Saturday, May 2, 2009
Unfortunately, he still has "classes," but "class?" No. Fanatics like Robinson are a walking argument for revising the tenure system. By now, you've read about: William Robinson, UCSB Sociology Professor, Compares Israel to the Nazis. If not, go ahead.
Somehow, academic freedom has morphed into "saying and doing whatever the hell I want with no accountability whatsoever." Imagine you're in a class being taught by this guy, spending thousands of dollars, and this idiot spams out a completely unnecessary email having zero to do with the course, unmasking himself as a drooling hater. Stuck.
Ron Radosh has some great comments (of course Alan Wolfe is defending this fool):
...Is Alan Wolfe correct? I think not. First, he confuses the concept of free speech- guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution, with the concept of academic freedom. As a political philosopher and sociologist, Wolfe should know this. A David Duke may have ideas we despise and detest; that does not give Duke to teach a course, let us say, on English literature, and send out his anti-Semitic hate material to students by e-mail. It does guarantee Duke the right to spout his bile in public, and for us to denounce him in return.
No one has made the distinction better than Stanley Fish, writing in The New York Times on July 23, 2006. Fish wrote: "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 may seem, to academic interrogation and analysis...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."
I do not think Professor Robinson and his supporters could provide evidence that these anti-Israel e-mails meet that criterion, or Wolfe's criterion that they provoke thought. Robinson did not e-mail counter arguments with his e-mail. He sought instead to indoctrinate students with his own political agenda, using his power over them via the course he is teaching to make them pay attention to his own political views.
The second document I cite is the famous "1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure," passed by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) when the group had clout and influence in the academy. Written at a moment when our country was at war, the AAUP statement says: "Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject....When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint...and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution."
In 1970, the AAUP printed an addendum, in which they said the intent was not to discourage what is controversial, since controversy is "at the heart of the free academic inquiry." It was only meant to "underscore the need for teachers to avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to the subject."...
See also Brad Greenberg: Santa Barbara professor compared Israelis to Nazis
The trouble is that the academy is so shot through with little politicians that there's no one left to enforce a sense of propriety and responsibility now.
StandWithUs has a resource page here where you can find background, as well as a petition to sign and contact information for the university.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: UCSB's William Robinson's Lack of Propriety, Sense, Class....
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I believe I have found an appropriate replacement for William Robinson. Professor Terguson:... Read More
The only thing new here is the anti semitism. This has been a widely applauded tactic by the Left and especially the New Left for quite some time now. It must be acceptable to promote your politics and villify with historical revisionism, the likes of whites, Christians, males, American Conservatives and the US and Western Democracies, capitalism...etc
Im pro Israel and generally a fan of Jews (if not their domestic US politics)....but they supported this rubbish for decades in the US...now its come to bite them on the arse.
A mandatory University of Delaware program requires residence hall students to acknowledge that "all whites are racist" and offers them "treatment" for any incorrect attitudes regarding class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality they might hold upon entering the school, according to a civil rights group.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58426
Good heavens.
And double that for the comment thread on the linked article.
Every day I am shocked anew by the combination of bile and ignorance out there.
For example one fool argues that the "real Semites" are the "indigenous Palestinians" therefore he couldn't possibly by an antisemite just because he's against Israel.
Help.
Robinson clearly brought the Gaza-Warsaw ghetto comparison into the classroom to inquire into the structure and history of oppression, ethnic cleansing, ghettoization, and so forth.
What you and others don't seem to understand (or don't want to, in any case) is that objective analysis of historical events, specifically searching for their underlying sociological processes, requires comparisons across cases. This is what raises historical analysis to the level of social science.
Looking at only one case in isolation is what we in the academy call the ideographic approach. This is the work of historian (although historians do more than this). However, theoretical statements are difficult to make when the n=1. To be sure, every case is unique (self-evidently true, since it is necessarily temporally and spatially bounded). But every case also has similarities and differences to other cases, and this is what scientists find useful.
Comparing cases from different times and places in order to identify similarities and differences and draw conclusions about these is what we call the nomothetic. The basis of science is comparison, and Robinson identified a close historical parallel to demonstrate how such oppressive political modalities, such as the German and Israeli projects of conquest and management of subjected populations, use similar techniques of domination.
The problem you and others have with his comparison is that it is accurate and observers will rightly ask why it is that the victims of the Nazi project, and the many more of those who speak in those victims' names, would use tactics similar to those used by their oppressors. It's a troubling message, so you would rather punish the messenger.
I understand the reaction. I study authoritarianism. This is why it is so important to see that you attempt to punish Robinson is not successful.