5.
Silencing Internal Dissent
RECOMMENDATIONS:
All colleges should create policies to protect deans and chairs from punishment for speaking openly, and to ensure that collegiality and departmental politics are not a valid basis for tenure and promotion evaluations.
Governance:
Numerous professors, faculty chairs, and deans have lost their jobs for expressing criticism of campus policies and procedures. One essential aspect of academic freedom is to protect those who criticize a department or a university from retaliation.
(a) Boston University: in May 2003, Chancellor Silber forced the resignation of dean Brent Baker. After Baker quoted from Silber’s own book at a May 18 graduation ceremony ("Deans may lose their jobs and be undone precisely because they have done their jobs exceedingly well”), he was ordered to step down two months before his planned resignation. When Bill Lawson, chair of the film and television department, called Silber and allies a "cabal of misfits" at a faculty meeting, Lawson was also stripped of his position on orders from Provost Dennis Berkey and Silber’s friends, including H. Joachim Maitre (a former dean who resigned after plagiarizing part of a commencement speech). Silber’s allies in the department (including Maitre) have been appointed to a committee to revamp the introductory course, a committee that excludes the professors teaching it.
(Boston Globe, May 25, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, May 28, 2003)
(b) Brooklyn College: the City University of New York board overruled Brooklyn College officials and gave tenure to history professor K.C. Johnson. Johnson had been denied tenure because he was regarded as “uncollegial” after he criticized colleagues during a job search, including the chair who wrote that he wanted to interview "some women we can live with, who are not whiners from the word go or who need therapy as much as they need a job."
Susan O'Malley, chair of the CUNY faculty senate, opposed the decision: "The granting of tenure should be handled locally by a college, not by the central administration." The University Faculty Senate on March 25, 2003 passed a resolution that "calls upon the Chancellor to affirm a policy of non-interference with established campus and university governance and contractual procedures, including appeals and grievances."
(New York Times, Dec. 18, 2002; Feb. 25, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, May 23, 2003)
COMMENT: Normally, boards of trustees and central administrators should not overrule faculty decisions on tenure and promotion because of the danger it poses to academic freedom. However, the case of K.C. Johnson represents one of those rare clear-cut examples where action is necessary. The explicit use of collegiality rather than academic criteria to reject Johnson, in violation of AAUP guidelines against the misuse of collegiality, indicates that Johnson did not receive a fair hearing based upon merit.
(c) Oregon State University: assistant professor of psychology Bob Utti was fired one day after receiving a positive performance evaluation. Utti, who has spoken out and filed complaints against his colleagues, was fired for lack of collegiality. According to his dean, "he has not shown himself to be a good citizen of the department or the university."
(d) Pikes Peak Community College (Colorado): history professor Katherine Sturdevant was reinstated as chair of the history department and given a raise along with a $75,000 settlement. Sturdevant had been removed after creating a survey for faculty about top administrators and defending a colleague who wrote a parody titled “Gringo American Studies.”
(Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 5, 2002)
(e) Shaw University (North Carolina): Gale Isaacs was fired on November 16, 2002 after she helped to create an anonymous e-mail resolution that criticized president Talbert Shaw and the Board of Trustees for creating "the present atmosphere of contention and distrust of the faculty and staff." President Shaw accused Isaacs of "demonstrated faithlessness in and disloyalty to the university." Isaacs had taught for 16 years there, but Shaw University does not offer tenure.
The anonymous letter by Isaacs was found by student government member Shaniqua Bizzell, who read it aloud and gave out 60 copies to other students. Bizzell was initially expelled, but the punishment was reduced to eviction from her dorm because it was three weeks before her graduation. Vaughan Witten, vice president for student affairs, wrote to Bizzell that "no freedoms are absolute" and "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded theater and claim First Amendment privileges." According to Witten, "In this case, Ms. Bizzell was pushing the student body to a point of volatile and rebellious behavior with her defamatory and misguided speech,"
(Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 16, 2002; AP, Feb. 13, 2003)
(f) University of California at Berkeley: professor Ignacio Chapela, despite winning approval for tenure from his department in May 2002, has been waiting for a year for final review by the College of Natural Resources for final review. Chapela’s colleagues believe that he may be forced out for criticizing the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology's $25 million deal with Novartis. One of the nine faculty evaluating Chapela is the founder of a biotech company and a harsh critic of Chapela.
(ErinOConnor.org, April 30, 2003; Daily Cal)
(g) University of Louisiana at Monroe: Louisiana's 2nd
Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought by Richard
Baxter, former vice president for external affairs, against John Scott, a
former economics professor who created the website www.truthatulm.homestead.com.
(First Amendment Center, May 22, 2003; Baxter v. Scott)
(h) University of Nevada at Reno: Jane Long, dean of the Mackay School of Mines, was fired as dean after she sent out a memo opposing University of Nevada at Reno president John Lilley's plan to restructure the school. Long will remain a faculty member.
(AP, Feb. 18, 2003; Feb. 19, 2003)
Back to 2002-03 State of Academic Freedom Report
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