He/she's getting this B.S. from campus'
Code Red Herring
The false alarm over campus censorship.
By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
October 1, 2001 12:00 p.m.
For now, no one has been fired or locked up for joking about bombs or criticizing President Bush," the Chronicle of Higher Education informs readers this week in an article called "Terrorist Attacks Put Academic Freedom to the Test."
For now.
Yet it would seem that internment camps for professors are on the way, judging from the breathless story by Robin Wilson and Ana Marie Cox in the October 5 issue. They report several cases of "stunning intolerance" aimed at faculty members.
One example: Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, penned an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle the day after the terrorist massacres. "My anger on this day is directed not only at individuals who engineered the September 11 tragedy but at those who have held power in the United States and have engineered attacks on civilians every bit as tragic," he wrote. The university administration has done nothing to Jensen — he hasn't been fired, placed on administrative leave, or told to clean out dormitory bathrooms on Saturday mornings. Instead, something far worse has occurred: He's been criticized.
This is apparently out of bounds. Journalism professors, after all, have many valuable ideas to contribute to a national conversation on terrorism. Their ideas are so valuable, in fact, that criticizing them should not be permitted because it might have a chilling effect on free speech. If that logic is hard to follow, consult George Orwell.
The best Wilson and Cox can do to support their thesis of "stunning intolerance" is describe the sad tale of Richard Berthold, a University of New Mexico history professor. "Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon gets my vote," he said, shortly after the attacks. Students complained — complained! — and an alumnus has sued, saying Berthold broke a state law by advocating "sabotage, force and violence, sedition, or treason." The lawsuit's a stretch, though it's worth noting that Berthold's words would have caused a scene at airport security even before September 11.
There are a few other examples, but you get the point: Several professors have written and said incredibly stupid and offensive things in the wake of September 11. Their words have come under close scrutiny, often from 19-year-old students. Rather than defend their words, however, the tenured radicals have chosen to change the subject and scream about an assault on free speech.
In fact, all the evidence points to free speech flourishing on campus. The Chronicle sites only two examples of school administrations cracking down on faculty members: Orange Coast College in California is investigating a claim that a professor called four Muslim students "murderers" and Henry Ford Community College in Michigan is looking into a charge that one of its professors got into a physical confrontation with a student.
The Left is always searching for martyrs, and it would probably like nothing better than to have a few of its faculty allies pushed around for saying controversial things. This would offer more proof that America persecutes dissent and help sustain anti-American views at a time when anti-Americanism is unfashionable. Yet it's important to remember that the only people who've been silenced recently are the 6,000 peopled killed on September 11 — you know, the ones whose deaths are understandable and whose murderers deserve votes.
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