…leave your spirit of free inquiry at the door as we lobotomize our universities and take a banal ride back to the dark ages!
In this article, “Reverse the Firings: Purge of Professors Accelerates Suppression of Critical Thinking,” Reggie Dylan discusses the recent, politically motivated firings of two radical professors, Ward Churchill and Norman Finkelstein, and he connects these with another event: “the trustees of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio—long known for its radical and open-minded approach to education—announced the school’s shutdown, despite fierce opposition from students, faculty and alumni groups around the country.” These events are all related to the general campaign of conservatives, particularly David Horowitz and Anne Neal, to redress a supposed “liberal bias” in universities. While Horowitz’s “Academic Bills of Rights” called for colleges to institute certain principles that state governments could enforce, Neal’s “intellectual diversity” acts generally require only that colleges report to legislative committees (see Scott Jaschik, “Intellectual Diversity or Intellectual Insult?”). Opponents, particularly the Association of American University Professors (AAUP), argue that such reports would create ideological litmus tests, since college administrators would feel pressured to classify professors, campus groups, and invited speakers as “conservative” or “liberal.” Such labeling encourages a simplistic, bipolar view of the world, in opposition to the more nuanced and subtle debates that we need for grappling with contemporary problems. Further, they argue that this is reminiscent of McCarthyism, and could have a similar type of chill effect on faculty.
But we can resist! - not by hiding in our disciplinary caves, but by militantly organizing into a democratic university… Read the rest of this entry »
