Tenured radicals, or free-speech abusers, 101
One person’s pedagogical imperative is another’s unpardonable slur. Bone up. Quiz tomorrow.
Case study | Ward Churchill, University of Colorado | J. Donald Silva, University of New Hampshire | Ignacio Chapela, UC Berkeley | Lawrence Summers, Harvard University | Jared Sakren, Arizona State University |
Discussion question | Should the university oust Churchill, a tenured professor, after he writes an essay comparing some victims of the World Trade Center attacks to Holocaust facilitator Adolf Eichmann?* | Did the university act wrongly in firing Silva, an English professor, for sexual harassment when female students in 1992 complained about offensive comments* that he made in class? | Did Chapela, who taught in the department of environmental science, policy and management, commit career suicide in denouncing his employer for its ties to a private corporation? | Do academics universally support academic freedom when it involves questions* about female scientists? | Do academic freedom policies protect a Shakespeare-centric professor's right to exclude postmodern feminist/ethnic canon from his course syllabus? |
Short answer | The 1st Amendment protects the professor's job, but the flap over his screed triggers secondary attacks on his integrity. | Yes. a A U.S. District Court judge ordered Silva's reinstatement, finding "legitimate pedagogical reasons" for the professor's statements and that the university had trampled on free speech. | Yes ... and no. He sued the school in April 2005, claiming it had thwarted his tenure because he lambasted its deal with Novartis to do agricultural biotech research.* He ultimately won tenure. | Not hardly. In March, members of Harvard's arts and science faculty passed a motion of "lack of confidence" in the leadership of university President Summers after his controversial speech. | Yes, the university said after agreeing to pay back wages to Sakren, a drama prof,* in a 1999 legal settlement. He claimed he lost his job for refusing to teach "Betty the Yeti: An Eco-Fable." |
Footnote | * As "technocrats of an empire" fueling "engines of profit," Churchill argued, white-collar workers were "little Eichmanns" (enablers of evil) and inevitable targets. | * Discussing similes, he paraphrased a dancer's description of her vocation: "Belly dancing is like Jell-O on a plate with a vibrator under the plate." | * Chapela co-wrote a study published in the journal Nature that concluded that DNA from genetically engineered corn had contaminated native maize in Mexico. | * "...there are issues of intrinsic aptitude
reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination
. " | * Among the former students who publicly supported Sakren's adherence to the classics was Annette Bening. He also taught Frances McDormand and Val Kilmer. |
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