Come together, hold hands and sing Kumbaya. They’re crawling out of the ivory towers of academia and bemoaning the assault on poor ol’ Ward Churchill. It’s an assault on his freedom of speech to question his anti-American ravings under the color of his authority as a tenured professor of the University of Colorado. Oh, it isn’t? You mean that he can really say whatever he wants, but if he wants to be a guide on the road to intellectual superiority at the same time he must limit his rants to facts? So, he isn’t being denied his Constitutional prerogatives? Well then, it must be his academic freedom that is being denied. Certainly this demand for a review of his writings, his teaching, and his qualifications for his job in the first place is intended to quell his academic freedom. Yeah, that’s it.
The Denver Post led the state and local section, above the fold, with a frightening headline today: http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2723527,00.html. If this review is allowed, then the University will crumble as first there is an inability to hire quality faculty, then the endangered intellects currently on the faculty will flee and finally, the students, with their innate ability to recognize the total lack of competence of this crumbled school will choose elsewhere for their indoctrination. Bull!
It’s hard to read quotes like this without scratching your head: "Young scholars with promising academic careers ahead of them will have to think twice about CU, no doubt about it," said Carlos Munoz, ethnic studies professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. "Scholars want to go somewhere they can do their research in a relatively peaceful environment where they will be respected. It is very difficult to teach in that kind of atmosphere that is so super-charged."
Excuse me? Does Dr. Munoz really mean that serious scholarship doesn’t actively seek out peer review? Does he intend to assert that “research” unsupported by fact, citation, reference, measurement and logic is acceptable? Ersatz scholars who simply assert what they wish were true despite that it might be unsupportable will no longer want to come to CU—ahh, the tragedy of such a loss. Sorry, Doc, but the whole point of intellectual pursuit is to delight in the challenge to your controversial thinking and to defend the irrefutable logic of your reasoning. It isn’t running around mouthing propaganda offensive to the masses and totally ungrounded in reality and then hiding when someone says they will inspect your bona fides.
And, the limit of absurdity in the defense of Churchill isn’t drawn around Berkeley. There’s this quote from Ruth Flower, director of public policy for the American Association of University Professors, in Washington, D.C. “the regent-authorized review of Churchill could inhibit faculty already at the school” So, Ms Flower feels that thinking should not be challenged and the Regents should not maintain standards of academic rigor for the faculty? It’s hard for me to understand how a demand that professors support their arguments with facts can be inhibiting. I would think exactly the contrary; that a university which did not demand intellectual discipline would be a place for serious thinkers to avoid while one that required logic and reason in contrast to emotional rhetoric would be a highly regarded environment. How could I be so misguided?
But, maybe I’m prejudiced. Might it be coincidence that the staunchest defenders of Professor Churchill are high panjandrums of ethnic studies departments? Here’s another example: “The outcome of CU's review of Churchill, due March 3, is being watched closely by the academic world,” said Larry Estrada, president of the National Association for Ethnic Studies, representing more than 1,000 faculty at universities nationwide. "Those of us in academia are looking at this as a landmark case. It certainly will have implications for campuses across the country in terms of how academic freedom is upheld," said Estrada, a professor at Western Washington University, in Bellingham. "I think over time it could inhibit faculty coming to a campus where academic freedom is threatened."
So, let me see if I’ve got this right. These ethnic studies gurus are made uncomfortable by having their writings, teaching, and speaking challenged by those tasked with maintaining the integrity of the University. They demand high pay, tenure and the right to speak freely regardless of accuracy. Academic freedom is the license to shout not only “fire” but the most vile inaccuracies to the heavens without risk of question or censure. Excuse me if I become the one in the crowd who suggests that these emperors are naked. They’ve got it wrong and it’s about time someone noticed.
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