A False Charge of “Incitement to Violence”

The conservative site, The College Fix, offers up an article by Emily Schrader reporting that students “at the University of Pennsylvania have ignited tensions nationwide with their choice of headliners for their upcoming anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) conference.”

Schrader targets Ali Abunimah for being a keynote speaker at the event: “Abunimah in particular is highly controversial, having repeatedly condemned a two-state solution, and having gone on record with comments that sound a great deal like incitement to violence against Israelis.”

As for the claim that Abunimah is guilty of “incitement to violence against Israelis,” it's an absolutely outrageous lie. The proof Schrader offers is this quote:
In 2002 he told the Washington Post, “If Israel is going to maintain a military occupation over millions of people by nothing but brute force, then no power on earth is going to stop some of these occupied people responding in kind. The only way to end the violence is to end the occupation.”
Nothing in this statement can possibly sound like incitement to violence. In fact, Abunimah declares in this same lengthy interview about suicide bombings, “Such bombings are horrific and need to stop.” He added, “no good can come out of murdering innocent civilians. Palestinians have to stop doing it....” The quote Schrader emphasizes is simply a recognition of the fact that some people under occupation turn to violence. There's no endorsement of violence here, and it's hard to conceive how anyone could call it “incitement to violence.”

At least Schrader does not openly call for censorship of the conference. But incitement to violence is one of the traditional valid justifications for repression of free speech. That makes this utterly absurd claim (quoted with approval at Phi Beta Cons) such a disturbing idea. There are plenty of legitimate critiques a rational person can make against the divestment movement or Abunimah's argument. But “incitement to violence” isn't even remotely close to being true.

NAS Now Claims to Oppose Preferences for Hiring Conservative Professors

In an essay on the NAS blog, Glenn Ricketts proudly declares that NAS' principled opposition to all hiring or admissions preferences: “This means that faculty hiring, student admissions, scholarship awards or any aspect of the academic enterprise should be guided by individual merits without regard to racial, ethnic and sexual criteria, or any other a priori ascriptive criteria. That includes some recent proposals for giving preference to conservatives or to male undergraduate applicants. Nope, no preferences based on group identity however it’s defined, period. That’s been the NAS position since our founding in 1987, and we’re sticking to it.”

This claim of a principled position might be more plausible if it were actually the NAS position. It's not. Less than a year ago, the NAS published an exchange between me and NAS head Peter Wood, in which Wood endorses David Horowitz's proposal for political preferences for conservatives in the hiring of visiting professors. As far as I know, no one in the NAS has ever criticized this stand of affirmative action hiring for conservatives. Wood defended his claim with the absolutely absurd position that visiting professors aren't real faculty. As I pointed out, that's not true, and even if it weren't factually wrong, I'm appalled that Wood thinks politically-based hiring of anyone at a college should be acceptable.

The ROTC Ban Myth Strikes Again

KC Johnson at Minding the Campus is wrong on two points. He is simply mistaken when he writes, "the universities banned ROTC." Neither Brown nor any other university banned ROTC. As I wrote on Academe Blog, the banning of ROTC is a myth.

Johnson claims, "There never was a coherent intellectual rationale for Brown’s policy." This is false. There is a clear intellectual rationale. One issue is equality, and the continuing ban on transgender soldiers is a continuation of concern about supporting bias against Brown students. But the primary intellectual rationale is that the faculty should decide faculty hiring and control the curriculum. In 1969, this was the reason why the military withdrew ROTC from Brown, and the faculty were right then and they're right today.

A Misleading Hatchet Job on David Protess

Michael Miner's hatchet job on David Protess is depressing to read, not because it's right, but because it's so wrong. Miner distorts and omits key facts while he presents the prosecutor's case. But worst of all, he betrays the spirit of advocacy journalism that the Chicago Reader is supposed to be celebrating on its 40th anniversary.

Miner notes that Protess' Innocence Project worked with the Center on Wrongful Convictions and declares, “no, it's not the way journalists are supposed to act.”
Why the hell not? Nobody has a problem with law schools advocating for the innocent. Why should journalism schools be any different? What part of the words “Innocence Project” are unclear? It is, by definition, an advocacy project, and a damned good one.

While claiming that the university established that Protess had falsified an email, Miner omits the very important fact that Protess told Northwestern at the time that he had altered the email Miner finds so damning, and that he had urged Northwestern to get the information themselves. Miner reprints at length a series of utterly pointless emails from Protess, which only establish what Protess admits and everyone knows: Protess worked closely with defense attorneys. So what? Beyond unfairly smearing Bryan Smith of Chicago magazine because he had enough sense not to waste his readers' time with such nonsense, Miner implies they prove Protess did something wrong without ever explaining why.

Meanwhile, Miner omits numerous important facts, such as the fact that prosecutors sought grades and emails that everyone knows were never revealed to defense attorneys.

If, due to the failings of our legal system, Protess lost the “journalistic privilege” for his classes by providing information to defense attorneys, then so be it. But it's no reason for a professor to be banned from teaching a class or forced out of a university.

It's particularly disappointing that Miner concludes his article by praising what happened to Protess as “proper” and “necessary”: “The first generation has left the building.” No, the first generation was shoved out of the building. Banned from teaching a class, and then forced out of a job.

If the fuzzy “rules” of journalism are supposed to be sacrosanct, what about the very clear rules of due process and academic freedom in the Northwestern Faculty Handbook, which require any suspension of a faculty member to include a hearing before a faculty committee with actual evidence presented and proof of intentional deception provided? Why has Miner never written a single word about the fact that the Northwestern administration violated its own rules in punishing Protess?

It's particularly appalling that around the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Reader, where Miner has been publishing for 40 years as part of a leading example of (at its best) crusading, advocacy journalism, Miner buys into this nonsense of objective journalism. If the people who forced out Protess had their way, the advocacy journalism in newspapers like the Chicago Reader would never exist. Miner's memo for the prosecution is a betrayal of everything the Chicago Reader ever stood for.

The Statistics of Victimization

Ted Gup in the Chronicle of Higher Education repeats some of the usual fake statistics aimed at promoting conservatives as victims on campus: “The American Council of Trustees and Alumni found that almost half of students believed in-class discussions of politics were too one-sided. Almost one-third said they felt they had to agree with the professor to get a good grade.”

I can find nothing in ACTA's 2004 survey about one-sided classroom discussions; 49% did agree that “some panel discussions and presentations on political issues seem totally one-sided,” but even I would agree with that. Anyone with a strong point of view who gives a speech on campus is going to be one-sided.
It's true that 29% did agree, “On my campus, there are courses in which students feel they have to agree with the professor's political or social views in order to get a good grade." However, ACTA surveys never ask students for their own experiences; they always ask students to speculate about whether there are some courses where this happens, which makes them entirely worthless.

In an ACTA survey in Missouri, 51 percent agreed that “On my campus, there are courses in which students feel they have to agree with the professor’s political or social views in order to get a good grade.” Omitted in the report (unless you examine the full list of questions in the appendix) was this question: “On my campus, some professors penalize students because of the student's political or social views.” Only 12 percent of students agreed with this secondhand rumor that “some” professors do this, even though it seems almost identical to the question that got 51 percent support.

A 2008 Georgia study that ACTA did not conduct found much more ambiguous political results. Only 23% of students reported having to agree with a professor to get a good grade. 25.2% of Republicans (vs. 19.3% of Democrats) reported this. For two-thirds of the students, this only happened once in college (and it was less likely to happen frequently to Republicans: 1.8% of Republicans, but 6.2% of Democrats, reported it happened 5 or more times). Part of the party difference may reflect a desire by Republicans not to have their views challenged. Only 40.5% of Republicans (vs. 59% of Democrats) considered it important for instructors to challenge their beliefs. More Democrats (22.8%) than Republicans (16.8%) reported "low" respect for the political views of all students.

Of course, even if we did find more conservatives than liberals report feeling bias, it would not be proof of it. Self-reported bias is highly unreliable, and the fact that creationists might feel uncomfortable in a biology class discussion about evolution is the fault of their own ignorant and unscientific beliefs, not political bias by professors. A student who devoutly believes in astrology is not necessarily the victim of political bias in an astronomy class, even if they feel like they must betray their own ideas and agree with scientific reality in order to get a good grade.

God and Truth at Erskine College

Last month, Peter Wood and Ashley Thorne of the National Association of Scholars wrote an article of extraordinary ambivalence, refusing to criticize Erskine College for firing of Bill Crenshaw because of his outspoken defense of science.

Wood and Thorne write about my earlier criticism of Erskine's firing, “Wilson’s characterization of what happened at Erskine is off the mark. He is vilifying Erskine simply for offering faith-based education. This is not a case of a conservative college repressing a pro-science professor. It is a Christian college attempting to adhere to its own clear values as it struggles with the case of a professor who plainly rejects those values—and apparently carries his dissent to the point of dissuading potential applicants and donors.”

This is absolutely false. This is a case of a conservative college repressing a pro-science professor.

Wood and Thorne are even unwilling to criticize the obvious abuse of the term “harm” in the Erskine faculty handbook used by the administration to justify Crenshaw's firing. Wood and Thorne argue, “Encouraging people not to donate to or enroll at Erskine certainly counts as “harm” to a college. Whether this is the kind of 'harm' originally contemplated in the now obsolete handbook is a rather lawyerly question. The AAUP says no; Erskine College says (via a spokesman to Inside Higher Ed) that there are harms beyond the merely physical that warrant administrative intervention.”

It is notable that Crenshaw declares, “I did not tell anyone to quit donating and I did not tell any parent not to send children to Erskine,” and no evidence has been presented proving he did this. But even if he did, it seems perfectly obvious that “harm to himself or others” in the handbook refers strictly to physical harm. If harm beyond the “merely physical” can now justify firing a professor, then it's hard to imagine anything that could not qualify. A student who receives a bad grade suffers a “harm” from it. A professor who criticizes the administration can be said to “harm” it. A discussion on campus that offends someone can be deemed to “harm” them emotionally. And anyone on campus who says something controversial can be accused of “harm” to college fundraising. This may be a “lawyerly question” in the sense that a lawyer for the college can invent rationalizations that are plainly contrary to any common sense meaning, but why is the NAS embracing the administration's side in firing critical faculty?

Ashley Thorne writes on Phi Beta Cons, “The AAUP and others take it as a given that religious faith is incompatible with scientific inquiry. Peter and I disagree.” This is absurd. Of course religious faith can be compatible with scientific inquiry. Plenty of scientists are religious. But they understand that scientific reality cannot be ignored simply because particularly ignorant fundamentalists imagine that not one iota of their vision of religious dogma must never be challenged. Young earth creationism cannot be defended by any scientific analysis, but that scientific fact is only incompatible with a particularly crazed interpretation of Christianity. It is bizarre to imagine that the essence of Christian faith is the false belief that the Earth was created 10,000 years ago. That's why devoutly religious colleges can and should employ scientists.

It's actually Thorne and Wood who argue that religious faith cannot be compatible with scientific inquiry, and therefore religious dogma justifies the expulsion from religious colleges of those who believe in science.

Now, it is a separate issue as to whether religious colleges should employ people who reject their faith. As an atheist, I'm appalled that hundreds of conservative religious colleges ban me from being hired, while I'm not aware of a single university in America that excludes fundamentalist Christians. I think that a truly religious college is a place where faith is the center of the conversation, not a place where everyone agrees with a particular religious dogma. Therefore, I believe that religious colleges should welcome atheists and encourage religious dissenters who challenge the faith of their students.

However, that argument has nothing to do with the Crenshaw case, because science is perfectly compatible with religious faith. Wood and Thorne argue, “The harsh antipathy between faith and science conjured in some of Professor Crenshaw’s statements is mostly if not entirely a secularist illusion.” Apparently the belief that Crenshaw was fired is a secularist illusion. But as Crenshaw noted in my interview with him, “I do not think, and have never said, that religious faith and scientific inquiry are incompatible.”

Wood and Thorne argue that “the doctrine of academic freedom be conceived as sufficiently capacious to allow room for minds that are open to religious truth.” That's a great idea, and I agree with it. So shouldn't academic freedom allow room for Crenshaw's mind to believe in a religious truth that also allows for scientific truth?

Ironically, Wood and Thorne blame their failure to defend academic freedom in the Crenshaw case on the AAUP: “The AAUP’s 1940 statement, however, was purposely vague. Far from settling the question of how religious colleges can or should protect academic freedom, it set up an ambiguity that has repeatedly led to confrontations.”

That assessment of the 1940 Statement is true. And that's why the AAUP and the American Association of Colleges in 1970 adopted a series of Interpretive Comments, among which was this: “Most church-related institutions no longer need or desire the departure from the principle of academic freedom implied in the 1940 Statement, and we do not now endorse such a departure.”

Everything in the 1970 Interpretive Comments is fully part of the AAUP's fundamental principles (indeed, it's more important than the 1940 Statement because the 1970 Comments supercede the 1940 Statement at any points where they conflict).

There is no ambiguity in the AAUP's 1970 Comments. They clearly state that religious colleges should follow the same principles of academic freedom as secular colleges.

But Wood and Thorne reject this universal idea of academic freedom, preferring to carve out a far more restricted concept for professors at religious colleges: “We should be able to conceive of ideals of academic freedom that can thrive in the setting of creedal communities. If not, the doctrine of academic freedom itself is exposed as a conceit too weak to match the actual circumstances of higher learning.” The fault, dear NAS, lies in yourselves, not in the doctrine of academic freedom. Academic freedom is a conceit strong enough for everyone, except when some people refuse to apply it to actual violations of intellectual liberty.

I can find no other instance where the NAS ever blamed the victim of an attack on academic freedom, as they do when they attack “Crenshaw for his destructive antagonism towards the college.” The NAS has defended plenty of professors who criticize the administration of their colleges. Wood and Thorne are embracing a double standard, refusing to acknowledge repression when it is aimed at a controversial “liberal” professor who supports science.

Interview with Bill Crenshaw

Bill Crenshaw was fired in August from his job at Erskine College by President David Norman. The AAUP wrote a letter in his defense. Since then, Crenshaw has come under attack from groups like the National Association of Scholars, so I decided to email Crenshaw a few questions about his case.

1. It's been reported that you were willing to accept a retirement offer, but Erskine would have required that you not criticize the administration. Is that true? How much were they willing to pay you to stay quiet?

Norman offered to continue my salary and retirement package for two more years. I had to do only two things: retire, and stop criticizing the direction Erskine was going. The total would run about $140,000 over two years, although they had financial contingency clauses built in. I believe Greg has a copy of this agreement. If not, I can send it to you.

I agreed to discuss the offer with my lawyer.

I was tempted to take that offer for several hours. I have been under active attack for six or seven years now, and an hour and a half or so with Norman made it all seem like more than enough grief. But the temptation didn’t last long. It boiled down to my living with myself. What was being offered was hush money. It was a bribe. I’ve spent many years being vocal about the problems facing Erskine. I wasn’t going to be bought off. As I told my wife and lawyer that weekend, I won’t take a dime in hush money, but I’ll take what I can get in compensatory and punitive damages.

2. Norman sent you an email on August 23 saying that, “The College cannot permit you to hold your position on an active basis and while doing so [permit you to] encourage people to quit donating to Erskine and to quit sending their kids to Erskine.” Of course, encouraging or discouraging donations, and advising students about the correct colleges to attend, are fully protected by academic freedom. But did you actually ever tell someone to quit donating to Erskine, or tell a parent not to send their children to Erskine?

I did not tell anyone to quit donating and I did not tell any parent not to send children to Erskine. The quotations he cites are, in context, clearly part of an ongoing discussion with alumni on the Facebook sites that the alumni themselves set up. The discussion concerned the purpose of the Facebook site. I can dig up, I think, the entire discussion for the context. The alumni themselves had already discussed not sending their children and withholding their contributions. I did not suggest the idea; I did not endorse it. I did say, as many alums had already, that using the Facebook merely as a place to complain would not get them a seat at a negotiation table.

As for giving, I donated $3000.00 to Erskine at the end of June by allowing a stipend attached to my chair to roll over unused into the general fund. I had hope to be reimbursed through restricted English department funds, but even then, my expenditures would have been less than $3000.00. In addition, when asked last summer by a colleague about the advisability of sending his children to Erskine, I did not discourage him in any way.

3. Do you reject the values of Erskine College and the religious requirements for faculty, and did you ever seek actively to undermine the college’s mission?

Absolutely not. I am a graduate of Wofford College, a sister school to Erskine (or was when I first came). I’m the son of a Methodist minister.

What I do reject is the recent fundamentalist interpretation of the mission, which was not the interpretation through most of my 35 years at Erskine; I do seek to prevent a more stringent theological litmus test being imposed on new faculty.

When I came to Erskine we had a Jewish professor and Roman Catholic professors on the faculty. Under the current policies, Jews will not be hired and outside of modern languages, Catholics are rarely hired.

4. Ashley Thorne and Peter Wood of the NAS argue, “It is Crenshaw, not Erskine College, who seems to think that religious faith and scientific inquiry are incompatible.” Do you think that religious faith and scientific inquiry are incompatible?

No, I do not think, and have never said, that religious faith and scientific inquiry are incompatible. The idea that you can’t do science and be a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or any other believer or a non-believer is insulting on its face.

However, scientific inquiry and a fundamentalist literalism about the Bible are indeed incompatible. In one’s personal life, faith separate from science serves a variety of important functions and meets many needs.

But the question is not one of faith, but dogma: dogma cannot trump fact at a college with the least pretensions to academic integrity and intellectual honesty. Erskine teaches science honestly and does not deny faith, nor does it let dogma dictate what is and is not accept from modern scientific understanding. I want to keep it that way.

Due Process at Northwestern

My essay on due process violations at Northwestern University in the cases of David Protess and Michael Bailey appears at InsideHigherEd today. While the two cases are very different in many ways, what they share is the administration’s indifference to due process and faculty shared governance in high-profile cases of controversial professors.

The New Academe Blog

The AAUP has launched a new Academe Blog, and I am a co-editor. Read the Academe Blog for some of my latest posts about campus freedom, although I'll continue to make some posts on this blog.

Northwestern Journalism Dean to Retire

Northwestern journalism dean John Lavine announced that he will retire at the end of the 2011-12 academic year, but it probably won't mark the end of a disastrous experiment in taking away faculty power and handing a journalism school over to a business manager. Lavine, who came from the School of Management in 2006, was immediately given near-total control over the school: “the university’s president and provost suspended formal faculty oversight and gave the new dean authority to overhaul the entire curriculum.” Lavine promised it was aimed to “create a guarantee for employers.” According to Robert Feder's account, “Faculty members who didn’t buy in to the new vision found themselves on their way out.” One of those faculty was David Protess, who retired last month under attack by Lavine, just a few years after Protess had publicly questioned whether Lavine invented a student quote praising the Northwestern program in a PR letter. Lavine's most lasting legacy might be providing Northwestern with the worst name change in the history of journalism schools: the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

UIC Joint Faculty Union Upheld

Today, the full Illinois Education Labor Relations Board (IELRB) ruled in favor of the faculty union at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), rejecting the administration's argument that full-time faculty and adjuncts could not be part of the same union. According to a press release, "UIC United Faculty will immediately contact the administration to bargain a first contract." The administration should stop its stalling tactics, and start negotiating with the union. The UIC United Faculty revealed that UIC had spent the amazing figure of $3,282,414 in the past 10 years on outside counsel dealing with labor issues.

Claptrap and Smears about 9/11, 10 Years Later

John Leo of Minding the Campus revisits, with great pride, the words he wrote after 9/11 for U.S. News and World Report about the AAUP:

The American Association of University Professors put out a statement that probably would have made Neville Chamberlain throw up. It promised to "continue to fight violence with renewed dedication to the exercise of freedom of thought and the expression of that freedom in our teaching." What does that mean? That the professors of 1941 should have responded to Pearl Harbor by just logging more class time? Bradford Wilson of the National Association of Scholars, a group that has been struggling to restore intellectual integrity to the campus, called the AAUP statement "fatuous nonsense," "basic Marxist claptrap" and "anti-American in its basic thrust."

John Leo smears the AAUP's immediate response to 9/11 as a statement that "probably would have made Neville Chamberlain throw up." If you look at the actual statement (which was a personal statement by the president and general secretary, not an official statement by the AAUP), it's nothing like that.

Leo wonders about the AAUP's defense of freedom of thought in response to 9/11, "What does that mean? That the professors of 1941 should have responded to Pearl Harbor by just logging more class time?"

What does Leo propose that the professoriate should have done after 9/11? Imprison Muslim in camps? Mount machine guns on the roof of a campus building? Launch a team of professors to seek out and kill Osama bin Laden? Support the invasion of random countries on false pretenses?

It seems perfectly wise that professors (and everyone one) should have responded to the act of irrational mass murder on 9/11 with a commitment to rationality and freedom of thought. Not one word in the AAUP statement suggests that they think the American government should have done nothing in response to the "immense violence" of 9/11--it was strictly limited to what professors ought to do.

The reactionary responses by Leo and Bradford Wilson of the NAS to these reasonable ideas were deplorable, but perhaps understandable considering the wave of fear and anger inspired by 9/11.

But 10 years later, Leo actually seems proud to have falsely smeared the AAUP as "anti-American" because it stood up for freedom of thought after 9/11. Personally, I don't see anything American about attacking the patriotism of people who defend free speech.

The NAS Attack on College Common Reading Programs

The National Association of Scholars is attacking common reading programs again with a new bizarrely titled report, “Beach Books: What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class? 2011-2012.”

I criticized the NAS report on common reading programs last year, and even had a superficial debate with them on Fox News Channel.

In this year's report, the NAS repeats the same attacks for colleges asking students to read contemporary books. It claims, “Colleges continue to ignore the best books when they make their selections for common reading. One likely reason for this is that Americans have eroded the distinction between high and low culture.”

Only the worst elitist can imagine that The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (by far the most popular book this year) is “low” culture or a “beach book.” Sadly, the NAS denounces the book as “an effort to create a social controversy on the basis of a long-since settled scientific accomplishment” and smears it because “the writing itself is journalistic, not intellectual.”

The great thing about current books such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is that they usually aren't already read in classes, and they offer a highly appealing (and, yes, intellectual) way to bring students into a discussion about science and ethics.

The NAS press release declared,

NAS identified five problems in U.S. society that are amplified when colleges limit students' exposure to good books: 
1. An inability to distinguish "the truth" from "my truth"
2. A tendency to ignore aspects of the world that fall outside the bounds of race, class, and gender
3. A shallow understanding of the human heart
4. A lack of humility and willingness to learn
5. A sense of resentment toward those who are prosperous.

Of course, common reading programs don't “limit students' exposure to good books”--they expand it. But this statement reveals something about the NAS' particular conservative ideology. They seem to think (#5) that the only “good books” are ones that will cause students to love rich people.

The reality of the world is that if you assign a classic to an entire college, most students are going to ignore it. If you ask students to read an excellent book about a contemporary issue and bring the author on campus to talk about it, there's a better chance to have a broader campus conversation about intellectual matters.

The NAS recognizes this problem and suggests, “Bring in an impersonator or an expert on the writings of a deceased author to speak and answer questions.” Oh, good lord. So every college is going to bring in a guy with a Mark Twain mustache to tell us in a fake drawl what Huckleberry Finn is all about?

Instead of dealing with the reality that classic books just aren't desirable reading for most students, the NAS offers a truly stupid idea: “Make reading the book mandatory, and enforce the assignment with a test.”

Exactly how would you do that? Would students who fail the test be expelled from college? And who would do this? At a college with 20,000 students, would you have someone grading 20,000 essays? Would you somehow prevent 20,000 students from cheating on a multiple-choice test (not to mention the fact that standardized multiple-choice tests on literature are the worst kind of dumbing down imaginable)?

The great thing about common reading experiences is that they are voluntary. They send a message to students that reading should be a lifelong activity done for self-improvement, not something limited to classes and assignments and tests.

The NAS adds to its bad ideas with this gem: “Require that students submit a list of new words they learn from the book.” Require how? Will you fail a student who already knows these words and didn't learn new words? These are the kinds of activities I would expect in third grade, not college. I can't think of anything quite so idiotic as reducing a work of great literature to its vocabulary-building components.

Sadly, the NAS' suggestions also ignore what I think would be a great way to improve common reading programs: add a second book. It would be fantastic to have students reading books on a common subject that disagree with one another, to teach students about how to debate different views. Or imagine a college reading a classic book along with a contemporary book that's somehow connected to it. But by sneering at all current books as inherently inferior, the NAS is missing an opportunity to recommend solid books published in recent years where students can speak to a real author rather than impersonator.

None of the books suggested by the NAS seem bad, but neither are the books picked by colleges that are being attacked by the NAS (except for Tuesdays with Morrie). Instead of denouncing colleges for picking good books, they should be criticizing the colleges who haven't adopted one yet and start encouraging an expansion of these programs.

Inside Higher Ed reports on a proposed University of Illinois email policy, which has been condemned by FIRE and the AAUP in an unusual joint letter (I don't recall the AAUP and FIRE ever doing this before).

Banning the use of non-university email accounts is very disturbing, especially since the example offered by Corn is this: "We have seen situations where researchers are collaborating and using personal accounts, and they have a falling out, and the research project is at risk." So if there's a dispute between collaborators, the university will go into the email of one of them and steal their data to be used against their will? Let's ignore the likely fact that no research project has ever been endangered by private email accounts. This threat of stealing data is another alarming reason why every professor and student should use private email accounts.

Here's another disturbing part of this proposed policy. According to section 12.1, "Individuals and units are required to accurately and correctly identify themselves in all electronic communications." This is not expressly limited to university business or campus email accounts; it means that students or staff at the U of Illinois are banned from being anonymous anywhere on the internet at any time (the exception allowed is to "report intolerance").

This is an example of what happens when administrators devise policies that should be written by faculty and students.

Another Victim of Repression at a Conservative College

Yesterday, Erskine College fired William Crenshaw for the thoughtcrime of questioning right-wing dogma and suggesting that science should be taught. Once again, more proof that the worst repression in American higher education comes from conservative religious colleges that fire liberal (or in this case pro-science) professors. Unfortunately, many conservatives who imagine only right-wingers are ever fired will ignore it or defend violations of academic freedom when the Bible is being held up to justify it. I'd love to hear about a similar example of a conservative professor being fired under the same circumstances.

Ruling on Northwestern Students and the Protess Case

A judge ruled today that Northwestern University must turn over 500 emails between David Protess and his students because "the Medill students worked at the direction of Anthony McKinney’s attorneys, conducting interviews, gathering evidence.” The ruling is stayed for 10 days until Northwestern can decide to appeal it.

I'll admit that I'm no expert at this issue. I think that if anything, the privilege that applies to investigators working for the defense should be much, much stronger than any journalistic privilege. Exactly why should the prosecution be able to subpoena the defense for evidence? I'm baffled by the whole situation. Perhaps it's because the guilt of a separate individual is now in question, but that has nothing to do with the McKinney defense, an apparently innocent man who remains in prison while prosecutors delay and delay everything.

On Monday, I watched the remarkable new documentary Crime After Crime, which shows how Los Angeles prosecutors stonewalled the efforts to release a woman from prison who should never have received a life sentence. The McKinney case doesn't seem much different, with State's Attorney Anita Alvarez leading a successful crusade against David Protess and his students to avoid dealing with the issue of innocence and prosecutorial misconduct.

Of course, the emails are quite likely to reveal absolutely nothing of any legal significance once they come out (otherwise, I'm sure Northwestern officials would have leaked any negative information as part of their crusade against Protess). But they set a terrible legal precedent against Innocence Project classes. This whole sham of a proceeding is meant to intimidate and smear, not gain justice for anyone.

Chicago Magazine just released an extensive story about what happened to Protess at Northwestern. This article is a good examination of the appalling actions by the Northwestern administration against David Protess. I am particularly amazed by the admission that the administration thinks it can ban faculty from attending faculty meetings if they are on leave for the semester: “Professor Protess was on leave spring quarter. Faculty members on leave do not attend faculty meetings.” It's a small point, but it reflects both the repressive tendencies of Northwestern administrators and their outright hypocrisy, since I am sure many faculty who have been on leave can come forward to reveal that they have attended faculty meetings without opposition.

As an advocacy journalist, I am appalled and annoyed by the article's discussion about whether Protess and his students engaged in advocacy for innocent prisoners, as if this were a crime deserving the academic death penalty. Objectivity is the worst thing that's happened to journalism in recent decades (yes, even worse than corporate ownership) and it's the main source of both bad writing and false reporting in the media. Advocacy journalism is a glorious tradition, and I regard it as both unethical and unprofessional for any journalism school to ban students from learning advocacy reporting. I don't object to journalism schools teaching objectivity despite its all-around evil influence, and I think individual professors should be free to push objectivity even though I hate it. But the notion that advocacy journalism should be banished from journalism schools is appalling and should be regarded as both an attack on academic freedom and an attack on great journalism.

In one area, this article falls short. It notes, “The American Association of University Professors also demanded to know Lavine’s reasoning.” In reality, the AAUP letters to Northwestern (available on my blog at http://collegefreedom.blogspot.com) demanded to know why the administration was violating Northwestern's own rules for due process before removing a faculty member from teaching responsibilities. It wasn't just the lack of any good reason for removing Protess from his class (and now the university completely) that upset the AAUP, it was the lack of any due process that the University's own rules demanded.

Conspiracy Theories and the AAUP

KC Johnson at Minding the Campus not only attacks the AAUP's report defending politically controversial professors, but imagines that a post by Alex Klein at the New Republic somehow violates the AAUP's principles.

KC Johnson fundamentally distorts both the AAUP's report and the Klein blog. Absolutely nothing in the AAUP's work suggests that professors should be immune from criticism. What the AAUP rightly worries about are efforts to silence or punish faculty who express controversial views of any kind. Klein's blog likewise says absolutely nothing about seeking to punish the professors or ban the class in question.

Now, there might be some legitimate critiques of this class on the grounds that big money, rather than academic quality, has sustained and expanded it. But Klein doesn't say this. And the AAUP report doesn't, either.

It's sad to see otherwise thoughtful people like Johnson reduced to conspiracy theorists who imagine that the AAUP's fair-minded and even-handed defense of all professors, left and right alike, is a secret left-wing plot to prevent any criticism of an academic. The reality for anyone who actually reads the AAUP report is so plainly different that it requires a conspiratorial mind to distort it.

The Orwellian Bias of Freedom from Bias

Robert Martin hates bias. In this Inside Higher Ed column, he hates it so much that he demands it by endorsing a call for affirmative action in hiring conservative professors. This is the Orwellian nature of his call for freedom from bias. It's really just a demand to suppress political speech he doesn't like (i.e., bias) and favor the speech he likes. The "post-partisan" university is really a "post-academic freedom" institution, one where repression in the name of public opinion is welcomed.

The Conservative War on College

The conservative attack on higher education has reached some new disturbing peaks in recent months. In the past, conservatives complained that colleges didn't teach the classics enough or force students to take more survey classes. But now you have a conservative movement attacking college as a "bubble" and urging students not to go to college. It's part of a growing anti-intellectual movement on the right that I document in my recent book on Rush Limbaugh, "The Most Dangerous Man in America."

There's also another side to the conservative attack on higher education, a growing hatred of academic freedom, and a desire to impose political agendas on faculty hiring. This was reflected in my debates with David Horowitz and Peter Wood on hiring preferences for conservatives among adjunct faculty.

Now, in the wake of the appalling Koch Foundation attempts to control faculty hiring at Florida State and other campuses, conservatives have actually come out and endorsed the political hiring controls of the Koch Foundation.

After repeatedly failing in their efforts to prove liberal bias in faculty hiring, the right has simply decided to declare that they must be right and the only solution left is to force colleges to hiring more conservatives.

In the most recent version of this, Mark Bauerlein at Minding the Campus challenges Cary Nelson of the AAUP over his criticism of the Koch deals, claiming that they are no different from the Ford Foundation encouraging racial diversity on campus.

Bauerlein is obviously wrong here, even if we accept his claim that diversity is an ideology. If the Ford Foundation is demanding a role in the hiring decisions over faculty, then that would obviously cross the line. But Bauerlein presents zero evidence that this is the case. Certainly, foundations are allowed to have whatever goals they want. It's the question of the faculty hiring process that's at stake here, and the imposition of ideological demands by outside forces.

Sadly, the only ones left with integrity and principle in this debate are liberals such as Nelson and myself, who argue that colleges should not impose any political bias in hiring. The conservative movement has decided to abandon the pretense of academic freedom and the principle of unbiased hiring, preferring to believe that the free market will allow them to purchase dominance on college campuses.

Speech Codes on Campus: Man Boob Bans, Apathy Crimes, and Other Strange College Rules

Last week, Greg Lukianoff of FIRE wrote an article that “commends the nation’s seven best colleges and universities for freedom of speech.” FIRE claims that at these colleges, “their policies at least nominally protect speech that would be protected by the First Amendment.” But is that really true? I examined some of the speech codes at these seven colleges, and I found disturbing provisions at all of them, including one college that prohibits men from baring their breasts on campus and punishes students for “apathy.”

In my 2008 book, Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, I did something similar, examining all of the colleges given a “green light” rating by FIRE and finding many flaws in their speech codes, including one college (Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina) that had the worst speech code I'd ever encountered. Here's what I wrote:

The campus rules include some downright silly provisions, prohibiting “making a loud noise,” “playing musical instruments,” and “repeated failure to keep residence hall room clean.” More alarmingly, the speech code punishes students merely for “association with others who are openly engaging in a prohibited activity.” Students must immediately squeal on their friends or face the same penalty. Worst of all, the rules impose automatic suspension without a hearing any student accused of “hate crimes that show evidence of prejudicial treatment or speech based on one's race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity” or even “any behavior or disorder that impedes, hinders or prevents the attainment of educational, research, or other goals of the University related to the mutual process of teaching and learning.” Just imagine being summarily suspended for “hindering” the “attainment” of “goals.”

Since then, FIRE has downgraded ECSU to a yellow rating, which is still a better rating than most colleges. However, ECSU still has the very same incredibly restrictive speech code imposed on their students.

Here are the flaws in the speech codes at the seven colleges identified by FIRE as the best in America:

Arizona State's Code of Conduct is a terrible speech code. For example, it bans “Unauthorized access to, disclosure of, or use of any university document.” In other words, if someone leaked a university document to the campus newspaper, the students who published such a newsworthy document could be punished. It includes vaguely-worded bans on “Interfering with or disrupting university or university-sponsored activities.” It prohibits “Engaging in harassment” but doesn't define the term. And it prohibits “Use, possession, display, or storage of any weapon” on university property, a category that explicitly includes mace and all “martial arts weapons,” whatever that means. And it bans “supporting, promoting, or sponsoring hazing.” So if a student disagreed with the ban on hazing and expressed support for hazing, that student could be punished merely for supporting it. Finally, ASU has a catch-all provision punishing students for any “Violation of, or attempt to violate, other rules that may be adopted by ABOR or by the university.” So students can be expelled for violating any university rules, even if they aren't in the code of conduct.

Dartmouth has a catch-all rule that is among the worst in the country: “In general, any conduct which interferes with the College’s responsibility to protect the health and safety of its members or visitors, to protect College property or the property of others, to carry out its functions, or to provide its members and others with services would also be in violation of this standard.” The rest of the code of conduct is not too bad, but this single provision makes all of that unimportant. Under this catch-all provision, any student who does anything that “interferes” with the College's desire to “carry out its functions” (meaning just about anything the College does) can be punished.

The University of Pennsylvania actually has a positive statement on student rights, but still has some deeply flawed parts of its code of conduct, such as the vague requirement “To refrain from conduct towards other students that infringes upon the Rights of Student Citizenship.” The code requires students “To cooperate fully and honestly in the Student Judicial System of the University.” This violates the right of students not to incriminate themselves. If the university wants to punish a student, they should prove their case, and not be able to punish the student for failing to cooperate fully in his or her own prosecution. Finally, the University of Pennsylvania offers a common catch-all rule that allows students to be punished for violating any policy of the university not listed in the code, or even a policy of a particular department that has never been approved by the university, since students are required “to comply with policies and regulations of the University and its departments.”

Carnegie Mellon's Community Standards include this broad catchall: “Examples of violations of community standards in relation to integrity include, but are not limited to:” In other words, nothing in the college's code of conduct provides a limit on enforcement, but simply offers examples. Even some of these examples are troubling, though:
“Using a message system for obscene, libelous or defamatory purposes.” If a person's message is obscene or libelous, why should the university be regulating it? Carnegie Mellon also bans the undefinable “Other acts that compromise the integrity of the academic process.” And the code prohibits “Violations of the Carnegie Mellon Basic Building Etiquette,” but I can't find any description online of what “Basic Building Etiquette” might be.

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville's conduct code prohibits “Disorderly conduct or lewd, indecent, or obscene conduct on university-owned or controlled property or at university-sponsored or supervised functions.” In addition to this vague ban, it prohibits “Inciting other students to violate written university policies or regulations,” a broad provision that covers a lot of protected free speech urging civil disobedience.

The University of Virginia declares that “an honor offense is defined as an intentional act of lying, cheating or stealing,” making it one of the few colleges that punishes students for any lies they might tell.

The College of William and Mary has several vague provisions in its code of conduct, including a particularly bad rule on hazing: “Apathy or acquiescence in the presence of hazing are not considered neutral acts; they are violations of this rule.” It is remarkable that any college thinks it can punish students for the crime of “apathy.”

The College of William and Mary has the vague catch-all rule against “Violating any College policy, rule, or regulation.” Another rule bans “abusing the student conduct system” which is seemingly unlimited in its scope, but particularly includes “refusing to appear, testify, or remain present during an official College hearing or meeting with any person connected with the disciplinary or honor processes.” This is a fundamental violation of an individual's right not to give self-incriminating testimony.

Another rule threatens to punish students for “Hosting guests who violate College Policy. All guests are expected to abide by College regulations. Students are responsible for the behavior of their guests and may be sanctioned for violations committed by their guests.” Again, it is fundamentally wrong to punish students for the violations committed by others that they could not predict and did not know about.

William and Mary's Weapons Policy includes a ban on undefined “other weapons” as well as “realistic-looking toy firearms, knives, or swords.”

But the most bizarre rule at William and Mary is a ban on “Engaging in conduct that infringes on the rights of others,” an extremely vague provision explained only by this footnote that says, “Examples include: exposing one's own genitals, buttocks, or breasts in a public place...” I'm not sure how the exposure of breasts infringes upon my rights (in fact, I firmly reject this theory). But hilariously enough, because the university tried to be political correct and not specify any gender, this rule also prohibits male breasts from being exposed. That's right: William and Mary bans men from being shirtless in public places, whether it's the campus swimming pool or the quad. Nor does this rule explain whether women who expose part of their breasts (i.e., cleavage) would be subject to the ban.

But the bigger problem with this rule is that the man boob ban is only an example of what violates the rules. We have no idea what “conduct that infringes on the rights of others” means. Presumably, if being offended by breasts is deemed a violation of your rights, being offended by all sorts of expression could also qualify under this same rule. If you're more offended by the N-word than bare breasts, does that mean the N-word should be prohibited on campus?

Of course, the actual wording of a speech code is not the most important factor in the state of liberty on campus. FIRE's description of each ideal campus tends to emphasize the actual practice of free speech on campus (most often a recent repeal of a restrictive policy).

What does all this mean? First, it means that some of the hysteria about “speech codes” is overblown, a point I made in my first book, The Myth of Political Correctness: The Conservative Attack on Higher Education. A bad provision in a speech code does not mean colleges are totalitarian spaces. To the contrary, college campuses are generally the freest institutions in American society. So long as reasonable people interpret these speech codes, there is often little to fear.

But speech codes do matter. A bad speech code is a ticking time bomb waiting for an incompetent or misguided administrator to abuse it. We need to criticize and revise flawed speech codes, and improve them to protect the rights of everyone on campus. And that's what makes FIRE's celebration of these colleges so objectionable. By pretending that these colleges have no problems with their speech codes, FIRE is taking away an opportunity to continue improving the state of freedom on these campuses.

One reason why many of these “best” colleges were honored by FIRE is because they went through the process of scrutinizing their policies and consciously adopting greater free speech on campus. That's something that shouldn't end. FIRE should be praising some of the actions of these colleges while continuing to criticize the flaws in their speech codes.

Free speech on campus requires a constant process of debate and discussion about the meaning of liberty.

College of DuPage Removes Student Newspaper Adviser

The College of DuPage continues its dubious record of silencing free speech and academic freedom. The Courier newspaper at COD reports that journalism professor Cathy Stablein, who has been the adviser to the Courier since 1987, has been removed from her position effective June 1. The administration claims that it removed Stablein from her job so that she could focus on restructuring the journalism program. Courier editors report that they have not been consulted about any of these decision.
In a letter to the administration, current editor-in-chief Nick Davison and former editor-in-chief Vikaas Shanker praised Stablein's work in helping the Courier consistently win journalism awards as the leading community college newspaper in the state of Illinois. They also praise her for never censoring the newspaper and allowing the voice of students to be heard. Shanker has started a petition to reinstate the Courier adviser.

I've previously written about the attempts by the College of DuPage administration and trustees to silence free speech on campus. In 2008, the DuPage administration and trustees tried to impose a new policy requiring, “All College-sponsored or authorized student publications must operate in a professional manner and are expected to follow the standards of professional journalism....The College President will be responsible for overseeing student publications.” The administration backed down from this proposal, but it reflects the mindset of the current president.

In my book, Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies, I note how student newspaper advisers have one of the most vulnerable jobs on campus, and are often fired for refusing to censor student newspapers. The College of DuPage needs to reconsider this rash decision to remove an adviser for no good reason.

UPDATE: The Daily Herald reports on the case and adds this interesting detail:

The episode isn’t the first time College of DuPage President Robert Breuder has been at the helm when issues arose involving the student press. In 2006, when Breuder was president of Harper College in Palatine, Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire’s contract as faculty adviser to the student newspaper was not renewed. At the time, Gire said college administrators wanted to impose new guidelines on the paper that would have restricted what was published, and he refused to sign off on those rules.

Wheaton College and the Bigots of Academia

Stanton Jones, provost of Wheaton College in Illinois, argues in today's InsideHigherEd.com that his college is tolerant because it's willing to allow gay students who never have sex to remain on campus.

If Wheaton College's anti-gay policies are really a product of a voluntary community of religious scholars, as Provost Jones claims, then surely he would be willing to put the college's homophobia up for a secret vote of the faculty. They should also be willing to publicly debate their values on campus; I'd be happy to debate Provost Jones at Wheaton any day.

Wheaton College fires professors for getting divorced (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/25/wheaton), and for becoming a Catholic (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/12/faith), even though their rules don't actually prohibit Catholics.

I don't think the government should seek to prohibit colleges like Wheaton from existing. But all of us (including evangelicals who share the faith imposed at Wheaton) should condemn their bigotry, and their appalling attacks on academic freedom.

Wheaton embraces the false notion that a college cannot maintain a Christian identity without prohibiting dissent and diversity among its faculty and students. For this, its administration deserves our condemnation.

Required Homophobia at Liberty University

Sarah Posner writes about an exam question at a law class at Liberty University dealing with a formerly lesbian mother who hides her child from a former partner despite a legal custody order:

the exam asked, “Lisa needs your counsel on how to think through her legal situation and how to respond as a Christian to this difficult problem. Relying only on what we have learned thus far in class, how would you counsel Lisa?”

Students who wrote that Miller should comply with court orders received bad grades while those who wrote she should engage in civil disobedience received an A, the three students said. “People were appalled,” said one of the students, adding, “especially as lawyers-to-be, who are trained and licensed to practice the law—to disobey that law, that seemed completely counterintuitive to all of us.”

Of course, law professors and law students should be free to argue for civil disobedience, although exactly what part of God's law demands illicitly hiding a child from her mother is mysterious to me. And professors deserve criticism for expressing those stupid ideas.

But what's most notable to me here is the lack of freedom of speech at Liberty University, where students are graded based on their personal view of lawbreaking rather than any intellectual understanding of the law. This is pure political correctness. And considering that Liberty University doesn't have academic freedom, it indicates that this embrace of breaking the law is the official stand of Liberty University, one that professors and students alike cannot disagree with. And that's just as upsetting as the repulsive homophobia displayed in this case.

Clemson Sells Out to the Koch Foundation

The disturbing news that Florida State University sold out its faculty spots to the right-wing Koch Foundation has led to probes into other agreements that the Koch Foundation has made with universities.

The Anderson Independent Mail today writes about the case at Clemson University, a public institution in South Carolina. Clemson's agreement with the Koch Foundation (pdf available here) explicitly imposes right-wing criteria for hiring the faculty. Section II(b)(i) declares that the university will only recruit faculty who “support the Objectives and Purposes” in Section I, which proclaims that the program must support “appreciation of economic freedom.” That's a very serious violation of academic freedom. You can fund a particular subject matter, but not a particular viewpoint. And that's what this agreement seems to demand of the faculty being hired under it. That's a serious mistake.

It appears that Clemson changed its faculty manual (pdf) to allow the Koch Foundation greater influence over faculty. In a new provision added last year to the Clemson Faculty Manual, “a sponsoring party representative may interview the final candidates and offer opinions about the candidates’ qualifications to the search-and-screening committee.” It is highly unusual for non-academic outsiders to be permitted to interview faculty candidates and provide a formal process for their opinions to be considered by a search committee. Amazingly, Clemson's formal rules now allow outsiders to buy their way into the search committee process and ensure that their views are heard. Donors should have absolutely no role in the hiring process.

The agreement also allows the Koch Foundation to withdraw most of its donation if they don't like the faculty member who is hired. The $1 million donation is done in four annual donations of $250,000. This puts intense pressure on the faculty to hire someone Koch likes, or else risk losing a lot of money that could cause a faculty position to be eliminated.

The other interesting thing about this Clemson donation: $1 million isn't very much money to sustain a highly paid business scholar, because business faculty are often incredibly overpaid. That's why the named professorship is really only a rental for 6 years. After that, the name goes away. The university is still obligated to keep the faculty member they hired and keep them under the normal tenure procedures. In fact, under the university rules, they have to keep the faculty member even if the Koch foundation objects and pulls its funding after a year.

So really, the university has taken upon itself a massive financial cost for the long-term, with only a fraction paid for by the foundation, and given the foundation a lot of influence in return. If Clemson University is going to sell out its faculty to the highest bidder, it ought to be asking for a lot more money than this.

Clemson needs to change its faculty manual to remove the influence of wealthy donors on the hiring process. It needs to prohibit ideological criteria in any donor agreement. And it needs to set a priority that named faculty chairs are paid for up front and in full, and not rented out by right-wing foundations who want to influence the hiring process without actually providing full support for the position.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Academic Freedom for Sale at Florida State

In an astonishing view of academic freedom, Florida State dean David Rasmussen defends the 2008 deal to allow the Koch Foundation into the faculty hiring process for economics professors.

Rasmussen assures us that critics “can take comfort in the fact that the university duly performed its due diligence in entering these partnerships.” Actually, there’s no evidence that the university considered academic freedom as a serious issue. If they had, there’s no way any responsible administrator would have approved these appalling deals.

Florida State president Eric Barron declared, "If there is anything that affected academic freedom, I would put an immediate stop to it." It already has. Consider this: “the school agreed to recruit and maintain faculty and individuals who support objectives set forth by an advisory panel appointed by the non-profit foundation.” This is a plain and devastating violation of academic freedom, to allow an outside actor to set ideological criteria for hiring (and, apparently, tenure and promotion, too).

It is appalling to allow a donor to evaluate and potentially veto faculty hires. The proper role of a donor in the faculty hiring process can be summarized in two words: absolutely none. The fact that faculty still maintain ultimate control over hiring doesn’t change that. And the faculty are quite aware that if too many of their hires are unacceptable to the donor, then they will lose the money and be unable to hire the new faculty. This places a clear threat to academic freedom.

Rasmussen concludes his letter by writing, “We should always seek to enhance academic freedom by being aware that bias, both external and internal, can corrupt the free inquiry of ideas.” This comment indicates that Rasmussen sees no distinction between the faculty and the donors. Both the external and internal actors, he thinks, can be biased, and he seems to believe that academic freedom is enhanced when donors can counter the “bias” of the faculty. This astonishing view of academic freedom effectively destroys it.

Rasmussen argues that this deal is desirable because it would “enable the university to hire professors.” Of course, any donation enables a university to hire professors and offer more courses. But at what price? By this logic, any demand by a donor would be acceptable so long as the check was big enough. David Rasmussen and the administration of Florida State have put the university’s academic freedom and intellectual integrity up for sale.