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Thursday, March 16, 2006

Madness

I was minding my own business the other day, whistling a happy tune and making notes on Erving Goffman’s Stigma, when I received an email that informed me that K. Lo. had interviewed U. No. for the N. Ro.:

Lopez: Seriously, do you think that you’re unfair to anyone in the book? Folks who—like, say, a [Stephan] Thernstrom—have clear political biases, write for the Wall Street Journal and National Review, but are still fine teachers? Do you know all the professors you name are dangerous inside the classroom?

Horowitz: The dangerous idea is a marketing strategy which my publisher attached to the book after it was written. The only appearance of the word “dangerous” in the text is in the coupling of the words “dangerous sophistry” to describe some writing by Professor Juan Cole. Nonetheless, I think “dangerous” can fairly be applied to the collectivity, not least in terms of what they have done to the academic enterprise. Readers of the book will see that the profiles are both accurate and fair.  There are several professors—Michael Berube, Todd Gitlin, and Victor Navasky to name four—who are there because they have been collusive in the efforts of political activists to purge the university of conservatives and subvert its academic mission in the service of radical agendas.

Well, of course Horowitz avoids the actual question, since he has no knowledge whatsoever of his dangerous professors’ classrooms.  Then he proceeds to accuse me, Gitlin, and Navasky of “collusion” in the “purge” of conservatives from American universities.  Collusion—an interesting charge.  “Acting in secret to achieve a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful goal,” according to my copy of the Anti-American Heritage Dictionary.

I don’t know, folks.  I’ve just been teaching my disability studies class and enjoying my family these past couple of days.  Should the four of us—Gitlin, Navasky, and myself—do something about this latest accusation?  Some people tell me to ridicule it, on the grounds that Horowitz is desperate and flailing, and Horowitz-ridicule is always good for a cheap laugh.  Others tell me to pursue it, on the grounds that it is patently false and possibly defamatory.  Others suggest that I dismiss it, on the grounds that nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky, it slips away, and all your money won’t another minute buy.  Still others believe that I should sit down with Todd and Victor and deal a round of bridge.

Now, do you suppose that K. Lo. followed up by asking, “wait, what about the classroom?” or, in a more inquisitorial mode, “my goodness, do you have any evidence for this extravagant claim?” If you do, you don’t know K. Lo.  Here’s her next question:

Lopez: Have you made any retractions since your book has been out?

Horowitz: Not one.  The intellectual left has been conducting a vicious smear campaign against me alleging that my work is rife with inaccuracies ever since I launched my academic freedom movement. This is typical leftist strategy to destroy my credibility as a writer and thereby avoid having to deal with the evidence.

Well, Horowitz has half a point here: as you all know, I have indeed been trying to destroy Horowitz’s credibility.  Problem is, every time I make the attempt, I find that Horowitz has done the job himself! It is most vexing, I assure you.

Never mind his dumb-as-a-post “mistake” of attributing to Eric Foner a long passage he never wrote (a “mistake” for which Horowitz, true to form, then attacked Foner).  Let’s look at this “credibility” thing over the last couple of years, shall we?

First, there was the D’Souza-esque complaint that African-Americans haven’t been properly grateful to white folk for ending slavery:

If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?

Then there was the insistence that anyone with “negative views of the Bush Administration” and the war in Iraq was in cahoots with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi:

It should be obvious that even the otherwise innocent Barbra Streisand shares negative views of the Bush Administration and its mission of liberating Iraq with anti-American jihadists like the aforementioned Zarqawi, even though we are sure that she deplores some of his methods.

A bit later on, the claim that I myself have been working for terrorists:

radicals like Berube can’t be bothered to actually read or respond rationally to anything that ruffles their progressive feathers, let alone be concerned about the fact that their entire political focus since 9/11 has been in getting our terrorist enemies off the hook.

And that 49,999 of my colleagues are doing likewise:

There are 50,000 professors with the views of [fellow Scarborough Country guest and Citizens for Legitimate Government founder Michael] Rectenwald and [Colorado high school teacher] Jay Bennish, who are anti-American, they’re radicals, they identify with the terrorists, they think of them as freedom fighters.  It’s a huge danger for the country.

And, last but certainly not least, on the subject of sympathy for mass murderers, David Horowitz’s very own expression of tenderness and love for one of the twentieth century’s great torturer-dictators:

Looking back now, we can see that Pinochet was good for Chile.

Now, what “credibility” were we talking about again?

Honestly, folks, I could try to destroy Horowitz’s credibility, but it’s a little like challenging the ethical standards of a Tom DeLay or a Ralph Reed.  The fruit just doesn’t hang any lower.

Besides, every time I get smeared like this, I get another couple emails from former students congratulating me on having drawn the fire of one of the worst people in the country, and thanking me for the courses I’ve taught in the past.  It’s kept me in touch with a lot of terrific people, and for that I’m truly grateful.

But you know, the funny thing about this, quite apart from the fact that there has been no “purge” of conservatives from academe, is that I’ve been more than civil to the handful of conservative scholars in my field.  Take Mark Bauerlein, for instance.  He’s been a vocal and articulate advocate for conservatives in academe, and he’s sharply criticized some of my work over the years.  To be sure, I’ve taken issue with his work in return, particularly when it relies on serious misreadings of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time or just-plain flimsy anecdotal claims.  But I consider that to be an altogether unexceptional form of responding to a fellow scholar with whom I tend to disagree.  Why, even when Bauerlein testified to the Georgia state legislature on behalf of Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights in early 2004, arguing that universities have broken the social contract on which academic freedom depends because they have not hired enough conservatives, did I complain?  Not a bit!  Different strokes for different folks, I say.

Bauerlein’s argument can be found on this attractive website.  His central claims are as follows:

In a democratic society, universities occupy a special place, namely, the place in which inquiry is to be unfettered by politics, money, and power. But in return comes an obligation for professors to safeguard the principles of free exchange. It’s a social contract: society grants faculty space protected from power politics and business models, and faculty members pledge to uphold the ideals that differentiate the campus from the rest of society.

Academic freedom doesn’t precede the contract, nor does it belong exclusively to the faculty. Every member in the campus community must honor academic freedom and be honored by it. It is just as easy for a professor to violate a student’s academic freedom as it is for an administrator to violate a professor’s academic freedom. For a professor to argue with a student over conservative opinion is altogether fitting and proper, so long as it is conducted with respect and decided on evidence. But for faculty to hire only Left-leaning faculty, teach only Left-leaning thinkers, and explore only Left-leaning opinions is to substitute advocacy for inquiry. For administrators to discourage conservative speakers, while paying radical Leftists five-figure fees, is to throw a mainstream aura around but one narrow range of belief.

The educational costs of such bigotry are obvious, and the ethical example it sets is deplorable. Such behaviors belong outside the campus, not inside, and there is no reason why outsiders should countenance universities that break the terms of the social contract. To be sure, academic Leftists will perceive outside pressure as an infringement of academic freedom. They think that the university is an independent enclave accountable only to itself, and that any incursions from beyond by definition threaten the integrity of higher education. But, in truth, outside pressure arises precisely in order to do the opposite. It is the faculty who have abandoned the ideal, who stifle dissent no matter how learned, who under the guise of a rearguard, adversarial, protest posture rule the campus intellectual world and apportion its many comforts and securities to a slim ideological spectrum.

This is what we must demonstrate to trustees, alumnae, politicians, and parents. Academic freedom isn’t the property of the faculty. It is the responsibility of campus dwellers, yes, but the property of all citizens.

Personally, I think this could not be more wrongheaded; it is wrong about academic freedom, and it is wrong about how administrators and faculty “discourage conservative speakers” and enforce leftist orthodoxies in hiring and teaching.  But for the record, I strongly defend Mark Bauerlein’s right to be as wrongheaded as he wants to be.  Of course, whenever a colleague decides to sign on with David Horowitz’s campaign, it’s not my job to supply him (or her!) with the necessary flea powder.  Conversely, should any of my colleagues decide that Horowitz’s recent antics are in fact a threat to, rather than a defense of, academic freedom and ethical standards of intellectual exchange, so much the better.  But I will continue to defend professors’ academic freedom from legislative oversight and intrusion, not least because I believe that my conservative colleagues deserve every bit as much scholarly autonomy from state interference—and protection from political purges—as I do.

________

UPDATE, MARCH 17:  You can now check out Mark Bauerlein’s recent contribution to the National Review Online‘s new blog, “Phi Beta Cons,” in which he complains about civil liberties groups ganging up on poor Horowitz:  “what gets these groups exercised is one aging man in Los Angeles whose books and web site have rightly tapped into public dissatisfaction with the state of higher education.” By contrast, Ralph Luker writes, “The old fraud continues to feature his attack on KC Johnson, David Beito, and me at Front Page Rag.  It led to my harsh exchanges with him on Conservativenet. I think it is especially important that his feet be held to the fire in conservative circles.”

Holding Horowitz’s feet to the fire?  That seems so . . . harsh.  He’s just one aging man in Los Angeles, after all.

Posted by Michael on 03/16 at 08:03 AM
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