by proldic » Tue Aug 09, 2005 8:48 pm
What Kind of Stupid Does This Woman Think We Are?<br><br>My Milk-Out-the-Nose Moment <br> <br>Recently, The New York Times ran an article on a “scholar’s pedophilia essay” and the stir it has caused. <br>The chancellor of his university issued a statement in support of “the right to hold unpopular views”, and academics of several stripes have naturally chimed in with proclamations of the necessity of academic freedom. Considered with other similar cases of “unpopular views”, this incident helps us to see that contemporary claims for “academic freedom” simply reek with blatant hypocrisy.<br><br>“Scholar’s Pedophilia Essay Stirs Outrage and Revenge”, an article in the New York Times, Apr. 30. Dr. Harris Mirkin, chairman of the political science department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is now garnering attention for a publication several years old:<br><br>In the article, an 18-page essay with 38 footnotes published in the Journal of Homosexuality [Volume 37, Number 2, 1999], Dr. Mirkin argued that the notion of the innocent child was a social construct, that all intergenerational sex should not be lumped into one ugly pile and that the panic over pedophilia fit a pattern of public response to female sexuality and homosexuality, both of which were once considered deviant. “Though Americans consider intergenerational sex to be evil, it has been permissible or obligatory in many cultures and periods of history,” he wrote.<br><br>(Some times, some places, certain activities are “permissible or obligatory”. So what? Slavery, ritual female genital mutilation, human sacrifice, and exposing unwanted infants to the elements until they die: these have all been “permissible or obligatory”, some where, some time...)<br> <br>But Dr. Mirkin’s notion that our ideas about “intergenerational sex” ought to be more nuanced was not the cause of my Almost Milk-Up-The-Nose Moment.No. <br><br>If you haven’t seen coming the small-step-by-small-step approach to legitimizing pedophilia, you haven’t been paying attention.<br><br>No. Here is the sentence that caused my startled amusement:<br><br>The chancellor here, Martha W. Gilliland, issued a strong statement supporting “the right to hold unpopular views,” as did the president of the four-campus University of Missouri system.<br><br>I said to myself, What kind of stupid does this woman think we are? Generally speaking, academia is the last place in America that welcomes “unpopular” views.<br><br>Darned Near Every Academic in Missouri Speaks Out<br><br>UMKC Faculty Senate Report (covering meetings of Mar. 19, Apr. 2, and Apr. 4, 2002):<br><br>" Our professors have a right to conduct research, publish their findings and exercise free speech, just as they have an obligation to teaching and to serving the best interests of the community. Institutions of higher education have no less an obligation to defend those rights, even if we do not agree with the views being expressed. The integrity of our educational system and our democracy depend on it.<br><br>While I personally find statements attributed to Dr. Mirkin by the press to be offensive and highly insensitive to the magnitude of this critical issue, the conduct of legal and ethical academic research should not be subject to censorship by a university administration. Peer review and the court of public opinion determine the validity and acceptance of academic work.<br><br>The University of Missouri-Kansas City supports the fundamental principles of a free and open society. Among these principles are the right to independent thought, the right to criticize, and the right to hold unpopular views."<br><br>The report also presents the text of the resolution adoped by the “Faculty Senate”:<br><br>" We, the Faculty Senate of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, deplore the attempt of the Missouri House of Representatives to reduce funding to the University because of articles authored by Professor Harris Mirkin. Open and free exchange of ideas, even controversial ones, is a fundamental tenet of all universities. Affirming this principle, the University of Missouri Board of Curators has stated in its Collected Rules and Regulations (310.010): 'Institutions of higher education are established and maintained for the common good, which depends upon the free search for truth and its free expression. Academic freedom is essential for these purposes and applies to both teaching and research. Freedom in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth.' The same themes are reflected in UMKC’s core values which 'encourage free, honest and candid communication' and 'foster academic and intellectual freedom.' We strongly support Professor Mirkin’s right as a scholar to express his views and find reprehensible the attempt by the Missouri House of Representatives to stifle academic freedom."<br><br>Also, the “response” from University of Missouri president Manuel T. Pacheco:<br><br>"Thank you for sharing the resolution. It certainly is consistent with what the Chancellor and I are trying to convey. I have tried to make the distinction between personal views about the issues and the right and responsibility of faculty to conduct their research unfettered by political or unpopular considerations. Unfortunately, that distinction is not often made by legislators and many of the citizens of the state. It is difficult for many to understand that everything is always open to both discussion and research. Please thank your colleagues for their expressions of support for this basic tenet of academic freedom."<br><br>And — if I have not already driven you too precariously close to having your head bounce off the desk in front of you in mind-numbed stupor by quoting these items — a resolution adopted by the University of Missouri-Kansas City chapter of the American Association of University Professors:<br><br>" The official handbook of the American Association of University Professors, 'Policy Documents and Reports' (1995 edition) states: 'Freedom of thought and expression is essential to any institution of higher learning. Universities and colleges exist not only to transmit knowledge. Equally, they interpret, explore and expand that knowledge by testing the old and proposing the new... Views will be expressed that may seem to many wrong, distasteful, or offensive. Such is the nature of freedom to sift and winnow ideas' (p. 37). A University professor also possesses the right to freedom of speech as provided under the First Amendment.<br><br>We, the members of the AAUP Chapter of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, protest in the strongest possible terms public statements by certain members of the Missouri House of Representatives which attempt to censor and intimidate Professor Harris Mirkin, and the punitive vote by the House based on these statements severely reducing funding to the University. Such actions constitute a reprehensible attack on the principles of academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the integrity and probity of university faculty. They affect not only Professor Mirkin but all his colleagues at UMKC and all faculty in the University of Missouri system, at other Missouri schools, and throughout the U. S.<br><br>We urge that all those whose responsibility it is to protect academic freedom and freedom of speech, including Chancellor Gilliland, the Curators of the UM system, President Pacheco, and elected officials in and from the state of Missouri, join us by issuing strong public statements in defense of these principles."<br><br>Assuming you have stayed awake through all that, if you can read those without busting a gut laughing, you must have more fortitude than I do. They have no discernible connection to the reality of discourse in American higher education today.<br><br>Evidence for such an assertion is easy to find — so long as you do not confine your searching to mainstream venues such as The New York Times or CBS.<br><br>The ringing proclamations from academics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City ring hollow, if not hypocritical. Rather, they don’t ring at all with any resonance to the real world of academia in contemporary America.<br><br>I do not mean to pick on UMKC. I am sure, however, that various reports, and resolutions, and by-laws, and constitutions, of various faculty and student organizations at colleges and universities all across the country are replete with glowing praise of “academic freedom” and “the advancement of truth”, and with assertions that “everything is always open to both discussion and research”. All of which have little, or nothing, to do with what is really happening in political, social, religious, and moral discourse at their illustrious institutions — except to keep the truth from getting through, perhaps even to themselves...<br><br><br> <br> <p></p><i></i>
