Update on Southern Illinois University ...
The story about criticism of Professor Jonathan Bean by his department colleagues for his use of James Lubinskas's article,"Remembering the Zebra Killings," from Horowitz's Front Page Rag is now drawing national attention. There is Scott Jaschik's"'Handout Hysteria' or Insensitivity" at Inside Higher Ed and Cathy Young's"A Left-wing Witch-hunt on Campus," Boston Globe, 2 May. In the meantime, Bean's critics have launched a counter-offensive in comments here at Cliopatria and Inside Higher Ed. Professor Marji Morgan, chairperson of SIU's history department, published a letter to the editor,"Academic Freedom and Academic Responsibility," Daily Egyptian, 28 April. Bean's critics have also released evidence of their claims against Bean in Moustafa Ayad,"History Faculty Release Evidence of Professor's Transgressions," Daily Egyptian, 2 May. Despite some signs that both camps want to de-escalate the situation, the department's public criticism of Bean and its release of Bean's private e-mail to his graduate assistants in the student newspaper is not likely to de-escalate anything.
Unfortunately, there have been inflammatory reports and graphics, such as this, which trace to David Horowitz's intervention in the case. They have sent some extra-ordinarily viscious e-mail to Bean's colleagues at SIU. If you write or call SIU, be civil!
Davidson says a lot without saying anything
"this article gives a badly slanted version of less than half of the story. I find it disturbing that many comments are being made here based on a poor secondary source -including some from professional historians who should know better. I would love to be able to add some substantive detail, but legal restrictions prevent me.
The impulse here is to sound off, but given the poor state of public knowledge on this matter, it is ill-advised.
Dr. Michael R. Davidson
Lecturer in HistorySIU Carbondale"
For someone who does not want to "sound off," Davidson has done an extraordinary amount of it--without saying anything but "you don't have all the facts." The facts which I can state here would include the clear grievance procedures which the TA (who was the unknown accuser at the beginning), the chair, the dean, and the letter signers ALL violated. The dean drew up bogus "hostile environment" charges in dismissing my TAs -- a legal term of art that means nothing outside of civil rights law and there are procedures to follow there, too.
Curious that Davidson has invested so much on the blogosphere concerning my case. We share the same corridor, he and I, along with a number of the letter signers. Since he has never contacted me, I must ask whether his considerable web activity is an expression of his support for the other side's version of events? Why has he not contacted me?
Elsewhere, he has corrected Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young: My Lord, he is a Republican (or was in Maine), although only a non-tenure track lecturer at SIUC. So, in a half century there has been one "conservative" Republican or Libertarian in a rather large department! Whoa. Be still, my evenhanded heart. Conservatism run amuck at SIU! A true Millian "marketplace of ideas." I rest easy now with a comrade at arms, only 30 feet from my door.
Jonathan Bean
Re: Davidson says a lot without saying anything
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
(In any case, I'm a little concerned about using the word 'lynching' to describe the situation. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the situation at SIU, I hesitate to describe it in terms that recall the forcible and brutal murder of an innocent.)
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
CHEERS,
Mike
P.S. Last post directed to Ralph until I receive an apology from him - and my apologies to everyone for participating in the waste of bandwith which the last few posts here have produced.
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
I suppose an outrageous ad hominem attack was inevitable, but the source is surprising. I thought better of you Ralph.
Cheers,
Mike
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
"Re: Leaping to Conclusions (#59877)
by Ralph E. Luker on May 2, 2005 at 11:02 PM
There are several of us here at Cliopatria who have had the experience of attempted lynchings. I hope that you are never on the receiving end of a rope, Mike. It tends to shape perceptions of how the world works sometimes."
As for the rest of your comments, I have heard them ad nauseam. I have added what I able to add to the story, and to do more than that would be unethical.
Cheers,
Mike
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Robert, this is a classic straw man argument. I have never stated that the accounts were 'worthless'. See the letter posted in the beginning of this thread, and my first response to Ralph for the 'why?'
"Do you think that the excerpts from emails between Jonathan Bean and his TAs that were included in that article support the public charges made by your dean, your department chair, and 8 professors in your department?
If really think so, you need to connect the dots for those of us who are not at SIU."
Apparently I have not made myself clear enough to you. I WILL NOT provide substantive detail on this case which is not either public domain, or relates directly to me. In any case, you have already established what would satisfy you, and it is something which I cannot provide:
"Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean (#59879)
by Robert L. Campbell on May 2, 2005 at 11:33 PM
I'll believe what's being said about the TA's by Bean's opponents when the TA's confirm it, by speaking for themselves."
Cheers,
Mike
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
I share Ralph Luker's incredulity. If published accounts of what's happening in your department are all worthless, why are you citing Ayad's story in the Daily Egyptian of May 2?
Do you think that the excerpts from emails between Jonathan Bean and his TAs that were included in that article support the public charges made by your dean, your department chair, and 8 professors in your department?
If really think so, you need to connect the dots for those of us who are not at SIU.
The information in the May 2 article hardly suffices to dispel the widespread interpretation that Bean's opponents were opposed to him politically, longed to run off campus a colleague whose politics are at loggerheads with theirs, and rolled out their suppressive apparatus when they thought they had an acceptable pretext.
Robert Campbell
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Another 'old-fashioned' view of journalism I have is that journalists should check their facts - thus me 'going out of my way' to provide information to the Boston Globe which they could confirm. Seeing as the 'Correction' stated that I was the one who did the reporting, I can infer that that fact was NOT checked.
Another 'old-fashioned' view of journalism I have is that a story should be fully reported. Seeing as the press has, in part, portrayed this as a case of political persecution, it should have been of interest to them to fully explore the political persuasions of the faculty members in the department. I have been contacted by a grand total of 0 journalists, hence my letter to the Globe, and my footnote here.
Finally, Ralph, the raison d'etre of linking the _Daily Egyptian_ story was clearly stated in my letter - so readers could 'gain fuller perspective on what is occurring'. That does not translate into a judgement on the quality of that, or any other piece of journalism - in fact, it reinforced my overall view of the reporting on this matter.
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. By the by, if you ever think that I am getting 'lynched', I hope you investigate far more fully than you did in this case before jumping into the fray. Ciao.
A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
"Correction: Last week's column stated that Jonathan Bean is the only Republican in the history department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Michael R. Davidson, a lecturer in the department since last year, reports that he is also a registered Republican."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/05/09/the_fatophobia_backlash/
The fact that the 'Correction' itself is in error on both its points underlines the press irresponsibility which, IMHO, has been the most newsworthy aspect of this case.
Young's op-ed on 5/2:
"The victim of this left-wing McCarthyism, history professor Jonathan Bean, identifies himself as a libertarian but is widely regarded as a conservative on the campus; he serves as an adviser to the Republican and Libertarian student groups at the university. (There are reportedly no Republicans among more than 30 faculty members in his department.)"
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/05/02/a_left_wing_witch_hunt_on_campus/
Lets have a look at our errors:
1. The 'Correction' states that Young's 5/2 column stated that Bean was the department's only Republican. The column in fact stated that Bean 'identifies himself as a libertarian' and 'there are reportedly no Republicans'.
2. The 'Correction' states that 'Michael R. Davidson. . . reports that he is also a registered Republican.' In fact, in a letter to the editor which I sent last Monday (I have appended it to this post), I stated:
'There is at least one Republican in the SIUC History Department – me (an investigation of voting records in Windham, Maine, where I was registered to vote until moving to Illinois last year will confirm this).'
I am not, as Young stated in her 'Correction', a registered Republican, as Illinois voter registration did not allow me the opportunity to indicate a party preference.
In any case, had any reporter actually done their job properly, they would have found out that one of the central arguments for those who were saying this was about a 'Lynch Mob', a 'Witch-Hunt', or 'Left-Wing McCarthyism' was bunk.
Cheers,
Mike Davidson
Lecturer in History
SIU Carbondale
"To the Editor,
It is extraordinarily unfortunate that Cathy Young, largely from a position of ignorance, has chosen to sound off regarding the current controversy in the SIUC History Department. Her op-ed piece, like almost all press reports to date, presents such a small portion of the story that the picture painted is almost unrecognizable to persons, like myself, who are all too familiar with the details of this case. I would encourage Boston Globe readers to read the article by Moustafa Ayad in today’s Daily Egyptian so they can gain fuller perspective on what is occurring. [http://newshound.de.siu.edu/spring05/stories/storyReader$1178]
For my part, I would like to add one correction to Young’s piece. There is at least one Republican in the SIUC History Department – me (an investigation of voting records in Windham, Maine, where I was registered to vote until moving to Illinois last year will confirm this).
I sincerely hope that the Globe will produce a responsible piece of investigative journalism should it cover this case further.
Sincerely,
Dr. Michael R. Davidson
Lecturer in History
SIU Carbondale
Michael R. Davidson Ph.D.
History Department
Mailcode 4519
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4519
Phone: 618-536-2233
Fax: 618-453-5440"
Re: A Footnote on Press Irresponsibility
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
I deal with discrete events, too. The problem with this one is that the information is poor, crucial questions are unanswered, and the available evidence leaves something to be desired of every party to the dispute.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Instead, the chair at SIU choose to appease them by undecutting one and only one faculty member.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
As I've said, this is not a case where any party to the dispute gets my sympathy, at least not on the basis of the facts I know. In Bean's case, I don't see what he was trying to accomplish with this handout, and I don't understand how to process the use of the handout plus his apology.
In the department's case, as I've said elsewhere, I found the co-signed letter vague to the point of vacuity. It is meant for the general public and yet nothing in it explains what Bean has done wrong.
The SIU dept chair's letter to the Daily Egyptian struck me as particularly mealy-mouthed and evasive. Bean's handout, she tells us with great authority, conceals necessary "context." Like what? Why exactly do we need to know biographical facts about the author of the article to evaluate what he is saying? Nothing in her letter explains the point, which raises the question of why she went public with it in the first place. The entire approach is an obvious, transparent case of the fallacy of poisoning the well.
But all of this merely reinforces the point I am making about TAs. Why should TAs have to defer to such people without contradiction--whether to Bean, to his colleagues or to the department chair? Are these people really in a position to get on their high horse about their "authority" as historians and tell a TA, "Oh well, I am the All Knowing Professor, so run along little child, and come back some day when you know something." The response should be: Gee Professor, let's see the evidence right now that YOU know something! It is hardly obvious that these ones do.
The irony is that in bringing up the TA issue, the SIU department has unwittingly brought the real underlying issue here to light, and not in a way that enhances their credibility as a department. Why--exactly--are TA's not allowed to contradict their professors? What is the rationale for that rule, again? Is it that the professors are such geniuses? Not really. Is it that they're just so unbelievably, blindly competent? No again. Could it be, perhaps, that the rule merely serves to cover up sloth, incompetence and an untrammeled will to abuse one's authority? There's a bipartisan question worth pursuing.
Maybe the people who are claiming to protect the TAs --like the dept chair--should be publicly forced to confront that question. And if so, maybe something useful can come of this otherwise exceedingly silly controversy.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Teaching assistants are forced to teach in lockstep in countless number of departments every day without any controversy (mostly by non-conservatives). Besides, as I have said many times, the letter from the professors did not limit itself to the t.a. issue.
Finally, I would urge you to look at Bean's course readings list which includes Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and many other diverse perspectives; frankly more diverse than many leftwing professors might assign.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
I raised Life of Brian as an example because, under a politically correct academic regime, the complaints of devout Christians about a movie that parodies the life of Jesus would be discounted--no matter what the pedagogical context was.
Whereas the objections of African-Americans to a piece about murders committed by a gang of black racists would be taken as dispositive--no matter what the pedagogical context was.
Anyway, that's what I was trying to get at. I think Steve Horwitz has already made the point better than I could.
Robert Campbell
Re: some more issues
What I object to is the idea that on the one hand, we admit to agnosticism on the appropriateness of what he's done--and at the same time claim that he is being treated unfairly. Well, if the behavior really was inappropriate, how unfair has the treatment been? It depends on how inappropriate it was. Which is what we don't know.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
In fact, I do think faculty should be able to criticize each other's choices - that's part of academic freedom too. But when that only happens in one direction and/or when administrators start mucking around and pulling TAs or issuing statements, that's when it becomes a problem.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
If the problem is that Bean is the only one getting the treatment, I agree that that is a problem. But if the "problem" stems from a conception of academic freedom minus accountability I have to ask: are we seriously telling the world that academic freedom is incompatible with accountability and quality control? It's quite an admission, if so.
Re: some more issues
Re: some more issues
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
1. My apologies for misidentifying you.
2. I was referring to your series of commments here and at L&P. I didn't say you'd posted here or there.
3. If your Dean has a consistent policy on TAs who object to course material, it shouldn't be that hard to predict what she will do.
Robert Campbell
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
2. I have not posted on L and P.
3. Your question was unanwerable, as it required me to speculate on what my Dean might do.
Cheers,
Mike
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
I see your point, but with the Monty Python example, I have to agree with Michael Davidson that in its current form your question is unanswerable. We would need to know why the film was being used, ie to what pedagogical end. And if it was merely being used to twit the sensibilities of Christians, and I was a dept chair, I would not regard that as a legitimate pedagogical end. I would tell the relevant professor to skip the film and do some actual teaching. If there was some legitimate pedagogical goal, he should be able to explain it.
Re: some more issues
"There are some modes of assigning material that are not acceptable in our discipline: to use undocumented website material as a valid historical account; to remove material from a source without indicating such editing; or to conceal the intellectual context for evaluating a source by removing information about the author and the source's provenance." (http://newshound.de.siu.edu/voices05/stories/storyReader$592)
And, by the way, I agree with those voices (even the not so disinterested ones) saying that we should be a little more cautious in making judgements about this case based on the information currently available to us.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Again, as I have said, many, many faculty believe in the theory that teaching assistants should be limited to the role of conduits between the professors and the students and that it is essentially the "professor's course." If are going to impose a rule for Bean that gives the t.a's "rights" to act otherwise, let's be consistent and apply it to everyone. Who's course is it?
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
So: We don't really know what happened, but we know that it was wrong? (At Liberty & Power, this incoherent formula is combined with the injunction to write to the Dean and the President protesting something...we know not what.)
The role of a TA is pretty clear. A TA is a subordinate--an assistant--to the professor. But a subordinate is not (to use David Beito's phrase) a "conduit," and a professor who thinks that TAs are mindless "conduits" needs to leave academia for a while, get a non-academic job, and learn a bit about how the world works. I absolutely agree that rules on TAs should be applied consistently, as should any other rule.
As for "who is to judge?" the answer is obvious: the department. That is precisely what they are there for. The alternative is that no one is to judge, which is incompatible with any concept of departmental accountability or quality control.
There seems to be an assumption among many writers here that once a faculty member reaches a certain rank, accountability and QC are simply not issues. They are "givens." What this leads to, in practice, are departments where no one is held accountable for anything, and pedagogically, the sky is the limit. Eventually, the classroom becomes little more than a playpen for various people's ideological agendas, and the promotion of that agenda becomes the departmental operational definition of "teaching": to each his or her fiefdom, protected by an elastic definition of "academic freedom."
Why is there a rule that a TA cannot contradict a professor? Is the default assumption that professors are ex cathedra infallible, on par with Popes? In 11 years in academia, I can't say I've met the individual who deserved that level of deference.
Bean has apologized for his use of the Zebra reading. Maybe that was insincere and a matter of duress. But taken at face value, it is an admission that using it was a bad idea. Of course, in the first case, Bean cannot come out and tell us that it was, and in the latter case, his TAs had a point.
As for David's question "Whose course is it?" can't it be answered with the question, "Whose employee is he?" ?
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
I'll believe what's being said about the TA's by Bean's opponents when the TA's confirm it, by speaking for themselves.
At this point, it's not clear to me that the complaints about the article on the Zebra killings truly originated with two of Bean's TA's. Or, if they actually did, what the complaints were.
There is also a question about which kinds of conmplaints, made by whom, would be taken seriously by other faculty members or by administrators. Mike Richardson, who has been telling everyone here and at L and P that we are jumping to conclusions, would not give a direct answer when I asked him whether Evangelical Christian TAs who complained about the use of MOnty Python's Life of Brian in a course would be allowed to quit working for that professor in the middle of a semester. Would those TAs be able to induce a department chair, a dean, and a significant bloc of departmental faculty to blast their former professor in public?
Such insinuations as the one that appeared in the April 12 letter, signed by 8 of Bean's colleagues, that the article constituted "white supremacist propaganda" suggest that somebody... maybe a TA, maybe another faculty member... was using a crude ideological criterion to decide what was acceptable class material. There is far more freight, in the statements made by Bean's opponents on the faculty, than their professed exclusive concern for the welfare of 2 TA's can carry.
Robert Campbell
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
http://www.bigmuddyimc.org/feature/display/1635/index.php
But if you grant the lockstep rule, your understanding of academic freedom seems to be: the professor has the right to do whatever he wants, and the TA must obey, no matter how stupid or pedagogically inappropriate the professor's actions, and no matter how justified the TA's criticisms.
So: If the professor cooks up crazy pedagogical schemes, and has a lockstep rule, that is "academic freedom." If in such a situation, the TA complains, and is 100% right, that is merely "funny"--but his/her complaints are not an expression of academic freedom. (Apparently TAs don't have any.) If the professor suffers adverse consequences from the TA's (legitimate!) complaints, that becomes a violation of his academic freedom--i.e., his freedom to function as an incompetent dictator without constraints or accountability.
I am not saying that this describes Bean. I'm saying: that's where your defense of Bean has ended up. But this is simply not a tenable conception of academic freedom. It's an undisguised argument from authority functioning to rationalize out-and-out irresponsibility. No profession, including academia, can function under such principles.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Bottom line to the SIU history department: if a conservative TA complained about being forced to teach a faculty-chosen reading on the Great Depression (taken from a left-alternative press website) that mistated by a factor of three the size of the fall in the money supply in the early 30s so that the author could argue that the Fed bore no responsibility for the length and severity of the depression and place the blame squarely on the shoulders of "laissez-faire capitalism", would you write a letter to the student newspaper criticizing that faculty member's choice of sources and argue it was violating historians' standards of classroom instruction?
I will stand by my interpretation of this matter as being about academic freedom until I see a shred of evidence that the standards being applied to Bean are being applied elsewhere in the department.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Again, if he did, my answer would be, so what? I have several colleagues who *do* enforce a lockstep rule on the theory that teaching assistants should not differ in section with the professor. Those that do are often blacklisted by these professors as "undercutting the professor." Apparently, professors who hold this view operate under the theory that it is the duty of the teaching assistant to be a conduit between the professor and the students and that it is "the professors" course.
I happen to encourage my teaching assistants to freely disagree with my lectures or reading in section but nobody has ever dreamed of restricting the right of my colleagues who feel otherwise. If some teaching assistant dared to go over their heads to the chair and claim a "right" to dispute the professor, or his readings, in section, he would probably laugh them out of his office. Again, if we're going to enforce new "rights" for the teaching assistants, let's at least be consistent.
Second, the criticisms voiced in letter go far beyond the specific issue of teaching assistants and strongly imply that Bean was wrong to have his students read the article a such. Moreover, as I said, it is evasive as to whether he even had a right to assign it (teaching assistants or no teaching assistants). My sense, based on the language used in the letter, is that the teaching issue is secondary to the concerns of Bean's critics.
As I said, Bean, and Bean alone, is being subjected to this standard.
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
Re: A Single Standard Applied Only to Bean
The TAs are offended because they HAVE been put in an untenable position. Here is this inflammatory Front Page thing they're supposed to teach. What to do with it? Well, his email of response to them did not exactly strike me as a model of pedagogical guidance. So if he feels entitled to emote all over their inboxes--which is what he did--what exactly has become of his obligation not to create a hostile environment or put his TA's in an untenable position? He's flouting it. And his flouting it is now being touted as an instance of "academic freedom" and his "right" to teach whatever he wants, however he wants.
Well. That's an interpretation that only makes sense if one pretends that TAs can be shoved out of the picture without further ado. But they're the ones doing the bulk of the teaching. If they're so easily dispensable, try teaching the class without them. But that is exactly what the complaining is now about: the TAs are gone! So who's going to lead those discussion sections now? Not what I would call a "non-issue."
Re: some puzzles about this case