President Hefner admitted his mistake, to his credit, but Professor Kershnar seems to see no contradiction in first offering to have his articles vetted by a censorship committee prior to publication and then when the offer is accepted with an add-on complains that the university attempted to stifle his speech. Faustian bargains of the sort that President Hefner and Professor Kershnar made behind closed doors have no place in the academy.

roger bowen, at 9:10 am EDT on July 26, 2006

If this professor has repeatedly criticized the university, why does he want to be promoted there anyway?

If he honestly cares about the university and is trying to use his voice to make it better, great. But perhaps he merely likes being inflammatory.

One could argue that the university is right to question whether his criticisms will continue, as that practice could very well interfere with his great teaching ability if he sparks a much larger controversy (see Churchill, et al).

If his motives are for the good of the university, maybe his energy would be better spent in efforts to recommend or oversee change rather than more teaching responsibility. But if he is after sensationalism, it would be in the university’s best interest to protect their mission of teaching from that kind of disruption.

Tolana, at 11:15 am EDT on July 26, 2006

Weird Case

There’s just something strange about this entire case. It sounds like the administration is a bit oversensitive to criticism, but it’s also odd that Professor Kershnar would agree to—indeed, suggest—a plan in which his statements would be reviewed for accuracy. In any event, from what we know, it seems like a case that begs for a pretty open-and-shut judgment in the professor’s favor.

But there are a couple of loose ends here that merit at least some consideration. First, should it be actionable to make public statements that intentionally misrepresent university policy and, thus, “impugn” the university’s reputation? (I am NOT saying that Professor Kershnar did this, I am just raising the question.) Obviously, the line between differences of opinion and true misrepresentation would have to be guarded carefully, and all borderline calls would have to be made in favor of the faculty member, but doesn’t a campus have the right to protect its reputation against actual, for lack of a better word, slander?

I’m just thinking out loud here, but let’s try this one out: It’s obviously OK to oppose affirmative action. It’s obviously OK to oppose your campus’s affirmative action policy. It’s even OK to conclude that, in your judgment, the AA policy leads to sub-optimal outcomes (e.g., less qualified faculty members being hired). But is it OK to deliberately and publicly lie about or exaggerate the actions your campus has taken, claiming without proof, for example, that all (or some) professors hired under the university’s AA program are unqualified for their positions?

Can a university do nothing to protect its reputation against scurrilous claims made by malicious actors hiding behind the First Amendment? (Again, this is NOT meant to refer to Professor Kershnar, who apparently did nothing of this sort.)

The second point involves issues of “collegiality” as they apply to tenure and promotion cases. It sounds here as though the administration at Fredonia was trying to apply a collegiality standard through the back door, by using the “sevice” criterion for tenure (nobody, after all, was arguing that Professor Kershnar was blowing off his committee work).

Collegiality standards create murky gray areas and are subject to abuse (as all standards are), but anyone who has been in a department with a truly malignant colleague understands why they may be necessary. There are people who simply “don’t get along with others", while there are those whose obnoxiousness and ill-will are actually disruptive of legitimate departmental and university business. There needs to be a way to deal with people who fall into the latter category.

However, in this case there is no evidence that Professor Kershnar’s actions disrupted the business of his department or campus. Therefore, the attempt to legislate collegiality through use of the “service” requirement was apparently totally inappropriate.

But I think there are important questions here that go beyond Professor Kershnar’s case that should not be quickly dismissed.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 12:00 pm EDT on July 26, 2006

Great Record

It is not surprising that the author of articles such as “An Argument for Punitive Torture", “A Liberal Case for Slavery", and “The Right to Assassination,” (URL to CV above) found that his view of valuable university service differed from that of. . . others.

Jack, at 7:10 pm EDT on July 26, 2006

Some Observations

1. Having read the account here, the long history of this case on the FIRE website, and what’s available elsewhere on the web, it seems to me that on the basis of teaching and scholarship, Professor Kershnar ought to have been promoted to full professor long ago.

2. The claim that Professor Kershnar was denied promotion solely because he is critical of SUNY Fredonia’s administrative policies is at best sophomoric and at worst downright dishonest. One can be critical of a university administration’s policies, after all (especially as a member of the university community) without taking pot-shots at the university in the local newspaper. While Professor Kershnar may believe he can brow-beat the university administration into changing its policies by subjecting the university to a public shaming, does he not realize that such a shaming is just as likely—if not more liekly—to be used as fodder by legistlators who want to reduce or eliminate state government funding for the university system? Why can’t the service component of a professor’s professional responsibilities be evaluated on the basis of that professor’s willingness (or ability) to articulate and disseminate his/her positions regarding administrative policies in ways that do not harbor the potential to inflict real harm on the university itself?

3. Where, oh where, is the chorus of voices (we’ve heard them on so many other IHE forums) telling Professor Kershnar that if he wants his “politics subsidized by the taxpayers” he ought to be willing to “do it on his own dime"? I think I detect the foul odor of hypocrisy here.

Tim, at 3:05 pm EDT on July 27, 2006