ACADEMIC FREEDOM AFTER SEPTEMBER 11

Vol. 16 No. 10 (October, 2006) pp.780-784

ACADEMIC FREEDOM AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, by Beshara Doumani (ed). New York: Zone Books/MIT Press, 2006. 250pp. Cloth. $42.00/£27.95. ISBN: 1890951625. Paper. $21.95/£14.95. ISBN: 1890951617.

Reviewed by Daniel Levin, Department of Political Science, University of Utah. Email: daniel.levin [at] poli-sci.utah.edu.

Beshara Doumani, the editor of ACADEMIC FREEDOM AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, begins thusly: “Academic freedom is facing its most serious threat since the McCarthy era of the 1950s.” From such a beginning, one would expect to learn of congressional inquisitors combing through academic periodicals in search of subversion, of faculty losing their jobs because of youthful dalliances with radicalism, of loyalty oaths and FBI “bag jobs” in the dark of night. Those expecting, perhaps hoping for, such drama will be disappointed. This volume focuses entirely on the question of conditions attached to federal and foundation funding for Middle East studies programs. Missing are accounts of faculty members losing their positions because of speech activities or their refusal to take a loyalty oath or their previous associations. Missing are a number of other questions of academic freedom that also warrant serious consideration. Neither the “politically correct” hall monitors of the left, nor the “politically incorrect” culture warriors of the right (other than neo-conservative “Likudniks”), make an appearance. The authors do not substantively comment on the speech codes which govern teaching at many institutions and which allow for disciplinary actions. They do not address the restrictions on faculty speech, belief, or private life commonly found at religious institutions. Controversies affecting the sciences, from stem cell research to evolutionary theory and cosmology, are left undisturbed.

The policy questions that animate all seven of the volume’s essays concern two laws (the USA PATRIOT Act and Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965), one piece of proposed legislation (the International Studies in Higher Education Act of 2003 (ISHEA)), and new policies from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The most relevant portions of USA PATRIOT Act concern financial support for organizations involved in terrorism. Title VI is the source of much funding for foreign language instruction, particularly for those languages, such as Arabic and Farsi, most in need by the military, State Department, and intelligence agencies. ISHEA, which passed the House but not the Senate during the last Congress, would have created an advisory board to “provide advice, counsel and recommendations” regarding the continued operation of Title VI. The greatest source of concern regarding this advisory board is that its supporters might be supporters of Israel; the proposed creation of the advisory board was seen as an attack on Middle East studies programs, which are often considered to be pro-Arab and anti-Israel. A new version of ISHEA is currently included in the proposed College Access and Opportunity Act of [*781] 2006 (H.R. 609), which has also passed the House, but stalled in the Senate. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations’ decisions were to include language in their conditions for grant recipients that they will not promote or support terrorism or bigotry; this was a response to supporters of Israel unhappy with foundation support for Palestinian participants at the 2001 UN Conference Against Racism who introduced several resolutions equating Zionism with racism. The policies and politics of two scholarly associations, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), are also examined.

Like many edited volumes, the seven contributions vary widely in quality, usefulness, and the closeness of their relation to the book’s core question. Two of the essays are from well established scholars in public law, Robert Post and Philippa Strum. The other contributors include Doumani, a historian of the Ottoman era Middle East, Joel Beinin, a historian of the modern Middle East; Judith Butler, a postmodern literary theorist; Kathleen Frydl, a historian of U.S. institutions, and Amy Newhall, an art historian. While the essays by Doumani, Beinin, and Newhall connect with each other in their specific concern over how 911 has affected Middle East studies, those from Post, Butler, Strum, and Frydl are primarily concerned with the larger history of academic freedom in the United States and only secondarily address developments of recent years, generally in 3 or 4 pages at the.close of their contributions. None of the selections include analysis of the constitutional jurisprudence relating to government-financed speech, a seemingly relevant area for consideration given the volume’s specific concerns.

The three essays by Post, Butler and Strum will likely be of most interest to readers of this review because they deal with the broadest questions of how one justifies academic freedom. Post, a former general counsel for the AAUP now at Yale Law School, spends much of his time reviewing the origins of the AAUP during World War I, its 1915 Declaration of Principles, and amendments to that Declaration. Post’s thesis is that academic freedom is rooted in the social function of the university, distinguishing it from the general First Amendment rights of all citizens. Faculty have a special responsibility to engage in critical inquiry under academic standards of scholarship and instruction, and Post argues that divorcing academic freedom from the university context “potentially undermines the professional norms necessary for the external defense of academic freedom” (p.79). Post struggles with the problem of faculty speech that ranges far beyond the speaker’s academic expertise, ultimately justifying a policy in which institutions avoid any regulation of faculty’s extramural speech that might imply that universities endorse speech related to faculty duties. “Universities would thus strengthen their ability to protect freedom of research if they were categorically to refuse responsibility for the publications of their faculty, regardless of the precise connection between such publications and the academic expertise for which faculty are [*782] hired or trained” (p.87). Post thus views universities as sponsoring the idea of speech in general, rather than in any specific form.

Judith Butler’s essay immediately follows Post’s and critiques it for ignoring the “historical contingency” of standards of academic freedom. Butler reminds us of the artificiality of such constructions as “professional norms” and “academic standards,” and identifies in Post’s argument “a conservative intellectual resistance to interdisciplinarity and disciplinary innovation” (p.127). She properly notes that any distinction between one’s academic and extramural work is difficult to maintain as scholarly interests turn to political concerns. She argues that restrictions on funding will likely encourage more rigid disciplinary boundaries because scholarly activities which receive funding will be valued above those which do not. She concludes by worrying that any academic scholar criticizing Israel will not receive funding because such criticism might promote “terrorism” or “bigotry” given the vagueness of their definitions. This conclusion is prefaced by a list of “if’s,” “might’s,” and “imagine’s,” some rather odd when applied to foundation funding for academics. Butler’s greatest concern appears to be that the revolution will not be subsidized (my apologies to Gil Scott-Heron). We are told that George Sorel, Franz Fanon, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela would not have been funded under such restrictions (p.137). Similarly, Butler asks: “Could [John] Locke get funding after calling for the end of the divine right of kings” (p.137); Butler seems unfamiliar with the fact that Locke’s patron, Lord Shaftesbury, employed him in large part for his skill in making such partisan political arguments (Ashcraft 1986). Perhaps those wishing to criticize Israel could similarly search out their own sponsors. Perhaps there is some group or nation critical of Israel that has a few dollars.

Philippa Strum’s essay duplicates portions of Post’s and Butler’s contributions. Like Post, she focuses on the development of AAUP policies on academic freedom, though with more of an emphasis on the early Cold War era. Like Butler, she provides a long list of possible infringements of academic freedom “if’s;” many a hypothetical academic loses her hypothetical funding. But, contra Post, she is adamant that “Academic freedom . . . is a right of individuals” (p.156). She has difficulty accepting Post’s theory because she describes academic freedom as resting on the imperatives of both teaching and research, while many faculty are almost entirely engaged in one or the other. If they are primarily employed in teaching, should their research receive protection? If primarily employed in research, should their teaching be protected? By posing the question thusly, and by bringing independent scholars within the fold, Strum detects the limits of an institutional basis for academic freedom. Instead, she rests scholarly rights on the central justification found in later Warren Court decisions regarding academic freedom, that critical inquiry benefits society as a whole.

Three of the four remaining chapters deal primarily with issues of Middle East studies or the structure of the modern [*783] university in a manner less likely to interest many readers of this review. Doumani’s introduction is largely descriptive of both the specific policies at issue and the essays contained in the volume. Kathleen Frydl provides a history of the development of the “multiversity” and trends in campus free speech, largely focusing on the experience at Berkeley under McCarthyism and during the Vietnam War. Amy Newhall’s essay details the perils of accepting government funds under Title VI of the National Defense Education Act, which she terms “the Devil’s Bargain” in her chapter title; her preferred alternative is broad-based federal funding for foreign language education with fewer restrictions and a less clearly defined tie to the military.

The final essay, by Joel Beinin, provides insight into what is at stake for some. His first sentence declares that “a coterie of supporters of George W. Bush’s Manichaean view of the world – a group that can be called the American Likud – has spearheaded a campaign to delegitimize critical thought about the Middle East” (p.237). Beinin identifies Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, Middle East scholars attached to think tanks with a strongly Zionist bent “and labeled by Beinin as ‘eccentric and marginal,’” as heading this campaign, along with such fellow travelers as Stanley Kurtz, Jay Nordlinger and David Horowitz. Beinin is fond of accusing his adversaries of McCarthyism, and he spends a great deal of time documenting “a concerted campaign” by pro-Israel think tanks, the Republican Jewish Coalition, Lynne Cheney, the American-Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to deny funding to those who would criticize Israel. He demonstrates that all these individuals and organizations have the goal of promoting Israel’s policies in the United States and have criticized anti-Israel individuals and organizations. Some are even conservatives. Beinin compares the concerns of Jewish students at Columbia that courses were being taught with an anti-Israel bias to the feelings of “white student supporters of Jim Crow practices at universities throughout the American South in the 1960s [who] were distressed to learn that these practices were illegal and despised by many Americans” (p.258). This comment is made in the context of the one discussion in the text of an academic being faced with an adverse employment action: the protest of Rashid Khalidi’s promotion to the new Edward Said Chair of Arab Studies at Columbia. Columbia held firm, and Khalidi got his promotion. Ultimately, Beinin concludes that “this is a political fight, not merely a scholarly debate” (p.261). His adversaries seem to have learned that long ago; it is not clear why they should be criticized for it.

Since the fall of the World Trade Center in 2001, the civil liberties of some face greater threat today than at any time since the 1950s. Immigrants from Muslim countries face greater surveillance, and the powers of domestic intelligence agencies have been expanded. In this, one may discern analogies to the Cold War. Even more dramatically, any individual labeled an “enemy combatant” can expect treatment more severe and with fewer [*784] constitutional protections than at any time since the Civil War. But academics have not been much inconvenienced. Under McCarthyism, hundred of academics faced accusations by vigilant anti-communists, and faculty and graduate students constituted almost one-fifth of those investigated by congressional committees; many lost their jobs and would have great difficulty finding new ones even when their affiliation with the Communist Party, allied organizations, or simply other suspected individuals, lay well in the past (Schrecker 1986, at 10).

Today’s situation is fundamentally different. Congress has not neglected its other business to investigate a multitude of professors’ political activities. Faculty have not been subjected to blacklists developed from anonymous tips to a federal police force and spread by that same bureau. There is one exception. Public universities in Ohio have recently begun asking newly hired faculty to declare that they are not members or supporters of organizations listed on the State Department’s Terrorist Exclusion List, a requirement placed on all new state employees (Jaschik 2006). This requirement is reminiscent of McCarthyism, but, to the best of my knowledge, so far stands alone. If that changes, the essays in Doumani’s book will look prophetic. But, as of now, they make much too much of much too little.

REFERENCES:

Ashcraft, Richard. 1986. REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS AND LOCKE’S TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Jaschik, Scott. 2006. “Are You Now or Have You Ever . . .” INSIDE HIGHER ED. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/08/15/oath.

Schrecker, Ellen W. 1986. NO IVORY TOWER: MCCARTHYISM AND THE UNIVERSITIES. New York: Oxford University Press.

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