Can anyone play this game?

Aaron: it sounds like both. Or, less tendentiously, that academics are under no obligation to treat non-academic attempts to intervene in questions of academic freedom the same as academic attempts, and take them up only at their discretion.

Though I hasten to add that ‘prevents non-academics from criticizing the work of academics’ in Aaron’s comment should be read as ‘does not obligate academics to consider’ such criticisms. People can criticize anything they want as much as they want, but they don’t get to expect universities to grant their criticisms the same office or authority as those of academics.

‘Should’ someone criticize academic work they dislike if they are not an academic? Of course. But only academics get to choose who gets and keeps tenure. ‘Elitist’ or not, I don’t much like the alternative.

Does Lee Bollinger live in Prussia? Do I live in Prussia? (Sometimes I’m not sure.) American research universities are American institutions answerable to American law; they’re going to be the go-to resource for Lee Bollinger qua lawyer and administrative showman. But the idea that special powers granted by the venia legendi are what is in play in the Yoo affair is disingenuous.

Yoo’s disgraceful conduct came when he was a government employee. Academic or no, bureaucrats had goddamn better not have special “liberties” exceeding Constitutional protections — they are rightly held to a more restrictive standard. Gross misconduct as a civil servant is ethical trespass, not a matter of “dangerous ideas”: I don’t see anything wrong with pillorying Yoo for it (and I’m not sure I don’t mean literally).

Please save us from a race of Henry Kissingers who are “scholars” one moment, enabling torture and death the next; and if you won’t, the public is entitled to exert public control over academics whose actions damage the public life of the republic.

Or 4, he knows the history of academic freedom, of free speech and everything else, but is too much of a coward – vis-a-vis the donors, vis-a-vis city officials who were about to grant Columbia the right to expand into Harlem (or withhold permission from a plan that controversially dispossesses loads of Harlem residents), and most importantly vis-a-vis pressures from hysterical defenders of Israel (i.e. the David Project people with their usual accusations of antisemitism, anti-americanism etc.).

The academics at Columbia were frustrated because during the exact same time, the administration at Princeton, quietly and firmly batted off the irritating interventions of a similar kind, defending the rights of Princeton academics. I think the argument went, “if Princeton can do it, why can’t we?”

As has been pointed out, Bollinger is a coward and a sell-out. That’s enough explanation for me.

I had a professor named Berringer and obviously one name is crowding out the other in the pea-sized object that rattles around inside my skull. Bollinger.

There’s so much that’s skewed here it’s hard to know where to begin. First off, the academy is not separate from society any more than law is separate from politics, but each is a subset with its own prerogatives. Those serve a function and should be respected, but they’re not Platonic absolutes.
In re: John Yoo. Though I seem to be the only one so far to bring this up, a lawyer outside the academy and in public life is a licensed professional. An engineer who builds a bridge that collapses under its own weight will lose his job. Historians and professors of comparative literature, even of jurisprudence, don’t run that risk. Street lawyers do.

It would also be good to remember that academic freedom is not freedom of thought, it’s freedom of thought for those who’ve been accepted into a club. To think that this exclusivity is a good idea is not to think it justifies excess self-importance.
“Academic freedom predates free speech.”
“After all, even the King…” I wouldn’t call that something to be proud of in a democracy.

2 decades ago as a 21 year old I read Gravity’s Rainbow and a fragment of it became a touchstone of my intellectual life. It’s the parallel description of two acts of self-destruction: the mass suicide of the Herero in Südwest as a last act of refusal and denial of the authority of their masters, and the same act by the Schwarzkommando as the an act of purest nihilism. Preempting claims of what geeks call Godwin’s Law, the significance of my memories does not concern Naziism but values and context. Academic freedom historically has been tied to general freedom of thought and to democracy, but now it’s linked to institutional privilege and defended with references to monarchy. I support it though preferring to think of it as “academic independence” but I would strongly suggest that academic specialists stop pretending their shit don’t stink.

The classic defense of the free market is that its openness and vulgarity act as an astringent, testing and tightening thought what would otherwise risk becoming arid blather. But now that the market has reached the academy it wants to escape its roots. So we have an academy predicated not on the hopes of the humanities and of democracy but on the technocratic logic of reactionary schoolmen. Welcome to the 14th century.

First and foremost Yoo was and is jobbing lawyer. Lets see what his fellow tradesmen say.

But you deal with problems like these by enhancing judgment. To me, the First Amendment means a robust marketplace of ideas that will, by definition, marginalize extremism.

Some questions that occur to me:

1. Is Bollinger’s goal to marginalize extremism? If so, what are the characteristics of ‘extremism’ as opposed to ‘unpopular’ research?

2. In this silly metaphorical marketplace of ideas, who are the buyers, and what is their criteria for preference?

3. Enhancing judgment? Who is doing the judging, and who is doing the enhancing?

I suspect these rather mundane answers: Bollinger doesn’t aim to marginalize extremism generally, whatever that would mean; he’s merely suggesting that Daniel Pipes will be automatically marginalized by the academic community because he’s an outlier in the spectrum of public opinion. The marketplace is intra-university, and scholars will/should dismiss outliers like Pipes out of hand. The 1st Amendment allows people with no credentials and weird opinions to voice their criticism, but this is rendered irrelevant by the decision-makers who will inevitably “enhance their judgment” by considering the source of such criticism and its (ir)relevance to their decision.

If that’s what Bollinger meant, he sure could have said that more clearly… Defending academic freedom in cases like this is unnecessary, because competent scholars at this university know to disregard folks like Daniel Pipes when making responsible tenure decisions. Mr. Pipes has a 1st-Amendment right to voice his opinion, and the faculty at Columbia University have a right to weigh its legitimacy and dismiss it.

“departments do not consult non-academics about whom to tenure”

That’s simply not true. I was consulted on tenure decisions, in my area of expertise, including the case of a Professor at MIT, and I have never held an academic position.

Although Prussia gave constitutional protection to Lehrfreiheit in 1850 (“science and its teaching shall be free”), academic freedom generally does not enjoy legal protection outside of contractual guarantees; rather, it rests on the authority and ability of a community of competent scholars to police their own discourse and on the willingness of universities to affirm this authority and ability.

Ah, yes, that academic freedom: the freedom to pledge absolute fealty to the consensus of the “community of competent scholars”, on pain of exclusion from the academy. Is that really what you think academic freedom is?

I’m reminded of the controversy over government funding of the arts: arts funding must be directed by experts, because the boundaries delineating art are so narrow and fine that only experts are qualified to judge it–and the experts must be allowed to direct their funding at even the most bizarre, pointless, obscurantist art because art is a universe of possibilities without boundaries. Likewise, the “community of competent scholars” has absolute authority over which scholarship is acceptable, and if they choose to elevate bizarre, pointless, obscurantist scholarship–well, individual scholars must have the freedom to follow where their research leads, after all.

There are two concepts involved here: that of academic freedom, and that of peer review. They are in constant tension, because academic freedom requires that a scholar be able to buck even the consensus of the scholarly community, and peer review requires that an idea’s rejection by the scholarly community suffices to discredit it. Managing this tension is not easy, but people of good faith can do a reasonable job of it.

Needless to say, wishing away the tension by redefining academic freedom as the freedom of the “community of competent scholars” to exercise absolute power over its individual members through peer review, does not reflect good faith, but rather scholarship redefined as mere groupthink.

He’s just sh*tting in the punchbowl.

There are two concepts involved here: that of academic freedom, and that of peer review. They are in constant tension, because academic freedom requires that a scholar be able to buck even the consensus of the scholarly community, and peer review requires that an idea’s rejection by the scholarly community suffices to discredit it. Managing this tension is not easy, but people of good faith can do a reasonable job of it.

This is a good analysis.

Even more than usually, this seems liuke a question calling for *judgement* in weighing competing values, as opposed to one that can be resolved within a single coherent set of ideas.

Since I’m banned from commenting on Henry’s postings, I’ll just say here that my above comments make essentially the same point as he does, although I think it’s still useful to distinguish the concept of “peer review” that we’re describing from the concept of “academic freedom” that he uses to label it.

I’d also add that the conflation of these concepts in the case of Nadia Abu El-Haj is particularly telling. Abu El-Haj is hardly a lonely voice in the wilderness, adamantly defending highly idiosyncratic ideas. On the contrary, her work has been widely praised by her peers, and stands squarely in the mainstream of her field. The criticism directed at it, claiming that it’s nothing more than political polemic masquerading as scholarship, is therefore implicitly directed at the field as a whole.

Now, had this work been politically unpopular but intellectually unassailable–say, a brilliant biological study that happened to provide powerful evidence for evolution–the field’s scholars would no doubt have defended her on the grounds Henry outlined: that peer review is the best available arbiter of the long-term value of scholarship in technically difficult, highly rigorous research disciplines. That those scholars instead fell back on Eric’s defense–the absolute freedom of the “community of competent scholars” to impose completely arbitrary standards on its members, outside critics be damned–speaks volumes about the field’s confidence in the defensibility of its value to those not drawing a salary from it.

the absolute freedom of the “community of competent scholars” to impose completely arbitrary standards on its members

Um, Dan, the word ‘arbitrary’ doesn’t mean what you think it means. Standards imposed by a community (or even “community”) can not be arbitrary (let alone “completely arbitrary”) by definition. For better or worse they are the standards of that community, that’s all.

Well, first of all, Seth, I believe you that it’s all fucked up in academia, but it’s not obvious to me that it’s the result of too much “academic freedom” (aka independence); it can be the result of too little of it.

And second, being able to ignore outside pressure in the tenure process doesn’t necessarily create a bubble.

I think it is worth noting that, while academics need not necessarily consider outside opinion with regard to tenure, granting tenure to someone who has published or expressed controverisal opinions or ideas will send a message to the public, sometimes directly. From then on, if that person should ever appear anywhere to defend his ideas, he will be introduced as a professor at that university, thus conveying, as far as the public is concerned, an implied endorsement of his ideas by the university. Such assumptions by the public,valid or not, will have an effect on the university’s reputation, and possibly it’s efforts to recruit future students and faculty.

“But that’s just natural, if not tautological.”
It’s only natural if everyone assumes it to be true, but academic indifference is based on assumptions of academic exceptionalism. And self-awareness itself is considered tautological!

Meanwhile on the next thread the good liberal Professor Henry Farrell Ph.D is trying once again to codify the necessary and necessarily informal obligations of democracy as rules. I’d post there but I’m banned. And by the way my first comment on this one is still in moderation limbo. I wish it were better written but it stated the obvious. Let’s see if it makes it past the guard.