Here is another article for you to discuss. It's a little
challenging, so you'll need to read it carefully. Post your
reactions to this thread. What do you think the author is arguing
here? Does he make good arguments? Why or why not? And do you agree
with him?
New York Times
July 23, 2006
Conspiracy Theories 101
By STANLEY FISH
Kevin Barrett, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison, has now taken his place alongside Ward Churchill of the
University of Colorado as a college teacher whose views on 9/11
have led politicians and ordinary citizens to demand that he be
fired.
Mr. Barrett, who has a one-semester contract to teach a course
titled “Islam: Religion and Culture,” acknowledged on a radio talk
show that he has shared with students his strong conviction that
the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job
perpetrated by the American government. The predictable uproar
ensued, and the equally predictable battle lines were drawn between
those who disagree about what the doctrine of academic freedom does
and does not allow.
Mr. Barrett’s critics argue that academic freedom has limits
and should not be invoked to justify the dissemination of lies and
fantasies. Mr. Barrett’s supporters (most of whom are not partisans
of his conspiracy theory) insist that it is the very point of an
academic institution to entertain all points of view, however
unpopular. (This was the position taken by the university’s
provost, Patrick Farrell, when he ruled on July 10 that Mr. Barrett
would be retained: “We cannot allow political pressure from critics
of unpopular ideas to inhibit the free exchange of ideas.”)
Both sides get it wrong. The problem is that each assumes that
academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor’s
speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in
advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like
the denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world)
considered by almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.
But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content.
It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say
anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence
or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the
freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that
is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might
seem, to academic interrogation and analysis.
Academic freedom means that if I think that there may be an
intellectual payoff to be had by turning an academic lens on
material others consider trivial — golf tees, gourmet coffee,
lingerie ads, convenience stores, street names, whatever — I should
get a chance to try. If I manage to demonstrate to my peers and
students that studying this material yields insights into matters
of general intellectual interest, there is a new topic under the
academic sun and a new subject for classroom discussion.
In short, whether something is an appropriate object of
academic study is a matter not of its content — a crackpot theory
may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly
scrutiny — but of its availability to serious analysis. This point
was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a
University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: “When is the
University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of astrology?” The
question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the
9/11-inside-job theory with believing in the predictive power of
astrology, and to imply that since the university wouldn’t think of
hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than
to hire someone to teach the other.
But the truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a
university to hire someone to teach astrology — not to profess
astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades
of Nancy Reagan), but to teach the history of its very long career.
There is, after all, a good argument for saying that Shakespeare,
Chaucer and Dante, among others, cannot be fully understood unless
one understands astrology.
The distinction I am making — between studying astrology and
proselytizing for it — is crucial and can be generalized; it shows
us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible
practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can
be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its
structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in
the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your
students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply.
And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in
addition to being a college lecturer, is a member of a group
calling itself Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization with the
decidedly political agenda of persuading Americans that the Bush
administration “not only permitted 9/11 to happen but may even have
orchestrated these events.”
Is the fact of this group’s growing presence on the Internet a
reason for studying it in a course on 9/11? Sure. Is the instructor
who discusses the group’s arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at
all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without
embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace
and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by
partisan advocacy. And that is a moment no college administration
should allow to occur.
Provost Farrell doesn’t quite see it that way, because he is
too hung up on questions of content and balance. He thinks that the
important thing is to assure a diversity of views in the classroom,
and so he is reassured when Mr. Barrett promises to surround his
“unconventional” ideas and “personal opinions” with readings
“representing a variety of viewpoints.”
But the number of viewpoints Mr. Barrett presents to his
students is not the measure of his responsibility. There is, in
fact, no academic requirement to include more than one view of an
academic issue, although it is usually pedagogically useful to do
so. The true requirement is that no matter how many (or few) views
are presented to the students, they should be offered as objects of
analysis rather than as candidates for allegiance.
There is a world of difference, for example, between surveying
the pro and con arguments about the Iraq war, a perfectly
appropriate academic assignment, and pressing students to come down
on your side. Of course the instructor who presides over such a
survey is likely to be a partisan of one position or the other —
after all, who doesn’t have an opinion on the Iraq war? — but it is
part of a teacher’s job to set personal conviction aside for the
hour or two when a class is in session and allow the techniques and
protocols of academic research full sway.
This restraint should not be too difficult to exercise. After
all, we require and expect it of judges, referees and reporters.
And while its exercise may not always be total, it is both
important and possible to make the effort.
Thus the question Provost Farrell should put to Mr. Barrett is
not “Do you hold these views?” (he can hold any views he likes) or
“Do you proclaim them in public?” (he has that right no less that
the rest of us) or even “Do you surround them with the views of
others?”
Rather, the question should be: “Do you separate yourself from
your partisan identity when you are in the employ of the citizens
of Wisconsin and teach subject matter — whatever it is — rather
than urge political action?” If the answer is yes, allowing Mr.
Barrett to remain in the classroom is warranted. If the answer is
no, (or if a yes answer is followed by classroom behavior that
contradicts it) he should be shown the door. Not because he would
be teaching the “wrong” things, but because he would have abandoned
teaching for indoctrination.
The advantage of this way of thinking about the issue is that
it outflanks the sloganeering and posturing both sides indulge in:
on the one hand, faculty members who shout “academic freedom” and
mean by it an instructor’s right to say or advocate anything at all
with impunity; on the other hand, state legislators who shout “not
on our dime” and mean by it that they can tell academics what ideas
they can and cannot bring into the classroom.
All you have to do is remember that academic freedom is just
that: the freedom to do an academic job without external
interference. It is not the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are
neither trained for nor paid to perform. While there should be no
restrictions on what can be taught — no list of interdicted ideas
or topics — there should be an absolute restriction on
appropriating the scene of teaching for partisan political ideals.
Teachers who use the classroom to indoctrinate make the enterprise
of higher education vulnerable to its critics and shortchange
students in the guise of showing them the true way.
Stanley Fish is a law professor at Florida International
University.