Academic Freedom: Lieberman and Lynn Cheney - remember this?

[chat_noir]

Academic Freedom After September 11

Immediately after September 11, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), founded by Lynn Cheney and Senator Joseph Lieberman, published a report accusing universities of being the weak link in the war against terror and a potential fifth column. As if the general hint at treason was not enough, an appendix to the report listed the names of 117 “un-American” professors, staff members, and students, and the offending statements they had made.

A few months after ACTA’s study was disseminated, Daniel Pipes, the director of a think tank called Middle East Forum, launched a blacklisting internet site called Campus Watch, which publishes dossiers on scholars who criticize US policy in the Middle East or Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. On the website one finds a “Keep Us Informed” section, where Pipes encourages students to inform on any professor who deviates from “correct conduct.” Some have obediently complied.

These initiatives marked the beginning of a well-orchestrated attack against academic freedom in the US. In mid-January of this year, the Bruin Alumni association offered students $100 to tape leftwing professors at the University of California Los Angeles. The idea was to expose radical professors who “ their extreme views in the classroom.” 24-year-old Andrew Jones did not wait long and created a website featuring a hit list of 30 professors he considers the top extremist, leftwing offenders.

As Beshara Doumani, a history professor at the University of California Berkeley, points out in his compelling introduction to Academic Freedom after September 11, Pipes and friends have cynically appropriated the liberal terminology of the New Deal and civil rights eras, employing code words such as balance, fairness, diversity, accountability, tolerance, and not least, academic freedom in order to justify the enforcement of a political orthodoxy that undermines these very values.


http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug06/Gordon03.htm

[JackNewtown]

1. The sad part is many "progressives" agree with Joe on this nt

[ixion]

2. yep... and joe-mo also had his fingers in the unPATRIOTic Act

which means he belongs behind bars, IMO.

[cmkramer]

3. Another bullshit lie from the left

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020128/lieberman2002011

I am writing in regards to the Council's recent report, Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It.

In the past, the Council has often sent me advanced copies of its publications before they have been released and asked for my support. In this case, though, I was never given the opportunity to review the Defending Civilization report before it was made public. I first learned of it through a call to my office from a reporter in Connecticut about a controversy the report had stirred at Wesleyan University.


If I had been given an advanced copy, I would have objected to its content and methodology and asked you either to revise it or make clear that I had no involvement with it. But because that did not happen, and because I have been incorrectly listed on your website as a co-founder of the Council, a number of news accounts and commentaries have associated me with the report and incorrectly asserted or implied that I endorse it.

This letter is meant to set the record straight about my disapproval of this report, which I consider unfair and inconsistent for an organization devoted to promoting academic freedom. To avoid any future confusion, I would ask you to remove any reference to me as a "co-founder" of ACTA from your website or other Council documents. And I would ask that you note in any future public statements that I do not support this specific report. Thank you.


Joe Lieberman

Read it and weep.

[izzybeans]

4. I can't link does not work.

[nealmhughes]

5. It's Horowitz. He has a whole army of Young/College Republicans.

They are like zombies. Check out some of the recent speakers on campus sponsored by these wackos: every right wing fanatic one could find. I'm surprised that the John Birchers and League of the South aren't included in their roster of speakers.