Clarion | Summer 2005 NEWS 7 Two Brooklyn College ...archive.psc-cuny.org/Clarion July...
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By PETER HOGNESS On June 10, delegates at the annual meeting of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in Washington called for an “inquiry in- to the conditions of academic free- dom and due process at CUNY.” The AAUP’s concern was sparked by four recent cases at CUNY: the weak administration response to press attacks on two faculty mem- bers at Brooklyn College (see right), John Jay College’s ban on the em- ployment of adjunct Susan Rosen- berg, and the dismissal of York Col- lege adjunct Mohammed Yousry. “There have now been several distinct incidents on different cam- puses,” AAUP General Secretary Roger Bowen told Clarion. “There’s an apparent trend that causes great concern.” IS IT A TREND? The events at Brooklyn College, which unfolded in the weeks just pri- or to the AAUP meeting, heightened the organization’s misgivings. “The president of Brooklyn College made public comments about investigating a sociology professor based on his personal views, and that was disturb- ing,” said Bowen (no relation to PSC President Barbara Bowen). Press at- tacks on education faculty at Brook- lyn also worried delegates, he said. “The larger question of the extent to which CUNY’s central adminis- tration will stand up for academic freedom seemed to be raised in a very dramatic way by these new de- velopments,” said Joan Scott, outgo- ing chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom. “If they’re going to run every time the New York Sun publishes a tabloid article, then there are a lot of people who are going to be in danger.” Committee A told the annual meeting that there was “a possible pattern of failure to safeguard the University from political interfer- ence in matters of academic ap- pointments” at CUNY. The inquiry, which could ulti- mately lead to a full AAUP investi- gation, is more wide-ranging than usual. AAUP inquiries and investi- gations usually focus on an individ- ual case. But in examining a poten- tial pattern, said Scott, “problems with academic freedom that have come up anywhere in the system should be looked into.” AAUP staff want to learn more about the work of the Hunter College Senate’s Se- lect Committee on Academic Free- dom, according to PSC officials. Asked about the AAUP inquiry, Vice Chancellor for Univer- sity Relations Jay Hershen- son said only, “We are confi- dent that CUNY has acted consistently with the impor- tant principles of academic freedom.” More than a month after PSC President Bowen wrote to Chancel- lor Goldstein on the attacks at Brooklyn College, the chancellor had not responded. “The chancel- lor’s silence speaks volumes,” the PSC’s Barbara Bowen said. “It sends the clear message that academic freedom is not valued at CUNY – and without protection from political interference, real research and teaching are impossible. A second- class research climate is not good enough for CUNY.” “Threats to academic freedom at CUNY have become so widespread because of structural problems,” said PSC First Vice President Steve London. First, London said, CUNY opposes giving adjunct faculty due process rights in rehiring. Adjuncts teach about one-half of CUNY’s courses. Second, London argued, CUNY’s chronic underfunding leads presidents to fear any publicity that might damage private fundraising or efforts to boost enrollment, de- priving colleges of tuition dollars. PROCEDURAL QUESTIONS The AAUP had already investigat- ed CUNY’s treatment of Yousry, an adjunct who was dismissed after be- ing indicted on terrorism charges with attorney Lynne Stewart, for whom he worked as a legal transla- tor. Yousry has since been convicted and has appealed. In the AAUP in- vestigation, Roger Bowen said, “we were not looking at his guilt or inno- cence but at the procedural protec- tions for faculty who stand accused.” CUNY initially maintained that Yousry was dismissed simply be- cause of the fact of the indictment. But when CUNY General Counsel Frederick Schaffer commented on the AAUP investigators’ report, he wrote that “the chancellor’s deci- sion was motivated in part out of a concern that public confidence would suffer if Mr. Yousry were per- mitted to continue teach- ing at York College.” (Schaffer explained that some of Yousry’s courses dealt with the Middle East – but did not men- tion that Yousry’s teaching evalua- tions specifically praised him for handling this volatile topic with “dispassion and balance.”) “The general counsel’s com- ments,” said Scott, “seemed to con- firm something we had suspected – that they were making their deci- sion very much with the public reac- tion in mind. And that’s not the way academic freedom gets protected.” The subsequent cases at John Jay and Brooklyn “suggested that there was a bigger problem than the ex- traordinary case of Yousry,” she told Clarion. Susan Rosenberg had taught at John Jay without incident for sever- al semesters – until police groups protested against her employment by the college. A former member of the Weather Underground, Rosen- berg had spent 16 years in prison for possession of explosives. Although no one questioned her conduct or competence in the classroom, John Jay President Jeremy Travis an- nounced in December that no de- partment would be allowed to hire Rosenberg in the future. “I wrote to President Travis about it,” said Roger Bowen. “His response was less than satisfactory.” The AAUP has received a re- sponse from CUNY’s chancellor to the resolution adopted by the annu- al meeting, and Chancellor Gold- stein has asked for additional infor- mation. Roger Bowen said that spe- cific decisions about the direction of the inquiry and who will carry it out will be made after further ex- changes with the Chancellor, with an announcement likely in the fall. observant Catholic?” It urged Brook- lyn College President Christoph Kim- mich to reject the department’s choice of chair, and expressed the hope that he would “be pressured by the CUNY trustees to act.” Kimmich did not wait long to re- spond. Instead of forwarding Short- ell’s name to the Board of Trustees, the usual procedure for election of department chairs, the president sent a letter to both the Sun and the News. “I have convened a commit- tee of three high-ranking Brooklyn College officials and asked them to investigate the situation,” Kimmich announced. The letter denounced Shortell’s views and said that while he has a right to express them, “what is not protected is the injec- tion of views like these into the classroom or…responsibilities he might assume as chair of the sociol- ogy department.” Kimmich conced- ed, however, that no one had actual- ly accused Shortell of misconduct toward any students or colleagues. He did not specify what the commit- tee had been asked to investigate. In an interview with the online journal Inside Higher Ed, Shortell said that his critics forget “the na- ture of professional ethics.” For ex- ample, he said, “I don’t worry when I visit my dentist…that I am going to receive substandard care because he is a conservative Republican and I am not.” Shortell said he had al- ways “treat[ed] people fairly in my professional role.” PERSONAL WRITING On his personal website, Shortell wrote that “the world is filled with reasonable people” who are reli- gious, including some of his friends. He compared the “manifesto” rhetoric of his anti-religion essay to booing at a sports event: “Is it a gross overgeneralization? Of course it is.” He is quite aware, he wrote, that “the manifesto is not an appro- priate form of speech in other con- texts, such as the classroom.” Although the Sun has attacked Shortell for the same essay before, in 2003, it has never criticized his professional work – much of which deals with the sociology of religion. He has written on the Catholic Church in modern Central America and on religious discourse in the US abolition movement, and PSC First VP London noted that it is Shortell’s scholarly work that was the basis for his hiring, promotion and tenure. “Potshots from the conservative press are no substitute for profes- sional review,” London said. The Sun stayed on the offensive. “Taxpayers…have the right to draw the line at what kind of person they want teaching students and partici- pating in the tenure process,” stated a second editorial on May 25. In re- sponse, the PSC chapter called the attacks on Shortell an assault on the right of all faculty “to speak and write freely,” and Brooklyn College faculty demanded that Kimmich let the sociology department choose its own chair. CHANCELLOR SILENT In a June 3 open letter to Chan- cellor Goldstein, PSC President Barbara Bowen reminded him that academic freedom is protected un- der the PSC contract. She demand- ed that the chancellor “send an un- ambiguous signal that the normal University procedures will be fol- lowed in the election of Professor Shortell and that witch-hunts of faculty will not be condoned at CUNY.” (At Clarion press time, more than a month later, Goldstein had not responded.) On June 6, Shortell withdrew his name from consideration as depart- ment chair, expressing disappoint- ment with lack of support he had re- ceived from the administration. “If it were simply a matter of resisting the media attacks, I would have re- mained,” he told Clarion. “But the longer the college administration delayed in making a decision, the more the department’s work envi- ronment deteriorated.” Shortell said it was “curious” that he had not been contacted by Presi- dent Kimmich or the investigating committee. “In fact,” he added, “I still don’t know whether or not the committee is still ‘investigating’ me. It is rather Kafkaesque.” By the time Shortell withdrew, the Sun had fired another salvo. On May 31, an article charged that one of the criteria used by the National Coun- cil for Accreditation of Teacher Edu- cation (NCATE) to evaluate the School of Education’s curriculum amounted to “screening students for their political views.” The article, however, focused its attack on an as- sistant professor of education, Priya Parmar. The Sun’s report featured two students who had complained to the School of Education about “Par- mar’s alleged disapporval [sic] of students who defended the ability to speak grammatically correct English.” Citing the class syllabus, the Sun claimed that a central theme of Parmar’s class was “the idea that standard English is the language of the oppressors while Ebonics, a term educators use to denote a dialect used by African- Americans, is the language of the oppressed.” ASSIGNED READING But in fact no such statement ap- pears in the syllabus, and Parmar said that the Sun had distorted both her views and her teaching. She be- lieves it is essential for all students to learn standard English, she told Clarion. “They have to be able to succeed in the mainstream,” Par- mar said. “I also believe in the need to ap- preciate and respect linguistic di- versity,” she added. “It’s my job to expose my students to different di- alects of English.” The reference to English as “the oppressors’ lan- guage,” she said, comes from an as- signed reading by a former Distin- guished Professor of English at City College and the Graduate Center, bell hooks. Two students who were found to have used plagiarized material in the final class assignment com- plained that this was an act of polit- ical retaliation. In a letter to the Sun, the dean of the School of Education said that the plagiarism finding was simply based on the facts, and that an appeals process was available to any student who felt his or her grade was unfair. Other allegations in the article in- cluded the charge that Parmar had forced students to watch the film Fahrenheit 911. The Sun did not mention that the film was chosen by majority vote of the students, to an- alyze in a lesson on media literacy and political propaganda. The paper also reported that four students were said to have dropped out of Parmar’s class; in fact, only one stu- dent did so. The Sun attempted to tie its at- tack on Parmar to a broader criti- cism of NCATE’s role in accrediting schools of education – though it failed to note that NCATE was the choice of CUNY’s chancellor for City University’s teacher training pro- grams. The article alleged that by pro- moting evaluation of “dispositions” for effective teaching, NCATE was excluding conservatives from the profession. It objected to NCATE’s statement that good teaching could be influenced by “values such as car- ing, fairness, honesty, responsibility, and social justice,” arguing that the last is irrelevant to education. In their interviews with the Sun, however, no student mentioned the issue of dispositions or its relation to social justice. Parmar told Clarion that dispositions were not assessed in that class and were not an ele- ment in students’ grades. The Sun’s article quoted only two faculty members at Brooklyn College. One of them, his- tory professor Robert David John- son, was featured prominently, de- nouncing the “extremist beliefs ar- ticulated by Professor Parmar.” In June almost every faculty member in the School of Education signed a letter addressed to Johnson, asking him to refrain from attacking other faculty members through the press. The Sun interviewed four stu- dents who were critical of Parmar to varying degrees, but none of the dozens who rallied to her defense. “Professor Parmar challenged our views and sought further inquiry re- gardless of where she personally stood on our positions,” said a letter signed by more than 30 students from that class. Contrary to what the Sun implied, the students wrote, Parmar never said that non-stan- dard English should be taught in classrooms. Parmar said it was “comforting” that so many students had reached out to her to express their support. “I love to teach,” she told Clarion. “I am used to students challenging the content of the course, that’s natural and expected. I encourage it.” RACISM Bowen’s open letter to Chancellor Goldstein called on CUNY to reject the Sun’s vilification of Parmar and the School of Education. The letter condemned the racist assumptions underlying the Sun’s attack on Par- mar, noting that “the Sun’s screed about Professor Parmar, who is a woman of color, leaned heavily on a mischaracterization of her teaching on Standard English and Ebonics, and treated with contempt the idea that reducing social inequities is rel- evant to education.” On June 7, more than 70 faculty members attended a PSC chapter meeting to plan further action. They expressed bitter disappointment in President Kimmich’s weak stance. “It hadn’t really occurred to me that a president’s first instinct would not be to protect his faculty,” said Scott Dexter, associate professor of com- puter science. “Faculty members from the right, left and center voted unanimously for the two resolutions presented by the union,” said David Bloomfield. One resolution set plans for the fall, including an educational campaign on “the centrality of academic free- dom to Brooklyn College’s mission in this diverse borough.” CHAIRS IN QUESTION The other noted that “President Kimmich has questioned whether or not academic freedom applies to de- partment chairs,” and emphatically reaffirmed that it does. It pointed out that department chairs are covered by the PSC contract, which states that academic free- dom applies to all union members, and that they are elected by their peers to represent the depart- ment’s views. “Depart- ment chairs are called upon to make academic judgments on personnel and policy,” it emphasized, “[and] can best carry out these duties with the protection of academic freedom.” Parmar and Shortell both praised the union’s quick and firm re- sponse. “When this erupted into the news media, the union was the first place I turned,” Parmar said. “It was just a natural reaction, and the union has been my greatest level of support.” “I am proud to be part of group of scholars and teachers who refuse to be pushed around,” Shortell said. “This time I was the one in need of assistance. Next time, I have to be willing to come to the aid of others.” 6 NEWS Clarion | Summer 2005 Clarion | Summer 2005 NEWS 7 Brooklyn College was the site of two controversies about academic freedom. By DANIA RAJENDRA and PETER HOGNESS Two Brooklyn College professors and the college’s School of Educa- tion were in the headlines in May and June, under attack in the daily press. In response, the PSC urged a firm stand against political interfer- ence with academic decisions, and demanded that the college presi- dent and CUNY’s chancellor speak out in defense of faculty members’ rights. “What happened at the college is that management did not stand up for academic free- dom,” said Nancy Romer, a member of the PSC Executive Council and professor of psy- chology at Brooklyn. “That is very disturbing.” “The Brooklyn College fac- ulty and the union University-wide rallied to the defense of our col- leagues and academic freedom,” said PSC First VP Steve London, associ- ate professor of political science at BC. “The PSC will continue to moni- tor the situation and press manage- ment to speak out.” INVESTIGATION INVITED A resolution adopted by the cam- pus PSC chapter asked for an inves- tigation by the American Associa- tion of University Professors (see left). “These attacks have produced an atmosphere of fear and intimida- tion,” it stated. “Academic freedom is in jeopardy at Brooklyn College.” David Bloomfield, vice chair of the Brooklyn chapter, told Clarion, “Because of the voice we’re provid- ing for academic freedom, the union has received increased support across campus and across CUNY and beyond.” The first article ap- peared in the New York Sun, and was picked up by the Daily News under the headline, “Top prof sparks outrage.” The pa- pers assailed the sociolo- gy department’s election of Timothy Shortell as chair, citing an anti-religious essay he wrote in 2001 and posted on a personal web- site. “Can there be any doubt that humanity would be better off with- out religion?” Shortell had asked. “In the name of their faith, these moral retards are…doing real harm to others.” The Sun’s May 18 editorial asked, “How could someone who…deems people of faith ‘moral retards’ possi- bly be fair in evaluating the tenure candidacies of an Orthodox Jew or an Does CUNY allow political interference? College fails to defend academic freedom Weak response from administration AAUP to question CUNY Two Brooklyn College professors under attack Four recent cases called ‘disturbing’ Joan Scott headed AAUP’s Committee A. Faculty defend each other, their profession Charles Votaw Courtesy of Brooklyn College The New York Sun was launched in 2002 by a group of wealthy right- wing investors, including Richard Gilder and Roger Hertog, two for- mer chairmen of the Manhattan In- stitute. Their stated aim was to build a politically influential paper as a conservative alternative to The New York Times. How conservative? Here’s one ex- ample: shortly before NYC’s mas- sive anti-war march in February 2003, a Sun editorial suggested that the NYPD “allow the protest and send two witnesses along for each participant, with an eye toward pre- serving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution.” RIGHTWARD TILT But editorials weren’t the main place where the Sun’s backers thought that the Times should tilt more to the right – it was the news. The goal of the Sun was not to be “objective” – indeed, its president and founding editor, Seth Lipsky, heaps scorn on the idea. “If it’s objective, you would fall asleep reading it – if you could still read it after throwing up on it,” Lipsky told a group of Yale students in late 2003. “I don’t believe in journalists having ‘responsibility,’” he said. September 2004 saw the resigna- tion of Sun news editor Stuart Mar- ques, a veteran of the Daily News, the NY Post and other papers. “Sources say he clashed with Sun President and Editor Seth Lipsky over the hardline conservative po- litical direction of the fledgling pa- per,” the NY Post reported. The Sun is thus a very different enterprise from a paper like the Wall Street Journal, which keeps its conservative editorials largely sep- arate from its news reporting. It is more like Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Washington Times, with its political biases driving its approach to the news. In a recently leaked e-mail, man- aging editor Robert Messenger con- ceded that the Sun is not a “conser- vative general interest newspaper” but “a niche product catering to a specific audience.” The Sun’s circulation is said to be around 60,000 – or about three times the size of Clarion’s. That leaves it some distance from challenging either the Times, with 1.1 million, or the Post, with a little under 700,000. However, even 60,000 may be an inflated figure. According to an NYC wholesaler’s employee, who wrote last year to the Poynter Insti- tute’s influential journalism web- site, the Sun only charges news- stands a penny per copy. At that rate, wrote William Breen, “it doesn’t pay for dealers to return unsold copies....Virtually every copy they print is ‘sold.’” -PH What is the NY Sun?
Transcript of Clarion | Summer 2005 NEWS 7 Two Brooklyn College ...archive.psc-cuny.org/Clarion July...
By PETER HOGNESS
On June 10, delegates at the annualmeeting of the American Associationof University Professors (AAUP) inWashington called for an “inquiry in-to the conditions of academic free-dom and due process at CUNY.”
The AAUP’s concern was sparkedby four recent cases at CUNY: theweak administration response topress attacks on two faculty mem-bers at Brooklyn College (see right),John Jay College’s ban on the em-ployment of adjunct Susan Rosen-berg, and the dismissal of York Col-lege adjunct Mohammed Yousry.
“There have now been severaldistinct incidents on different cam-puses,” AAUP General SecretaryRoger Bowen told Clarion. “There’san apparent trend that causes greatconcern.”
IS IT A TREND?The events at Brooklyn College,
which unfolded in the weeks just pri-or to the AAUP meeting, heightenedthe organization’s misgivings. “Thepresident of Brooklyn College madepublic comments about investigatinga sociology professor based on hispersonal views, and that was disturb-ing,” said Bowen (no relation to PSCPresident Barbara Bowen). Press at-tacks on education faculty at Brook-lyn also worried delegates, he said.
“The larger question of the extentto which CUNY’s central adminis-tration will stand up for academicfreedom seemed to be raised in avery dramatic way by these new de-velopments,” said Joan Scott, outgo-ing chair of the AAUP’s CommitteeA on Academic Freedom. “If they’regoing to run every time the NewYork Sun publishes a tabloid article,then there are a lot of people whoare going to be in danger.”
Committee A told the annualmeeting that there was “a possiblepattern of failure to safeguard theUniversity from political interfer-ence in matters of academic ap-pointments” at CUNY.
The inquiry, which could ulti-mately lead to a full AAUP investi-gation, is more wide-ranging thanusual. AAUP inquiries and investi-gations usually focus on an individ-ual case. But in examining a poten-
tial pattern, said Scott, “problemswith academic freedom that havecome up anywhere in the systemshould be looked into.” AAUP staffwant to learn more about the workof the Hunter College Senate’s Se-lect Committee on Academic Free-dom, according to PSC officials.
Asked about the AAUP inquiry,Vice Chancellor for Univer-sity Relations Jay Hershen-son said only, “We are confi-dent that CUNY has actedconsistently with the impor-tant principles of academicfreedom.”
More than a month after PSCPresident Bowen wrote to Chancel-lor Goldstein on the attacks atBrooklyn College, the chancellorhad not responded. “The chancel-lor’s silence speaks volumes,” thePSC’s Barbara Bowen said. “It sendsthe clear message that academicfreedom is not valued at CUNY –and without protection from politicalinterference, real research andteaching are impossible. A second-class research climate is not goodenough for CUNY.”
“Threats to academic freedom atCUNY have become so widespreadbecause of structural problems,”said PSC First Vice President SteveLondon. First, London said, CUNYopposes giving adjunct faculty dueprocess rights in rehiring. Adjunctsteach about one-half of CUNY’scourses. Second, London argued,CUNY’s chronic underfunding leadspresidents to fear any publicity thatmight damage private fundraisingor efforts to boost enrollment, de-priving colleges of tuition dollars.
PROCEDURAL QUESTIONSThe AAUP had already investigat-
ed CUNY’s treatment of Yousry, anadjunct who was dismissed after be-ing indicted on terrorism chargeswith attorney Lynne Stewart, forwhom he worked as a legal transla-tor. Yousry has since been convictedand has appealed. In the AAUP in-vestigation, Roger Bowen said, “wewere not looking at his guilt or inno-cence but at the procedural protec-tions for faculty who stand accused.”
CUNY initially maintained that
Yousry was dismissed simply be-cause of the fact of the indictment.But when CUNY General CounselFrederick Schaffer commented onthe AAUP investigators’ report, hewrote that “the chancellor’s deci-sion was motivated in part out of aconcern that public confidencewould suffer if Mr. Yousry were per-
mitted to continue teach-ing at York College.”(Schaffer explained thatsome of Yousry’s coursesdealt with the MiddleEast – but did not men-
tion that Yousry’s teaching evalua-tions specifically praised him forhandling this volatile topic with“dispassion and balance.”)
“The general counsel’s com-ments,” said Scott, “seemed to con-firm something we had suspected –that they were making their deci-sion very much with the public reac-tion in mind. And that’s not the wayacademic freedom gets protected.”The subsequent cases at John Jayand Brooklyn “suggested that therewas a bigger problem than the ex-traordinary case of Yousry,” shetold Clarion.
Susan Rosenberg had taught atJohn Jay without incident for sever-al semesters – until police groupsprotested against her employmentby the college. A former member ofthe Weather Underground, Rosen-berg had spent 16 years in prison forpossession of explosives. Althoughno one questioned her conduct orcompetence in the classroom, JohnJay President Jeremy Travis an-nounced in December that no de-partment would be allowed to hireRosenberg in the future. “I wrote toPresident Travis about it,” saidRoger Bowen. “His response wasless than satisfactory.”
The AAUP has received a re-sponse from CUNY’s chancellor tothe resolution adopted by the annu-al meeting, and Chancellor Gold-stein has asked for additional infor-mation. Roger Bowen said that spe-cific decisions about the direction ofthe inquiry and who will carry it outwill be made after further ex-changes with the Chancellor, withan announcement likely in the fall.
observant Catholic?” It urged Brook-lyn College President Christoph Kim-mich to reject the department’schoice of chair, and expressed thehope that he would “be pressured bythe CUNY trustees to act.”
Kimmich did not wait long to re-spond. Instead of forwarding Short-ell’s name to the Board of Trustees,the usual procedure for election ofdepartment chairs, the presidentsent a letter to both the Sun and theNews. “I have convened a commit-tee of three high-ranking BrooklynCollege officials and asked them toinvestigate the situation,” Kimmichannounced. The letter denouncedShortell’s views and said that whilehe has a right to express them,“what is not protected is the injec-tion of views like these into theclassroom or…responsibilities hemight assume as chair of the sociol-ogy department.” Kimmich conced-ed, however, that no one had actual-ly accused Shortell of misconducttoward any students or colleagues.He did not specify what the commit-tee had been asked to investigate.
In an interview with the onlinejournal Inside Higher Ed, Shortellsaid that his critics forget “the na-ture of professional ethics.” For ex-ample, he said, “I don’t worry whenI visit my dentist…that I am going toreceive substandard care becausehe is a conservative Republican andI am not.” Shortell said he had al-ways “treat[ed] people fairly in myprofessional role.”
PERSONAL WRITINGOn his personal website, Shortell
wrote that “the world is filled withreasonable people” who are reli-gious, including some of his friends.He compared the “manifesto”rhetoric of his anti-religion essay tobooing at a sports event: “Is it agross overgeneralization? Of courseit is.” He is quite aware, he wrote,that “the manifesto is not an appro-priate form of speech in other con-texts, such as the classroom.”
Although the Sun has attackedShortell for the same essay before,in 2003, it has never criticized hisprofessional work – much of whichdeals with the sociology of religion.He has written on the CatholicChurch in modern Central Americaand on religious discourse in the USabolition movement, and PSC FirstVP London noted that it is Shortell’sscholarly work that was the basisfor his hiring, promotion and tenure.“Potshots from the conservativepress are no substitute for profes-sional review,” London said.
The Sun stayed on the offensive.“Taxpayers…have the right to drawthe line at what kind of person theywant teaching students and partici-pating in the tenure process,” stateda second editorial on May 25. In re-sponse, the PSC chapter called theattacks on Shortell an assault on theright of all faculty “to speak and
write freely,” and Brooklyn Collegefaculty demanded that Kimmich letthe sociology department choose itsown chair.
CHANCELLOR SILENTIn a June 3 open letter to Chan-
cellor Goldstein, PSC PresidentBarbara Bowen reminded him thatacademic freedom is protected un-der the PSC contract. She demand-ed that the chancellor “send an un-ambiguous signal that the normalUniversity procedures will be fol-lowed in the election of ProfessorShortell and that witch-hunts offaculty will not be condoned atCUNY.” (At Clarion press time,more than a month later, Goldsteinhad not responded.)
On June 6, Shortell withdrew hisname from consideration as depart-ment chair, expressing disappoint-ment with lack of support he had re-ceived from the administration. “If itwere simply a matter of resistingthe media attacks, I would have re-mained,” he told Clarion. “But thelonger the college administrationdelayed in making a decision, themore the department’s work envi-ronment deteriorated.”
Shortell said it was “curious” thathe had not been contacted by Presi-dent Kimmich or the investigatingcommittee. “In fact,” he added, “Istill don’t know whether or not thecommittee is still ‘investigating’ me.It is rather Kafkaesque.”
By the time Shortell withdrew, theSun had fired another salvo. On May31, an article charged that one of thecriteria used by the National Coun-cil for Accreditation of Teacher Edu-cation (NCATE) to evaluate theSchool of Education’s curriculumamounted to “screening students fortheir political views.” The article,however, focused its attack on an as-sistant professor of education, PriyaParmar.
The Sun’s report featured twostudents who had complained tothe School of Education about “Par-mar’s alleged disapporval [sic] ofstudents who defended the abilityto speak grammatically correctEnglish.” Citing the class syllabus,the Sun claimed that a centraltheme of Parmar’s class was “theidea that standard English is thelanguage of the oppressors whileEbonics, a term educators use todenote a dialect used by African-Americans, is the language of theoppressed.”
ASSIGNED READINGBut in fact no such statement ap-
pears in the syllabus, and Parmarsaid that the Sun had distorted bothher views and her teaching. She be-lieves it is essential for all studentsto learn standard English, she toldClarion. “They have to be able tosucceed in the mainstream,” Par-mar said.
“I also believe in the need to ap-
preciate and respect linguistic di-versity,” she added. “It’s my job toexpose my students to different di-alects of English.” The reference toEnglish as “the oppressors’ lan-guage,” she said, comes from an as-signed reading by a former Distin-guished Professor of English at CityCollege and the Graduate Center,bell hooks.
Two students who were found tohave used plagiarized material inthe final class assignment com-plained that this was an act of polit-ical retaliation. In a letter to the Sun,the dean of the School of Educationsaid that the plagiarism finding wassimply based on the facts, and thatan appeals process was available toany student who felt his or hergrade was unfair.
Other allegations in the article in-cluded the charge that Parmar hadforced students to watch the filmFahrenheit 911. The Sun did notmention that the film was chosen bymajority vote of the students, to an-alyze in a lesson on media literacyand political propaganda. The paperalso reported that four studentswere said to have dropped out ofParmar’s class; in fact, only one stu-dent did so.
The Sun attempted to tie its at-tack on Parmar to a broader criti-cism of NCATE’s role in accreditingschools of education – though itfailed to note that NCATE was thechoice of CUNY’s chancellor for CityUniversity’s teacher training pro-grams.
The article alleged that by pro-moting evaluation of “dispositions”for effective teaching, NCATE wasexcluding conservatives from theprofession. It objected to NCATE’sstatement that good teaching couldbe influenced by “values such as car-ing, fairness, honesty, responsibility,and social justice,” arguing that thelast is irrelevant to education.
In their interviews with the Sun,however, no student mentioned theissue of dispositions or its relation tosocial justice. Parmar toldClarion that dispositionswere not assessed in thatclass and were not an ele-ment in students’ grades.
The Sun’s article quotedonly two faculty members atBrooklyn College. One of them, his-tory professor Robert David John-son, was featured prominently, de-nouncing the “extremist beliefs ar-ticulated by Professor Parmar.” InJune almost every faculty memberin the School of Education signed aletter addressed to Johnson, askinghim to refrain from attacking otherfaculty members through the press.
The Sun interviewed four stu-dents who were critical of Parmar tovarying degrees, but none of thedozens who rallied to her defense.“Professor Parmar challenged ourviews and sought further inquiry re-gardless of where she personallystood on our positions,” said a lettersigned by more than 30 studentsfrom that class. Contrary to what
the Sun implied, the students wrote,Parmar never said that non-stan-dard English should be taught inclassrooms.
Parmar said it was “comforting”that so many students had reachedout to her to express their support.“I love to teach,” she told Clarion. “Iam used to students challenging thecontent of the course, that’s naturaland expected. I encourage it.”
RACISMBowen’s open letter to Chancellor
Goldstein called on CUNY to rejectthe Sun’s vilification of Parmar andthe School of Education. The lettercondemned the racist assumptionsunderlying the Sun’s attack on Par-mar, noting that “the Sun’s screedabout Professor Parmar, who is awoman of color, leaned heavily on amischaracterization of her teachingon Standard English and Ebonics,and treated with contempt the ideathat reducing social inequities is rel-evant to education.”
On June 7, more than 70 facultymembers attended a PSC chaptermeeting to plan further action. Theyexpressed bitter disappointment inPresident Kimmich’s weak stance.“It hadn’t really occurred to me thata president’s first instinct would notbe to protect his faculty,” said ScottDexter, associate professor of com-puter science.
“Faculty members from the right,left and center voted unanimouslyfor the two resolutions presented bythe union,” said David Bloomfield.One resolution set plans for the fall,including an educational campaignon “the centrality of academic free-dom to Brooklyn College’s missionin this diverse borough.”
CHAIRS IN QUESTIONThe other noted that “President
Kimmich has questioned whether ornot academic freedom applies to de-partment chairs,” and emphaticallyreaffirmed that it does. It pointed outthat department chairs are covered
by the PSC contract, whichstates that academic free-dom applies to all unionmembers, and that theyare elected by their peersto represent the depart-ment’s views. “Depart-
ment chairs are called upon to makeacademic judgments on personneland policy,” it emphasized, “[and] canbest carry out these duties with theprotection of academic freedom.”
Parmar and Shortell both praisedthe union’s quick and firm re-sponse. “When this erupted into thenews media, the union was the firstplace I turned,” Parmar said. “Itwas just a natural reaction, and theunion has been my greatest level ofsupport.”
“I am proud to be part of groupof scholars and teachers whorefuse to be pushed around,”Shortell said. “This time I was theone in need of assistance. Nexttime, I have to be willing to come tothe aid of others.”
6 NEWS Clarion | Summer 2005 Clarion | Summer 2005 NEWS 7
Brooklyn College was the site of two controversies about academic freedom.
By DANIA RAJENDRA and PETER HOGNESS
Two Brooklyn College professorsand the college’s School of Educa-tion were in the headlines in Mayand June, under attack in the dailypress. In response, the PSC urged afirm stand against political interfer-ence with academic decisions, anddemanded that the college presi-dent and CUNY’s chancellor speakout in defense of faculty members’rights.
“What happened at the college isthat management did notstand up for academic free-dom,” said Nancy Romer, amember of the PSC ExecutiveCouncil and professor of psy-chology at Brooklyn. “That isvery disturbing.”
“The Brooklyn College fac-ulty and the union University-widerallied to the defense of our col-leagues and academic freedom,” saidPSC First VP Steve London, associ-ate professor of political science atBC. “The PSC will continue to moni-tor the situation and press manage-ment to speak out.”
INVESTIGATION INVITEDA resolution adopted by the cam-
pus PSC chapter asked for an inves-tigation by the American Associa-tion of University Professors (see
left). “These attacks have producedan atmosphere of fear and intimida-tion,” it stated. “Academic freedomis in jeopardy at Brooklyn College.”
David Bloomfield, vice chair ofthe Brooklyn chapter, told Clarion,“Because of the voice we’re provid-ing for academic freedom, the unionhas received increased supportacross campus and across CUNYand beyond.”
The first article ap-peared in the New YorkSun, and was picked up bythe Daily News under theheadline, “Top profsparks outrage.” The pa-pers assailed the sociolo-gy department’s election
of Timothy Shortell as chair, citingan anti-religious essay he wrote in2001 and posted on a personal web-site. “Can there be any doubt thathumanity would be better off with-out religion?” Shortell had asked.“In the name of their faith, thesemoral retards are…doing real harmto others.”
The Sun’s May 18 editorial asked,“How could someone who…deemspeople of faith ‘moral retards’ possi-bly be fair in evaluating the tenurecandidacies of an Orthodox Jew or an
Does CUNYallow politicalinterference?
College failsto defendacademicfreedom
Weak response from administration
AAUP to question CUNY
Two Brooklyn College professors under attack
Four recent cases called ‘disturbing’
Joan Scott headed AAUP’s Committee A.
Facultydefend eachother, theirprofession
Cha
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The New York Sun was launched in2002 by a group of wealthy right-wing investors, including RichardGilder and Roger Hertog, two for-mer chairmen of the Manhattan In-stitute. Their stated aim was tobuild a politically influential paperas a conservative alternative to TheNew York Times.
How conservative? Here’s one ex-ample: shortly before NYC’s mas-sive anti-war march in February2003, a Sun editorial suggested thatthe NYPD “allow the protest andsend two witnesses along for eachparticipant, with an eye toward pre-serving at least the possibility of aneventual treason prosecution.”
RIGHTWARD TILTBut editorials weren’t the main
place where the Sun’s backersthought that the Times should tiltmore to the right – it was the news.The goal of the Sun was not to be“objective” – indeed, its presidentand founding editor, Seth Lipsky,heaps scorn on the idea. “If it’s objective, you would fall asleepreading it – if you could still read itafter throwing up on it,” Lipsky tolda group of Yale students in late 2003.“I don’t believe in journalists having‘responsibility,’” he said.
September 2004 saw the resigna-tion of Sun news editor Stuart Mar-ques, a veteran of the Daily News,the NY Post and other papers.
“Sources say he clashed with SunPresident and Editor Seth Lipskyover the hardline conservative po-litical direction of the fledgling pa-per,” the NY Post reported.
The Sun is thus a very differententerprise from a paper like theWall Street Journal, which keeps itsconservative editorials largely sep-arate from its news reporting. It ismore like Rev. Sun Myung Moon’sWashington Times, with its politicalbiases driving its approach to thenews.
In a recently leaked e-mail, man-aging editor Robert Messenger con-ceded that the Sun is not a “conser-vative general interest newspaper”but “a niche product catering to aspecific audience.”
The Sun’s circulation is said to bearound 60,000 – or about three timesthe size of Clarion’s. That leaves itsome distance from challenging either the Times, with 1.1 million, orthe Post, with a little under 700,000.
However, even 60,000 may be aninflated figure. According to anNYC wholesaler’s employee, whowrote last year to the Poynter Insti-tute’s influential journalism web-site, the Sun only charges news-stands a penny per copy. At thatrate, wrote William Breen, “it doesn’t pay for dealers to return unsold copies....Virtually everycopy they print is ‘sold.’”
-PH
What is the NY Sun?
