1. Patriotic Correctness: The War on Dissent

At too many colleges after 9-11, the War on Terror became part of a war on academic freedom, with restrictions imposed on scientific research and Arab or Muslim students. Dissent from American foreign policy became grounds for denunciations. The website Campus Watch (www.campuswatch.org) urged students to spy on Middle East professors and publicly denounce their views, leading to death threats and harassment of professors. Founder Daniel Pipes called for “adult supervision of the faculty and administrators.”

In March 2003, the American Studies Association released a statement entitled, "Intellectual Freedom in a Time of War," and declared: "Free and frank intellectual inquiry is under assault by overt legislative acts and by a chilling effect of secrecy and intimidation in the government, media and on college campuses.” A survey by the University of Illinois Library Research Center found that more than 200 out of 1,500 libraries in the survey had given information to law enforcement about patrons.(www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/research/civil_liberties.html) The AAUP created a Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in Times of Crisis in order to examine how the war on terror has affected academic freedom.

The Patriot Act weakens student protections under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Colleges can be required not to record requests for private information and banned from informing students or anyone else about investigations. On Nov. 4, 2002, the FBI sent a letter to colleges asking for information about foreign students, including “names, addresses, telephone numbers, citizenship information, places of birth, dates of birth, and any foreign contact information” for the past two years. The letter declared that the USA Patriot Act “has further granted educational institutions authority to release information to the federal government for use in combating terrorism.” The Association of American College Registrars and Admissions Officers argued that the FBI request violates federal privacy laws. Becky Timmons, director of government relations for the American Council on Education, declared, “The FBI is trying to do what the USA Patriot Act prevents and FERPA has long prevented.”(Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 26, 2002)

The impact of the Patriot Act, and plans for a second Patriot Act that is even more restrictive, have alarmed many in academia. Tom Campbell, dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California and a former Republican congressman, called the Patriot Act a “serious breach” of the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure. The Justice Department’s Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (called Patriot Act II) would increase government powers to access private information without a warrant. The legislation would increase penalties for terrorism and allow the government to strip citizenship from and deport a naturalized citizen who unknowingly helps groups that support terrorism.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, April 11, 2003)

Immigration and research restrictions on foreign-born students and faculty have also had a negative impact on academia, making it more difficult for international travel by scholars. At the Latin American Studies Association International Congress March 27–28, 2003, almost all of the 103 Cuban scholars were absent due to enhanced security checks. It took 19 months for immigration officials to approve a visa for Indonesian land-reform activist Noer Fauzi, who was invited by the Institute of International Studies to spend a semester in residence at University of California at Berkeley.

A climate of suppressing dissent has threatened the free exchange of ideas, which is more necessary than ever.

(a) American University: after adjunct professor Laura Drake had a false email sent in her name denouncing Israel, the university responded by distancing itself from her and claiming that her contract had just expired.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 18, 2002)

(b) Citrus College (California): Rosalyn Kahn was removed from teaching her speech communications class after students claimed that they had to write anti-war letters to President Bush in order to get extra credit. Kahn claimed, “Forcing others to falsely espouse beliefs they do not hold is inconsistent with my practices as an instructor. I would not, and did not, penalize students who expressed views contrary to my own." According to Kahn, “the college president, Louis Zellers, adopted unproven allegations against me as though they were fact."

(Chronicle of Higher Education,, March 10, 2003; Kahn responds)

COMMENT: Although strong evidence of misconduct existed, removing a teacher from a course in progress is an extreme response. Measures short of suspension can protect student rights to academic freedom until proper procedures for investigating the case are followed.

(c) Columbia University : After professor Nicholas DeGenova called for an Iraqi victory over the US and said he would like to see "a million Mogadishus," colleagues and the public condemned him. A letter from 104 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives demanded: “We are writing to urge you to fire assistant professor Nicholas DeGenova for remarks he recently made at a ‘teach-in’ on the Columbia campus at which he called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq.” President Lee Bollinger has defended DeGenova’s academic freedom while condemning what he said.

(Newsday, March 29, 2003)

(d) Dartmouth College: the dean of faculty denounced the departments of sociology and Spanish and Portuguese for allocating small sums of money to help student travel to Washington D.C. for antiwar rallies. Dartmouth lawyers investigated to see if the funding was illegal.

(Chronicle of Higher Education, March 2, 2003)

COMMENT: expressing anti-war opinions and supporting students to express their views has nothing to do with political campaigns and in no way violates any restrictions on nonprofit institutions.

(e) Duke University: After the Anthropology department sponsored an ad in the campus newspaper opposing the war, provost Peter Lange emailed the faculty to warn them the ad was illegal under federal tax code banning a nonprofit organization from paying for a political advertisement.

(erinoconnor.org, March 26, 2003; Duke Chronicle)

(f) Forest Park Community College (Missouri): speakers and participants at the May 2003 Biodevastation 7 conference were harassed and arrested by police who feared that they might disrupt the World Agricultural Forum in St. Louis. Police detained a dozen people for riding bicycles without a license. A van going to the conference was stopped by police for a seatbelt violation, and the driver was arrested (for an unmarked container with Vitamin C pills) and everyone in the van was interrogated by three groups of investigators. Police raided the Bolozone housing collective, claiming that nails and stones used in remodeling were evidence of weapons. One police officer found a beer bottle and put a rag in it, pretending to have found a Molotov cocktail. Another police officer admitted that police vandalized bikes and slashed tires of the activists.

When Ralph Nader spoke at the college on April 13, 2003, Dave Sladky, a Missouri Green party member and activist for the Stop Ballpork coalition was collecting signatures outside the lecture hall against a publicly-subsidized ballpark in St. Louis. A Forest Park police officer ordered Sladky to leave without explanation, and physically pushed and threatened to arrest a journalist, C.D. Stelzer, who witnessed the incident.

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 1, 2003; stlouis.indymedia.org, April 15, 2003; May 16, 2003; May 17, 2003)

(g) Grinnell College: two students were threatened with arrest for flying the American flag upside down, as a symbol of distress, from their dormitory window.

(ACLU, Freedom Under Fire, May 2003)

(h) Irvine Valley College (California): Vice President of Instruction Dennis White wrote a March 27, 2003 memo: "It has come to my attention that several faculty members have been discussing the current war within the context of their classrooms. We need to be sure that faculty do not explore this activity within the context of their classroom unless it can be demonstrated, to the satisfaction of this office, that such discussions are directly related to the approved instructional requirements and materials associated with those classes." The memo was in response to three students, including one with a fiance in the military, who reportedly became distraught after instructors expressed antiwar opinions in classes. Roquemore promised to investigate each case.

(Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, April 1, 2003)

(i) St. John’s College (New Mexico): Andrew O'Connor, a former public defender, was arrested on Feb. 13, 2003 while using a public computer at the St. John’s College library. Police and Secret Service officials questioned O’Connor for five hours before releasing him. Someone using O’Connor’s sign-in had previously used a computer there to make threatening comments in an internet chat room about President Bush, which O’Connor denied. O’Connor promised, "I'm going to sue the Secret Service, Santa Fe Police, St. John's and everybody involved in this whole thing." In a Feb. 13, 2003 letter to students, St. John's officials had written: "Suspicious persons have been seen on our campus and other college campuses in Santa Fe for the last four weeks. The FBI has been apprised of the situation and is working closely with all campuses."

(Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 15, 2003; Feb. 16, 2003; Library Journal, April 1, 2003; American Library Association, Feb. 24, 2003; http://www.ala.org/alonline/news/2003/030224.html#santafe)

(j) St. Xavier University: After Robert Kurpiel, a cadet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, sent a form email to St. Xavier University history professor Peter Kirstein, asking him to help promote an Air Force event, Kirstein wrote back on Oct. 31, 2002: “You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit. Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world? Are you serious sir? Resign your commission and serve your country with honour. No war, no air force cowards who bomb countries with AAA, without possibility of retaliation. You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us. September 11 can be blamed in part for what you and your cohorts have done to Palestinians, the VC, the Serbs, a retreating army at Basra. You are unworthy of my support.”

When Kurpiel forwarded this message around, Kirstein and St. Xavier quickly received a large number of denunciations for his comments. Although Kirstein apologized for his email, many called for his dismissal.

On Nov. 15, 2002, St. Xavier president Richard Yanikoski announced that Kirstein would be immediately suspended, receive a reprimand, and undergo a post-tenure review during a sabbatical in Spring 2003. Yanikoski added, “Any future faculty contract(s) extended to Professor Kirstein will include a binding addendum specifically requiring him to adhere both to institutional policies and to the norms of the American Association of University Professors in matters relating to the proper exercise of academic freedom and extramural activities.”

Yanikoski concluded, “Professor Kirstein and the University community deeply regret the incident that began this chain of events. Saint Xavier University remains committed to the pursuit of teaching and learning in a campus community where all are treated with respect, caring and justice and where academic freedom is enjoyed for purpose of promoting quality teaching, careful research, critical analysis, thoughtful discussion, and programs of direct service to metropolitan Chicago and beyond.”

(www.collegefreedom.org/kirstein.htm)

COMMENT: The suspension of Peter Kirstein presents a serious threat to academic freedom. To put it in the simplest terms, a tenured professor was suspended for responding rudely to an unsolicited email and expressing his view that killing is wrong. Nothing is more alien to the idea of academic freedom than this.

To make matters worse, President Yanikoski claimed to be following the academic freedom standards of the AAUP and even will require Kirstein to sign a statement pledging to follow them before he can be reinstated. Yanikoski failed to understand the basic meaning of academic freedom. The AAUP, in its Statement on Extramural Utterances, clearly protects Kirstein’s right to his ideas and his method of expression. While the AAUP urges professors to exercise their academic freedom rights in a responsible manner, it does not give universities the power to punish irresponsible speech unless it clearly proves that an individual is “unfit” to teach. No one has accused Kirstein of any unprofessional conduct in his teaching, and to suspend a “professor of the year” for his beliefs is simply wrong.

One may certainly disagree with Kirstein's belief that the Air Force is cowardly and engaged in "baby-killing tactics," and Kirstein has apologized for the tone of his email. But sometimes moral arguments are impolite. According to Yanikoski, no one at Saint Xavier is allowed to make "demeaning, degrading statements as a professor in or outside the classroom." Yanikoski is free to denounce Kirstein, but not to punish him. Some people mistakenly believe that religious institutions must be narrow-minded and reject academic freedom to have a religious identity. Saint Xavier rejects this view, and according to its mission statement, "honors commonly accepted standards of academic freedom." Unfortunately, it failed to live up to these standards of academic freedom.

(k) Tufts University: the Alumni Association revoked an award for academic achievement and leadership potential given to senior Elizabeth Monnin because she participated in protests at a campus speech by former president George H.W. Bush. Monnin was accused of giving the finger to Bush, although she denied doing it.

(Boston Globe, March 22, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, March 25, 2003)

(l) University of California at Berkeley: Candace Falk, the director of the Emma Goldman Papers Project, used anti-war quotes from Goldman in a fundraising letter. University officials halted the mailing because the quotes could be interpreted as a political statement, but later relented and allowed the mailing.

(AP, Jan. 17, 2003)

(m) University of California at Berkeley: At the University of California at Berkeley, a graduate student teaching "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance" in Fall 2002 wrote in the course description that "conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections." The instructor apologized for the description.

Robert Post noted that “the department took the extraordinary step of requiring that a full tenured member of the faculty observe the class to ensure that it would be taught in a way that was entirely consistent with applicable academic standards. Since the class is likely to cause controversy in the fall, the presence of this observer will serve to protect both the graduate student instructor and his students. The presence of such an observer is certainly an extraordinary event. It is not clear that an analogous requirement could be imposed upon a class taught by a full member of the faculty. It may well be permissible in this case, however, because the instructor is a graduate student who is in my judgment a kind of apprentice under the tutelage of the faculty.”

(Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 27, 2002; Robert Post, Aug. 12, 2002)

COMMENT: The use of monitors can have a chilling effect on the classroom. Although the instructor made an error of judgment in the course description, no students have complained of misconduct in the classroom. Considering the normal indifference of professors toward what graduate students are teaching, a monitor for this class could be seen as intimidation, not pedagogical. Universities should not impose different rules for instructors based on their status.

(n) University of Colorado: campus police provided data to the FBI on animal rights activists and also gave information for years to the Denver Police Department’s “spy files” on peaceful protesters. Regent Jim Martin declared that the police "clearly crossed the lines of infringing civil liberties" and will bring up campus policies on surveillance.

(AP, May 18, 2003)

(o) University of Idaho: On February 26, 2003, law-enforcement agents raided the graduate-student housing and arrested Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a Ph.D. computer science student from Saudi Arabia, while also interrogating 20 international students for more than four hours. Government prosecutors have charged Al-Hussayen for lying on his visa application (because studying was supposedly not his “sole” reason for coming to America) and ordered him deported for illegal earning money (because he was paid $200 for working on a website).

Al-Hussayen, a former president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of Idaho is also accused of helping to raise money ($300,000 over five years) and providing computer services for the Islamic Assembly of North America, including some sites that advocate jihad and suicide bombings. Al-Hussayen was being held in jail without bond, and claims to oppose violence. Kim Lindquist, lead prosecutor in the Al-Hussayen case, noted: “under student visas, young people are allowed to stay here, and they can make that transition fairly subtly and fairly quietly from appropriate student activities to a manifestation of things are inappropriate, including advocacy of radical Islam.”

(Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2003; federal government's criminal complaint; Cardinal Collective; ordered deported)

COMMENT: Al-Hussayen is charged with “crimes” that are ludicrous. A computer science student who helps develop some websites is not violating his student visa requirements. The fact that prosecutors condemn him for “advocacy of radical Islam” indicates that Al-Hussayen is being persecuted for his beliefs (which are not illegal) and the radical beliefs (which are also not illegal) posted on websites he supports. Until evidence is presented that Al-Hussayen illegally funneled money to terrorist groups, he should be released from prison and allowed to continue his studies and his advocacy of his beliefs.

(p) University of Massachusetts at Amherst: in December 2002, economics professor Musaddak Al-Habeeb, a US citizen who was born in Iraq, was questioned and cleared by the FBI and a university detective because of a tip.

(ACLU, Freedom Under Fire, May 2003)

(q) University of Massachusetts at Boston: On April 3, 2003, a sergeant recruiting for the National Guard confronted a student wearing a “military recruiters off my campus” t-shirt who was passing out fliers for an event on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. The sergeant called the student a “fucking communist” and called the campus police to try to prevent him from handing out fliers. The sergeant also asked him, “Are you organizing the program for Dr. King?” and then told the student, “You should be shot in the head, too.” Professor Tony Van Der Meer stepped in, and the sergeant made a similar threat to him. Several witnesses saw the sergeant poke Van Der Meer in the shoulder and get in his face, with no physical response by Van Der Meer. As the recruiters left, Van Der Meer continued to yell at the recruiters, and three police officers tackled Van Der Meer, tore his jacket, and arrested him. Van Der Meer was charged with assault and battery of a police officer and resisting arrest. Several students who yelled at the police were also threatened with arrest. The police officer, when asked why the recruiter had not been arrested, declared: "I'm not arresting anyone in the military because I choose not to."

(Boston Globe, April 4, 2003; Boston University Student Underground, May 2003; boston.indymedia.org, April 5, 2003; April 8, 2003; April 9, 2003)

(r) University of New Mexico: at a March 20, 2003 anti-war demonstration, police were accused of using excessive force. Seventeen protesters were arrested, and reported being tear-gassed and beaten with batons.

(ACLU, Freedom Under Fire, May 2003)

(s) University of South Florida: In Feb. 2003, professor Sami Al-Arian was indicted on charges of supporting terrorist organizations, and the USF promptly fired him, more than a year after he was suspended and threatened with dismissal for appearing on a talk show and receiving death threats.

(AAUP Report, Academe, May/June 2003)

COMMENT: Even though some feel that the recent indictment about Al-Arian’s activities mean that he deserves to be fired, the University of South Florida should be censured for the grounds upon which it suspended Al-Arian and the violation of due process.

The USF administration for a year made the outrageous claim that death threats against Al-Arian alone justified his dismissal. They suspended Al-Arian indefinitely without following a modicum of due process. They even filed a preemptive lawsuit asserting their right to fire Al-Arian.

Although USF officials now promise to consult with faculty before firing anyone, there has been no change in the fundamentally flawed contract or procedures used to punish faculty at USF. Al-Arian was dismissed without a hearing or any effort to allow him to defend himself.

There is no allegation that Al-Arian ever planned or ordered any terrorist actions, only that he funneled money to an organization involved in terrorism, Islamic Jihad. While fundraising for groups that murder innocent people is despicable, it is extremely difficult for colleges to ban people who support terrorist groups. Oliver North and Henry Kissinger are both guilty of funneling money to those who murder innocent people; yet neither one should be banned from college campuses, nor fired if they held a tenured position. Until a criminal conviction is obtained, Al-Arian’s guilt is in doubt; until USF changes its procedures, it is violating the tenets of academic freedom.

(t) Wheaton College (Massachusetts): anti-war students replaced an upside-down American flag with a sign quoting the First Amendment after they received a death threat.

(Boston Globe, April 4, 2003)

(u) Yale University: Pro-war students broke into the suite of anti-war activist Katherine Lo on March 27, 2003, a day after she hung an American flag upside-down from her bedroom window to protest the war. The students tried unsuccessfully to enter her bedroom and then wrote a note on her message board, calling for the killing of Iraqis and Muslims, ending with the message, "I hate you, GO AMERICA."

(Yale Daily News, April 9, 2003)

Back to 2002-03 State of Academic Freedom Report

Back to www.collegefreedom.org