The newly inaugurated U.S. administration has created an atmosphere of violence, racism, Islamophobia, and anti-Semitism. A less discussed aspect of these attacks is on academic freedom. The 2016 election has taken to new extremes the threats to academic freedom. We can see a preview of what this administration intends in their response to the recent cancellations of “talks” by professional provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who engages in public, cruel harassment of students who are critical of his extremist views, from the lectern through trigger cameras that project students’ images without their consent. He then proceeds to taunt them and incite actions against them on the basis of their physical appearance, race, sexuality, and gender. Instead of condemning this kind of incitement, President Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from UC Berkeley after Yiannopoulos’ “talk” was cancelled at UC Berkeley and other UC campuses.
We can also see indications of things to come in the lack of condemnation – hence tacit permission – of attacks by the [David] Horowitz so-called Freedom Center on certain University of California campuses for considering establishing themselves as a set of sanctuary campuses. The recent Executive Order in the form of a travel ban on people coming from seven Muslim majority countries (blocked by an appeals court) has ensnared students, faculty and visiting scholars who have had their academic lives and careers put into jeopardy as a result of the proposed ban. The absence of international scholars from large parts of the Middle East would severely affect the quality and reach of our educational institutions. Similarly, the anti-immigration bashing and the threat to build a wall with Mexico puts the important DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in jeopardy, directly threatening our undocumented college students. The politically motivated attacks on research scientists working on climate change and fetal tissue research are further indications of a political climate intent on thoroughly trampling over academic freedom.
Furthermore, with regard to academic freedom and free speech, a legislator in the state of Arizona proposed a bill that would prohibit state institutions from offering any classes or activities that “advocate solidarity” or “promotes division, resentment or social justice toward a race, gender, religion, political affiliation, social class or other class of people.” In other words, discussion of social justice should not be part of the educational curriculum. While this bill died before it reached a vote, Arizona already bans the teaching of ethnic studies in K-12 education, a law that is being challenged in court. We can expect to see more of these attempts to limit academic freedom in the coming four years. These initiatives are important for us to know and attempt to counteract. These are very direct interventions in our campus lives, potentially putting a chill on our educational atmosphere and affecting academic freedom.
A recently formed “Professor Watchlist” purports to alert students about professors they claim “advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.” This watchlist echoes Horowitz’s project, Campus Watch and the insidious, anonymously sponsored Canary Mission. The latter lists both faculty and students, threatening the latter with slanderous public information for use by prospective employers and the former with threats of violence. The Professor Watchlist names numerous professors from California institutions of higher learning. In response to the Professor Watchlist, faculty from throughout California, at public and private universities, have followed the lead of faculty at the University of Notre Dame, in sending the Professor Watchlist our names to be added to their list. We refuse to be intimidated by such harassment tactics.
Below is a letter we are sending to Professor Watchlist:
We, the undersigned faculty in various universities and colleges in California, write to request that you place our names, all of them, on Professor Watchlist.
We make this request because we note that you currently list on your site several of our California colleagues, such as Professors Bettina Aptheker, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Melina Abdullah, Hatem Bazian and some 20 others, whose work is distinguished by its commitment to reasoned, fact-based civil discourse examining questions of tolerance, equality, and justice. We further note that nearly all faculty colleagues at other institutions listed on your site, the philosophers, historians, theologians, ethicists, feminists, rhetoricians, and others, have similarly devoted their professional lives to the unyielding pursuit of truth, to the critical examination of assumptions that underlie social and political policy, and to honoring this country’s commitments to the premise that all people are created equal and deserving of respect.
This is the sort of company we wish to keep.
We surmise that the purpose of your list is to shame and silence faculty who espouse ideas you reject. But your list has had a different effect upon us. We are coming forward to stand with the professors you have called “dangerous,” reaffirming our values and recommitting ourselves to the work of teaching students to think clearly, independently, and fearlessly. So please add our names, the undersigned faculty from California institutions, many of whom belong to California Scholars for Academic Freedom, to the Professor Watchlist. We wish to be counted among those you are watching.
Most sincerely,
Ece Algan
Director, Center for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies California State University at San Bernardino
Richard P. Appelbaum
Distinguished Research Professor
Sociology and Global Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
Paola Bacchetta
Department of Gender and Women’s Studies
University of California, Berkeley
Carole H. Browner
Distinguished Research Professor
Departments of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Anthropology, and Gender Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Edmund Burke, III
Professor Department of History
University of California, Santa Cruz
Lara Deeb
Anthropology
Scripps College
Julia Elyachar,
Anthropology and Economics
University of California, Irvine
Richard Falk,
Fellow, Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
Former Special Rapporteur, UN Human Rights Council
Aranye Fradenburg
Professor, Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
Margaret Ferguson,
Distinguished Professor of English,
University of California at Davis
Mayanthi L. Fernando
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Department of Anthropology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Gary Fields
Associate Professor
Department of Communications
University of California, San Diego
Prof. Claudio Fogu
Associate Professor of Italian Studies,
Department of French and Italian
University of California Santa Barbara
Manzar Foroohar
History Professor
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Nancy Gallagher
Professor, History Department
University of California, Santa Barbara
Jess Ghannam
Department of Psychiatry, and
Global Health Sciences
University of California, San Francisco
School of Medicine
Bishnupriya Ghosh
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
Huma Ahmed-Ghosh, Professor
Department of Women’s Studies
Advisory Board: Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies Center for Asia and Pacific Studies
Institute for Security and Conflict Resolution
San Diego State University
Deborah Gould
Associate Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Larry Gross
Professor
School of Communication
Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism University of Southern California
Sondra Hale
Anthropology and Gender Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Gail Hershatter
Distinguished Professor of History
History Department
University of California, Santa Cruz
Ivan Huber, PhD
Professor Emeritus of Biology
Fairleigh Dickinson University
Madison, NJ
Member, California Scholars for Academic Freedom
Suad Joseph
Distinguished Research Professor
Anthropology Department
University of California, Davis
Zayn Kassam
John Knox McLean Professor of Religious Studies
Pomona College
Katherine King
Professor, Comparative Literature
University of California, Los Angeles
David Klein
Professor of Mathematics
California State University Northridge
Dennis Kortheuer
Dept. of History, emeritus
Cal State Long Beach
Mark LeVine
History Department
University of California, Irvine
Esther Lezra
Associate Professor Global Studies
Feminist Studies and Comparative Literature Affiliate University of California, Santa Barbara
David Lloyd
Distinguished Professor of English
Department of English
University of California, Riverside
Pardis Mahdavi, PhD
Dean of Women
Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology
Pomona College
Amina Mama
Professor, Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies University of California, Davis
Andrew Mathews
Anthropology Department
University of California, Santa Cruz
Flagg Miller
Professor of Religious Studies
The University of California, Davis
Minoo Moallem
Professor, Department of Gender and Women’s Studies University of California, Berkeley
Helene Moglen,
Professor, Literature
University of California Santa Cruz
Kathleen Moore,
Professor and Chair,
Department of Religious Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
Patricia Morton
Editor, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians Associate Professor, Art History Department
University of California, Riverside
David Palumbo-Liu
Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor,Comparative Literature Stanford University
David Naguib Pellow
Dehlsen Chair and Professor of Environmental Studies University of California, Santa Barbara
Noam Perry
Department of Justice Studies
San Jose State University
Ismail Poonawala
Professor of Arabic & Islamic Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
James Quesada
Professor & Chair
Department of Anthropology
San Francisco State University
Nasrin Rahimieh
Howard Baskerville Professor in Humanities
Chair, Department of Comparative Literature
University of California, Irvine
Rush Rehm
Professor, Theater and Performance Studies, and Classics Artistic Director, Stanford Repertory Theater (SRT) Stanford University
Craig Reinarman
Research Professor and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Legal Studies
University of California, Santa Cruz
Dwight Reynolds
Professor, Dept of Religious Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
William I. Robinson
Professor of Sociology and
Global and International Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
Robyn Magalit Rodriguez
Associate Professor, Asian American Studies
University of California, Davis
Lisa Rofel
Professor, Department of Anthropology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Parama Roy
Professor of English
University of California, Davis
Danilyn Rutherford
Professor, Anthropology Department
University of California, Santa Cruz
Jeffrey Sacks
Associate Professor
Department of Comparative Literature
University of California, Riverside
Sang Hea Kil
Ph.D. Associate Professor
Department of Justice Studies
San José State University
Vida Samiian
Professor of Linguistics
California State University, Fresno
Bhaskar Sarkar
Film and Media Studies
University of California, Santa Barbara
Susan Slyomovics
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages & Cultures
University of California, Los Angeles
Elizabeth Stephens
Art Department
University of California, Santa Cruz
Judith Stevenson
Emerita, Ph.D Anthropology
Peace and Social Justice Program
Department of Human Development
California State University, Long Beach
Baki Tezcan,
Associate Professor of History
University of California, Davis
Howard Winant
Distinguished Professor of Sociology
University of California, Santa Barbara
Stephen Zunes
Professor of Politics
University of San Francisco