To Lynch a Colleague ...

Irfan Khawaja - 8/4/2006

I agree with Mr Proyect on the Confederate flag issue, and think he's handled his case rather better than any of his critics have been willing to acknowledge. He has a fair point that a Confederate flag has no place on a university campus.

A question for Mr Proyect: suppose the campus animal rights chapter puts up signs or flyers singling out a scientist on campus, describing him as a 'sadistic animal torturer/murderer' and expressing sympathy for groups that want to destroy his lab or indeed, kill him? Should the signs be taken down and the group reprimanded? (My answers: yes, yes.)

Question 2 for Mr Proyect: If the Confederate flag has no place on a university campus, what about, say, the Saudi flag? We have one hanging in our student center at The College of NJ--in a multicultural display of the 'flags of the world'. Should it be taken down? (My answer: yes.)

Irfan Khawaja - 8/4/2006

I'm replying to Luker and Beito here because that reply window was getting too ridiculously narrow.

I'm not joking at all about Confederate or Saudi flags. One is a symbol of treason and slavery, the other of totalitarian theocracy. There really are no legitimate reasons for flying them anywhere.

But a university campus is not a municipality or government and its rules are not laws. It's a voluntary association and it ought to espouse and enforce at least minimal standards of decorum.

That for instance is why students can't come to class naked as a matter of free expression. It is why dorm life is regulated in the interests of civility. It's why you can't have sex on the quad in broad daylight. It's why even if you should be free to do drugs in civil society, you can be prohibited from doing or dealing them on campus as a matriculated student. It's why a responsible university administration should exercise veto power over the invitation of the more irresponsible characters that find their way to a university (e.g., Amiri Baraka, David Duke, Meir Kahane). And it's why flying a Confederate, Nazi, Soviet or Saudi flag--or putting up a banner that says "Niggers go home" or singling out a biology professor as a "puppy torturer"--is not a matter of permissible "free speech" when done on campus with/on university facilities. A university that can't make such discriminations is not a university but a joke.

As for a criterion, all you need is a fairly general and minimal one: If a display or expression literally subverts the educational mission of the university, it has no place there. Nothing about the Confederacy or the Saudi regime comports with the actual educational mission of a legitimate university. So out it goes.

Hope that's enough to convince you that I'm not joking. Proyect's claims about "the right", "fascism," etc. are cavalier oversimplifications. But his point about the disanalogy between universities and Hyde Park is on target.

Irfan Khawaja - 8/4/2006

I replied below and to the left.

Robert L. Campbell - 5/4/2005

Mike,

I've had to deal in the past with faculty members and administrators who genuinely had the worst possible motives. For a year now, I've been covering the events at the University of Southern Mississippi, which afford rich illustrations of administrators with the worst possible motives, and of their modes of behavior. All I can say is that several of your colleagues, and your dean, have used the precise language that such people so often use, replete with weasel-words and hypocritical declarations of loyalty to academic values.

What's more, now that excerpts from Jonathan Bean's emails to his TAs have been published in the Daily Egyptian, I really don't believe your colleagues and your dean actually have anything that will support their claims of TAs being abused.

If your colleagues and your dean weren't acting from the worst possible motives, and they genuinely want to prevent the History department from becoming completely riven and dysfunctional, it's time for them to admit, in public, that they overreacted to a grossly disproportionate degree.

Robert Campbell

Ralph E. Luker - 5/3/2005

Mike, When a group of your colleagues comes after you as Jonathan Bean's colleagues came after him, I will probably post an "inflammatory blog entry" about it and you will probably appreciate my doing so. I'll probably do it, whether you appreciate my doing so or not.

Michael Davidson - 5/3/2005

By the by, it is getting a bit tiresome to see the worst motives possible assigned to fellow colleagues by persons who do not know them.

I do agree with you, Robert, that this exchange would not be happening were that letter not published. But that is merely one link in the chain. We would probably not be having this exchange if any of the following had not occurred (sticking here to information in the public domain):

1. Prof. Bean assigning the reading.
2. The TA's protesting.
3. Our colleagues writing the letter.
4. The story getting badly reported.
5. Ralph Luker issuing an inflammatory blog entry. (With apologies in advance to Ralph - I have no bone to pick with you seeing as you have linked appropriate information as it has become available.)

Cheers,
Mike

P.S. I am hoping to withdraw from the discussion at this point, as getting people to think a bit more carefully about there comments before sounding off has hopefully been achieved. If any further hard information becomes available, I will alert you.

Sherman Jay Dorn - 5/3/2005

I disagree with your reasoning here, but I'm angry at your colleagues for their foolishness. You're right--you were not a signer of that letter, and please accept my apology for any implication to that effect.

David Timothy Beito - 5/3/2005

Straw men. Me? Give me an example. It is hard to respond to a blank page.

Robert L. Campbell - 5/3/2005

Mike,

Let's put aside, for a moment, the appropriateness of your department chair's handling of Jonathan Bean's choice of assignments--or your dean's. (Even though there are plenty of grounds to question both.)

It is very unlikely that you and I and Ralph Luker and David Beito and several others would be conducting this exchange in a public forum had 8 of your departmental colleagues had not written to the SIUC newspaper, condemning Jonathan Bean in terms regularly used by those who want to silence their intellectual opponents and get them fired.

Like many other participants here, I've dealt with such situations often enough to know how faculty members talk and behave when they want to silence their opponents and get them fired.

If, despite all the appearances, your colleagues had a different intent, it's time for them to apologize for their unprofessional behavior and retract their sensational charges.

Robert Campbell

Ralph E. Luker - 5/3/2005

If I may say so, your department has not been lynched. Some members of your department have been behaving in ways that are unprofessional. They do not speak for the whole department. They need to tone down the rhetoric.

Michael R. Davidson - 5/3/2005

I trust, then, that you will be just as adverse to an attempted lynching of the SIUC History Department.

Cheers,
Mike

Ralph E. Luker - 5/3/2005

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.

Michael R. Davidson - 5/3/2005

Except, Ralph, that the moment that molotov cocktails began to rain down from OUTSIDE the house, there was no longer any place to run - or hide. And with all due respect, leading a blog entry with 'To Lynch a Colleague' represented a substantial external molotov cocktail when a water hose would have been the more appropriate intervention.

Cheers,
Mike

Ralph E. Luker - 5/3/2005

Perhaps you are a more courageous man than I am. But suppose we take your metaphor. The _owners_ of the house -- i.e., tenured full professors -- are lighting molotov cocktails and throwing them at each other. If I were an untenured lecturer, I would duck and run or hide. You berate some of us for our reaching tentative judgments that the house is on fire. We have nothing particular at stake in the matter. We are just saying, from the outside, to the owners of the house at SIU that throwing molotov cocktails at each other -- even particularly at Professor Bean -- is likely to damage the house. It is not our fault that the owners of the house at SIU are clutching their primary sources to themselves in case they want to sue each other after they've burned their house down.

Michael R. Davidson - 5/3/2005

Ralph, with all due respect, if the firestorm were burning your house, and there were people who should know better who were tossing cans of gasoline, then I am guessing you would take some action as well. Saturday represented the first time I made ANY public comment on this matter.

CHEERS,
Mike

Ralph E. Luker - 5/3/2005

Mike, With all due respect and unless you can show me otherwise, you seem to have been placing yourself at the center of the firestorm. I'm not sure that that is a prudent thing to do.

Steven Horwitz - 5/3/2005

And what, exactly, is the "other side" beyond academic freedom? If Professor Bean has the right to use this reading in the classroom, what other "part" of the story is there?

I'm guessing legal considerations prevent you from answering that. So until I have actual evidence to the contrary, I'll stick with the obvious inference: this was, as David said, an attempt to apply a standard to Bean not applicable others, presumably others with different political views.

Steven Horwitz - 5/3/2005

And what, exactly, is the "other side" beyond academic freedom? If Professor Bean has the right to use this reading in the classroom, what other "part" of the story is there?

I'm guessing legal considerations prevent you from answering that. So until I have actual evidence to the contrary, I'll stick with the obvious inference: this was, as David said, an attempt to apply a standard to Bean not applicable others, presumably others with different political views.

Michael R. Davidson - 5/3/2005

David - somewhere in your barnyard blizzard of straw men I missed your point 8-).

Cheers,
Mike

Michael R. Davidson - 5/3/2005

Sherman,

I was not a party to that letter. Why, then, are you venting your spleen in my direction?

I, too, am angry:
1. That many of my colleagues, including Prof. Bean, have been the targets of unfair criticism and outright hate mail.
2. That press coverage of the matter has been almost uniformly bad.
3. That so many of the comments on this site have been a very poor advertisement for the critical training which professional historians receive.
4. That, as a untenured/non-tenure-track faculty member I find myself at the center of a firestorm which may jeopardize my career - especially since the only part of this getting much press is the academic freedom issue - on which I have been as good a poster-boy as any during my short career.

Cheers,
Mike

Michael R. Davidson - 5/3/2005

Parse it how you wish Jonathan. I am guessing that you would agree with me, however, that it is not good scholarly practice to base our inferences upon secondary evidence when the primary evidence has not been properly investigated?

Cheers,
Mike

Sherman Jay Dorn - 5/2/2005

That was what I figured. See, I don't necessarily leap to conclusions!

David Timothy Beito - 5/2/2005

I thought he was kidding, especially when he said that the Saudi flag should also be bannned.....but then who knows?

Ralph E. Luker - 5/2/2005

Dr. Khawaja is, apparently, into more regulation than my libertarian instincts tell me is necessary. On what grounds would you bar a Saudi or a Confederate flag from a campus? Must we allow only the flags of democracies to be displayed? Particular forms of democracies? No states with titular monarchies? What degree of monarchial power bars them? I'm not particularly enthusiastic about displaying flags at all, but this is ridiculous.

David Timothy Beito - 5/2/2005

Are Bean's critics at Carbondale arguing that faculty have an obligation to match each reading they assign with another one that takes a different point of view? I don't know of a single faculty member in my department who does this. Moreover, I know plenty of faculty members who assign newspaper article and articles from popular jounrals that are not "balanced" by another point of view. Bean is clearly being subjected to a single standard which applies only to him.

Ralph E. Luker - 5/2/2005

Just as a matter of clarification, Sherman, I didn't delete anything you posted. Several of us suspected that "Avery Beagle" was the pseydonym of someone at SIU who wished to remain anonymous. On inquiry, that turned out to be the case. Pseudonymous comments are not allowed at HNN, so "Avery Beagle"'s comments were deleted -- not by me, but by HNN's management. The way its system works, when a comment is deleted, all that follows it in a thread is deleted. Several of us lost comments. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Sherman Jay Dorn - 5/2/2005

Professor Davidson,

Those who make public accusations in a "poor secondary source" (the phrase you used in your Inside Higher Ed comment) have no basis for complaining that readers have drawn inferences from the letter. After all, wasn't that the intention of publishing the letter in the first place? The fact that the inferences we have drawn are different from the inferences the letter-writers wanted readers to draw does not give the history faculty the right to tell us after the fact that we have it all wrong, since the letter-writers were the first to publish "a slanted version of less than half the story."

Yes, I'm angry. On behalf of faculty who work on the ground to protect academic freedom, I am livid that faculty would be so uncollegial and just plain stupid as attempt to intimidate a colleague in a student newspaper. I don't know where the comment of mine was in a thread that Ralph or someone else erased, but the gist is that the faculty missed an opportunity to mentor the TAs in how to address conflicting interpretations. You're right: we don't have all the facts. What we do know at this point makes your department look for all the world like it's committing reputational seppuku.

Jonathan Dresner - 5/2/2005

No, we are drawing inferences from the data available. It's not complete, no, but it's what we have. We do this all the time: we're historians, after all.

David Timothy Beito - 5/2/2005

Mike:

I think the folks in your department can clear this up very quickly by making an unqualified and clear joint statement that Professor Bean had, and has, a right to assign the article in question that the department will not tolerate any attempt to use pressure against him.

The story is widely gaining national publicity and doing great damage to your department's reputation.

David

Robert KC Johnson - 5/2/2005

I take Mike Davidson's comments to heart on this issue--that those of us outside of SIU only know what's been reported publicly. That said, it was Bean's colleagues who went public with this controversy, and did so in a letter whose content raised questions about their credibility as defenders of academic freedom. After they've received strong criticism, their response now amounts to, "Trust us, our actions were justified, but for reasons that we can't reveal." If they were concerned about confidentiality, they shouldn't have gone public in the first place.

Michael Davidson - 5/2/2005

Robert,

Once again. Your knowledge of the incident only represents a small fraction of what occurred, and you are LEAPING TO CONCLUSIONS.

Cheers,
Mike

Robert L. Campbell - 5/2/2005

Mike,

Yes, the letter does say that.

But, read in context, the one sentence affirming academic freedom comes across to me--and I expect to most readers who know a little bit about university life--as hypocritical.

Here's the full text of the letter...

******

We, the undersigned History faculty members, want to take responsibility for explaining to the University community an incident that took place in our department last week, and express our disgust with the article that was distributed in a core curriculum American history course. The article, "Remembering the Zebra Killings," by James Lubinskas, was downloaded from a site containing links to racially charged and anti-Semitic Web sites. The professor abridged it in a way that disguised its full context and photocopied it for his teaching assistants to distribute.

The article is distorted and inaccurate. It quotes questionable sources without documentation, uses unsubstantiated statistics and repeats inflammatory rumors. Its combination of falsehood and innuendo presented as objective historical commentary seems designed to take advantage of those who may not be trained to analyze sources critically.

As history professors we believe that teaching controversy and using controversial course materials is a vital part of teaching, and we all should do it. It is also crucial, however, to clearly distinguish between documents that illustrate racism in the American past from present-day racist propaganda.

We strongly believe in the rights of academic freedom and in a professor's right to choose course material. Academic responsibility, however, demands that professors promote the free exchange of ideas without creating a hostile environment, running the risk of nurturing racist attitudes among their students, and putting their teaching assistants in an untenable position. Moreover, it is our academic responsibility as history professors to disassociate ourselves from this irresponsible use of objectionable and inflammatory material. We call on the University community to open a dialogue about the issues raised by this incident.

****
Surely I don't need to remind you that references to a "hostile environment" are standard portions of most "speech codes"--whose proponents take them to override academic freedom. And the language of "racist propaganda" and "irresponsibility" is regularly employed on campuses for suppressive purposes.

The final sentence in the letter also comes across as doublespeak. Telling people to suspend judgment, because they don't know the deep secrets surrounding a public condemnation of a colleague, is not a way of promoting dialogue. It's a way of telling all but the select few that they have no business participating in it.

Robert Campbell

Michael R. Davidson - 5/2/2005

"If Dr. Davidson were to include Monthy Python's Life of Brian in one of his classes at SIUC, and a TA who was a fervent Evangelical Christian objected... would the dean pull the TA from the class?"

Heh heh. I have never shown "Life of Brian" in a course with TA's, but did show it during the Roman segment of an Ancient history course when I was teaching at a church-affiliated school.

Cheers,
Mike

Michael R. Davidson - 5/2/2005

"The existence of teaching assistants and discussion groups makes this a rather complicated matter."

Yep. And that aspect of the story has not been properly reported.

"What academic freedom do TA's get? If your teaching assistant(s) "quits," is the administration obligated to stop paying them? Is it a violation of academic freedom if graduate assistants are reassigned? Does academic freedom include a right to have TAs?"

These are all issues which the department, and the college has been dealing with for the past few weeks.

"Closing down the discussion sections, independent of allowing the T.A.'s to quit teaching them, is over the top."

That is dependent on circumstance, which, as I have already noted, has not been fully and accurately reported.

Cheers,
Mike

Michael R. Davidson - 5/2/2005

David and Robert,

The letter in question, signed by my eight colleagues stated the following:

"We strongly believe in the rights of academic freedom and in a professor's right to choose course material."

Cheers,
Mike

Robert L. Campbell - 5/2/2005

Hmmm... time for a thought experiment.

If Dr. Davidson were to include Monthy Python's Life of Brian in one of his classes at SIUC, and a TA who was a fervent Evangelical Christian objected... would the dean pull the TA from the class?

Should the dean reassign the TA, under those circumstances?

Robert Campbell

Robert L. Campbell - 5/2/2005

Mike,

I'd like to second David's suggestion.

I hope you will write a letter to the editor of the student newspaper at SIUC, upholding Jonathan Bean's right to assign this particular reading. I hope you will also criticize any statements or implications to the contrary in the previously published letter that was signed by 8 of your departmental colleagues.

Robert Campbell

Bill Woolsey - 5/1/2005

The generally accepted version of the Zebra Killings is that there were 23 victims of whom 14 died. The "Death Angels" carried out these attacks. Apparently, a certain number of white people had to be killed to join this splinter group of Black Muslims. Presumably, the larger numbers (and perhaps the 71 in the Frontpage article) involve speculation based upon the purported total membership of the Death Angels. I think that describing the number of Zebra Killings to be 71 (or even dozens) is inaccurate. There were 14 Zebra killings, and the cult responsible may have killed many more people. Perhaps someone can explain exactly from where 71 comes.

The existence of teaching assistants and discussion groups makes this a rather complicated matter. What academic freedom do TA's get? If your teaching assistant(s) "quits," is the administration obligated to stop paying them? Is it a violation of academic freedom if graduate assistants are reassigned? Does academic freedom include a right to have TAs?

Closing down the discussion sections, independent of allowing the T.A.'s to quit teaching them, is over the top.

As for the "colleagues," is the proper response to offensive speech, more speech? And that goes both ways.

David Timothy Beito - 5/1/2005

Mike:

I dubious that academic freedom is "alive and well" in your department since there somes to be some question of Professor Bean's right (with no qualifications) to assign this particular reading.

This controversy has not helped the standing of SIUC among those of us who believe that this right should be absolutely and confidently protected for both the left and right (whether the case involves Ward Churchill or someone else).

The earliest reports (which, in my limited experience often give the most revealing clues of the "true" intentions of both sides) indicate that that Professor Bean's academic freedom is being called into question.

I greatly appreciate, however, your clear statement of support for Professor Bean's right to assign the reading.

I urge you to repeat this statement of support as much as as possible. All of the other issues are insignificant by comparison. Such repeated statements on your part and other faculty at SIUC will help restore the already tarnished reputation of the institution and of the history department.

Moreover, they will send a clear message to the enemies of academic freedom who can be found on every campus. There is a larger issue at stake here.

Best,

David

Michael R. Davidson - 5/1/2005

As a matter of academic freedom, it is, of course, a professor's right to assign the reading in question. That is not, however, the end all and be all of this story.

I would note, as well, that academic freedom in my department appears to be alive and well from where I am sitting, seeing as I assigned readings this semester in my Modern World course from such 'upstanding citizens' as Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, and Osama Bin Laden, and, for the second semester running, showed 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' in my Ancient/Medieval World course.

Cheers,
Mike

Michael R. Davidson - 5/1/2005

Ralph - please keep open in your mind the possibility that this was a circumstance when a publice rebuke was appropriate.
Cheers,
Mike

Sudha Shenoy - 5/1/2005

Louis Proyect asks: 'Is Kuznicki an African-American name?' So truth is decided by skin colour. (For the record, I'm a coffee-coloured Indian female.)

David T. Beito - 4/30/2005

Professor Davidson:

You write that you cannot comment on the particulars of the case. Fair enough. Could you please answer the following question? Do you support the right of any professor in your department, as a matter of academic freedom, to assign the reading in question?

Ralph E. Luker - 4/30/2005

Mike, Thanks for this suggestion. I still find it almost impossible to imagine why Jonathan Bean's department colleagues of many years would found it necessary to make their objections known in the campus newspaper. That strikes me as inappropriate in almost any circumstance. No one on the outside wishes to enflame the situation, but once things such as that are done on the inside, it makes healing exceedingly difficult. Bean, after all, had just won an award for his teaching and had given an apology. When that is met by a public rebuke by his colleagues, it is -- well -- astonishing.

Michael R. Davidson - 4/30/2005

I find it disturbing that so many professional historians have been so quick to jump to conclusions on this matter based mostly upon the secondary accounts in press reports. Even the story in the _Southern Illinoisan_ which Ralph links tells a slanted version of less than half the story. Most of the facts are not in. Unfortunately, given the possibility, however remote, of legal action, it is not possible for me to fill in any more of the facts. Until the facts are out, the best course of action, as professional historians, would be to hold off on your conclusions.

Cheers,
Mike Davidson
Lecturer in History
SIU Carbondale

Avery Beagle - 4/29/2005

There are many creative and appropriate ways to use provocative materials, and many interesting questions that might be asked of them. That is not how this was approached, according to the T.A.s involved.

Dr. Bean required that this account be presented as accurate, unbiased history. Its veracity was not up for discussion, despite the errors and lies in the piece.

The T.A.s followed his instructions and handed out the document quickly. Upon reading it, and realizing that the document was flawed, the TA.s found themselves in a dilemma.

T.A.s at SIU are explcitiy instructed to never contradict their professors. That means that the 3 T.A.s, two of whom are African American, were to be forced to teach a racist document as fact.

Quite proeprly, the T.A.s went through channels. Quite properly, the Dean allowed them the choice of not returning to a potentially hostile environment. (If you do not think the environment was potentially hostile, then think about African-American T.A.s in a classroom that is 90% white Southern Illinoisans.)

The Dean was not disciplining Bean, but trying to protect the T.A.s and salvage the situtaiton. Awkward, but hardly over the top.

The professors say in the letter that they are trying to support the T.A.s and explain the problems with the document, which was already public at that time. It was an awkward forum, but why assign sinister "thought police" motives? Why not accept their word? In fact, why not accept that everyone involved (including Bean) have had the best of motives? There have been awkwardness and mistakes, but where is the evidence of some sinister conspiracy? Why assume that anyone is trying to "get" Bean who is still teaching the class, retains his tenure, and has been in no way disciplined by the university?

Knowing the T.A.s involved, I'm personally appalled that there has been so little care or attention to their very vulnerable situation. This is really about them. T.A.s get little enoughr espect in the academic world. They deserve better.

Avery Beagle - 4/29/2005

Ralph wrote: "Wouldn't it be possible to examine an article like that from Front Page Rag _for_ its biases _and_ for enticing students to learn more about its subject in order to do so? What a good teaching opportunity that could be!"

That is not what Dr. Bean asked the T.A.s to do. He instructed them to present the article as factually true. Since T.A.s are not allowed to contradict their professors, this put them in a very bad position. This is not about keeping unpleasant things away from students, but rather about the T.A.'s right to academic integrity.

Avery Beagle - 4/29/2005

I know the T.A.s personally and have seen Dr. Bean's written instructions to them. (If you would like, I can ask for their permission to replicate it here.)

Their position is relevant to your argument about this issue, because there is no evidence that Dr. Bean's colleagues have tried to smear or defame him, merely to support his T.A.s and explain the problems with the document to puzzled students. Their support of the T.A.s may have been awkward, but why read it as an attack on Dr. Bean?

As for Dr. Bean's sophistication as a historian, he is of course quite accomplished. But he at no time offered the T.A.s that option, and they are under stern instruction not to contradict their professors. He says it was a blunder, and I don't see any reason not to believe him.

By the same token, I'm quite willing to believe that the professors were simply trying to support the T.A.s. It would be nice if the news stories in this case would report facts, rather than repeat assertions about supposed hidden agendas.

Sherman Jay Dorn - 4/29/2005

I'm going to assume for the moment that you are absolutely correct in your factual claims here about the instructions to the TAs.

Was the only option of the administration to attack Dean and remove his TA support? A much more constructive response would have been to void the "teach this as literal truth" instruction and open up discussion within sections. Instead of modeling restraint and judgment, the chair, other history faculty, and the dean modeled suppression as the logical response to bad speech. Was this the best support for graduate students, who will have to cope with a world with differing opinions, and even the occasional blatant racist comment by Big-Name Faculty?

And how would you recommend mentoring a graduate student to Speak Truth to Power in an academic context, if the first response is to censor?

Sherman Jay Dorn - 4/29/2005

Since T.A.s are not allowed to contradict their professors, this put them in a very bad position.

Let me get this right—even if that is true, the solution is to suppress speech instead of giving the TA's the opportunity to model dissent?

David Timothy Beito - 4/28/2005

Let's assume that Beagle is right. How does he/she explain the very clear statements by faculty critics of Bean stating that they objected to the assignment of the the article *as such.* The critics do not provide any qualifications to these objections or even mention the t.a. allegation. Were his critics misquoted? Did they support his right to assign the article?

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 4/28/2005

What Ralph said. Without access to Beagle's inside information, it looks from the outside like a carefully orchestrated witch hunt...and like Ralph, I have a hard time picturing *any* professor forbidding his TAs to teach students how to interrogate a source like Zebra. (Most professors, in my experience, want TAs to stick to the syllabus, but how they choose to do that is up to them.) Until Beagle can supply the inside info, I stand by my earlier remarks.

John H. Lederer - 4/28/2005

I have to concur that I am a bit lost too. Are there significant factual inaccuracies?

I am also a bit lost about the EAIF -- they seem noxious fellows-- but I think the article only mentions that they intend to appear at the parole hearing. Apparently the excision of the paragraph mentioning this, for the asserted reason to make the article fit the page, is part of the attack on Bean.


Is Bean being attacked:

1. For distributing the article, even though true.
2. For distributing the article which is not true and forcelosing an opportunity to assert otherwise?
3. For removing the statement that the EAIF will appear at the parole hearing?
4. For something else that I am just missing?

John H. Lederer - 4/28/2005

I have to concur that I am a bit lost too. Are there significant factual inaccuracies?

I am also a bit lost about the EAIF -- they seem noxious fellows-- but I think the article only mentions that they intend to appear at the parole hearing. Apparently the excision of the paragraph mentioning this, for the asserted reason to make the article fit the page, is part of the attack on Bean.


Is Bean being attacked:

1. For distributing the article, even though true.
2. For distributing the article which is not true and forcelosing an opportunity to assert otherwise?
3. For removing the statement that the EAIF will appear at the parole hearing?
4. For something else that I am just missing?

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

I reserve further comment on this. There is considerable evidence from the student newspaper article and the community newspaper article that Professor Bean is under siege about this matter. How can that be, if as Avery Beagle claims, no one has intended to put him on the defensive about this matter?

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

It would be helpful if "Avery Beagle" told us what insider position gives "Avery Beagle" privileged information about what Professor Bean said to his T.A.'s. No one here has been critical of the T.A's. I have been critical of Professor Bean's colleagues who inappropriately used a student/public venue to voice their criticism of his choice of readings. Bean is a sufficiently sophisticated historian that I can't imagine he'd be unwilling to have students interrogate a source for "lies" or even a tendentious construing of accurate information.

Robert KC Johnson - 4/28/2005

I am not an expert on the specific subject referred to in this article, and so I have a question to those who are: is the piece factually inaccurate? It seems from the general commentary that the piece is essentially accurate, though opinioniated.

As to the positions of the TAs, from the articles on the case, it seems as if this piece was part of a packet of optional readings? If so, I can't see how anyone would be required to teach it, much less read it.

I also went to the SIU website http://www.siu.edu/departments/cola/histsiu/public_html/facultyinfo.html
and noticed that none of Bean's critics post any of their reading lists or course materials on the web. If they're willing to publicly criticize a colleague for his assignments, it might be useful to see the sort of things that they assign in the classroom.

Louis N Proyect - 4/28/2005

I wasn't aware that Kuznicki was an African-American name. Were your great-great-grandparents enslaved by Polish cotton plantation owners?

Jason Kuznicki - 4/28/2005

If someone hung a confederate flag in his window with the slogan "Niggers go home," I would reply with a flag in my own window. It would be a confederate one, followed by an equals sign and the giant word "LOSERS."

The way to fight obnoxious speech is with a better speech of your own. And it's a very good thing that we give all such speech a fighting chance in this country.

Louis N Proyect - 4/28/2005

To Beito: David Horowitz is also "for" Ward Churchill's right to teach, but that is no proof that he is not leading a McCarthyite crusade. This is what they call a fig-leaf.

To Luker: A banner stating "Workers of the World Unite" has about the same significance as a banner stating "Socialism is a threat to freedom". Nobody could possibly get upset by that, least of all socialists. The Confederate flag, on the other hand, has the same meaning for Black students as a Swastika has for Jewish students (or a banner stating "Hitler was right").

Sorry that this is lost on you.

David Timothy Beito - 4/28/2005

I have also defended Ward Churchill, sponsored a successful resolution to defend a gay artist at Shelton State. and attacked Horowitz's Bill of Rights. Are you also "offended" by my stands on those issue? Some of us don't see the entire world in black and white, "us" and "them," terms. You apparently do.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 4/28/2005

Teaching about race in America is very, very difficult. Reading stories like this and the comments appended to it make one see why.

I've just read this article, and while I think the quality of the FrontPageMag article is pretty poor (um, does Horowitz have copy editors? "The racist cult of Yahweh-ben-Yahweh began systematically killing whites in the same manor as the Death Angels" manor? manner?), it is an interesting and provocative piece to use when starting a conversation in your classroom about race. I could see using it as both a way of talking about lynching (this piece paired with something by Ida Wells-Barnett would be truly interesting) and as a way of talking about why some white people feel the need to claim victimhood for their "race." In other words, while this article is controversial, the classroom discussion it can elicit when placed contextually and discussed in a nuanced fashion, could truly be valuable. So, Mr. Proyect, please calm down. Jonathan Bean should be able to decide what material to use in his classroom without intimidation from the administration.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

If a student hangs a sign out that says "Workers of the World, Unite!" must the university take action?

Louis N Proyect - 4/28/2005

What does hanging a Confederate flag from a dormitory window have to do with freedom of speech? If a student hung a sign out their window with the words "Niggers go back to Africa", the school *must* take action. A campus is not Hyde Park, after all.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

You wouldn't want to have freedom of speech on campus, would you?

Louis N Proyect - 4/28/2005

I am pitifully myopic? Sorry. I don't have any use for college professors who agitate for the right to fly the Confederacy flag out of dormitory windows. They are a disgrace to their profession.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

All truth resides on the hard Left, right? You are pitifully myopic.

Louis N Proyect - 4/28/2005

It is hard for me to take David Beito's testimony seriously since he belongs to the Alabama Scholars Association, an outfit that supports the right of students to hang the Confederate flag from their windows.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

You'll have some difficulty getting your tongue out of your cheek.

David Timothy Beito - 4/28/2005

Have you read about Bean's record as a teacher and as a scholar? I know from personal experience that he assigns a wide range of readings is very liked by some of the most pro-civil rights leftwing colleagues as/ SIU. His book on the Small Business administration is full of solid research and the farthest thing from a rightwing screed. A witchhunt is underway, pure and simple.

Speaking for myself, I have often assigned "hot button" articles (ranging from Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet" to Charles Baird's articles attacking unions as anti-black). Perhaps I am too influenced by my old leftwing professors at UW Madison who believed that a university should be about discussing controversial ideas, rather than cater to the lowest common denominator of the easily offended.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

Exposed for what? For not sharing your ideological assumptions? You are the embodiment of left-wing intolerance.

John H. Lederer - 4/28/2005

Do you think that just putting it in context is enough? Seems to me that history is inherently filled with hate speech and insult and offense to minority groups.

I wonder whether putting it in context is sufficient or whether we we should squarely come to the grips with the problem and realize that history simply has no place at the modern university. Its actuality, after all, is about as politically incorrect as one could get. Sure palliative steps can be taken--airbrushing out the confederate flags from a painting of the surrender at Appommatox Courthouse in a textbook, and that sort of thing-- but these are just window dressing.


The reality is that history is unsuitable for the modern university because the problems of intolerance, hate, and conflict are endemic in history itself. For instance, history is littered with wars--not to mention theocracies, McCarthyisms, and other proscribed things.

Seems to me this is something best pulled out at the roots by abolishing history itself.

Just a modest suggestion...

Louis N Proyect - 4/28/2005

I doubt that Bean assigned this article for the purposes of academic enlightenment. I can understand assigning students to read, for example, John Calhoun's "Slavery a Positive Good" in a class on the civil war. But by all appearances, Bean is a rightwing activist just like K.C. Johnson. He threw in an article about the Zebra killings because that is a hot button for the ideological right. Horowitz attached himself to the ultraright as a reaction to Black nationalist bloodlust. He published this item on the Zebra killings out of the same motivation. It is a cause celebre for the San Francisco based European American Issues Forum (EAIF). I will say this much. If fascism comes to the USA, it will be spearheaded by outfits such as the EAIF, which puts forward the same kind of racism as the "reformed" KKK. I don't think that Bean should be fired, but he should be mercilessly exposed.

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

Yes, of course. Wouldn't it be possible to examine an article like that from Front Page Rag _for_ its biases _and_ for enticing students to learn more about its subject in order to do so? What a good teaching opportunity that could be! The notion that we are not to expose students to offensive material is just pitiful -- and even more so on pedagogical than on ideological grounds.

Jonathan Dresner - 4/28/2005

I'm struck, even reading the FPR version of events, by two things: first, the Dean's reaction -- cancelling discussions, etc -- is absurdly over the top, unless there were evidence of an ongoing pattern of harrassment and bias and if I were a student in one of those classes (or a parent of a student) I'd be sending letters about reimbursement and tuition credits, with copies to the family lawyer. Second, the member of the "committee" who said that controversial issues needed to be properly contextualized should have his license to practice logic publicly revoked for failing to find out what context the article was being used in before joining the smear campaign.

As historians we use flawed sources all the time. If I go through the sourcebooks I use, I bet I could find a whole bunch of actual historical sources that I assign, not even optionally, that are fundamentally offensive to some or even most of my students, colleagues and contemporaries. It's all about context.

Grant W Jones - 4/28/2005

Well, I just like to call things by there proper names. I have some choice words to describe the SIU Thought Police, which I didn't even use. How civil of me, no? :-)

Ralph E. Luker - 4/28/2005

Thanks, Grant, for this offering of the David Horowitz name-calling version of the story.

Grant W Jones - 4/28/2005

What, exactly, does Professor Bean have to apologize for?

If Kay J. Carr, Germaine Etienne, Robbie Lieberman, Mary McGuire, Rachel Stocking and Natasha Zaretsky want to form an ad hoc organization to further their cause of Sensitivity Uber Alles, they should call it "Fascists For Free Speech, However."

Sherman Jay Dorn - 4/28/2005

Of course, there's the Daily Egyptian story's note that Bean is receiving support from a bunch of people, including the ACLU and several colleagues with very different politics.... Ugly incident, but fortunately not from a monolithic campus culture.