Does “academic freedom” come with accountability?
Does “academic freedom” come with personal responsibility, no matter how contentious the subject?
Does “academic freedom” come with an expectation of kindness, civility and integrity?
Or does “academic freedom” mean an anointed tenured professor has the license to say whatever he or she downright pleases just as long as the speech is judged to be not racist, homophobic or misogynist?
Translated: Outside these boundaries, can a tenured professor utter/write/tweet whatever he or she downright wants to say – no matter how ugly or vile – and then hide behind the First Amendment cloak of “Academic Freedom.”
Time-and-time again, the embarrassed university will fall back on the Mother of All Lame Arguments: (e.g., “the tenured professor is speaking for himself/herself, not the university”).
Sure.
And yet the media headlines will start with “University of Colorado Professor …” or “Fresno State University Professor …” or “Georgetown University Professor …,” not distinguishing the professor’s private screed with the his or her official duties.
And why should they?
This distinction reached the highest level of the absurd this past week when Twitter suspended offending Georgetown University Professor Christine Fair’s social media account, while the oldest Catholic University in the country warmed up for the next-in-a-long-line of university wrist slaps.
Wouldn’t want to get the bowels of tenured faculty unions into an uproar, now would we?
Suggesting that certain white males should die while feminists laugh at their last gasps of air, and how they should subsequently be castrated and fed to swine for some reason doesn’t work for Twitter, but it’s been essentially dismissed by Georgetown.
Almost DailyBrett to Professor Christine: Please don’t contend your vileness has been taken out of context … calling for castration of dead males and feeding their private body parts to pigs … is crystal clear in any plain reading.
“Amazing Racist”?
“Fuck out of here with your nice words.” – Fresno State Professor Randa Jarrar
Last April, immediately upon the passing of former First Lady Barbara Bush, Professor Randa Jarrar took to Twitter to proclaim the newly departed as “As a generous and smart and amazing racist.”
She then added her wish for quick deaths for the entire Bush family, which produced two presidents and two governors.
Jarrar taunted those who dared to take issue with her rhetoric, saying she would not be fired by Fresno State.
Guess what? She was not terminated by Fresno State.
“Little Eichmanns”?
“As for those in the World Trade Center… True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. … If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it.” – Former Colorado University Professor Ward L. Churchill essay the day after the September 11 terror attacks
Quiz question: Which attack on U.S. soil produced a greater loss of innocent American lives? Pearl Harbor? September 11?
The answer is September 11, 2001, when 3,000 Americans succumbed, who were just going to work or flying on planes that would never reach their intended destinations.
And yet former University of Colorado Professor Churchill branded these innocent Americans as “little Eichmanns” after Adolf Eichmann, the notorious SS Holocaust organizer, who was executed in Israel.
Churchill was fired by Colorado University in 2007. After a series of court hearings, Churchill’s termination was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court in 2012. The SCOTUS refused to consider the case, making the professor’s departure final.
Keep in mind, Churchill was not fired for his “little Eichmanns” comment, but instead for plagiarism, falsification and other misconduct. The university determined that a professor’s rant, comparing September 11 victims to a Holocaust plotter, was consistent with Churchill’s First Amendment Rights.
Castrated parts being fed to swine? The witch is dead? Little Eichmanns?
Is more of the same on the way from celebrated academics with tenure status? Count on it.
Is there any reasonable, enforceable way to put the brakes on vile statements from coddled professors?
How about a code of conduct clause in their contracts? First Amendment protection? Yes. Requirements for civility and integrity? Yes.
The academic unions will instinctively object to code of conduct clauses, demanding more legal tender instead.
How about university presidents insisting upon common decency in collective bargaining?
Time to go the mat? Don’t count on it.
https://almostdailybrett.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/have-you-no-decency-professor/
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/biographies/eichmann-biography.htm
https://resources.workable.com/employee-code-of-conduct-company-policy
