The End of Academic Freedom?

[G_j]

PERSONAL VOICES: THE END OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM?
Beshara Doumani, AlterNet

A professor finds he can't assign readings, talk to students,
or go to the library without worrying he's being watched.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18426

Personal Voices: The End of Academic Freedom?

By Beshara Doumani, AlterNet
April 15, 2004

The most ominous threat to academic freedom in decades looms in a seemingly innocuous Senate bill expected to come up for vote shortly. A short but critical clause would rob our society of the open exchange of ideas on college campuses that is vital to our democracy.


House Resolution 3077 passed last fall. It included a provision to establish an advisory board to monitor campus international studies centers in order to ensure that they advance the national interest. While the law would apply to all federally funded institutes with an international focus, the target is clearly the nation's 17 centers for Middle East studies. The driving force behind this provision is the same group of conservative ideologues who have long promoted the war on Iraq and who support the extreme right-wing politics of the Sharon government in Israel. Their aim is to defend the foreign policy of this administration by stifling critical and informed discussion on U.S. campuses.


The Senate vote comes at a time in which conservative activists walk the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. They include Education Secretary Rod Paige, who in a moment of failed but revealing levity, recently described the National Education Association, with 2.7 million member teachers, as a terrorist organization.


For professors like me, entrusted with teaching facts as well as critical thinking and the ability to analyze all sides of an issue, the pending legislation must be viewed against the backdrop of other recent and chilling developments.

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