Ron,
I agree that creating another government "advisory board" is a bad move that will not solve anything. But I think it's a stretch to describe the ACLU brief cited below as "straightforward" or "neutral" when it completely ignores the elephant in the living room -- the strong left-wing bias that *does exist* among faculty members at most American universities.
For the ACLU to talk all around a basic political reality which is acknowledged by honest people across the ideological spectrum is extremely disingenuous. Any discussion of the politics of American higher education that fails to recognize this reality can hardly be considered unbiased. What ought to be done to increase ideological diversity is a different question, of course.
Yours in liberty,
<<< Starchild >>>
Dear Everyone;
Without any pro or con rhetoric - the ACLU has analyzed HR 3077 and two troublesome sections - Section 6 and Section 7. The url address is a copy of the analysis on Sec. 6 & 7 sent to the Chairman and Ranking member of the appropriate Senate committee. The ACLU's straightforward, neutral, non-nationalistic and un-jingoistic analytical comments on the Advisory Board and the campus access requirements are worth reading.
http://www.aclu.org/FreeSpeech/FreeSpeech.cfm?ID=14952&c=42
Ron Getty
SF LibertarianI think we have to be consistent here. Either we are for free speech on
campus for ALL professors and students or we are for it for NONE of
them. If libertarians can be urged to sign a petition for Tatiana's
free speech they can be urged to oppose a govt law pushed by those who
want to shut up pro-Palestinian and anti-interventionist professors and
students. Both have been done on this list in last week or so. (And
I'm sure we'll all agree that if parties on either side start actually
threatening people with violence or throwing stuff around or destroying
property they are stepping over a line; and we can agree that there
should be due process in deciding whether such incidents have occurred.)Have I brought you over to that side, Bruce??
CM
LAST NIGHT
--- In lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com, "brucedcohen" <brucedcohen@c...> wrote:> Tatiana's support or lack of it for any political move by the US is
> irrelevant to the subject. This is a free-speech issue and nothing
> else.
>
LAST WEEK
— In lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com, "brucedcohen" <brucedcohen@c…> wrote:
> I'm not sure why Carol Moore is doing her usual thing here on the
LPSF Discussion group,
> but her over cross-posting doesn't belong here.
>
> She's from Washington DC and doesn't really care about, nor keep up
with, issues
> important to the LPSFers.
>
> Me, I'm a bit of a carpetbagger myself, one could accuse me of, being
from SOCAL,
> but I stick to YOUR topics and things relevant to the LPSF.
Regardless of the fact
> that I disagree with this particular article, it just doesn't belong
here.
>
> Bruce
> From: Carol Moore in DC
> To: LPSF-Discuss ; WestCoastLibs ; LPWS-Debate ; lpaz-d ;
WesternLibs ; Oregon_Libertarian_Dialogue
> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 10:09 PM
> Subject: [lpsf-discuss] New Scheme to Smash 1st Amendment
>
> I'm sure they'll find a way to ban ALL those noninterventionist
> libertarian professors and campus groups. Next they'll tell us
> if you work for the government or collect social security you
> can't speak out publiclly…
> From: Washington Report on Middle East Affairs [mailto:info@w…]
> Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 9:01 PM
> To: wrmea@m…
> Subject: New ADL Scheme to Smash 1st Amendment
>
> Israeli Lobby Slips Anti-Free Speech Bill Through House of
> Representatives…
> Bill Can Still Be Defeated in Senate if Citizens Act Now.
>
> By Michael Collins Piper
>
> The Israeli lobby has launched an all-out drive to ensure congressional
> passage of a bill (approved by the House and now before a Senate
> committee) that would set up a virtual federal tribunal to investigate
> and monitor criticism of Israel on American college campuses.
>
> Ten months ago the New York-based Jewish Week newspaper claimed that
> the report by American Free Press that Republican members of the Senate
> were planning to crack down on college and university professors who
> were critical of Israel was "a dangerous urban legend at best,
> deliberate disinformation at worst." In short, they were saying AFP
> lied.
>
> Now the truth has come out. On September 17, 2003 the House
> Subcommittee on Select Education unanimously approved H.R. 3077, the
> International Studies in Higher Education Act, which was then passed by
> the full House of Representatives on October 21. The chief sponsor of
> the legislation was Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a conservative Republican from
> Michigan.
>
> This bill is dangerous–a direct affront to the First Amendment and the
> product of intrigue by a small clique of individuals and organizations
> which combines the "elite" forces of the powerful Israeli lobby in
> official Washington.
>
> There are absolutely no grass-roots organizations supporting this
> measure whatsoever. Instead, leading the push for Senate approval of
> the House-originated bill, are the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of
> B'nai B'rith, the American Jewish Congress, and the American Jewish
> Committee. Also lending its support is Empower America, the
> neo-conservative front group established by longtime pro-Israel
> publicist William Kristol, editor and publisher of billionaire Rupert
> Murdoch's Weekly Standard which is said to be the "intellectual"
> journal that governs the train of foreign policy thinking in the Bush
> administration.
>
> One other group has lent its support: the U.S. India Political Action
> Committee, an Indian-American group that has been working closely with
> the Israeli lobby now that Israel and India are geopolitically allied.
>
> H.R. 3077 is innocuously worded and quite bureaucratic in its tone,
> decipherable only to those with the capacity to wade through
> legislative linguistics, but essentially it would set up a seven-member
> advisory board that would have the power to recommend cutting federal
> funding for colleges and universities that are viewed as harboring
> academic critics of Israel.
>
> Two members of the board would be appointed by the Senate, two by the
> House, and three by the Secretary of Education, two of whom are
> required to be from U.S. federal security agencies. The various
> appointees would be selected from what the Christian Science Monitor
> described on March 11 as "politicians, representatives of cultural and
> educational organizations, and private citizens."
>
> In other words, it would be another federal "blue ribbon" panel akin to
> the Warren Commission that ostensibly investigated the JFK
> assassination and the now highly-suspect federal commission looking
> into the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
>
> Gilbert Merkx, vice provost for international affairs and development
> and director of the Centre for International Studies at Duke University
> has echoed the fears of many when he charged that this so-called
> advisory board "could easily be hijacked by those who have a political
> axe to grind and become a vehicle for an inquisition."
>
> In fact, the primary individuals promoting this effort to control
> intellectual debate on the college campuses are known for having a
> political axe to grind: they are all prominent and outspoken supporters
> of Israel and harsh critics of the Arab and Muslim worlds. They are:
> 1). Martin Kramer, a professor of Arab studies at The Moshe Dayan
> Center at Tel Aviv University in Israel; 2). Stanley Kurtz, a
> contributor of ex-CIA man William F. Buckley Jr.'s bitterly anti-Arab
> National Review Online and a research fellow at the staunchly
> pro-Israel Hoover Institution; and 3). Daniel Pipes, founder of the
> pro-Israel Middle East Institute and its affiliate, Campus Watch, an
> ADL-style organization that keeps tabs on college professors and
> students who are-or are suspected of being-critics of Israel.
>
> Hiding behind the banner of defending America, these three-along with
> the Israeli lobby affiliates promoting H.R. 3077-are claiming that they
> are fighting "anti-Americanism" as it is being taught on the college
> campuses.
>
> Republicans in Congress have joined this chorus, preferring to allow
> their constituents to think that this is an "America First" measure
> when it is anything but that. Juan Cole of the History News Network
> responds to this extraordinary twist on reality saying that the claim
> of "anti-Americanism" is intellectually dishonest. "What they mean . .
> . if you pin them down is ambivalence about the Iraq war, or dislike of
> Israeli colonization of the West Bank, or recognition that the U.S.
> government has sometimes in the past been in bed with present enemies
> like al-Qaeda or Saddam. None of these positions is 'anti-American,'
> and any attempt by a congressionally-appointed body to tell university
> professors they cannot say these things-or that if they say them they
> must hire someone else who will say the opposition-is a contravention
> of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." The promoters are
> also suggesting that this legislation would-in the words of the
> American Jewish Committee-"enhance intellectual freedom on campus by
> enabling diverse viewpoints to be heard," when, of course, the
> legislation would do precisely the opposite.
>
> Lisa Anderson of the Columbia University School of International and
> Public Affairs says in response that "this plan . . . is not about
> diversity, or even about the truth." Unfortunately, she doesn't choose
> to tackle the Israeli lobby head on. Instead, she targets her ire at
> the Republican conservatives who are acting as the Israeli lobby's
> surrogates and says that this plan is "about the conviction of
> conservative political activists that the American university community
> is unsufficiently patriotic, or perhaps simply unsufficiently
> conservative." What she should be saying is that these Republicans who
> are carrying water for Israel are concerned that universities are
> "unsufficiently pro-Israel."
>
> The Republican House members who originally joined Hoekstra in
> co-sponsoring this dangerous legislation should be named for the
> record. They are:
>
> . John A. Boehner (Ohio)
> . John R. Carter (Texas)
> . Tom Cole (Oklahoma)
> . James Greenwood (Penn.)
> . Howard (Buck) McKeon (Calif.)
> . Patrick J. Tiberi (Ohio)
> . Joe Wilson (South Carolina)
>
> However, don't try to find out how your representative voted when the
> bill came before the full House. Hoekstra asked for a suspension of the
> House rules-which was approved-and made it possible for this
> controversial measure to be passed with an un-recorded "voice vote"
> wherein there is no record of how individual House members voted, or if
> they even voted at all.
>
> In fact, the measure passed by the House is precisely the very same
> type of proposed "ideological diversity" legislation that AFP first
> warned about, although, at the time, the measure was being kicked
> around for possible introduction in the Senate by two prominent
> Republicans, Rick Santorum (Penn.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.).
>
> What happened was that AFP's initial report on the legislation gained
> so much widespread circulation in e-mails being sent out nationwide
> among American college and university professors and on the Internet,
> even so far as the Arab world, that the resulting negative publicity
> forced Santorum and Brownback to back off.
>
> However, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) picked up their torch and
> introduced H.R. 3077 in the House, containing precisely the language
> that his Senate colleagues had intended to introduce until AFP blew the
> whistle. To their credit, virtually every major American education
> organization-including even the teacher's union, the National Education
> Association-have raised their concerns about this campaign to muzzle
> the free speech of teachers, professors and instructors. And the
> American Civil Liberties Union has also protested this measure.
>
> Critics say this is a new form of what has been known in the past as
> "McCarthyism" and no matter what you may think about the late Sen.
> Joseph McCarthy whose name rightly or wrongly inspired that
> terminology, the truth is that this legislation is "McCarthyism" by
> virtue of the popular definition.
>
> The only chance to destroy this legislation and stop it dead in tracks
> is for enough grass-roots citizens to rise up and demand that H.R. 3077
> be put to rest. And believe it or not, the one senator who may be able
> to stop it is Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy of Massachusetts. (See
> accompanying story).
>
> SIDEBAR
> Contact Senate Members.
> Urge that H.R. 3077 be shelved.
>
> The Israeli lobby's pet project, H.R. 3077, innocuously named as The
> International Studies in Higher Education Act of 2003–and popularly
> known as "Title 6"–is now before the Senate's Committee on Health,
> Education, Labor and Pensions.
>
> This committee is controlled by the Republican majority who are likely
> to support the bill, but the ranking minority member is powerful Sen.
> Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) who has been-perhaps to the surprise of
> many, including even AFP readers–an outspoken critic of Daniel Pipes,
> one of the leading proponents of H.R. 3077.
>
> Although it is not well known, Kennedy's second wife is an
> Arab-American and he has become quite attune to Arab-bashing of the
> type that Pipes engages in. As such–despite what one may think of
> Kennedy's views on other issues–he is seen as a possible roadblock in
> the way of final approval by the Senate committee of H.R. 3077.
>
> For this reason, AFP recommends that those who want to work for the
> defeat of this Israeli measure contact the offices of the following
> senators–all of whom are Democrats with the exception of independent
> James Jeffords of Vermont–and urge them to oppose H.R. 3077.
>
> IMPORTANT NOTE: Be very precise in your language. Simply tell the
> senators to oppose H.R. 3077–that it is an infringement upon the First
> Amendment and a threat to academic freedom in America. Do not lecture
> the senators about the power of the Israeli lobby or give them the
> "facts" that have been reported in AFP. Rest assured that the senators
> are well versed in the realities of the situation. Simply give them the
> opportunity to say publicly that they have received a flood of calls,
> letters and e-mails urging them to oppose H.R. 3077.
>
> The list of senators is as follows:
>
> Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.)
> TEL (202) 224-4543c
> FAX (202) 224-2417
> senator@k…
>
> Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.)
> TEL (202) 224-2823
> FAX (202) 224-1083
> Tom Harkin (Iowa)
> TEL (202) 224-3254
> FAX (202) 224-9369
> tom_harkin@h…
>
> Jeff Bingaman (New Mexico)
> TEL (202) 224-5521
> FAX (202) 224-2852
> senator_bingaman@b…
>
> Patty Murray (Washington)
> TEL (202) 224-2621
> FAX (202) 224-0238
> senator_murray@m…
>
> John F. Reed (Rhode Island)
> TEL 202) 224-4642
> FAX (202) 224-4680
> jack@r…
>
> James M. Jeffords (Vermont)
> TEL (202) 224-5141
> FAX (202) 228-0776
> vermont@j…
>
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