Where Is Ron Paul When We Need Him?

It will take me a moment to get to the point, but this post is about academic freedom.

First, I don’t want to get off on either the right or the wisdom of the University and College Union to condemn Israeli treatment of Palestinians or American’s (U.S.) treatment of Cubans or the Manley Institute’s member’s treatment of Creationists, but I do want to emphasize that these are the problems that invariably rear their ugly heads when two or three (or maybe even more) individuals band together for some purpose (e.g., obtain higher wages, protect property, cleanse the world of blasphemers, stamp out ignorance) and then make collective decisions that are rarely based upon consensus (except with regard to the rules of the organization) or unanimity.

I’m guessing, for example, that not every member of the Union agreed with its collective recommendation to denounce the decisions and actions of various nations (collectives), and I’m assuming that those who rose and spoke against the resolution were neither professionally nor personally ostracized and were certainly not expelled from the organization. Ahh, the triumph of so-called academic freedom ... at least internal to the organization.

I’m also assuming that there are those amongst us who recognize that most of the Middle Eastern nations (hmmm, is that a geographic insult?) have built-in non-diversity mechanisms that would never pass muster if implemented at Berkeley or Michigan or even U.Va. Perhaps we should not be surprised when nations with remarkably different cultures and resources and existing in very close proximity to each other find reason to interact with each other in a hostile manner. A short course in world history should convince most of us that that’s who we are ... that’s the nature of collective action (call it government if you’d like to embellish it a bit). Even so, not every Israeli is an idiot ... nor is every Palestinian ... nor is every Arab ... nor every American who thinks JFK’s really stupid decisions in the early 60s led to almost a half-century of remarkably irrational prejudice directed toward the people of Cuba.

Here at The Manley Institute, for example, we recently passed a resolution calling on all academic institutions outside the Middle East to resist giving faculty appointments to anyone who has served in the Bush administration, citing their “complicity” in an intellectually indefensible, immoral war against the people of Iraq. [Note: Being experts vis-a-vis the distinction between collective and individual decision-making and action, we recognize that wars – especially those that entail killing individuals — are invariably against people(s), not governments. While government functionaries invent nifty euphemisms (the war against terrorism or the war in Iraq) for the purpose of disguising the fact that it’s just human nature to kill or capture those who think differently from us, at The Manley Institute we refer to “that” war as the war against the people of Iraq.]

Not everyone here at the Institute agreed with “our” resolution, but we have reasons to make decisions and act collectively and, other than conscience, there was no reason for anyone to leave the collective on the basis of hir opposition to the resolution. We are confident that, internally at least, principles of academic freedom have been preserved.

Of course we must concern ourselves with the notion of “external” academic freedom. In theory at least, if all universities outside the Middle East – and we are delighted with the thought of Donald Rumsfeld, the George W. Bush Professor of International Relations at the University of Tehran or Karl Rove, the Henry Kissinger Professor of Public Choice at The American University of Beirut – decided to honor our principles, say if Washington University-St. Louis decided to reject Dick Cheney’s application for the Phyllis Schlafly Professorship of Political Thought, then one might argue that the academic freedom of the Inner Circle has been denied.

In summary, (1) we believe that is the only manner in which the intellectually revered Universities UK or the morally admired Anti-Defamation League could possibly accuse us (The Manley Institute) of abridging the academic freedom of the Bush Inner circle; (2) we assume the readers of InsideHigherEd will recognize the weakness of the link between the tenets of academic freedom and an organization’s statements of principle, augmented perhaps with recommended action; and (3) we suggest it is high time that those who should know better cease and desist hiding their own prejudices behind the cloak of academic freedom.

I, for one, have always been impressed with Socrates’ statement, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” It would be quite wonderful if we all thought that way. Then all of this “academic freedom” nonsense would be subsumed by an “International First Amendment.” Hmmm, could that possibly be a plank in the Libertarian platform for 2008?

Frizbane Manley, at 12:10 pm EDT on May 29, 2008

UK Union Boycott of Israeli Universities

What gives with this union? Why do they continually pick on Israeli universities when there is a whole list of countries whose bad behavior overshadows Israel’s attempts to protect its citizens from terrorists attacks? Why not boycott Iran’s universities because Iran funds terrorist organizations like Hezbullah and Hamas? One fact is hard to escape: the UK has a long and ignoble history of anti-Semitism that continues, even today, to rear its ugly head.

Armando, at 4:25 pm EDT on May 29, 2008

A Stalinist Apologist

Again, Grover Furr, an repentant Stalinist, an academic who still views the horrors of the gulags and purges as minor and exaggerated blemishes on the sterling record of the late Soviet paradise, deigns to speak up for human rights. Words are beyond me to describe how revolting anything linked to his name is.

Herodotus, Prof. Emeritus at CUNY, at 10:45 pm EDT on May 29, 2008

Anti-Semitism in the name of social justice

Having been on the front lines with first the AUT boycott proposals, the NATFHE proposals and now the UCU proposals over the last few years. I can tell you that a bunch of patently anti-Israel anti-Semites have been appealing to archetypal anti-Semitic tendencies in the academy that have existed for years in the name of social justice. Whether it was the Roses or Tom Hickey and his lot, one only has to listen to them for a few moments to know this has nothing to do with justice for the Palestinian, but a deep abiding hate for Israel and Jews. The UCU has been captured by a McCarthyesque extremist right that has come full circle to facism with its political litmus test for “normal academic activity” with Israeli scholars whom in Motion 25, the call “accomplices” to the Israeli government. Despite the UCU’s legal council’s opinion that such an action is illegal and despite the threat of legal action against the union, the viral strain of anti-Semitism is so dominant that it has once again disgraced the British Academy. Over 30 Nobel Laureate and 50 college and university president along with nearly 12,000 professors from around the world have said, if you boycott Israeli academics you are boycotting me on statement being circulated by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East at www.spme.net. The list is growing daily. It is the British who are isolating themselves with their arrogant and elitist nonsence and real academics as opposed to academic thugs know the difference.

Professor Truthsayer, at 8:40 pm EDT on May 31, 2008