Global Crisis

Hough told both the local ABC and Fox affiliates that he was on leave after his comments, in which he identified himself as a Duke professor, raised uproar on campus. In emailed statements, the political science professor defended his comments, saying “Martin Luther King was my hero” and insisting he is “strongly against the toleration of racial discrimination.” The key question, though, according to Hough, “is whether my comments were largely accurate. In writing me, no one has said I was wrong, just racist.”

[O'Connor] does not seem to have been granted the kind of due process usually called for by advocates of academic freedom. Indeed, one of the most consistent criticisms of the University of Illinois was that even if one believed that Salaita’s tweets constituted grounds for rescinding his job offer, he should have been allowed to respond to accusations as part of that process. I agree with that criticism. I wonder whether O’Connor was offered a process in the event she chose not to resign (FSU will not comment on personnel issues).

We discover the limitations of free speech, academic freedom, and civil liberties by wading in the muck of the margins.

Robert Shibley, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said he suspected Grundy’s case will end here but that “experience has taught me to fear” otherwise.

The tweets that have been made public “certainly constitute protected speech under the First Amendment,” Shibley said. But one of Boston’s computing policies, which prohibits the dissemination of “offensive, annoying or harassing material,” he added, “arguably allows the university to punish her, should she decide to tweet similar things over the university network and should someone find her opinion ‘annoying.’”
That computer-speech policy, Shibley said, “should be revised to be consistent with BU's promise of ‘an atmosphere of unfettered free inquiry and exposition’ for its professors.” Of course, since Boston is a private institution, it doesn't have to follow First Amendment standards, necessarily, just contractual ones -- even if FIRE and others think it should.

But what about the concerns that Grundy’s position may make her biased against white male students, and therefore affect her teaching? John Wilson, co-editor of the American Association of University Professors’ "Academe" blog and an independent scholar of academic freedom, called such an argument -- which he said was used against Salaita by Illinois -- “utterly wrong.”

“If you say that alleged bigotry expressed in personal remarks disqualifies a professor from teaching, then virtually all professors would need to be fired,” he said. “Faculty who oppose gay marriage would be biased against [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] students. Faculty who criticize Islamic terrorism would be biased against Muslim students. Faculty who are fundamentalist Christians and believe that atheists, Jews, etc. will be condemned to eternal hell might be feared by Jewish or non-Christian students. Faculty who criticize Israel or Palestine might be biased.”

The only way to know, Wilson added, "whether Grundy's classes are taught with an illegitimate bias that violates the rights of her students is by looking at her teaching, not her tweets. But you can't assume that controversial professors are bad teachers. Quite the opposite is usually true.”

At the same time, he said, Boston should be free to criticize Grundy’s tweets, as long as it makes clear she won’t be penalized in any way for them.

1. If  you do not extend your principles to those with whom you disagree, you have no principles. I believe in academic freedom and therefore extend it to all of these professors, even the ones whose views disgust me. 
2. Academic freedom does not mean that there are no words you can say that should come with job loss or sanction. It's just that the bar is very very high. 
3. I don't have enough information on Douglas, Swain, or O'Connor to judge. On the Salaita case, testimony from years of teaching at Virginia Tech suggested that concerns he would be too scary to pro-Israel students were unfounded.
4. I'm very concerned about the idea that strident opinions make the classroom inhospitable as a general rule. Having strident opinions is what we, as academics, should be doing. That doesn't mean use the classroom as a pulpit, but I am fearful of the consequences for teaching if we push teachers to be cautious. 

I used to hang out on a Facebook page filled with interesting people from diverse political perspectives. We’d debate issues, disagree, and kept it all pretty civil. But then Voldemort, my nickname for a fanatical right-wing historian, would show up and start baiting me. I was, at the time, easily baited. Again and again, I would find myself writing profane responses, my temper flaring, my fingers slamming down on the keys. I never sent them, at least not the worst ones. I never told him to “Fuck off and die.” I never called him any offensive epithets.  But I was close, too close, too often. Eventually, I had to cut myself off from that community, just because I spent too much of my day being angry.

Had I lost my temper, what implications should that have for my job? Voldemort could have screen-captured my comments and sent them to my university or to the press. The right-wing blogosphere is always eager for example of left-wing misconduct and angry or violent rhetoric. It could easily have become an issue.

Last week Deborah O’Connor, a senior lecturer at Florida State University, was pushed to resign after making racist and homophobic comments on a public Facebook page. She said some pretty horrible things, like blaming Europe’s troubles on “rodent Muslims.” She also told a well-known gay hairstylist to “Take your Northern fagoot [sic] elitism and shove it up your ass. ”

I am revolted by her remarks. However, I spent quite a lot of the fall arguing thatimpassioned political speech on a personal social-media account did not justify the “de-hiring” of Steven Salaita. As has been well reported, Salaita was hired for a tenured position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when stories about his angry tweets regarding the war in Gaza reached the trustees and chancellor of the university. They canceled his appointment. Every time I encountered someone justifying Salaita’s firing by emphasizing what they considered the gross anti-Semitism of his tweets, I responded with the following: If we do not stand on principle for people with whom we disagree, we have no principles.

For my non-academic readers, over the last week there's been a big story about academic freedom in the age of Twitter. An arab-American professor lost a job, it seems, because he was rude about Israel on Twitter. There's lots to say here and I am working on several essays. Here are some resources.

 First, on the firing, then some reactions (there are lots and lots more), and then the ways that conservative media write about conservative professors who encounter, they say, prejudice for their political beliefs.

As always with these resource posts, please let me know what I missed either in comments (which work better now), facebook, twitter, or email. Thanks.

Prequel

• Daily Caller calls out Salaita's tweets.
• Local Urbana paper reports about it (UIUC expresses support).

News on Salaita Firing

• Free Republic review of Neil Gross's book 
• Exiled - Case studies of liberal bias in the academy
• Sharon Sweet - prof who ordered students to vote for Obama?
• Professor bans Fox News. Daily Caller gets mad.
• Professor fired for climate change denial.
• Roosevelt adjunct prof fired for making racist anti-immigrant joke.
• Mike Adams wins promotion via lawsuit.
• Grabar, author of Exiled, reviews Neil Gross.
• Another review of Gross.