The following essay, written by AAUP President Cary Nelson, appeared in Inside Higher Ed on April 2, 2009.
Over 40 years ago, when I was still an undergraduate at Antioch College, the student government sent out a large number of letters to controversial or accomplished Americans and invited them to talk on campus. One who accepted was George Lincoln Rockwell, head of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell asked if he could bring 20 of his storm troopers with him, but permission was refused. So he asked if he could hold a news conference on campus; that request was turned down as well. He would be picked up at the airport, driven to the Yellow Springs, Ohio, campus to give his talk, and returned.
Although Antioch may not be anyone's image of a disciplined campus, the 500 students and faculty in the auditorium that day in 1964 were well disciplined indeed. They sat in absolute silence throughout the talk. When the question period came, no one raised a hand. Instead, everyone rose and exited, again in silence. So Rockwell began to curse us all. Still no one reacted. Eventually he gave up and left.
There was, quite understandably, no anxiety before or afterward that these impressionable college students might be persuaded by the talk. It was a chance to see firsthand a monster with a constituency, albeit a relatively small one. College audiences have special reason to see such people in the flesh, so as to try to understand how they might draw people to their cause. Monsters, as it happens, also have a way of showing their true colors, as Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did at Columbia University. His ludicrous assertion that there are no homosexuals in Iran did more to discredit him as a competent leader than almost anything one might say about him.
The notion of a monster with a constituency affords at least some opportunity to avoid emptying all prison systems and hospitals for the criminally insane in search of campus speakers. It suggests instead that students who want to understand their culture might benefit from exposure to both its angels and its devils, along with those not so readily classifiable. What one learns can be surprising. What I learned in 1964 was to value the power of silent, nonviolent witness; that, and the special experience of sharing a moral conviction with hundreds of other people.
Of course some whom the public come to consider monstrous may not be so. The media and political groups can combine forces to create monsters where none are to be found. Then it is best for students and faculty to find out for themselves. High on my list of current faux monsters would be Ward Churchill and William Ayers.
Many faculty and students across the country expect Churchill to be a relentless ideologue. If you spend time with him, as I have, you meet a rather low-key, affable fellow, who wears his trials surprisingly lightly. Ayers, billed as an unrepentant radical, is an accomplished education professor who talks about classrooms and books, not bombs. Yet talks by both have repeatedly been canceled, thereby denying our students the chance to form opinions based on direct experience.
The American Association of University Professors has repeatedly argued that an invitation is not an endorsement. So far as I remember, no one was silly enough to make the counter claim about the Rockwell invitation. Nor was it necessary for Columbia's president Bollinger to go to such embarrassing lengths to distance himself from Ahmadinejad. No one thought Columbia was promoting him for the Nobel Peace prize.
But then efforts to get an invited speaker disinvited are not necessarily really based on anger at giving the person a platform, especially since real monsters often acquit themselves poorly on stage. They are as much as anything else efforts to housebreak American higher education, to establish external forces and constituencies as campus powers. They are about establishing who is really in charge -- students and faculty, or politicians, talk show radio hosts, and donors. Get a university to cancel Churchill or Ayers and anyone on the political or cultural spectrum whose views you oppose can be your next target. Once Hamilton College canceled Churchill and the University of Nebraska canceled Ayers, the playing field was open to all comers. Then state legislators could pressure the University of Oklahoma to cancel a talk by biologist Richard Dawkins. Why? Because the man treats evolution as an established fact. Oklahoma stood its ground, perhaps realizing it would be shamed for generations had it canceled the talk.
The most unwelcome trigger may be a donor¹s threat to withdraw a gift. No administrator likes to knuckle under to extortion. But that is not the most efficient way to get a speech canceled in any case. The new weapon of choice is the anonymous threat of violence delivered by a phone call from a public booth. Then the president or his spokesperson can cancel a speech in a voice filled with regret, ceremoniously invoking "security" concerns, as Boston College did in canceling an Ayers talk. It is the ultimate heckler's veto. Place a call and you are in charge. Better yet, call the threat in to a talk show host and give his hate campaign a newspaper headline.
We either must stand firm against these efforts to undermine the integrity of our educational institutions or agree that academic freedom no longer obtains in America. Boston College tried lamely to say the decision was purely an internal matter, but press coverage appropriately turns each of these incidents into a national test of an institution's values and commitments. Each institution's decision about whether to show courage or cowardice helps set a pattern, strengthening or weakening academic freedom everywhere. Thus we all benefited when Pennsylvania's Millersville University resisted legislative pressure and held an Ayers lecture as planned.
And we are all diminished by Boston College's incoherent performance. Because the consequences of these decisions are considerable, the campus as a whole must bear the cost of assuring that invitations are not withdrawn. If a threat requires extra security, let the campus itself -- not the students or faculty who issued the invitation -- cover the cost. That is the price of retaining academic freedom for a free society.
© Copyright 2009 Inside Higher Ed.
This essay was sent to over 350,000 faculty members across the country. Read a sample of readers' comments.
Please convey my congratulations to President Nelson on this outstanding and important statement.
Kenneth J. Arrow
Stanford University
Nice article. Few administrators understand First Amendment issues, I have learned through the years.
David Demers
Washington State University
This is all true and should be said, but the larger problem is not that there are not enough liberal speakers on college campuses. The larger problem is access of legitimate (not fringe) conservative speakers to college campuses. When these speakers are shouted down, the protests from faculty are far milder, if they occur at all. One suspects that if the faculty is sympathetic to a speaker's politics, they are sympathetic to his or her right to be heard. The larger problem of course is students' access to those who do not have political views with which the faculty is already sympathetic and to an extent already promulgating.
Let's expect even stronger emails from AAUP when conservative speakers are trashed, interrupted, or their engagements are refused.
RW Steiner
University of California, San Diego
Nice essay, but I would have been even more moved if you had mentioned some of the many less monstrous right-wing speakers who have been hooted off campus by the intolerance of the left. Ayers and Churchill have a right to speak and to be heard, but so do Fox Network commentators, Bush administration officials, and pro-life speakers. Incivility by both extremes is equally offensive.
Richard Kania
Jacksonville State University
I'm in basic agreement with the idea that a university should be open to alternative views on any subject. That said, your description of Ward Churchill as low keyed and affable (I think a lot of serial killers have been described that way by their neighbors) does not make those who see him as a relentless ideologue wrong. He is precisely that: a relentless ideologue. And that's his only coin. What has he to offer a university audience? People go to zoos expecting to see exotic and unfamilar animals. They enjoy it. I know I do. I suppose some people may want to hear a Churchill talk just as others may want to hear a hyena laugh. Both may be exotic and unfamilar. But there's really nothing intellectually interesting about either, is there? He has had more opportunities to make his case than most academics. What has he said that interests you? His ideas, as we have come to know them (and as he has been bent on presenting them), e.g., "victims of 9/11 are little Eichmanns" are meant to draw the kinds of responses he received. That's his 15 minutes of fame. He may have the right to say that, but why would that be reason to invite him to the university? There are tons of thoughtful critics on political issues from whom students can learn. What does Churchill add? He seems like a jackass, affable or not.
Fred Gottheil
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
To say that Ayers is a "faux" monster is ludicrous to say the least.
He is responsible for bombings, of which he is unrepentant, and is a confirmed left wing radical albeit a "distinguished professor of education." Heaven help our future teachers and students.
Of course that does not bother the AAUP which is blatantly leftist and, therefore, does not truly represent all of their members.
Your email letter is disingenuous. It is obvious that Ayers and Churchill are being supported as speakers because they speak to your leftist agenda.
Believe it or not, not all faculty members are leftist. Some of us adhere to conservative beliefs and know that by inviting someone to speak you ARE giving them a podium and acknowledging them as credible.
Paula Storm
Eastern Michigan University
I had a similar experience in my freshman year at Berkeley. It was either George Lincoln Rockwell or some candidate from the National States' Rights Party who came to campus in spring 1964, gave a talk, and was pretty much ignored. That year we had speakers from all parts of the political spectrum. The tolerance for listening to ideas [however bizarre] and nonviolent witness was alive and thriving, the year before the Free Speech Movement.
Richard Luthy
Stanford University
I will not prolong this with extensive verbiage. I love the first amendment. It guarantees that you can NOT be thrown in jail for voicing your thoughts, however idiotic or vile they may be. Universities funded by taxpayers (which includes many of the "privates") have a right to invite or disinvite any speakers. Taxpayers are within their rights voicing displeasure when the university invites certain speakers they deem less than savory. Donors are also well within their rights to use the threat of pulling cash to dissuade certain invitations.
If you view terrorists like William Ayers (who blew up buildings, just for grins) and insulting plagiarizing jerks like Churchill as innocuous, that is your right. I will agree to disagree with you. If our university ever entertains the thought of inviting them to speak, I will organize my own protest. That is MY right.
Doug Barrett
University of North Alabama
You did not mention the most famous 2009 example of a pressure group trying to disinvite a speaker: the campaign by the neoconservatives for Notre Dame University to disinvite President Barack Obama (hardly a monster) from giving a commencement address because of his presumed stand on abortion rights. More than 25,000 Catholics have risen to the defense of Notre Dame, and I think the speech will be delivered. But I think AAUP should be heard on this issue.
Robert S. Yeats
Oregon State University
While academic freedom must be sacred, students would be better served by hearing true scholars in various fields rather than controversial ideologues. Ayers and Churchhill are definitely not true scholars. Anyone can say something controversial and thereby get invited to talk at various universities, because the people who do the inviting focus more on getting someone controversial than a true umbiased scholar. The fault lies more with those who invite the ideologues.
C. William Blewett
Northern Kentucky University
You raise many good points. As one of the perceptibly few conservative university faculty members in the nation I support academic freedom. I have issues with paying speakers who are from the extreme left and right.
For universities to be true to the premiss of academic freedom they must invite speakers from 'both sides' during the academic year. A balanced representation of the issues provides opportunities for our students to use critical thinking skills to evaluate the issues of the 21st century.
Bill Folger
Salisbury University
As a member, it's nice to hear a defense of free speech for controversial speakers. One wonders, however, why President Nelson has never seen fit to bemoan the violence exhibited by many campus left wingers against speakers to their right when they appear on campus. Unlike Mr. Nelson's "faux monster" Mr. Churchill, the David Horowitzes and Pat Buchanans, have never lied about their ethnicity to get jobs in academia their qualifications did not merit. Unlike Mr. Nelson's "faux monster" Bill Ayers, the Bill Kristols and Ann Coulters have never done the "despicable things," as President Obama called them so accurately in Debate #3, of resorting to violence that on more than occasion nearly took dozens if not hundreds of lives. But unfortunately, we have yet to hear any pleas for free speech on campus from either Mr. Nelson or any AAUP official for any lawabiding citizen who may so much as question a single post, even an inaccurate one, on a MoveOn.com blog.
To be frank, I'm a centrist, albeit a Republican, who would never vote for any of the souls I've listed. Still, I find the silence of my union, the AAUP, in defense of the rights to speak of those who dissent from the generally left-leaning campus median consensus no less than absolutely and utterly shameful. Remember, those I've cited were not merely ruled too controversial but hit with pies and other debris from those students who lacked the elementary sense of civility Mr. Nelson says was so prevalent at Antioch for the far more dangerous George Lincoln Rockwell in the 1960s. Just once I'd like to see a defense of the rights to speak of those other than the looniest elements of the academic left or those unlike Mr. Ayers who have never resorted to cowardly acts of violence to get their way or even then, have had the minimal decency to apologize for what one of his well-placed friends - the President - called "despicable" acts. Perhaps Mr. Nelson might even ask Mr. Ayers to renounce violence, even terrorism, or just be honest enough to apologize for it at their next tete-a-tete.
What I'm merely asking is that the union I've paid dues to for more than 20 years end a double standard that's plagued its publications for many if not all of them. Let me suggest this. Perhaps the AAUP should stand up for President Barack Obama being allowed this spring to give the commencement address at Notre Dame as several other presidents have over the past generation. But perhaps, and this will happen soon, the next time a campus speaker to the President's right is met with similar protests, the AAUP should stand up for the rights of that speaker against the critics who have challenged the choice of the commencement speaker selection committees. The principled thing would be for the AAUP to do both. I have no doubt that the AAUP will stand up for the academic freedom of President Obama, who a majority of our members supported. The question is if the AAUP has enough of a principled belief in free speech to make as a practice the same defense of the right to free speech of those of us in the minority of academia. I make that challenge and and I'd appreciate the courtesy of a reply.
Lee Annis
Montgomery College
This important message has rarely been delivered more clearly. Bravo.
Lawrence Wilkerson
College of William and Mary and the George Washington University
The President of AAUP argues dispassionately about an inviting a university speaker whose hateful rhetoric had no demonstrable emotional or physical impact on the community or the audience. Those of us who are academics and clinicians have to help the victims of domestic terrorism heal from the trauma of witnessing carnage and death. We are the faculty, who support the survivors of random acts of politically inspired violence to lead full and productive lives in spite of horrific disabilities and emotional scars. I would hope that compassion for the survivors would preclude a university from inviting either the perpetrators or the ideologues who fermented the act of violence that traumatized the community in which the university is situated. As a nurse, an academic and an alumnus of Boston College I believe we have a moral duty to the survivors to not give a platform to those who caused our community irrefutable hurt and anguish. To me, human decency and sensitivity to our community, trumps any false pretense about limiting academic freedom.
Judith Shindul-Rothschild
Associate Professor in the William F. Connell School of Nursing at Boston College
I disagree with your assertion that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a monster. Furthermore using such language only serves to drive deeper a wedge between the Iranian and American peoples.
Do you think Iranian characterizations of George Bush and Dick Cheney as monsters would help enhance communication between our peoples?
Peter Hansen
University of Iowa
Although I am in total agreement with hearing both sides of any contentious issue, I find it disturbing that when conservatives are invited to speak at many colleges and universities there are massive faculty resentment and universal agreement that they should not be invited. I thought education of our students to mean that there is almost always two sides to every issue, so why not give it to them and let them decide for themselves, instead of having faculty take sides and tell them what they believe and what students should believe?
Ron Pilenzo
Hobe Sound, FL
I am appalled at the one-sidedness of this essay. It is largely a smokescreen, hiding from readers the basic problem universities face today when it comes to academic freedom, namely the problem of censorship by omission. Universities like Cornell--my own university--have become very narrow-gauge institutions. We rarely hire faculty in the humanities and the social sciences with the "wrong" viewpoints on socially and politically contested issues. We largely fail to expose students to the great formative ideas and values that have shaped our culture and are still widely espoused by most Americans today. Even though more than 80% of Americans do ethics within a broadly religious (mainly Christian) framework, Cornell offers no courses in normative Christian ethics but in effect says to students: "Either study ethics in the way a small minority of secular philosophers do ethics or else study ethics on your own." And the so-called diversity programs on campus (women's studies, African American studies, gay studies, etc.) are the worst of all. They rarely if ever hire faculty who are not liberal to left wing in their views or invite speakers to campus who represent positions that are not considered politically correct.
So please do not confuse the real issue of academic freedom. There is today only minimal academic freedom at most universities today when it comes to traditional, conservative, Christian, and other points of view, i.e. views that are not currently in fashion among academic elites. This is because we make no sustained effort to hire faculty who hold such views. We justify our inaction by claiming that it is unjust to pay attention to the beliefs and values of individual applicants or deliberately to seek out individuals who espouse positions that are underrepresented among faculty members. We claim that refusing to consider such factors is to be objective and non-discriminatory. Unfortunately, the educational outcome is just the opposite and denies students the opportunity to really understand who we are as Americans. At Harvard there is one Harvey Mansfield, at Princeton one Robert George, at Cornell there was one Jeremy Rabkin. From a classical liberal point of view, all of this is simply disgraceful, and results in universities that indoctrinate rather than educate.
Churchill was fired and is not a suitable speaker because he lied about his credentials and plagiarized other people's work. He is an academic fraud. Ayers abuses the public trust by trying through his students to turn public schools into left-wing political indoctrination centers. Certainly he is no liberal in the classical sense. So please start addressing the real issue of academic freedom and censorship, namely widespread censorship by omission throughout entire institutions. The Churchill-Ayers problem you focus on is simply a sideshow that permits people who defend these individuals to feel good about their "liberal" commitment to academic freedom. But if they were truly liberal and genuinely committed to academic freedom they would address the far more basic intolerance of universities to views that are not politically correct and the misleading claims of faculty and administrators who limit diversity to diversity of race, ethnicity, and gender.
The censorship by omission I describe--particularly with respect to Christian and to socially and politically conservative ideas, beliefs, and values--increasingly destroys the integrity of the university itself and also denies society the benefit of genuine debate of important controversial social and political issues. In many publicly funded universities (and it's important to remember that all colleges and universities are tax-exempt institutions), what we find in effect are tax-supported outposts of the liberal, left wing of the Democratic party. At least this is true of more than a few departments within the humanities and the social sciences. Such a situation is politically disgraceful, but perhaps even worse, it is intellectually stultifying and just plain boring, for it undercuts the joy and excitement of spirited academic debate about what it means to be human and to live justly and responsibly in a democratic and pluralistic society.
Richard A. Baer, Jr.
Cornell University
I am from the former Soviet Union. I recall the following episode:
It was in about 1989. A patriotic-antisemitic organization "Pamyat" (Memory) was very loud, controversial, and official. There was a movement in our university to invite their leader. They made an open meeting to make a decision about invitation. One of the older guys told the audience a joke: "On one of small islands somewhere in the ocean there was a natural disaster and the land was devastated... On a meeting of survivors someone suggested that in order to feed the people they should declare war against the Soviet Union. "They will certainly win, take over our island, and ... feed us." Someone was concerned: "What if we win?"
The story with a Nazi leader is great, but I do not think that the audience in Moscow would have been so disciplined if they called that guy...
Eugene Surdutovich
Oakland University
Ward Churchill is no monster! He's just an often encountered type of academic who doesn't really understand cause and effect. Before his famous article was unearthed, he was a relatively obscure scholar and professor, known only to his community of scholars and students here at the University of Colorado. At that point in history there were no consequences to his article, other than the private responses of those who who read it. Once the article became available to wider communities, Churchill became a "public" person. He was then noticed by some members of his community of scholars, who took exception to his research practices. Regardless of the intemperate remarks uttered by various political and academic officials in Colorado, the University was obligated by law and policy to assess the allegations of research misconduct received from members of Churchill's community of scholars. The faculty committee responsible for the assessment could not have been insensitive to the free speech issues involved. Its focus was on the allegations of unethical research practices.
We have the right to free speech, but must recognize that there can be unanticipated consequences from the impact of what we write or utter. One must take responsibility for dealing with those consequences! Churchill never did that. He is "...able to wear his trials surprisingly lightly." because he has been unwilling to accept the effects (becoming noticed as a "public" person) arising from the cause (his article).
There are some on this campus who see the Churchill affair through the prism of academic freedom and free speech. However, I believe that their fears are misplaced. Our academic community is obliged to discover and sanction unethical research practices by the few of our colleagues who chose to operate beyond the accepted traditions of scholarship in their particular disciplines.
David R. Kassoy
University of Colorado, Boulder
Thank you for your recent article “Monsters with Constituencies”. I could not agree with you more. As an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro during the mid-1960’s, I had the opportunity to attend a performance on campus of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” by the National Repertory Theater. Miller himself was to have spoken, but was uninvited. The opportunity to hear Miller speak about his work was denied by the NC Legislature, which had passed what became known as the “gag law”, a measure designed to limit the exposure of students in the NC system to persons the legislature clearly felt would be a threat to our values. Fortunately, the gag law was repealed the next legislative session, but not before the university system had sold short the integrity and acumen of its students. At the forefront of the hubbub, supporting the legislation and condemning NC’s college campuses, especially Chapel Hill, as hotbeds of communist activity was Jesse Helms, then a journalist and commentator for WRAL in Raleigh, NC. As you may guess, I have strong feelings about the experience (and the late Sen. Helms), even today. I clearly remember being insulted by the presumption that as a college student I was going to be sucked into communism by Miller’s mere presence.
Sadly, it appears that the politics of fear is still with us.
Elizabeth Dull
High Point University
I thought this was a well argued discussion of monsters, and I especially liked the account by Rockwell listened to in complete silence. Most of the time, monsters reveal themselves for what they are, but how are students to judge when the person comes across literate, in command of more data than the audience can normally access, and persuasive of a viewpoint that is historically fallacious but emotionally charged? I saw Noam Chomsky at Harvard accusing Israel of “acts of aggression and undue violence” against the Palestinians and getting a groundswell of sympathy from the audience. Some of it cleared when someone asked a question “What about the reason for the attack on Gaza? Rather than aggression, the Israeli communities in southern Israel had been under rocket bombardment for months on end, destroying their homes, traumatizing the women and children? What country would put up with such attacks on its citizens without retaliation?” Chomsky’s ploy, time after time, was to humiliate or belittle the questioner. By getting a cheap laugh at his/her expense he didn’t bother to even answer the points raised. Alan Dershowitz has said that he has offered to debate Chomsky for 30 years, and he has always refused. My fear about monsters is not about the ones who show themselves for what they are, but the wolves in diplomats’ or academics’ clothing.
Barbara Barry
Lynn University
The "editorial" (above) by AAUP President Cary Nelson was sent to me, so I suppose an observation or two might be in permitted in the spirit of "academic freedom".
Nelson's comments appear to be a defense of an aspect of "academic freedom", that is, a defense of intramural groups' right to permit supposedly unpopular views (such as those of Ward Churchill) to be aired. I say "supposedly" because it is not clear that radical perspectives and polemics are a rarity on today's campuses (both inside and outside of the classroom). To support academic freedom, it appears that "monsters" and "faux monsters" are particularly deserving of a platform within academe. Why? Because, according to Nelson, "monsters" will expose themselves for what they are and "faux monsters" will be seen to be unfairly designated as "monsters". This sounds vaguely rehabilitative or therapeutic rather than something that has an academic purpose.
Nelson uses a timeless rhetorical technique: the straw man. Case in point: I don't know who called Ward Churchill a "monster", but I am aware that a very detailed investigation by his colleagues found that he violated nearly universal academic standards. How? By plagiarizing material, and by using the names of (living) others as independent sources for some of his articles when, in fact, he used pseudonyms for the very same articles that he actually authored. According to the faculty investigation, he cited as fact that the United States Army deliberately spread smallpox among Native Americans in order to wipe them out. In other words, the Army engaged in genocide, as a matter of policy. No historical substantiation for Churchill's incendiary "facts" could be found. The investigation found that his "facts" were fabrications. I don't know whether that makes Churchill a monster, but Nelson's finding him to be "affable" does not excuse his behavior. It appears that Ward Churchill brought his "trials" upon himself. When one invites someone like Churchill to a college or university, one assumes that the invitation has some relevance to the general educational mission of the educational organization. In what way can Churchill contribute to the mission? In any case, Churchill does not lack a constituency or people who admire him as Nelson apparently does (perhaps only for his affability).
I use the controversy surrounding Churchill only as a case in point (as does Nelson). Should the matter of invitations be a free-for-all, or are there serious criteria that can guide the selection of speakers? I agree that "controversial" speakers deserve to be heard, but not merely because they are controversial. One might ask, "In what way can 'X' contribute to the educational mission of a particular academic setting?" Nelson offers an instance of a presumably instructive negative example, when George Lincoln Rockwell appeared at Antioch. However, Nelson's account suggests that the audience knew Rockwell for the monster that he was and therefore asked no questions and left the auditorium silently. What was learned? Does that mean that the student government at Antioch invited Rockwell so that members of the academic community could protest in silence? I would hope that there was a better reason --one that was not stated by Nelson.
Nelson states that students should be allowed to form opinions through direct experience, but her account of the Rockwell appearance suggests that opinions had been formed in advance. Apparently, Nelson believes that the main purpose of speakers in academic settings is to permit students to form opinions through direct experience, that is, by listening to, and looking at, the speakers. If the speaker appears to be affable, does that make what he is saying less "monstrous"? Would an affable style make what he says more acceptable? Are the students "direct" experience of the speaker a matter of appearance? A function of style? Of substance? If it is of substance, what are the criteria that are employed by listeners to judge the substance? In other words, how should students form opinions? Should students form opinions in a way that is different from the general public? Should their opinions be informed by facts? Patrick Daniel Moynahan is frequently quoted as having said, ”Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to his own facts.” Does it matter whether a speaker's point of view is supported by facts? Does it matter whether a speaker's argument meets conventional tests of logic? Does it matter whether speaker has a proven history of lies and deceit?
Perhaps there are times when the significance of inviting particular speakers is something more than an opportunity for students to form opinions through direct experience. Perhaps certain speakers have intramural constituencies who want to support and air the viewpoints of those speakers, with the anticipation of attracting the "media".
Does the President of the AAUP believe there are any grounds for excluding any speaker?
Arden E. Melzer
University of Pittsburgh
I do appreciate your position on this matter. But where does personal responsibility come. William Ayers chose to do what he did. As a result his credibility has been destroyed. That is why we have ethical codes of conduct. Because of past behavior his current behavior and his future behavior will be questioned. People will not trust him. People believe he does not deserve a forum to express his views regardless of how noble they might now be. He may be an excellent educator but unfortunately his past behavior has tainted that.
I am not saying it is fair, I am not saying it is right. I am saying that, that is the way it is. What if I were a sex offender of young adult females. Would I be allowed to present on your campus or would I be prevented from doing so because of my past youthful transgressions? Just suck it up and stop whining.
Russell Orwig
Western Illinois University
I'm sorry that AAUP President Cary Nelson did not see fit to include Saint Mary's College of California among those institutions that refused to buckle under to unwarranted external pressures and rescind its invitation to Bill Ayers. His talks were brilliant, thoughtful, well informed--as one might expect from a sound scholar of his reputation--and he did an excellent job handling the negative publicity and pressures that surrounded his talk. Please let President Nelson know about this, since his scope does not appear to reach west of the Rockies.
Jerry Brunetti
Saint Mary's College of CA