Citing a pattern of outside interest groups aggressively seeking to impose their influence on recent collegiate hiring and tenure decisions, five prominent professors have formed the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University. They are circulating an online petition that takes explicit aim at "groups portraying themselves as defenders of Israel," which, the committee alleges, are disseminating "unfounded insinuations and allegations ... of anti-Semitism" and pressuring university administrations by threatening to withhold donations. "The future of higher education in America, its role in our country's democracy, and its contribution to world affairs is at stake," the petition concludes. Within one week of appearing on the Web, the appeal had garnered nearly 300 signatures from academics across the country. But in terms of online buzz, most of the reaction was provided by critics who dismissed the committee's petition as adding to the problem. One more example of how partisan the issue of academic freedom has recently become:
The petition: In recent years, universities across the country have been targeted by outside groups seeking to influence what is taught and who can teach. To achieve their political agendas, these groups have defamed scholars, pressured administrators, and tried to bypass or subvert established procedures of academic governance. As a consequence, faculty have been denied jobs or tenure, and scholars have been denied public platforms from which to share their viewpoints. This violates an important principle of scholarship, the free exchange of ideas, subjecting them to ideological and political tests. These attacks threaten academic freedom and the core mission of institutions of higher education in a democratic society. (Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University)
"The New York Sun" Editorial Board: Defend the university from what? According to the petition, the threat from which the university — actually, not only the university, but, the petition claims, "the future of democratic society" — requires a defense consists of "groups portraying themselves as defenders of Israel." The petition portrays these groups not as like Senator McCarthy's anti-Communism, but worse.
The double standards show what the Ad Hoc Committee — led by, among others, a former provost of Columbia University — really has in mind. The professors say they are in favor of "the free exchange of ideas" and against "ideological and political tests," but among the signers of the petition are two scholars, Everett Mendelsohn and J. Lorand Matory of Harvard University, who led the fight to oust Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, for his sins of speaking out in favor of America and Israel. They say they are against "outside groups seeking to influence what is taught," but they raise not a peep against the tens of millions of dollars pouring into American universities from Saudi princes and Persian Gulf governments that are hostile to Israel. The only "outside groups" the Ad Hoc Committee is worked up about are those friendly to Israel. Those groups include alumni, parents, students, trustees, and professors, so it is hard for us to see the logic to denying them a voice in what happens on campus. What was that about the "free exchange of ideas," again? (The New York Sun)
Harvey Silvergate, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: The Committee, led Joan Wallach Scott, a history professor at Princeton, has already voiced its opinion on quite a few academic-freedom controversies, and, so far, they've always come out pretty much on the right side, in my view. When St. Thomas University canceled a speech by critic of Israel and Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, members of the Committee rallied behind the censored clergyman. And when the pro-Israel group StandWithUs convinced the University of Michigan press to stop publishing a book called Overcoming Zionism, the Committee helped convince Michigan to change its mind, arguing persuasively against these "efforts to broaden definitions of anti-Semitism to include scholarship and teaching that is critical of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and of Israel."
So what's the problem, then? As you can see, all of these controversies involve censorship of anti-Israel speakers. In order for me to take this group seriously, it first needs to defend the academic freedom of someone whose speech doesn't fit neatly into the limited range of politically acceptable (or, as some prefer to say, politically correct) viewpoints prevalent on most campuses. The Committee stood behind Tutu, a liberal darling, but where was it when the Regents of the University of California nixed a speaking invitation to former Harvard University president and secretary of the treasury Lawrence Summers because of complaints from a handful of leftist postmodernist professors? (The Free for All, The Phoenix)
Chris Goff, AFT Higher Education: While the petition places a particular focus on the ideological campaigns against scholars who study the Middle East (and not without good reason), we should stress that the worthwhile ideals advocated by the statement's authors apply to all scholars, regardless of their theoretical, methodological, or political stances. Seeking to curtail a researcher's academic freedom — wherever the attack originates from on the ideological perspective — is never acceptable. (Free Exchange on Campus)
Anne D. Neal, American Council of Trustees and Alumni: The Com-mittee's often hysterical rhetoric is amenable to analysis, and tells us a lot about what is motivating those who espouse it. The fact that so many academics continue to refuse to respond to reasonable calls for accountability underscores the depth of the problem and the urgent need to expose their self-serving arguments. (Phi Beta Cons, National Review Online)
Erin O'Connor, University of Pennsylvania: In exchange for exceptional autonomy, academics are charged with teaching and researching in a manner that is consistent with the disinterested pursuit of truth. They are also charged with maintaining a responsible system of self-governance that guarantees the integrity of the curriculum as well as decisions about hiring and promotion. They have failed, repeatedly and publicly, to keep their end of the bargain implicit in academic freedom. (ACTA Online)