From The Archives But It Reads Like Today-Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms - by Stephen Lendman-Reinstate Professor Ginsberg!

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms

Targeting Professor Terri Ginsberg's Academic and Speech Freedoms - by Stephen Lendman

Post-9/11, anyone challenging America's war on terrorism faces possible recrimination, especially vulnerable Muslims, targeted for political advantage to incite fear to justify war.

Moreover, anyone critical of Israel leaves them vulnerable to vilification, intimidation and persecution. Even university professors are targeted, including distinguished tenured ones - censured, suspended and/or fired unjustly.

Yet America's First Amendment states:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Of all Bill of Rights freedoms, this one's most important because without it all others are at risk.

Some would also argue that academic freedom derives from First Amendment rights, including US Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1939 - 1975). In 1952, he cited it in an Adler v. Board of Education opinion, calling its denial a violation of speech freedom.

He also believed that doing so is "the most dangerous of all subversions....There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies."

In Wieman v. Updegraff (1952), Justice Felix Frankfurter (1939 - 1962) concurred, saying:

"To regard teachers - in our educational system, from the primary grades to the university - as the priests of our democracy is therefore not to indulge in hyperbole. It is the special task of teachers to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens, who, in turn, make possible an enlightened and effective public opinion."

"They cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions for the practice of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them. They must have the freedom of responsible inquiry, by thought and action...."

In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, Justice Earl Warren (1953 - 1969) concurred with a High Court majority, saying:

"We believe that there unquestionably was an invasion of petitioner's liberties in the areas of academic freedom and political expression - areas in which government should be extremely reticent to tread. The essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident....To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation....Teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die."

In Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967), Justice William Brennan (1956 - 1990) notably said:

"Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom."

American jurisprudence today is much more hardline than earlier because two-thirds or more of all federal judges are from, affiliated with, or sympathetic to the extremist Federalist Society. It advocates rolling back civil liberties; ending New Deal social policies; opposing reproductive choice, government regulations, labor rights and environmental protections; as well as subverting justice (including speech and academic freedom) in defense of privilege.

As a result, academia is easily threatened, especially when challenging mainstream dogma, notably through honest discourse about Israeli/Palestinians relations.

North Carolina State University (NCSU) Professor Terri Ginsberg is one of many victims. She was denied tenure-track positioning, then fired as a visiting professor, "pertaining to (her) scholarship and teaching on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

Ginsberg's Distinguished Credentials

After receiving her doctorate in Cinema Studies at New York University (NYU), she taught film, media, and literary studies at Rutgers University, NYU, Dartmouth, Ithaca College, SUNY-Purchase College, and Brooklyn College-CUNY.

Her expertise includes:

-- Palestinian/Israeli cinema;

-- German cinema;

-- Holocaust films;

-- Critical theory; and

-- Gender and sexuality studies.

Her authored, co-authored, and edited books include:

-- "Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema;"

-- "Holocaust Film: The Political Aesthetics of Ideology;" and

-- "Perspectives on German Cinema."

She's also written articles for the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Spectator, Situations, Arab Studies Quarterly, and other publications, including on Palestinian/Israeli conflict issues.

From 2006 - 2008, she co-chaired the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Middle Eastern Caucus. In New York, as part of Jews against Israel's Occupation and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, she's also been a community organizer. In addition, she's an International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES) Programming Committee member.

Ginsburg's Case

In December 2009, she sued NCSU. At an October 25, 2010 Summary Judgment hearing, Judge Shannon Joseph summarily dismissed it without reason. At issue was either not understanding or being dismissive of First Amendment rights. "(S)he was apparently only looking for direct evidence of discrimination and speech suppression," or bent the law to support power and privilege over justice.

Despite "mountain(s) of circumstantial evidence," she dismissed it out of hand. In April 2011, Ginsberg's Record of Appeal was filed, then "an Appellate Brief with the North Carolina Court of Appeals" on June 24. A late summer or early fall hearing should follow.

Litigation Background

Ginsberg sued in December 2009. A State of North Carolina mandated mediation hearing followed in May 2010. No settlement was reached. During a week of subsequent depositions, NCSU "admitted that it suppressed (her) speech critical of Zionism and supportive of the Palestine liberation struggle" while employed as a visiting professor.

As a result, "it chose not to interview or hire (her) for a tenure-track position because" her scholarship focused honestly on Israel/Palestine, the Middle East, "Jewish" and related issues. "Amazingly, (NCSU) claims that it has the right to suppress, refuse and reject on the basis of these considerations." As a result, Ginsberg filed a Record of Appeal and Appellate Brief for redress.

In September 2010, when discovery ended, "NCSU filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, held on October 25 as explained above. "By dismissing the case, Judge Joseph essentially decided that" the North Carolina Constitution's Article I, section 14 free speech provision excludes anti-Zionist criticism and views supporting Palestinian, Arab and Muslim rights.

As a non-tenure-track faculty member at the time, Ginsberg was fired as a visiting professor and denied a campus grievance hearing - one a tenure-track/tenured faculty member likely would have gotten. "(T)he judge's decision also impacts the labor rights of contingent academic workers" nationally because they comprise 70% of faculty members today.

Ginsberg strongly believes her Summary Judgment dismissal was improper. As a result, she was denied a jury trial on grounds that no speech violations occurred. In fact, Judge Joseph's ruling ignored evidence that "NCSU faculty exhibited symptoms of discomfort with (her) political views and public statements."

For example, NCSU witnesses, including its Film Studies Program director, admitted they reacted negatively to views she expressed at a Palestinian film screening, during which she thanked audience members "for supporting the expression of a Palestinian liberation perspective in an alternative film screening."

As a result, NCSU witnesses said they believed they would thus "perceive the Film Studies and Middle East Studies programs as biased. Shortly thereafter, (she) went from being the favored candidate for a tenure-track position to be denied an interview."

Later, NCSU claimed she was denied for being "overqualified," and because her scholarship "shift(ed) to Middle Eastern interests," making her inappropriate for a European film position despite her "voluminous publication record" and European film work, "far exceed(ing) the prevailing candidate."

Based on bogus reasoning, however, she was also denied a jury trial, a decision Ginsberg hopes will be reversed on appeal.

Terri Ginsberg v. Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina

Its Statement on the Grounds for Appellate Review says:

"Judge Joseph's order, which entered judgment as a matter of law in favor of the defendant on all of the plaintiff's claims, is a final judgment and appeal is therefore proper pursuant to NC Gen. Stat. 7A-27(b)."

In October 2007, Ginsberg applied for a Film Studies tenure-track position. It requires candidates with "a primary concentration in at least one area of European Cinema, although additional areas of expertise are welcome (other national cinemas, digital media, theory, etc.)," as well as "an excellent research and teaching record in the area advertised."

The search committee initially listed her most qualified among "First Tier Candidates" until "suddenly" she "fell out of favor (and) was not listed in either the first or the second tier, but moved to the bottom of the 'reject' tier, and was not even granted an interview for the position."

The reason given was that she was "now working with Palestinian/Israeli, rank issue(s)...." Moreover, it called her "experience and the quantity of her publications exceed(ing) that which normally would be expected of a beginning assistant professor in our department."

"Included in the tier above her were candidates who did not even appear to be in the field of Film Studies, including (one) about whom the notes said, 'is he really film studies?' "

Despite being the most qualified candidate, another one was chosen "whose publication and teaching records were not nearly as strong as Ginsberg's...."

Moreover, although the applicant wrote about Holocaust film, she didn't challenge Zionism, include alternative Jewish perspectives, or publish books. In addition, Ginsberg's contract wasn't renewed despite her cinema expertise and distinguished scholarship.

Clearly, her activist views about Israel/Palestine, Zionism, and America's one-sided Middle East policy got her punished. As a result, her academic and speech rights were violated, subjecting her to Inquisition justice.

A Final Comment

University of Chicago Professor Peter N. Kirstein, a noted academic freedom supporter, said Ginsberg was fired:

"for daring to cross the ideological line into artistic and pedagogical assessment of the Palestine Question. (She's) just one of many academics who support human rights and the decolonization of Palestine whose academic freedom has been denied. Many have either been silenced, fired, denied tenure, or non-renewed throughout academia" for daring to defend right over wrong - especially when challenging Israel, Zionism, or America's one-sided support for both.

As a result, each censor victory "is a defeat of free speech and the right to conscience that this nation and the academy cynically trumpet," while waring lawlessly against democratic values, including truth, justice, rule of law standards, human rights, civil liberties, and courageous activists who champion them.

Among others well known to this writer, Ginsberg notably qualifies honorably.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 7:51 AM

*Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause"

Click on the title to link to a "Wikipedia" entry for public intellectual, MIT professor and social activist Noam Chomsky.

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

DVD Review

Noam Chomsky: Rebel Without A Pause, Noam Chomsky, Carol Chomsky and others, 2003

Let’s face it these days in America it does not take much to gain a left radical reputation. I say that more in anger than in sorrow. Take the case of over-blown director Michael Moore, who is in some right-wing quarters seen as the devil incarnate, while in actuality resting, and resting quite comfortably, in the heartland of the Democratic Party precincts, hardly radical territory these days, if ever. The subject of this documentary review, radical gadfly MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, is also prima facie evidence for that proposition.

Now I have nothing against the good professor- as a linguist. That work I have always found interesting. What is less interesting, and is placed front and center in this 2003 post 9/11 exposition of his views, well, are those views. Or better, not the views, many of them which I actually share, but of his analysis of what to do about it.


Perhaps, as this point in my own long political career, I am a little jaded when someone makes a cogent, if now commonplace, analysis of American imperialism, the industrial-military complex, the over-reaching tentacles of the imperial experience, the cultural/consumer wasteland, the media’s capitulation to the government, and the fear-mongering in place of politics, particularly in the post 9/11 world that form the segments of the professor’s spiel. He presents those position articulately, if as he concedes himself, long-windedly, and that is fair enough. I have already conceded without difficulty that he is an important public intellectual. But hiding behind those views is a long time anarchist position that to take on the “monster” seriously is, in the end, bad form.

Now Professor Chomsky’s anarchy is not that of the old Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers of the World), or of the Haymarket Martyrs. One moreover, in any case, would never mistake him for “Big” Bill Haywood, Alexander Berkman or a host of other action anarchists. Or as a member of the Friends Of Durritti in Spain in the 1930s. Those were heroic figures who demand much respect even from those of us who find ourselves in political opposition to anarchist doctrine. No, the good professor’s brand of anarchism is more philosophical, very philosophical. It is more attuned to that of the moral suasion doctrines of Kropotkin, and the like. Bloodless, and while resting easily in one’s armchair.

Nowhere does that come out better that in the snippets of interviews here where he is asked questions about what to do to fight against the “monster”. There he loses the articulate analysis and fumbles around with searches for self-identity, truthfulness, and intellectual inquiry- all nice things but hardly calculated to make the “beast” tremble. Professor Chomsky gives the game away in one such answer. He is asked about the very legitimate question of organizing, and who and how to do such activity. He mentions, at one point in the answer, that he could not organize, by his life circumstances, steel workers.

Fair enough, life provides each of us with different possibilities. But why in this whole hour presentation did I not see or hear, other than the obligatory mantra about the plight of the working masses, that he wanted to work closely with those who did have such skills. There was nothing in the good-intentioned professor’s presentation that made me break from sometime another old public intellectual, although not an august professor, Karl Marx, said, in effect, in the middle of the 19th century- “It is not enough to merely analysis (or philosophize) about the world- the point is to change it." And we know what that means-if Professor Chomsky doesn’t.

The Wheels Of Capitalism In Its Swaddling Clothes- Fernand Braudel’s View-"The Wheels Of Commerce"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Fernand Braudel.

Book Review

The Wheels Of Commerce-Civilization & Capitalism:15th-18th Century, Fernand Braudel, Harper&Row, New York 1979

Karl Marx, the 19th century revolutionary socialist and dissector of the underpinnings of the capitalist mode of production, is most famous for his inflammatory pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto, a programmatic outline of, and rationale for, the socialist reconstruction of society beyond the current capitalist market system. Not as well known, and certainly not as widely read, was his equally important Das Capital that, painstaking, gives a historical analysis of the rise of capitalism based on the appropriation of surplus value by private owners. Where Marx worked in broad strokes to lay out his theory relying mainly on (and polemizing against) bourgeois economists the work under review, the second volume of a three volume study of the evolution of capitalism, Fernand Braudel’s Wheels of Commerce, fills in the spaces left by Marx’s work. Although Braundel, of necessity, tips his hat to Marx’s insights his work does not depend on a Marxist historical materialist concept of history, at least consciously, although in its total effect it is certainly comparable with that interpretation of history.

Braudel digs deep into the infrastructure of medieval society to trace the roots of capitalism to the increased widespread commerce that the rise of rudimentary production of surplus goods permitted. He highlights, rightly I think, the important role of fairs, other lesser adjunct forms of commercial endeavor like peddling and shop keeping, and the rise of fortunately located (near rivers, the ocean, along accessible roadways) cities committed full-time to creating a market for surplus goods being produced in the those cities, on the land and, most importantly, in far-off places. Naturally, such activity as the creation of markets kept creating demand for more and varied products making more expansive (and expensive) journeys necessary. The opening of wide-flung trade routes, over land and on the seas, exploited by merchant-adventurers (in the widest sense of that term) thereafter became practical, if still highly risky, for those committed to those activities.

Needless to say in a densely written six hundred page volume the number of examples of commercial endeavors (some presented in more than in one context) that Braudel highlights is beyond anything a short review could do justice to. A quick outline here will have to suffice. The already noted rise of a merchant class ready to do business over great stretches and under trying circumstances; the still controversial basis for the rise of a distinct capitalist ethic that drove the markets(think Max Weber and the Protestant ethic); the importance of double bookkeeping of accounts and the introduction of bills of exchange to facilitate payment; the exploitation of vast colonial areas for minerals and other natural resources such as gold and silver used as physical value in every day market exchanges; the rise and fall of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism based on the gold and silver mines and slave trade; the successive rises of the Dutch and English colonialisms based on that slave trade and control of the sea lanes; the rise of joint-stock companies and other forms of collective capitalist ventures; the introduction of a stock exchange to place value on those enterprises; the increased role of a national state in the emergence of capitalism as defender of private property, as purchaser of goods, and insurer of last resort against hard times; the shifts in class status away from feudal norms and rise in class consciousness in society; and, the applicability of the capitalism to non-European societies such as Japan, and non-Christian cultures such as Islam.

Just to outline some of the topics as I have just done will give one a sense that this is an important work (and act as an impetus to read volume one and three) for those who want to get the feel of what the dawn of capitalism looked like. And for those who want to move beyond capitalism a very good companion to that not widely read Das Capital of Marx.

*From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-From The Pen Of Leon Trotsky-"The Intelligentsia And Socialism"

Click on the headline to link to the Workers Vanguard website for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.

Markin comment:

I have spilled a great deal of ink in this space arguing for the young, including young intellectuals, to emulate John Reed, Harvard Class of 1910, and come over and join us in the fight for our communist future. The international workers movement, and particularly its revolutionary wing, is in constant need of writers, thinkers, and speakers to preach “the good news.” This task continues today although over the years the number of hardened intellectuals has dwindled on our side of the struggle.

As Trotsky points out, in the normal course of events, intellectuals, young idealistic ones and old long-in-the-tooth entombed ones alike, are trained to run the apparatuses of the bourgeois state and the lure of socialism, even if short-lived, is usually just a way station to that end. Generations of young intellectuals, and wanna-be intellectuals, have previously given the best two years or so of their lives to the fresh ideas swirling around the socialism milieu before becoming ensnared in the groves of academia. But every once in a while... A John Reed. A Leon Trotsky. A Lenin. And that is what we fight for on the campuses. .

Note: Although the polemic presented in this linked article by Leon Trotsky is closely reasoned it is hardly the best example of his literary flair. Maybe it was the subject matter, maybe it was the opponent he was arguing against (Max Adler) but this one is not guaranteed to set any youth’s heart a-flutter. Or any old man’s either.

*From The Pages Of The "Revolutionary History" Journal- The Back Issue Index

Click on the headline to link to the journal "Revolutionary History" Website for an index of their online back issues.

Markin comment:

Whatever the current muddled politics of the editorial staff of this journal and whatever the tendency of the articles presented to apologize for backsliders,, reformists and the lot, like Andreas Nin and the POUM in the Spanish Civil War, this is a valuable source of neglected history, our history. A revolution, or two, will straighten out the politics.

*Leftist Political Activist And Historian Professor Howard Zinn Passes Away

Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry, dated January 28, 2009, reviewing a documentary on Professor Howard Zinn, "A View From The Old Radical Tradition- Howard Zinn".

Markin comment:

See linked article for my take on the importance of Howard Zinn to the local Boston left scene.

Historian-activist Zinn dies
Globe Staff / January 28, 2010

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist whose books such as “A People’s History of the United States” prompted a generation to rethink the nation’s past, died yesterday in Santa Monica, Calif., where he was traveling. He was 87, and lived in the Newton village of Auburndale. His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington, said he had a heart attack.

“He’s made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture,” Noam Chomsky, the activist and MIT professor, said last night. “He’s changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can’t think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect.”

Chomsky added that Dr. Zinn’s writings “simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation.”

“He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant,” Chomsky said. “Both by his actions and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement.”

For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), his best-known book, had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers - many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out - but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.

As he wrote in his autobiography, “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train” (1994): “From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than ‘objectivity’; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.”

Certainly, it was a recipe for rancor between Dr. Zinn and John Silber, former president of Boston University. Dr. Zinn, a leading critic of Silber, twice helped lead faculty votes to oust the BU president, who in turn once accused Dr. Zinn of arson (a charge he quickly retracted) and cited him as a prime example of teachers “who poison the well of academe.”

Dr. Zinn was a cochairman of the strike committee when BU professors walked out in 1979. After the strike was settled, he and four colleagues were charged with violating their contract when they refused to cross a picket line of striking secretaries. The charges against “the BU Five” were soon dropped.

In 1997, Dr. Zinn slipped into popular culture when his writing made a cameo appearance in the film “Good Will Hunting.” The title character, played by Matt Damon, lauds “A People’s History” and urges Robin Williams’s character to read it. Damon, who co-wrote the script, was a neighbor of the Zinns when growing up.Continued...

“Howard had a great mind and was one of the great voices in the American political life,” Ben Affleck, Damon’s longtime friend and his costar in “Good Will Hunting,” said in a statement. “He taught me how valuable, how necessary dissent was to democracy and to America itself. He taught that history was made by the everyman, not the elites. I was lucky enough to know him personally, and I will carry with me what I learned from him - and try to impart it to my own children - in his memory.”

Damon was later involved in a television version of the book, “The People Speak,” which ran on the History Channel in 2009, and he narrated a 2004 biographical documentary, “Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.”

“Howard had a genius for the shape of public morality and for articulating the great alternative vision of peace as more than a dream,” said James Carroll, a columnist for the Globe’s opinion pages whose friendship with Dr. Zinn dates to when Carroll was a Catholic chaplain at BU. “But above all, he had a genius for the practical meaning of love. That is what drew legions of the young to him and what made the wide circle of his friends so constantly amazed and grateful.”

Dr. Zinn was born in New York City on Aug. 24, 1922, the son of Jewish immigrants, Edward Zinn, a waiter, and Jennie (Rabinowitz) Zinn, a housewife. He attended New York public schools and was working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard when he met Roslyn Shechter.

“She was working as a secretary,” Dr. Zinn said in an interview with the Globe nearly two years ago. “We were both working in the same neighborhood, but we didn’t know each other. A mutual friend asked me to deliver something to her. She opened the door, I saw her, and that was it.”

He joined the Army Air Corps, and they courted through the mail before marrying in October 1944 while he was on his first furlough. She died in 2008.

During World War II, he served as a bombardier, was awarded the Air Medal, and attained the rank of second lieutenant. After the war, Dr. Zinn worked at a series of menial jobs until entering New York University on the GI Bill as a 27-year-old freshman. He worked nights in a warehouse loading trucks to support his studies. He received his bachelor’s degree from NYU, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees in history from Columbia University.

Dr. Zinn was an instructor at Upsala College and a lecturer at Brooklyn College before joining the faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, in 1956. He served at the historically black women’s institution as chairman of the history department. Among his students were novelist Alice Walker, who called him “the best teacher I ever had,” and Marian Wright Edelman, future head of the Children’s Defense Fund.

During this time, Dr. Zinn became active in the civil rights movement. He served on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the most aggressive civil rights organization of the time, and participated in numerous demonstrations.

Dr. Zinn became an associate professor of political science at BU in 1964 and was named full professor in 1966.

The focus of his activism became the Vietnam War. Dr. Zinn spoke at many rallies and teach-ins and drew national attention when he and the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, another leading antiwar activist, went to Hanoi in 1968 to receive three prisoners released by the North Vietnamese.

Dr. Zinn’s involvement in the antiwar movement led to his publishing two books: “Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal” (1967) and “Disobedience and ” (1968). He had previously published “LaGuardia in Congress” (1959), which had won the American Historical Association’s Albert J. Beveridge Prize; “SNCC: The New Abolitionists” (1964); “The Southern Mystique” (1964); and “New Deal Thought” (1966).

In addition to his daughter, Dr. Zinn leaves a son, Jeff of Wellfleet; three granddaughters; and two grandsons. Funeral plans were not available.

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

*Hands Off Professor Bill Ayers- Let Him Speak

Click on title to link to "Boston Globe", April 2, 2009, article on Professor Bill Ayers discussed below.

Commentary

Okay, Okay I know that I have invoked the word professor ironically and in a somewhat tongue in cheek manner in discussing controversial Professor Bill Ayers in this space as an object lesson about the career paths of 1960’s ex-radicals once they have reconciled themselves to bourgeois society. Naturally when his name came up prominently in relation to the emergence of then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama I could not resist sticking a few well-deserved barbs Ayers’ way. But they were rather politically pointed barbs from the left about why an ex-Weatherman would be hanging around with a bourgeois candidate on the make like Obama.

But now news (somewhat dated news as I have been out of town and did not pick up the controversy until after it was over) about Boston College’s thinly- veiled slap at academic freedom by refusing to let the good professor speak in person or via satellite has crossed the line, even for the very arbitrary and capricious of so-called “academic freedom”. This is, moreover, is not solely a case of right wing commentators having a field day with the issue, although a local “Rush Limbaugh” wannabe helped fan the flames. I am sure that the right-wingers were more than happy when the Boston College administration decided to keep the academy and the minds of their young charges there “pure” from the taint of any old time radical. However, this is just one more in an ever- growing line of cases (think of Ward Churchill and the Finklestein case) where a college administration was more than capable, as in the past, of putting the clamps on by itself.

Here are the facts. Apparently, Professor Ayers was scheduled to deliver some kind of lecture on urban education (his specialty) at Boston College during the week of March 29, 2009 at the invitation of some student groups, including the College Democrats of Boston College. Such lectures by newsworthy figures are not unknown events on college campuses and moreover are a rather lucrative proposition for professors on the academic lecture circuit. The Boston College administration balked at that invitation citing a groundswell of opposition from local neighbors. Why? It seems that there is some lingering animosity concerning the shooting of a Boston Police officer by people allegedly connected with Professor Ayers’ old organization, the Weathermen. Professor Ayers, however, has never been charged, much less convicted, with any connection to that crime.

Why the furor then? Well, the Boston College administration, bowing to those inevitable amorphous unknown forces (although we can guess what those forces are now, can’t we), expressed its profound concern for the safety of the student community and “respect” for the local community (where it has been busily buying up real estate in order to expand its campus). Well, ho hum we have heard that ‘justification’ before. The kicker here on this bogus ‘safety’ issue is that when a televised Ayers lecture by satellite was proposed that too was deemed too “hot” to handle.

What really gives here though? One of the students in the article I am using for information (“BC won’t air Ayers lecture by satellite”, Boston Globe, Peter Schworm, April 2, 2009) let the cat out of the bag. This Ayers controversy, while an easy one for the administration to raise holy hell over, is not the first time that the BC administration has vetoed speaking engagements for controversial figures on campus. That interviewed student did not state who else had been banned but we can figure that one out also.

Needless to say birthday boy Charles Darwin might find it hard to get invited to this august university what with his oddball quirky theory of evolution (BC is an old-time Jesuit school). Much less the heroic Kansas Doctor George Tiller, one of the few abortion providers in that state (they would probably have a lynch mob out for him). So much for that vaunted “academic freedom”. Fortunately we never took that profession of freedom as anything but a very vulnerable “right”, although we gladly use it to get our socialist message out when we can. We remember the “red scare” of the 1950’s here in America when the academy knuckled under without a whimper. And, left to its own devises, most of the academy would have loved to have clapped down during the anti-Vietnam war movement; it was just too big and got way beyond the ability of campus administrations to effectively curtail it. Let us not kid ourselves on that score.

But what about Professor Bill Ayers? Apparently this Boston College incident is not the first college where some furor that has dogged him. I do not, at this time, have the details of Ayers’ other problems at other campuses. However, I heard him last November, just after the 2008 elections when he was touting his revised memoir, on the “Terry Gross Show” on NPR (as any Boston College student could have done, as well). He seemed none too radical in his presentation of his current politics which were tired garden variety left-Democratic Party ones that we have become all too familiar with from repentant radicals, although to his credit he did not abase himself in denial of his revolutionary past. Nor should he have. We were dealing with serious war criminals then in the Johnson/Nixon wielding the most powerful military machine/police apparatus the world has ever known in case one has forgotten or wasn’t around then. For now though. Hands Off Professor Ayers! - Let him speak on politics, education or whatever the hell he wants to talk about. Anywhere.