To claim that thousands of Jews stayed home from work on 9/11 because they got a super secret message ahead of time that the Towers were going to fall and that a plane would crash into a building in downtown DC (that’s the Shanksville site) is beyond the pale. Academic freedom be damned.
This is a clear bright line. If we still didn’t know the identity of the hijackers- then it’s a vile and anti-Semitic rant. But we DO know the identity of the hijackers- we know the name of the motel where they slept the night before; we know when they arrived in the US; we know what their political leanings were prior to the attack. There are few “unknowns” about 9/11.
This professor is free to walk down any street in America and carry a sign and hand out pamphlets with her views outlined in detail. Nobody is stifling her speech. But Oberlin has the right to decide that a blithering moron whose views are both factually incorrect AND vile does not get a platform in their classroom.
Oberlin absolutely has the right to fire her. It would be a much more difficult case if it were a state university.
But here are some serious questions. What is the standard here? Is it just that the person believes and states provably false “facts”? I don’t think so. It has to also be that the statements are offensive (or, perhaps, that they make it impossible for the person to teach the assigned courses, as with a physics teacher who doesn’t believe in the laws of physics). I mean, presumably you wouldn’t fire a computer science teacher who said that the pyramids were used for grain storage–although it might have an impact on an Egyptologist.
I think it’s important here also to distinguish between provably false “facts” and unprovable “facts,” as blossom rightly does. Most Americans believe in things that are unprovable, and many (probably most) believe in things that are contrary to an ordinary scientific understanding of reality (like the resurrection of the dead, for example).
But I still have some heartburn over what is provably false. Some things that were pretty widely accepted have turned out not to be true–for example, that Julius Rosenberg was innocent of espionage. Many books were written proving that he was innocent, and then after the fall of the Soviet Union, documents became available that convincingly prove that he was guilty. I don’t expect this to happen with respect to the moon landing or with the responsibility for 9/11, but it will happen for something.
Northwestern had to deal with a tenured engineering professor who is a Holocaust denier. As abhorrent as his views are, I think they did the right thing. Here is a letter from then-President Bienen in 2006.
It is certainly within a university’s interest to preserve academic freedom. What happens when its paying customers and benefactors decide to go elsewhere?
There are lots of things that I can do as a private citizen which are legal which I cannot do at work. Why? because my employer forbids them. A man can make a sexist/obnoxious/hostile comment to a woman in his private life and it’s on him and the woman. If he made the same comment at work and the woman objected, he’d likely have to take sensitivity training, be put “on notice”, etc. Do you have a problem with his free speech being stifled? He is free to go to a bar or a party and be as obnoxious and hostile as he wants with his words. But at many companies- he cannot say those words at work.
This professor didn’t run afoul of Oberlin because of what she said. She ran afoul because her workplace has different standards for speech than the town square or the sidewalk outside city hall.
Why does this give you heartburn? Do you know how many issues HR folks have had with the words “C^&” and “P^&” since the latter part of the presidential campaign? Do you know how many men feel free to use these words casually in conversation, at their workplace, with female colleagues, subordinates and managers?
No, you can’t tell a woman at work that you are going to grab her by the ^&*. And it is not an infringement of your constitutional rights when you get in trouble for doing so. And it doesn’t matter what our president elect says or does. You don’t like it- find another job.
Butz is over 80, seemingly, based on his graduation dates. And pathetically unproductive in research throughout his career, hence still associate professor. The benefits of tenure and no retirement age, for the individual.
I’m all for academic freedom, particularly since I’m an academic myself. But that fellow at Northwestern…does he teach classes that are required? Does he “enjoy” full enrollment of his courses? What about the professor in Florida who aggressively pursued claims that the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a fake? I couldn’t in good conscience pay for my college-aged children to sit in the classroom with such deluded kooks. It IS tough to weigh academic freedom versus simple decency and acceptance of facts. I live in a state in which the state legislature has gone after professors’ emails because of their union support. It IS a slippery path. But still…
I understand that she has right to free speech and for crying out loud, she teaches rhetoric so her firing is unjustified in many ways. However, believing that all Jews were into 9/11 or all Muslims knew ISIS’s plans or all Blacks hate police officers or all whites support KKK, are nothing but bigoted generalizations.
A part of being a good practitioner of rhetoric is using rigorous logic,critical thinking, and the critical analysis/vetting of one’s sources/evidence.
Someone posting easily debunked conspiracy theories is clearly demonstrating a lack of those prereq qualities.
Hadn’t heard that Karega believed all those awful things you posted, @WorryHurry411. She spewed enough disgustingly ignorant garbage. There really is no need for more, even if it was supposedly to make a point about generalizations.
I agree that Oberlin, as a private employer, has the right to restrict the speech of its employees in certain ways. However, it also claims to be a university that respects academic freedom. It has shown that it only does so up to a certain point. Again, it can do that.
And maybe it’s better to pretend that it’s not about the content of her speech. Perhaps that will provide a bit of shelter to the next person who is being ousted for unacceptable speech.
You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater for two reasons (assuming there is no fire)- first, the risk that someone will be trampled in the chaos, and second, because society has a vested interest in making examples of people who engage in anti-social behavior, i.e. the deterrence.
I see the same issues with Karega. And again Hunt- what is your problem with this? Does a university have an obligation to employ people who cannot research, assess and present facts as faculty? Is that not the essence of being a professor-- and did Karega not demonstrate fully that she is incapable of this core function???
@blossom , you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater because you are not a performer. By purchasing a ticket, you have contracted with the theater as an audience member and disrupting the performance is not one of your audience privileges. A performer - be they live or recorded - can yell ‘fire’ all that they want. You summarized the logic in post #46.
Academic freedom does NOT mean the right to say anything you want, it requires a certain (by custom, quite low) level of basic conformity to intellectual principles. It does not, for example, give freedom to be wrong, ignorant, or stupidly obtuse.
^and a performer has no personal right to yell ‘fire’ on the stage. A writer and director could introduce it into the script, but I suspect if it caused people to believe there was a fire, and they injured themselves in the panic, then there would be liability.
