[Peace-discuss] A Fight for Freedom of Speech

[patton paul]

Published on Friday, December 27, 2002 by the Los Angeles Times
A Fight for Freedom of Speech
Dissent Doesn't Mean A Lack of Patriotism
by Eric Foner and Glenda Gilmore


We are two of the professors to whom Daniel Pipes refers when he asks:
"Why do American academics so often despise their own country while
finding excuses for repressive and dangerous regimes?"

Pipes, a self-appointed arbiter of acceptable speech and founder of Campus
Watch, recently included us in a list of six "Professors Who Hate America"
in a New York publication. Using us as examples of professors who
relentlessly oppose their own government, he called for "outsiders"
(alumni, state legislators, parents of students and others) to "take steps
to ... establish standards for media statements by faculty."

If Pipes were simply displaying a profound misunderstanding of academic
freedom, there would be no cause for alarm. But his screed is symptomatic
of a broader trend among conservative commentators, who since Sept. 11
have increasingly equated criticism of the Bush administration with lack
of patriotism.

William J. Bennett, co-founder of the conservative think tank Empower
America, claims in his recent book "Why We Fight" that scholars with whom
he disagrees "sow widespread and debilitating confusion" and "weaken the
country's resolve." The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, an
organization founded in 1995 by Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick
Cheney, that calls on those groups to take a more "active" role in
determining what happens on campuses, chastised professors who fail to
teach the "truth" that civilization itself "is best exemplified in the
West and indeed in America."

Pipes' call for "outsiders" to police the statements of faculty conjures
up memories of World War I and the McCarthy era, when critics of the
government were jailed and institutions of higher learning dismissed
antiwar or "subversive" professors. Historians today consider such
episodes shameful anomalies in the history of civil liberties in the
United States.

In equating opposition to government policies with hatred of our country,
Pipes displays a deep hostility to the essence of a democratic polity: the
right to dissent.

What was our sin that unleashed this assault? Our comments appeared in our
respective universities' student newspapers opposing the Bush
administration's assertion of the right to launch a preemptive war against
Iraq.

The same position was voiced by numerous public figures, including members
of the first Bush administration, former President Carter and members of
Congress. It is the viewpoint of virtually every country in the world,
including most of the longtime allies of the United States.

Neither of us offered any "excuse for dangerous and repressive regimes."
It is one thing to deem a regime repressive, quite another to believe that
the United States has the right to assume the unilateral role of global
policeman.

There is little chance that Columbia or Yale, where we teach, would heed
the call to allow "outsiders" to dictate what opinions faculty may voice.
The danger is that institutions less financially secure and more dependent
on legislatures may bend to this gathering threat to freedom of speech.

Eric Foner is a professor of history at Columbia University. Glenda
Gilmore is a professor of history at Yale University.

Copyright 2002 Los Angeles Times