Scott McLemee

The following is the comment I attempted to post. It was, however, censored by Scott McLemee and/or his boss Doug Lederman, editor of Inside Higher Education. The comment pertained to McLemee's article, oddly enough called "Rude Democracy" (see http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee311). Note that McLemee boasts of not even holding a college degree. Yet, somehow, he's become a board member and regular columnist at Inside Higher Ed, an online newspaper devoted to matters of higher education. Only the Left could encourage a debate on the topic "Rude Democracy," while simultaneously censoring opinions it doesn't like. Should organs of purported higher education be in the censoring business? It is my humble opinion, as editor of The American Dissident and long-time professor, that they should not be. It is, however, the opinion of the president of the Association of American University Professors, Cary Nelson, that they should be. The Left clamors ad nauseum for civility. But is censorship civil?
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Scott McLemee finally comes out of the PC-socialist closet. Bravo! He admits, though only indirectly, that he is not at all an independent journalist, but rather a doctrinaire socialist journalist who marches with the “Socialist Contingent.” “Full disclosure: I was part of this, and joined in chanting ‘We're gonna make Glen Beck cry!’,” he notes. Demonization of the likes of Beck or O’Reilly or Obama, for that matter, is a form of ad hominem which tends to be the way of the indoctrinated—left or right wing. The battle is clear today in America: free speech vs. PC civility (and accompanying censorship). Fox, at least, reports on that battle. And, yes, I tend to watch Fox more than CNN because CNN oozes PC.

These things said, just like McLemee, I’m definitely for “higher taxes for the rich and an end to the wars,” but unlike him I’m also for an end to facile demonization of those who are not for those things, for the creation of work programs for those getting free government housing and money (welfare), including Obama’s African aunt in Boston, and an end to PC tenure in the Humanities.

The problem with CIVILIY that is not mentioned in this article is its fundamental SUBJECTIVITY. Civil for you, McLemee, Herbst, and Lederman, might not be civil for me… and vice versa. That is why democracy demands a First Amendment and why perhaps Inside Higher Ed (IHE), though a private money-making organization, ought to embrace it. Sadly, it does not… or if it does, that embrace is highly superficial.

Susan Herbst is quite right, whereas IHE wrong: “Creating a culture of argument, and the thick skin that goes along with it, are long-term projects that will serve democracy well.” Her stats are of course quite frightening, though not at all surprising to me as a long-time professor: “72 percent of students agreed that it was very important for them always to feel comfortable in class.”

The thought I had the other day would be deemed sexist and thus dismissed… and probably censored. But I’ll evoke it here anyhow in the name of the FIRST Amendment: Have the soccer-mom tenured professors in power today in the Humanities, those women in purple, succeeded over the past several decades to coddle and otherwise cocoon student adults with their Safe Zones et al? Where are they hiding when right-wing student newspapers are burned and speakers heckled off the stage at college campuses across the nation? “Feeling comfortable and unthreatened intellectually is a value many students share,” notes Herbst. But is that really a value? What it does is foster cliquishness and lack of outside opinion and input. It fosters the knee-jerk, anti-Fox mentality.

McLemee has it right here and this is why he despises Beck: “Hence pursuing an argument is taken as very nearly an act of aggression.” BTW, I’m an out-of-the-closet atheist and even watch Beck now and then. Well, uh, I do tend to turn the channel to CNN when he starts spouting his god inanity. Oops, that’s an un-PC statement that might OFFEND and get this comment censored into oblivion in our so-called democracy.

McLemee notes: “The attitude that it's better to stay cool and amused than to risk making arguments or expressing too much ardor—this is not civility. It’s timidity.” But is he not being a grand hypocrite when those like me do express ardor, then are censored by his boss, while he remains silent with regards that censorship?

Finally, my comment regarding Herbst’s IHE essay on civility was censored by IHE. I brought that to Herbst’s attention in an email. Herbst, unsurprisingly or rather hypocritically, did not respond. Since it is perhaps likely that this comment will be censored to spare Herbst the embarrassment, it will be posted on my weblog. Thank you for your attention.

Cary Nelson

CENSORSHIP and the President of the AAUP
The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable. Discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views. [...] If a university is a place for knowledge, it is also a special kind of small society. Yet it is not primarily a fellowship, a club, a circle of friends, a replica of the civil society outside it. Without sacrificing its central purpose. It cannot make its primary and dominant value the fostering of friendship, solidarity, harmony, civility, or mutual respect. To be sure, these are important values; other institutions may properly assign them the highest, and not merely a subordinate priority; and a good university will seek and may in some significant measure attain these ends. But it will never let these values, important as they are, override its central purpose. We value freedom of expression precisely because it provides a forum for the new, the provocative, the disturbing, and the unorthodox. Free speech is a barrier to the tyranny of authoritarian or even majority opinion as to the rightness or wrongness of particular doctrines of thoughts.
—Woodward Report to the Fellows of the Yale Corporation (1975), which set a standard for freedom of expression at Yale and for the rest of the nation

Inside Higher Ed, an online academic publication, has been CENSORING my voice for several years (see http://www.theamericandissident.org/InsideHigherEd.htm). There’s not much a staunch individual like me can do to contest incidents of censorship. Last year, I informed Cary Nelson, tenured English professor and president of the AAUP, that my opinion regarding his IHE essay had been censored. Nelson did not respond. Yet, Nelson is the author of No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom. That's right: SAVING ACADEMIC FREEDOM! So, how does he define academic freedom? The freedom to be PC indoctrinated? The freedom to CENSOR and condone CENSORSHIP?
Thus, I satirized Nelson in the above cartoon. The only thing a lone free-speech advocate can do against the Nelsons (and Ledermans) is satire and posting blog entries. Fortunately, posting such entries enables recusant voices like mine to be "heard" on the Internet. Thus, when someone googles Doug Lederman (editor of InsideHigherEd.com) or Cary Nelson, he or she will eventually find my CENSORED opinion. Both of those fellows, if they had it their way, would likely desire to "filter" or "moderate" all such opinions on the Internet. Thankfully, they do not yet have their way. One day, I suspect, however, they will have their way as the cloud of PC Big Brother and Big Sister gets larger and larger.

Both Lederman and Nelson have been duly informed about this blog entry. Below is the harsh comment I tried unsuccessfully posting on Inside Higher Ed regarding Nelson’s self-serving, book plugging essay, “Solidarity vs. Contingency” (see http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/09/07/nelson), which makes him appear to be on the side of the “working” academic and further enhance his “tenured radical” image. But he is one of those riding on the comfy bullet-proof academic gravy train, a "successful" academic ladder climber. The comment below contains no threats, no four-letter words, and no pornographic images. It is thanks to the Ledermans and Nelsons that higher education has become anything but an arena for vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy.

Inside Higher Ed Censored Comment
It is difficult to believe in the sincerity of a Cary Nelson who perhaps earns upwards of $100,000 per year as a full-time tenured English professor at a big university teaching perhaps six measly courses per year, if that. It is indeed difficult to believe in an academic ladder climber, who once was a hippie. Indeed, how facile for Nelson to proclaim solidarity and equity, while enjoying what inequity and lack of solidarity have accorded him as a professor over the years: a life-time pass on the ivory-tower gravy train. Would Nelson be willing to scale down to the $20K per year those like me earn as adjuncts? Doubtfully. Would he be willing to give up just half his big salary, teach a few more courses, and spread the cash equally amongst adjuncts at his particular university? Now, that would be more than mere socialist feel-good jabber!
“Why congratulate ourselves for selling out?” asks Nelson, though I’m not convinced he realizes the depth of that selling out. And how to trust someone like Nelson who will not even stand up to decry censorship in academe? The last comment I’d posted regarding one of his articles was censored, and in vain I’d brought that to his attention. Nelson simply did not respond. Was I, an unconnected adjunct, simply naïve in thinking he might respond?
Nelson’s proclamation is as unrealistic and unattainable as it gets. The future is not in tenure and the cocoon security and salary that tenure affords professors. The future is online and the future is adjunct. I am happy with that situation because if it did not exist I would be without employment today. The Nelsons would certainly not be writing me three letters of recommendation or otherwise backing my quest for tenure. The AAUP and state college union stood idly by when I once fought corruption in the ranks.
Nelson’s comparison of adjuncts with sharecroppers is pitiful nonsense. Adjuncts are educated, while sharecroppers clearly were not. Adjuncts do not toil in unsanitary, menial, and physically exhausting hardcore labor. Adjuncts can seek employment in other spheres, while sharecroppers generally were stuck. Nelson belittles the tough life of sharecroppers by making such a comparison! One would have to believe that he’s never known the tough life of physical labor.
Unfortunately, I could not bring myself to finish reading Nelson’s lengthy article, stopped where he plugs his book, and wondered what he’ll be doing with the cash from book sales. Will he be refurbishing his little wainscoted luxury apartment or expensive home?
The problem with academic freedom is that tenure tends to be granted to those who would never speak out of line to begin with. In other words, it tends to be wholly unnecessary. Tenure tends to be awarded to those who play the game—to those who kowtow to the department chairperson Nelsons in power. I’ve seen it. I know it. Tenure has become in itself a rot in the heart of democracy, for it is a sham, a risible front. With all the tenured professors in the nation’s colleges and universities, how not to wonder why free speech and vigorous debate, democracy’s cornerstones, seem ever to be in peril in those very colleges and universities (see thefire.org). Indeed, it seems the tenured professors themselves are bent on keeping it that way. Yes, students, burn and steal those conservative newspapers! Yes, students, heckle that conservative speaker so he can no longer be heard! We’re in full solidarity with you. A-men.

Monsters without Constituencies

Colleges certainly do need to be open to the likes of Ayers and Churchill (see www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/04/02/nelson). BUT the tenured radical AAUP president Cary Nelson fails to add they also need to be open to the likes of me, who openly criticize the likes of him. He, of course, conveniently chooses to remain silent with that regard and concerning the criticism I’ve sent his way over the past couple of years. Yet silence is certainly not the reaction of true proponents of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy! Indeed, how can debate really be vigorous at all when academic editors like Doug Lederman (InsideHigherEd.com) insist on running everything through their particular bourgeois sense of taste and aesthetics prior to publishing it?

Besides outright censoring one of my comments, Lederman took four days to publish my highly critical post on Phinney’s article on tenure. By that time, who’d even notice or read it? The fact is the Censor is alive and well in the myriad hearts of the academic Ledermans… and Nelsons. Sure, they don’t refer to themselves as censors, but rather moderators or filters. Did Nelson care about that minor censorship incident or the four-day delay? Of course, he didn’t! After all, he wanted to get his article published by Lederman! Needless to say, I denounced the censorship in an article sent to him and a handful of Chronicle of Higher Education staff. Would I ever receive a response? Experience dictates that to be highly unlikely!

Criticize the Nelsons and Ledermans, and they would remain comfortably silent. After all, the ivory tower was called the ivory tower for good reason! As long as Nelson refuses to dialogue with my ilk, his words remain empty. Sure, he’ll eagerly back causes celebres like Ayers and Churchill, but not give a damn for those who have not made the headlines. That is likely the problem with the AAUP in general. Back when I fought egregious fraud at Fitchburg State College (MA), for example, the AAUP remained silent despite my attempts to interest it. Indeed, how to interest it when some of its very members were perpetrating the fraud? Sadly, Nelson could give a hoot about the Monsters without Constituencies like me. And that is precisely why free speech and expression continue their deplorable decline in Academe (see thefire.org).

“We either must stand firm against these efforts to undermine the integrity of our educational institutions or agree that academic freedom no longer obtains [sic] in America,” notes Nelson. Nice words, but it will take a hell of a lot more than nice words! It will take the likes of Nelson to stand up for the Monsters without Constituencies, and that just ain’t gonna happen for the simple reason that career and money will always be at stake, and the academic Nelsons will always choose to make that Faustian Pact.

By the way, Nelson needs to ask himself what “accomplished” has really come to mean in Academe. Does it mean “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways” (Emerson) and “let your life be a counterfriction to stop the machine” (Thoreau)? Of course, it doesn’t! What it means is being particularly agile at turning a blind eye whenever that may help ones career, that is, to become an integral machine cog. It means pleasing ones colleagues and the corporate university, by not speaking the “rude truth.” The question, of course, remains: how does an “unrepentant radical” become an “accomplished” academic of the collegial variety?

The Education of Oronte Chum or How to Feed at the Academic Trough

Censorship of anything, at any time, in any place, on whatever pretense, has always been and will always be the last resort of the boob and the bigot.
—Eugene O’Neill

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty helps us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.
—Edmund Burke

The cartoon above was inspired by a minor encounter with a minor academic, John Griswald, on InsideHigherEd.com, which I received via email several times per week. Upon one occasion, I was actually censored by IHE for a comment I’d made on a rather lame poem by Laurence Musgrove, associate professor of English at Saint Xavier University, in Chicago:

Syllabus

On the first page just after the required novels

And before the list of learning outcomes

I’d paste a photo of me from ‘73

Scraggly hair and wire-rimmed glasses

And then torn from my long gone journal

Some half poem or worry on the day

So they might see me and not me

Who could be their dad or worse

With these handouts and so much to read

How jealous I am I am almost crying

How much I love them.

My commentary was the following. Sure, I suppose, I could have been politer, more bourgeois in tone, more collegial, as they liked to say, but should the comment have been censored in a democracy? You decide.

“Why publish such a lame poem? Well, it is indicative of the general state of professors in higher education today, where few have the courage to openly question and challenge the various hands that feed and otherwise fatten them into submissiveness. Democracy is at stake in America today, so let's write a poem about the syllabus! For poems et al decrying the state of higher ed that Inside Higher Ed would likely never publish, see www.theamericandissident.org. Vigorous debate is the cornerstone of democracy... but not in higher ed, where speech codes, collegiality, and cutesy wit rule!”

In any case, I’d since written perhaps harsher comments, which were not censored. Perhaps my email to the editor in protest of his censorship actually served to sensitize him to the proliferation and harmful effects of censorship in Academe vis-à-vis Democracy. Apropos, in the ivory tower, the censor was not referred to as a censor, but rather as a moderator.

In actuality, my grievance was really not with Griswold, but rather with self-proclaimed tenured radical Cary Nelson, president of the established-order Association of American University Professors. Griswold had written a hagiographic piece, “Cary Nelson, Provocateur.” Thus, I challenged him on it. Also, I mentioned the incident of censorship to him. He was of course, as a pup at the InsideHigherEd trough, entirely indifferent to it and did not respond with its regard.

Was Griswold’s vignette (see www.insidehighered.com/blogs/the_education_of_oronte_churm/cary_nelson_provocateur)
an example of what “provocative” or “provocateur” had come to mean in Academe? If so, the corporate co-optation of the University must surely have become a fait accompli, instead of simply in progress. The castration of terms like “provocative” and “radical” served that co-optation well as an integral part of the rationalization process of far too many Academics.

Regarding Nelson, the question, of course, remained and, of course, was not raised: how did a radical become a tenured, bourgeois, faculty cocktail-party attending president of the established-order Association of American University Professors? Kowtowing ones way up the ladder was how it was normally done in Academe, while truth telling was the normal way straight out the freakin’ door… or rather out the window on to the ledge of chronic unemployment. Did Cary Nelson possess some secret formula to do it otherwise? If so, why hadn’t Griswald even posed the question?

Nelson’s website, Modern American Poetry, was anything but radical or even remotely “provocative,” or even at all necessary. Well, it did have a Soviet-Union looking sketch of a worker holding a sledgehammer on it (www.english.illinois.edu/maps/), but how did that make it different in substance? Nevertheless, I had to give Nelson kudos for being somewhat unusual in academe for his being somewhat open to criticism; he’d actually posted the satirical cartoon I’d done on him on his webpage (see www.cary-nelson.org/nelson/cartoon.html). Just the same, his was really but a rehash of Academe’s canon. Where was the hardcore questioning and challenging of that largely bourgeois canon? How did twisted thinking (discoursing in oxymorons, castration of vocabulary et al) become so seemingly prevalent (the norm!) in Academe? Now, that would have made a great subject for a doctoral thesis! If I hadn’t already done mine, I’d get to work on it right away.

Finally, Griswald aka Churm, scribbler of the dubious Nelson tribute, needed to ask himself how his education (i.e., the Education of Oronte Churm) had failed him so royally. How had it succeeded in blocking the natural flow of his intellect, placed it into a state of paradigmatic paralysis, where politeness and collegiality, not to mention obsequiousness, hagiography, and rampant self-vaunting, were far more pertinent than truth telling, and indeed rendered his intellect utterly incapable of raising the simple—though truth unearthing—questions and points underscored here? The quip and silence were academe’s favorite rhetorical weapons of choice for dealing with uncomfortable truth jams. Perhaps this time, Griswald would simply choose silence.

BTW, Griswald actually prefaced his Churm blog with the above quote by Edmund Burke. It was, at least for me, difficult to comprehend professor/writers like him... and so many there were! Was his simply a matter of some deeply unconscious inability to perceive reality? Clearly, Griswald was not into the "wrestling" Burke rightfully praised; he rejected it outright. For him, "our antagonist" was not our "helper" at all, but rather someone to be ignored and buried. If he really agreed with Burke, he would not have eschewed "wrestling" (i.e., vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy) with me. Granted, he did respond, regarding this blog entry, though not in the comment area. Nevertheless, his brief email was hardly evidence at all of a desire to "wrestle": "Thank you! Where do you teach, Tod?"

Now, why did he wish to know where I taught? Did he want to contact the deans in the hope of getting me ousted for un-business-like (i.e., pro-democracy) behavior? Why else would he want to know? Again, it was difficult to understand such professor/writers.

Manifesto of a Tenured Goon in Academic Regalia

Interestingly, Paula Krebs, editor of Academe (Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors), responded to this essay, arguing it was too long to publish in Academe. Thus, I suggested it be published as a refreshingly honest guest editorial, instead of a truncated letter to the editor. She did not respond to that. Also interestingly, Cary Nelson (see below), current president of the AAUP, put the satirical cartoon I’d sketched on him (see below) up on his website (www.cary-nelson.org/nelson/cartoon.html). Did he understand it? Or had he climbed to high on the academic ladder to fathom its implication that he had perhaps indeed become yet another 60s sellout.

Academe is not necessarily a positive term nowadays, as it enters its final phase of corporate co-optation. It has not become a bastion of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, but rather one of speech codes, political rectitude, pomp and circumstance, and image distortion, not to mention rampant professorial self-censorship and spinelessness. That is the academic culture, as addressed in one of my previous blogs.

In any case, the issue of Academe I consulted was upon the give-away counter at campus mail. So, I picked it up. It was my last day at the university and possibly, if not likely, my last day as an employed professor… and not out of choice. My intention was not to review it, just to leaf through it. But the idea took hold. Academe—not the magazine—tends to be pretty safe from hardcore criticism. For example, it had been next to impossible for me to get tough critique published in The Chronicle of Higher Education and impossible to interest Thought & Action, not to mention Inside Higher Ed, a Chronicle spin-off. The former tended to prefer mild, cutesy how-my-husband-and-I-both-got-tenure-at-the-same-university articles authored by anonymous pen-name professors like Thomas Benton. To get one column in response to the 52-guest columns authored by one professor praising the University of Louisiana at Monroe in the local newspaper, I had to fight tooth and nail with the editor of The News Star for several months. Take a look at that column. Then you’ll know why I had to fight: www.theamericandissident.org/Op-Ed-NewsStar.htm.

In any case and to my amazement, on the very top of Academe’s masthead, listed as AAUP president, was none other than Mr. Tenured Radical himself, Cary Nelson. Was I dreaming? Would Professor Nelson soon be writing another book, Manifesto of a Tenured Goon in Academic Robe? Let’s hope so.

One feature story in Academe caught my attention, in particular, because it summed up what academe had become. No, the story was not “Why Most Tenured Professors Don’t Need Academic Freedom” or “How Collegiality Has Replaced Truth in Higher Education,” but rather “Who Retires When and How?” Exuberantly, the editor states: “Examine your own college’s policies in light of the report; use it to help in your own activism on campus around issues of retirement benefits.” Ah, so they called that activism today!

Pages 4-5 constituted an advertisement-article for the AAUP’s efforts to raise $10 million for an endowment fund. Money, indeed, was what higher education had become all about today. What would the AAUP do with more money, if not assure the academic status quo of self-censorship, backslapping, self-congratulating, and image hyperinflation? “Academic Freedom for a Free Society” was its motto. But the reality was rather Academic Enslavement for a Corporate Society. The AAUP boasted that it “defends the academic freedom of the professoriate,” but to do what, if not to do business as usual and otherwise fully cooperate in the corporate co-optation of the university by always exchanging silence for monetary remuneration? Academe was festering with tenured-professor functionaries and bureaucrats, those “goons in academic robes,” in the words of Cary Nelson, and seemed to be quite content manufacturing more of the same. It’s the system, dummy! The AAUP ought to have been fighting, not for more money, but, for example, to put an end to the three letters of recommendation requisite in the hiring process because those letters assured a candidate likely not to exercise his or her First Amendment rights. Instead, they certified the candidate unlikely to engage in vigorous debate concerning issues at his or her particular institution. At this very moment, I found myself in a self-censorship dilemma because the dean had promised to write a letter of recommendation. Why didn’t anybody speak out about that dubious institution? A simple statement by an employer of an employee’s attendance and assiduity should replace those letters.

Mayra Besosa’s article, “Golden State Solidarity,” was somewhat interesting especially the discussion on the attempt to apply “private-sector management models to the public sector” in higher education, otherwise known as New Public Management. In her concluding statement, Besosa noted: “as tenure-track faculty members become a smaller percentage of the professoriate, contingent [adjunct] faculty will increasingly have to carry the torch in the struggle to save higher education.” That sounded nice, but why had higher education gone down the tubes when tenure-track faculty had existed in larger numbers, if not because most tenured faculty were simply uninterested in truth and democracy at their particular institutions? Their interest tended to be more monetary and job-security than anything else. “Together, we (adjunct and tenure-track faculty) can challenge the notion that anyone should have to sacrifice human dignity and respect to the needs of cost-efficiency.” Again, that sounded fine and dandy, but what about those tenured faculty—the large majority—who didn’t seem to give a damn about dignity? What was most needed in higher education were faculty who would “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways” (Emerson) and who would let their lives “be a counterfriction to stop the machine” (Thoreau). So rare were such faculty in higher education today that one had to conclude tenure or the absence thereof had simply become irrelevant. Instead, faculty members overly concerned with offending or being offended had proliferated.

Of little if any interest was the superficial “filler” article authored by William C. Handorf, “Football or Physics?” It dealt with higher education… as featured on commemorative postal stamps over the years and how to make suggestions for future stamps. That article would have made a great feature story in The Chronicle of Higher Education! Well, I’d like to make a suggestion or two: a professor in black gown and multicolored court-jester hat or a professor holding a sword thrust into the heart of democracy. Hmm.

The report on institutions censured by the AAUP was of interest, listing 43 such institutions and developments regarding each one. But 43 seemed relatively small. I would have expected 99% of all institutions of higher education to be deserving of censure for intolerance of free speech and expression. It’s the system, dummy! The AAUP stipulated that its “censure is visited specifically upon” an institution’s “administration,” not faculty. Perhaps it was time it contemplated censuring the latter too. The institutions where I’ve taught all ought to have been censured for corrupt administrations and cowardly faculty bodies, yet not one of them appeared on the list, not Elmira College, Fitchburg State College, Bennett College, Grambling State College, nor Davenport University. Interestingly, some of the censured institutions had been on the AAUP list since the sixties and seventies and some clearly didn’t give a damn about their status.

More than half of this issue of Academe was devoted to a rather tedious business-like special report on Katrina and the diverse Louisiana universities affected by her. I did not read the report, only the very beginning.

Finally, Cary Nelson’s last-page editorial, “No Campus Is an Island,” dealt with tenure and the purported great fear of professors of the possibility of losing it! Well, that alone ought to have helped keep their muzzles firmly in place. But why would professors who rarely if ever dared openly criticize their particular institutions be so concerned with losing their jobs? That was a question Nelson did not address. Clearly, free speech was not the concern at all and perhaps ought not to be confused with academic freedom, which more likely dealt with the freedom not to publish, not to refresh ones courses with new materials, not to engage students sufficiently, and especially not to be an ardent supporter of the First Amendment. Nelson seemed to focus on—what else is new?—money, arguing that tenured faculty needed to “hold common cause” (i.e., holding on to tenure), but “How much solidarity should an assistant professor of art feel with an assistant professor of business earning more than twice as much?” Tenure ought to be eliminated. The majority of professors, who had it, clearly didn’t deserve it because they failed miserably to meet their moral obligation to encourage free speech and expression and vigorous debate on their particular campuses. With that regard, I tested the waters at each and every institution where I taught. Most professors (99%) were simply uninterested. That was the nature of the beast.

By the way, in the mid-90s, in vain, I tried to obtain help from the AAUP regarding the corruption I experienced first hand on the tenure track at a public college. AAUP members at that college (Fitchburg State, MA) proved entirely indifferent and unsupportive. Some even proved hostile. That college ended up paying me a secret monetary settlement because the corruption my case underscored was egregious. Yet those AAUP members chose to either ignore or belittle it. Most of them are still festering at that institution, ever grubbing for mo’ money…