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Fact-checking Cuts Both Ways....

I've been ridiculed for attention to detail, and I'll admit that I'm the first one out of my chair to the dictionary or encyclopedia or Shulchan Aruch if a question comes up in conversation that I can't answer (well, second, if my father is there), but sometimes you find something interesting. And sometimes you don't find anything, which is also interesting....

The dog that didn't bark this time is David Horowitz's: he's been citing a certain case of academic repression -- the Bush as war criminal midterm story -- for some time now, but it doesn't seem to be true [via Butterflies&Wheels]. What's particularly odd is that Horowitz's own site has links which appear to be citations but which go to hearings in which the testimony in question clearly doesn't appear. There's plenty of good material for Horowitz in those hearings, so you wouldn't think he'd need to make something up. (You'd also think that he'd pick good students as poster children and wouldn't lie about public figures but you'd be wrong about that, too) I suspect that he's been caught up in an urban legend that he can't let go of, and used the links as a sort of meaningless footnote.

No, it doesn't mean much, but it does mean something.

Update (14 March): Scott Jaschik, of the increasingly essential reading Inside Higher Ed, got a response from Mr. Horowitz to the effect that the lack of evidence is the result of his (and his student informant's) attempt to protect the anonymity of the student involved. My first reaction is that there have to be better ways to do that than by citing the case in national publications, which is probably why that possibility didn't occur to me sooner. Mr. Horowitz also implied that I am one of the "legions of left-wing academics who are in extreme bad faith on this issue, since they are collusive in a repressive system and haven't uttered a peep on behalf of students who disagree with them politically." I probably do qualify as "left" in his definition, but I reject the charge that I am a collusive, repressive, non-peeper.

My thanks to Scott Jaschik, Glenn Reynolds, Randy Barnett, and particularly Ralph Luker for their support in making this a question to be answered and put to rest instead of a lingering distraction from larger issues.

Second Update: Students for Academic Freedom have released details of the UNC case, and Mr. Horowitz has commented here. With the caveat that the details of the case are not as clear (or as substantiated) as Horowitz has presented them, I'm reasonably convinced that he was citing an actual case in relatively good faith. Apparently new transcripts of the actual relevant testimony will be posted on the SAF website sometime today, and I want to publicly thank SAF for their efforts in transcription and publication. I don't know if this statement qualifies as the "appropriate retraction" which Mr. Horowitz has, via e-mail, demanded of HNN. I also don't know if he will be apologizing for his slurs cited above. More thoughts later on the actual case and related source issues which this discussion has brought forth...

Posted on Friday, March 11, 2005 at 1:01 AM | Comments (24) | Return

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