by David A. Love

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger recently
took a lot of heat when he allowed Iranian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make a speech at the Ivy League
institution. These days, free speech is under
attack on college campuses throughout the nation.

Professor Norman Finkelstein, son of Holocaust
survivors and the most prominent critic of Israeli
policy in American academia, was denied tenure by
DePaul University, even though the political science
department and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
recommended tenure.

Harvard law school professor Alan Dershowitz lobbied
against tenure for Finkelstein, an act described by MIT
professor Noam Chomsky as a "jihad" designed "simply to
try to vilify and defame him, in the hope that maybe
what he's writing will disappear." Finkelstein told the
Democracy Now! program: "I met the standards of tenure
DePaul required, but it wasn't enough to overcome the
political opposition to my speaking out on the
Israel-Palestine conflict." The late Raul Hilberg, dean
of Holocaust historians and a Finkelstein supporter,
had said: "I have a sinking feeling about the damage
this will do to academic freedom."

Professor Ward Churchill was fired by the University of
Colorado at Boulder, ostensibly because of research
misconduct, a pretext, many believe, for his unpopular
views. Churchill has written extensively on the
genocide of Native Americans and the federal
government's COINTELPRO program...

Then there is Erwin Chemerinsky, constitutional scholar
extraordinaire who has argued for judicial review for
detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and represented
Valerie Plame.. He was chosen to become dean of the new
University of California-Irvine law school. Then, the
chancellor of Irvine rescinded the contract -- allegedly
due to pressure from conservative groups -- then
reinstated Chemerinsky.

Conservative pressure groups, including David Horowitz
and his Students for Academic Freedom (in classic
Orwellian fashion, they purport to stand for academic
freedom, the opposite of that which they really
advocate), are trying to muzzle free speech in
academia. In their warped worldview, there is a
leftwing conspiracy to control the college campuses and
enforce liberal, politically-correct thinking. They are
kindred spirits with those political hacks in the Bush
administration who cried liberal bias in public
broadcasting, and attempted to recreate PBS in the
image of Fox News.
And professors are strong-armed and vilified in the
process. Horowitz has compiled a list of the "101 Most
Dangerous Academics in America"...

Ideological conservatism stands for black or white,
right or wrong, friend or enemy, with no shades of
gray. One is not supposed to challenge conventional
wisdom, authority, the laws, the status quo or
longstanding institutions. It is worth noting that in a
recent study, psychologist David Amodio and others
found that conservatives tend to be more rigid and
closed-minded, less tolerant of ambiguity and less open
to new experiences.

And as far as the Ahmadinejad speech at Columbia is
concerned, certainly, those chickenhawk Americans who
are beating the drums of war with Iran are dying to be
provoked by the words and actions of the Iranian
bogeyman...Is he a petty dictator, as Bollinger
suggests? Perhaps. But he is also a politician who is
playing to his base. And there are many would-be petty
dictators in this country who, in playing to their
base, support the most outrageous and unconscionable
policies, such as the criminalization of women's
rights, including abortion, even in the case of rape
and incest, guns for everyone, the teaching of
creationism mythology in the schools, homophobia,
criminalization of Latino workers, and the elimination
of civil rights and civil liberties.

Our own President Bush is responsible for the deaths of
1 million Iraqis and thousands of U.S. citizens, all
from a war based on lies, for the purpose of protecting
his and his friends' oil interests. His administration,
detested by millions, acts with a total disregard for
the law, on a daily basis. Yet, he is allowed to give
speeches everyday -- albeit with the aid of
teleprompters displaying phonetically-spelled words --
unimpeded, and without impeachment, for that matter.

Free speech dictates a higher standard than merely
giving a pass to those whose ideas are acceptable,
those with whom we agree, whoever "we" are. It is
better to have all of the ideas out there in the
marketplace, save those which amount to yelling fire in
a crowded room or inciting violence. If the
Constitution is not durable or inclusive enough to
protect dissident views and unpopular statements, maybe
it is not worth keeping. Perhaps it is not worth the
paper on which it is written, and it is time for us to
find another plan.

So, enough of this academic McCarthyism. Words are
powerful, as they can liberate bodies and minds, spur
revolutions, and change history. Indeed, the pen is
mightier than the sword. But free speech is supposed to
be feared by a dictatorship such as Burma or China, not
a democracy. Which one are we?

http://www.blackcommentator.com/247/247_color_of_law_academic_mccarthysism.html

BlackCommentator.com Columnist David A. Love is a
lawyer based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the
Progressive Media Project and McClatchy-Tribune News
Service. His blog is
at davidalove.com.

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