Burning Professors: Resurrection Of A Witchhunt On Campuses

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
April 11, 2005

Burning Professors
Resurrection of a Witchhunt
By PHIL GASPE

There's been a whole series of attacks on left-wing academics across the whole country. The most prominent ones are the Middle Eastern Studies department at Columbia University in New York, which was attacked in a film made by a pro-Zionist group; Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado, who is being pilloried for his article written just after September 11; and other cases of harassment of left-wing or progressive faculty members.

Its not as if the universities are a radical hotbed--they're not. In fact, there's immense corporate influence on universities. But on many campuses, you'll still find people willing to put forward an alternative point of view or promote critical thinking about what's going on in this country. This is too much for the right to swallow. There's an attempt to intimidate not just these individuals, but to change the whole climate on campuses so that people will think twice before raising critical views.

There are a lot of parallels with the 1950s. Then, the enemy was communism and anyone critical of right-wing policies was branded communist. Now, the enemy is terrorism, so anyone who criticizes what the U.S. is doing in its foreign or domestic policy is attacked as pro-terrorist. I don't think we're yet on the scale of the 1950s, but that's where they want to get us to.

That's why it's so important to defend the people who have been attacked, no matter whether or not one agrees with the particular views they happen to hold. It's not so much what they've said or done as individuals--it's the fact that they represent some sort of critical voice that has a different view about policy in the Middle East or what the U.S. is doing at home.

http://www.counterpunch.org/gasper04112005.html

[bryant69]

1. This issue puts some of us in a difficult situation

Particularly if we disagree with what is said.

"Well I think that what Churchill said was preatty bad. I strongly disagree with it."

"So you agree that he should be reprimended and fired from his position?"

"Well, no, he has a right to express his point of view. Every American has that right, even if they use it in ways we don't agree with."

"So you support his anti-American Rhetoric?"

"Well I don't agree with it."

"SO you think he went to far and needs to be slammed down on?"

Repeat ad naseum.

Bryant
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