Hi All,
I saw this article in the LA Times online. It seems a frustrated alumnus from UCLA (Andrew Jones, a former president of the campus Republicans) has set up a black list of professors he deems too leftist.
If you read the profiles he puts up, you'll see that many of his complaints about these professors revolve around the subjects they study as much as what they say about those subjects. What's more, he also complains about activities and writings they have outside their classrooms or scholarly work (such as signing petitions etc). This leads me to believe that his concern is more about enforcing his own views and squelching dissent generally than about encouraging conservative students to speak openly in class.
I'd write this guy off as a harmless crank except for four things. First, he's gotten a lot of money to set up this organization. Second, this is exactly the kind of thing Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed were doing when they were his age - so I see this as the political version of a serial killer who pulled the wings off flies when he was a kid. Third, what if someone at NSA or the FBI or the White House shows some initiative and uses a list like this to start a warrantless wire tap? Fourth, the LA Times put this guy on the front page and its headline makes it sound like he represents a large and influential group of alumni.
To be honest, black lists like these are part of the reason I have chosen to participate in this blog using a pseudonym. I'm concerned that my exercising my right to express myself politically will make me a target of right wing groups like this one.
That said the main reason I'm using a pseudonym is that I don't want there to be any doubt at all about what I consider to be my scholarly work and what I consider to be more or less idle windbaggery.
Comments?
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
McCarthyism at UCLA?
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 8:44 AM
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11 comments:
I was just reminded by a friend of mine that Nixon's two top aids, Ehrlichman and Haldeman, were leaders in the college Republicans at UCLA when they were students there.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
"McCarthyism" feels like much too strong and dignified of a word. "Whining" would be more appropriate. Mr. Andrew Jones has no authority at UCLA or elsewhere. And it's hard to believe even the NSA would waste its time on the kvetching of a disgruntled student. The worst thing we can do is pay attention.
Mr. Jones' so-called "profiles" are an embarrassment; they are just a mish-mosh of slander and invective generously sprinkled with the usual distortions. The obvious misstatements even within a single profile were too many for me to compile (I tried and then gave up.)
That Mr. Jones convinced a few conservative alumni lend their names and pony up several thousand dollars for his one-man organization (from which Mr. Jones draws a salary, by the way...) shows only that some conservatives are desperate and easily duped by con men.
It is amusing that there is not a single professor on his list from any of the sciences, the economics department, or the business school. And of the over 3,000 faculty members, he mentions only 30, one of whom no longer even works at UCLA.
Good grief! You can find 1% of the population that does anything! Come to think of it, that's the simplest explanation for Mr. Jones and his supporters.
In this day and age I'm done assuming there are depths of depraved absurdity to which the right will not sink. It may be that Jones is a crank. But he's a crank who is part of a movement that has gotten laws proposed in many states forbidding professors from doing the things that get them on Jones' list. Jones is not a lone.
I think it is dangerous to assume that Jones is not a "mainstream conservative" who represents a significant faction of Republicans out there including many in positions of high responsibility in our government now.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
Andrew Jones is a typical college Republican. I won't say more here, other than I know him. Apparently he not matured with age. It's not McCarthyism - he was a powerful senator. This just a headline-grabbing flash-in-the pan.
// posted by LTG
What if Jones and his friends in this movement resulted in a law forbidding professors from saying anything "offensive" as defined by student complaints? Would that qualify as McCarthyism?
What if Jones et al led campaigns against politically active professors to get them fired? Would that qualify?
If we wait until some Senator from Alabama or something holds hearings on how to ban politically active proffesors with center-left and left wing views from universities it will be too late.
Jones is a supporter of McCarthyism. Reading his profiles on some professors I even see long passages where he excuses HUAC persecutions of "known Communists" etc.
BTW. His organization has graduated from the LA Times to CNN.com.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
As I understand it, McCarthyism is somewhat more than baseless accusations of subversion, disloyalty, or political heresy. It is also done under color of government, or by those seeking office, etc.
McCarthy used the Senate (and Nixon used the House) to persecute people for their political views. McCarthyism is the advocacy of doing it. Jones (who is part of a national movement ) is an advocate of using government power to restrain political speach by professors. Therefore, he is a McCarthy-ist.
McCarthyism is a problem whether it is being effectively implemented or not. Right now laws to make Jones' point of view the law of the land have been proposed or are being considered in 17 states including California. If we wait until it is being effectively implemented to complain about it, we will have waited too long.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
I just think that you risk being the boy who cried "McCarthyism!" when you elevate Jones' pranks to that level.
We should put our efforts into opposing the laws against academic and personal freedoms proposed in those 17 states. That's McCarthyism. The mindless media did us another disservice by givng that quack press.
FInd me a time when university professors aren't accused of being "liberal" or disident. While I agree with Strangelove, the thing that does haunt me is that, as RBR pointed out, Rove started out like this. My hope, however, is that this idiot will be a flash in the pan. And besides, univeristy professors are a smart and savvy enough group to join forces and put the likes of this guy to rest.
I will say, however, that with the cost of education rising, there is a another concern that feeds off this: the idea that higher education is a consumer product like any other. If students aren't happy, professors are taken to task for being too hard, or too liberal, or whatever. To me, that attitude presents a great danger to the freedom and power of academics that someone's notion of a black list. I'd think that if I made it to a black list, I must be doing something right!
// posted by USWest
In my classes I've often been accused of right wing bias by left wing students and left wing bias by right wing students. This happens because I tend to call students on their assumptions when they make politically charged statements. The most radical on both ends resent being questioned in this way and assume my motive must be political opposition.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
Oh admit it, RxR, you like calling your students on their political views because you're just a curmudegon.
I'm teasing. I know what you mean. And you are right to challenge the views of your students. I wish more professors did so. Unfortunately, since the right-wingers are basically wrong in most respects, you have to correct them more often. (This goes to the "fair and balanced" issue we're talking about under Bell Curve's Abramoff post).
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