March 09, 2004

Academic Freedom

Posted by Kieran

Last week it was the apparently unjustified firing of a Professor at Penn State Altoona. This week it’s the suspension of two professors at Southern Mississippi, again for what looks like no good reason. Ralph Luker at Cliopatria has more, with links to various commentaries. Here also is a news story from the student paper found via a blogger who knows more about the situation on the ground. Looks like there’s been some student reaction to the suspensions, together with criticism from benefactors and a vote of no confidence from the USM faculty senate. (Hat tip: Matt Weiner.)

Posted on March 9, 2004 03:39 AM UTC
Comments

The Penn State case is bad, but there’s at least some ambiguities to mull over. The Southern Mississippi one is so unambiguously horrible—and, I have a bad feeling, more typical than we might guess about the way life works at academic institutions that are not highly selective or elite—that there’s nothing much to talk about save to jam our fists in our collective mouths in horror and wonder how to help out.

Posted by Timothy Burke · March 9, 2004 03:56 AM

The Southern Mississippi story is outrageous.

“and, I have a bad feeling, more typical than we might guess about the way life works at academic institutions that are not highly selective or elite…”

It’s probably (maybe?) an extreme version of the kind of routine abuses and violations that take place outside the privileged sphere of high-profile high-prestige higher ed.

Posted by Invisible Adjunct · March 9, 2004 04:43 AM

Here’s the Google cache of the first half of the Student Printz story.

Posted by Matt Weiner · March 9, 2004 04:45 AM

I am a graduate of that august institution, and I have to say, it’s more of the same. There was a vicious tell all book entitled Exit 13 that discussed some of the ways the administration sought to silence dissent during the 70’s. When I was there in the 80’s, the administration, in my first senior year, tossed out the faculty of the Honors College in order to install some more pliant types. It was never really certain if they wanted to punish the ones in the HC or reward the ones they installed with a more academic pedigree, but reading the Chronicle article brought back those halcyon days.

USM has always had a hard time, in that the university had to compete for funding with MSU and Old Miss, (it was originally the Teacher’s College, ‘Mississippi Normal’) and I still have some professors there who I think the world of, but the admin combined the worst traits of the old South and the New South, which is really saying a lot.

Posted by liberal japonicus · March 9, 2004 08:50 AM

I forgot to add, one of USM’s claims to fame was that Bill Bennet taught their as a junior faculty for a few years.

Posted by liberal japonicus · March 9, 2004 08:52 AM

Geez, really demonstrating the quality of the education I got there
Bennet>Bennett
their>there

Here is the amazon link for a tell all memoir of USM in the late 60’s and 70’s that describes various administration efforts to attack leftist professors.

Posted by liberal japonicus · March 9, 2004 09:13 AM

The corruption in the hirings and firings at my institution are notorious, but difficult to confirm.

English prof fired for publishing a roman a clef about his/her department.

Two Phil. candidates landed jobs for sleeping with the right committee members (one of the candidates turned out to be a good hire anyways).

Leftist His. prof dragged before tenure review for mental problems, claims ideological persecution. (imho, answer was somewhere in the middle)

His. prof denied tenure despite writing multiple award-winning monograph. Rumor that the position was being held for full prof.’s wife, formerly his grad. student, and girlfriend.

I’ve always thought that dept. politics were basically your average office politics, magnified by the participants’ lack of basic social skills. Of course, any of these dirty deals can provide fodder for those who would paint us all as a conspiracy for left-wing indoctrination, but down here at ground zero, the reality is far less glamorous…

Posted by GMT · March 9, 2004 03:20 PM
Followups

→ This Is Appalling.
Excerpt: Not only has Penn State-Altoona fired a theater professor, apparently for criticizing her colleagues, but Southern Miss is firing two professors for aiding an AAUP investigation against an administrator. These cases are EXACTLY what academic freedom is...Read more at Opiniatrety
→ USM fires two tenured faculty members.
Excerpt: There’s a big brou-ha-ha down in Hattiesburg at the University of Southern Mississippi: two tenured faculty members are being terminated by the university administration, apparently for speaking out against a university vice-president. More detai...Read more at Signifying Nothing

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.