We’ve written before about threats to academic freedom — most notably, Peking University’s dismissal of economist Xia Yeliang last month.
To take academic freedom for granted in the U.S. — where free speech is codified in our constitution’s first amendment — is a comfortable pose. But at American universities, academic freedom is not always a guarantee. Peking University’s lukewarm commitment to academic freedom comes in part from China’s distinct national priorities (protecting dissenters doesn’t make the list). But we in the U.S. have our own blind spots. For an example of national commitments overriding a concern for academic freedom, we need not look all the way to Beijing. Instead we can turn to Blacksburg.
Steven Salaita, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, published an Aug. 25 essay for salon.com in which he argued that the phrase “support our troops” stifles criticism of American military actions. Appeals to “support the troops” do little for the men and women who serve in the military. Such appeals do, however, help corporations that profit from war, Salaita contended.
Salaita’s jeremiad against jingoism drew death threats, racist emails and demands for his firing. A few days after the article was published, Lawrence G. Hincker, the school’s associate vice president for university relations, issued a statement that acknowledged Salaita’s right to express his views, but joined decisively with the professor’s critics.
“Institutionally and honorably, we support our nation’s troops,” Hincker wrote in the statement sent on behalf of the university. “While our assistant professor may have a megaphone on salon.com, his opinions not only do not reflect institutional position, we are confident they do not remotely reflect the collective opinion of the greater university community.”
A letter published last Wednesday in the Collegiate Times signed by nearly 40 Virginia Tech faculty members expresses unease with the school’s eagerness to join Salaita’s critics.
Proclaiming, as Hincker did, that Salaita’s views do not represent the university seems unnecessary. We can take for granted that faculty members speak with an independent voice. For a critic to conflate Salaita’s views with his institution’s views conveys a misunderstanding of how universities work.
And Hincker went beyond affirming that Salaita’s article did not represent official university opinion. He took pains to distance Salaita not only from the university’s official stances but also from the community at large. The professor’s views, Hincker said, did not reflect Virginia Tech’s “collective opinion” — an opinion that officials like Hincker, it seems, are in a position to define.
Hincker’s statement conveyed a wrongheaded understanding of academic freedom. Academic freedom is not something an institution should ruefully point to as a reason why they cannot discipline a faculty member like Salaita. On the contrary: universities rise and fall by principles of free inquiry.
When faculty members are exposed to public attack, as Salaita was, their home institutions should stand by them instead of distancing the offending faculty member from the university community. The University of Virginia’s defense of climate scientist Michael Mann in the face of subpoenas from then-Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is an example of how an institution ought to act in accordance with academic freedom.
Ironically, Virginia Tech’s response supports the central claim Salaita made in his article: that the mantra “support our troops” has become a sacred cow, something that you must endorse unquestioningly unless you wish to become a pariah.
The merits of Salaita’s arguments, however, are beside the point. The point is that the role that intellectuals play in society is often a messy one. Thinkers and writers test received wisdom; they ferret out ideological blind spots; they offer opinions that are sometimes inconvenient to people in power. In short, they make trouble: and this is a good thing. In condemning Salaita’s views, Virginia Tech went a step too far.
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