To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: RE: [IP] Michael Berube on threats to academic freedom

Michael Berube tells only half the story. The other half of the story is
that for the past 25 years, the academic left has blithely gone about  
the
task of destroying the fundamental pillars of academic freedom in higher
education by implementing a regime characterized by speech codes to  
protect
"historically disadvantaged groups" and kangaroo courts to  
"try" (actually,
to "convict") students who had the audacity to say something that  
"offended"
a student or group of students with a hair-trigger sensitivity. Even
academic courses have been politicized, and I've known (and in some  
cases
represented) many students who were penalized for expressing a point  
of view
different from the "prevailing wisdom" on the campus (also coinciding  
with
the point-of-view of the politicized instructor). As a political liberal
with a deep belief in academic freedom, due process, and free speech,  
I've
been warning the academic left that someday the political worm would  
turn
and, having destroyed the modalities of liberty on campus, their own  
freedom
would soon be under attack. That worm is indeed turning as the country's
radical turn to the right is being seen on college campuses, more  
obvious on
some campuses than on others. The academic left is now being forced  
to sleep
in the bed that it has made. It is very sad, but fully predictable. I've
written about this (along with my friend, colleague and co-author  
Prof. Alan
Charles Kors of the University of Pennsylvania) in our 1998 book, THE  
SHADOW
UNIVERSITY: THE BETRAYAL OF LIBERTY ON AMERICA'S CAMPUSES  
(HarperPerennial
paperback, 1999). For examples of the now bi-partisan assault on  
academic
freedom, see the Website of the foundation that Prof. Kors and I created
after publishing out book, The Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education, www.thefire.org.
                                                Harvey Silverglate,
Cambridge, MA

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 6:53 PM
To: ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: [IP] Michael Berube on threats to academic freedom



Begin forwarded message:

From: Liz Ditz <ponytrax () batnet com>
Date: January 30, 2006 6:37:04 PM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: for IP if you wish: Michael Berube on threats to academic  
freedom


For IP if you wish:

http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/academic_freedom/

Michael Berube:
Tthe title of today's presentation, "Recent Attacks on Academic
Freedom: What's Going On?" can be answered in a single sentence.
Academic freedom is under attack for pretty much the same reasons that
liberalism itself is under attack.  American campuses tend to be  
somewhat
left of center of the American mainstream, particularly with regard to
cultural issues that have to do with gender roles and
sexuality: the combination of a largely liberal, secular professoriat  
and a
generally under-25 student body tends to give you a local population  
that,
by and large, does not see gay marriage as a serious threat to the  
Republic.
And after 9/11-again, for obvious reasons- many forms of mainstream
liberalism have been denounced as anti- American.  There is, as you  
know, a
cottage industry of popular right- wing books in which liberalism is  
equated
with treason (that would be Ann Coulter), with mental disorders (Michael
Savage), and with fascism (Jonah Goldberg).  Coulter's book also  
mounts a
vigorous defense of Joe McCarthy, and Michelle Malkin has written a book
defending the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War Two.
In that kind of climate, it should come as no surprise that we would be
seeing attacks on one of the few remaining institutions in American life
that is often-though not completely-dominated by liberals.

[snip]

Not all college professors are liberals, and attacks on academic  
freedom are
dangerous partly because, in some instances, they can undermine the
intellectual autonomy of conservative professors.  And I don't  
believe that
this is the same old same old, either.  What we're seeing today is  
actually
unprecedented, for two reasons.  One is demographic: college professors
have, in the aggregate, become more liberal over the past thirty-five
years-though, as I'll explain later on, most of the studies that have  
been
done on this subject in the past three years are exercises in cooking  
the
data.  The other is
strategic: for the first time in American history, there is an  
organized,
national campaign to undermine academic freedom by appealing to the  
ideal of
. . .  academic freedom.  And the reason it's enjoyed such success in  
recent
years is that so few people- faculty, students, and state legislators
included-seem to have a good grasp of what academic freedom really  
means.

the rest at

http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/academic_freedom/



**********
Liz Ditz
ponytrax () batnet com

blog: http://lizditz.typepad.com

Success: fall down seven times, stand up eight.

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