What the above really means:Columbia University Faculty Action Committee Statement of Concern
We speak for a growing number of faculty members at Columbia
University who believe that President Bollinger has failed to make
a vigorous defense of the core principles on which the university is founded,
especially academic freedom. Academic freedom lies at the heart of what we do as faculty members: teach, generate new knowledge, and sustain the critical
capacities of the society at large. It encompasses, among other values, the
autonomy of the University in the face of outside threats and pressures, a
determining role for faculty in the governance of the University and especially
in the shaping of its research and teaching programs, the insulation of tenure
and promotion decisions from outside interests, and the creation of an
environment that enables the fullest and freest exchange of ideas. The events of
the past few years have created a crisis of confidence in the central
administration's willingness to defend these principles.
We note, in particular, the following issues:1) In the face of considerable efforts by outside groups over the past few years to vilify members of the faculty and determine how controversial issues are taught on campus, the administration has failed to make unequivocally clear that such interventions will not be tolerated. When outside groups attempted to sway tenure decisions, the President of Barnard issued a forthright statement rejecting such efforts; the President of Columbia has failed to do so.
2) Decisions on key issues like the "globalization" of the university,
the establishment of satellite campuses in other countries, the enlarged size of
the undergraduate student body, the reduction in the size of the graduate
student body, the hosting of controversial speakers, the relative diminution of
the humanities, and other issues at the heart of the university's mandate, are
made with no apparent consultation with faculty. We learn about these decisions
only when they are announced after the fact.
3) The president's address on the occasion of President
Ahmadinejad's visit has sullied the reputation of the University
with its strident tone, and has abetted a climate in which incendiary speech
prevails over open debate. The president's introductory remarks were not only
uncivil and bad pedagogy, they allied the University with the Bush
administration's war in Iraq, a position anathema to many in the University community.
4) In the name of the University, the president has publicly taken
partisan political positions concerning the politics of the Middle
East in particular, without apparent expertise in this area or
consultation with faculty who teach and undertake research in this area. His
conflation of his own political position with that of the University is
unacceptable.
We believe that the time has come for the faculty to reassert its
commitment to academic freedom and University autonomy, and for the President to make it clear that the administration will no longer compromise these principles or tolerate interference with them.
Signed:Nadia Abu El-Haj, Lila Abu-Lughod, Qais Al-Awqati, Paul Anderer, Mark
Anderson, Gil Anidjar, Zainab Bahrani, Akeel Bilgrami, Richard Billows, Elizabeth
Blackmar, Partha Chatterjee, Lewis Cole, Jonathan Cole, Elaine
Combs-Schilling, Susan Crane, Jonathan Crary, Julie Crawford, Hamid Dabashi, Patricia Dailey, Tom DiPrete, Brent Edwards, Eric Foner, Aaron Fox, Katherine Franke, Victoria de Grazia, Page Fortuna, Steven Gregory, William Harris, Andreas Huyssen, Rashid Khalidi, Alice Kessler-Harris, Marilyn Ivy, Brian Larkin, Lydia Liu, Sylvère Lotringer, Mahmood Mamdani, Peter Marcuse, Reinhold Martin, Mark Mazower, Mary McLeod, Brinkley Messick, Rosalind Morris, Keith Moxey, Frances Negron-Muntaner, Mae Ngai, Bob O'Meally, Neni Panourgia, John Pemberton, Richard Peña, Julie Peters, Pablo Piccato, Sheldon
Pollock, Elizabeth Povinelli, Wayne Proudfoot, Bruce Robbins, David Rosner, George Saliba, James Schamus, David Scott, Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, Mark Strand, Paul Strohm, Michael Taussig, Kendall
Thomas, Nadia Urbinati, Marc van de Mieroop, Karen van Dyck, Dorothea von Mücke, Gauri Viswanathan, Gwendolyn Wright
Academic freedom - The right to teach what we want with the biases we want. The Hell with balance.
University autonomy - The right to remain in our bubble, never facing reality and to remain detached from the world in which we are charged to prepare our students. That world remains unwantable by any "educated" person anyway.
Will no longer compromise these principles or tolerate interference with them - Dear Mr. president, Screw with us and you'll be forced from your cushy job with all of its perks and you'll be lucky to find work at Parsons, if it ever reopens. Love, your lofty minded peers
P.S. Ever mention Bush again, even when speaking of the landscape, and we will purse our tiny blue lips until the breath of our intellect is no more.
