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Culture"},{"term":"UC Irvine"},{"term":"UCLA"},{"term":"University Budget"},{"term":"British Universities"},{"term":"Democratic Party"},{"term":"Graduate Student Conditions"},{"term":"ICR"},{"term":"Structural Racism"},{"term":"UCPD"},{"term":"UCSC"},{"term":"climate crisis"},{"term":"health care"},{"term":"higher education policy"},{"term":"Academic everything"},{"term":"Authoritarians"},{"term":"Genocide"},{"term":"Grad Student Strike"},{"term":"Isla Vista Shootings"},{"term":"Kamala Harris"},{"term":"Linda Katehi"},{"term":"NIH"},{"term":"Newsom"},{"term":"Nonpecuniary effects"},{"term":"Oligarchy"},{"term":"PMC"},{"term":"Philanthropy"},{"term":"Student Debt"},{"term":"Trump"},{"term":"UCSB"},{"term":"Universities"},{"term":"University of California"},{"term":"public support"},{"term":"Admissions"},{"term":"Autocracy"},{"term":"Biden"},{"term":"Big Tech"},{"term":"Closures"},{"term":"Counternarratives"},{"term":"Cultural Labor"},{"term":"Culture Industries"},{"term":"Cuts \u0026 Cuts"},{"term":"DOGE"},{"term":"Democrats"},{"term":"Education"},{"term":"Fake Knoweldge"},{"term":"FutherCuts"},{"term":"K-12"},{"term":"Law"},{"term":"Margaret Spellings"},{"term":"Munger Hall"},{"term":"Presidential search"},{"term":"Quantification"},{"term":"Sexual Harassment"},{"term":"Thinking"},{"term":"UC Health"},{"term":"Workforce"},{"term":"anti-racist pedagogy"},{"term":"climate policy"},{"term":"human capital theory"},{"term":"indirect costs"},{"term":"professional knowledge"},{"term":"reparations"},{"term":"value of a college degree"},{"term":"2020 Election"},{"term":"ACCJC vs. CCSF"},{"term":"AI"},{"term":"Academic Activism"},{"term":"Arnold Schwarzenegger"},{"term":"Attack on NEH"},{"term":"Blogging"},{"term":"CEO Pay"},{"term":"COP process"},{"term":"China"},{"term":"Christian Nationalism"},{"term":"Coalition of UC Unions"},{"term":"Columbia University"},{"term":"Cooper Union"},{"term":"Coordination"},{"term":"Covid-19 Cuts"},{"term":"Cryptocurrency"},{"term":"Debt-Free College"},{"term":"Disney"},{"term":"Fake Knowledge"},{"term":"French Universities"},{"term":"Gender"},{"term":"Harassment"},{"term":"Hillary Clinton"},{"term":"Hong Hong"},{"term":"Housing Crisis"},{"term":"Human Development"},{"term":"Journalism"},{"term":"Knowledge Revolution"},{"term":"LGBTQ"},{"term":"LinerNote"},{"term":"M\u0026A not M.A.s"},{"term":"Metrics"},{"term":"Michael Burawoy"},{"term":"Mills College"},{"term":"Monopoly"},{"term":"More Cuts"},{"term":"Musk"},{"term":"November 2009"},{"term":"Opposition"},{"term":"Polarization"},{"term":"Political Affect"},{"term":"President Drake"},{"term":"Prizes"},{"term":"Social Roles of Art"},{"term":"Solar Energy"},{"term":"State Audit"},{"term":"Supreme Court"},{"term":"UC Merced"},{"term":"UCSF"},{"term":"USC"},{"term":"University of Minnesota"},{"term":"University of Missouri"},{"term":"Vegara vs. California"},{"term":"Zionism"},{"term":"abolition"},{"term":"abortion"},{"term":"carbon offsets"},{"term":"civil rights"},{"term":"college sports"},{"term":"court injunctions"},{"term":"expertise"},{"term":"financialization"},{"term":"green transition"},{"term":"interpretation"},{"term":"lawfare"},{"term":"opinion survey"},{"term":"program closures"},{"term":"publishing ind"},{"term":"review of The Great Mistake"},{"term":"slavery"},{"term":"stimulus"},{"term":"transgender issues"},{"term":"white nationalism"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Remaking II: Long Revolution"},"subtitle":{"type":"html","$t":"A blog on higher education and related issues."},"link":[{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/posts\/default"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/-\/Religion+%26+Culture?alt=json-in-script\u0026max-results=10"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/Religion%20%26%20Culture"},{"rel":"hub","href":"http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Chris Newfield"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/01078395415386100872"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"generator":{"version":"7.00","uri":"http://www.blogger.com","$t":"Blogger"},"openSearch$totalResults":{"$t":"5"},"openSearch$startIndex":{"$t":"1"},"openSearch$itemsPerPage":{"$t":"10"},"entry":[{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-196614720801750255"},"published":{"$t":"2016-11-17T11:46:00.002-08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2016-11-17T15:07:43.656-08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Academic Freedom"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Campus Safety"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Diversity"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Religion \u0026 Culture"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"After the Election"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjbnurZkpiPnWAHPSctPS-v7QijQunbG0GMEpDpDvtc91jRQaO8wO0y9nOAE9q9ijs89Hly-rqn4KMVbjfvk0HwjBwJ7J1pgVgRCI8Y4IJXcg1r35rVB_6jMPeK1es2e9RwQ_efexuSlEwJ\/s1600\/Charles+II.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"320\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjbnurZkpiPnWAHPSctPS-v7QijQunbG0GMEpDpDvtc91jRQaO8wO0y9nOAE9q9ijs89Hly-rqn4KMVbjfvk0HwjBwJ7J1pgVgRCI8Y4IJXcg1r35rVB_6jMPeK1es2e9RwQ_efexuSlEwJ\/s320\/Charles+II.jpg\" width=\"196\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nPresident-elect Trump did not spend much time on the question of higher education (unlike Bernie Sanders or even Hillary Clinton) during his campaign. \u0026nbsp;But some things seem clear. \u0026nbsp;As \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2016\/11\/17\/virginia-foxx-weighs-gops-higher-education-priorities\"\u003Earticulated by Virginia Foxx\u003C\/a\u003E, likely to be the new Chair of the House Higher Education and Workforce Committee, there will likely be reduced oversight of for-profit colleges and universities, increased emphasis on college completion, decreased regulatory oversight, and little if any expansion of Federal funding for higher education. \u0026nbsp; We can also expect the Republicans push to give banks greater control over student loans, and to cut federal support for research.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe most immediate issue concerns the support and protection of students. \u0026nbsp;President-elect Trump has made no secret of his desire to increase deportations and is likely to attempt to eliminate the \"Consideration for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals\" (DACA) program. \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.uscis.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/USCIS\/Resources\/Reports%20and%20Studies\/Immigration%20Forms%20Data\/All%20Form%20Types\/DACA\/daca_performancedata_fy2016_qtr3.pdf\"\u003E\u0026nbsp;Over 1.5 Million people are presented under the DACA program, not surprisingly with a large percentage in California.\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp; It is essential that Colleges and Universities find ways to honor their commitments to these students and work to enable them to complete their education in peace. \u0026nbsp;Faculty and students at many institutions are \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/article\/Could-Colleges-Become\/238442\"\u003Epushing for their colleges and universities to declare themselves sanctuary campuses\u003C\/a\u003E. \u0026nbsp;In California CSU Chancellor Timothy White has already declared that CSU will not cooperate with Federal efforts to identify and deport undocumented students (if they occur). \u0026nbsp;At yesterday's Regents' Meeting \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/education\/la-me-ln-uc-regents-20161116-story.html\"\u003EPresident Napolitano indicated\u003C\/a\u003E that she had appointed a task force to prepare the University to help protect and support undocumented students. \u0026nbsp;But unlike White she has not committed to non-participation with any Federal immigration crackdown. \u0026nbsp;This is an issue that the\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/mydocumentedlife.org\/2016\/11\/13\/post-election-recommendations-for-school-administrators-educators-counselors-and-undocumented-students\/\"\u003E Faculty needs to take up\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWe must also recognize that the Trump Administration will likely show little interest in supporting Title IX efforts. \u0026nbsp;Already we have seen multiple incidents of both \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.chronicle.com\/blogs\/ticker\/heres-a-rundown-of-the-latest-campus-climate-incidents-since-trumps-election\/115553\"\u003Eracial and sexual harrasment on campuses\u003C\/a\u003E since the election. \u0026nbsp;As Hank Reichman has \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/academeblog.org\/2016\/11\/13\/the-debate-over-safe-spaces-has-taken-on-new-significance\/\"\u003Erecently observed,\u003C\/a\u003E it is time to reconsider the debate over so-called \"safe spaces.\" \u0026nbsp;The concept of safe spaces has been denigrated by many purporting to defend academic freedom over the last few years. \u0026nbsp;Implicit in these criticisms has been the idea that minority and female students have overstated the extent to which they have not been granted equal access to the civic and intellectual space of colleges and universities. \u0026nbsp;Critics of safe spaces have too often conjured up fantasies of a Kantian space of equals and ignored the real disparity in the situations that different sorts of students face on campuses. \u0026nbsp;It is not a denial of individual or free thought to recognize that institutions and faculty have a responsibility to create the conditions that will enable students to grow as scholars. \u0026nbsp;In that sense, as Brad DeLong has put it \"\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.bradford-delong.com\/2016\/08\/what-i-see-as-a-marketing-ploy-by-the-university-of-chicago.html\"\u003Ea university is: first of all, a safe space for ideas. second a safe space for scholars\u003C\/a\u003E.\" \u0026nbsp;I would only add that it can only be the first if it is the second and that we must explicitly recognize students as scholars.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Trump Administration, combined with the ascendancy of Republican power in Congress and the States poses longer term challenges for the very idea of the university. \u0026nbsp;The Presidency will be held by an authoritarian populist, one house of Congress will be led by an acolyte of Ayn Rand while the other is directed by a walking embodiment of what the eighteenth century would have thought of as \"Old Corruption.\" \u0026nbsp;Controlling the Presidency and Congress means that the Antonin Scalia's replacement on the Supreme Court will be a representative of the Right. \u0026nbsp;Given the age of both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer it is possible the Court will move even further to the Right in the near future. \u0026nbsp;On the level of the states\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2016\/11\/11\/us\/elections\/state-legislature-change-in-control.html\"\u003Ea similar pattern is in place\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMr. Trump's campaign articulated a vision of a nationalist America focused on whites, in which the market was liberated from the regulation of the state, \u0026nbsp;and in which women and minorities were deferential and subordinate. \u0026nbsp;Indeed, Trump's movement combined with Brexit and the rise of authoritarian nationalist movements in Europe and elsewhere reveal a deep alienation from the universities and colleges. \u0026nbsp;It is that vision, combined with his administration's political power that must be addressed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nBut I will turn to that in a future post."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/196614720801750255\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2016\/11\/after-election.html#comment-form","title":"2 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/196614720801750255"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/196614720801750255"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2016\/11\/after-election.html","title":"After the Election"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Michael Meranze"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/05336793340375780406"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjbnurZkpiPnWAHPSctPS-v7QijQunbG0GMEpDpDvtc91jRQaO8wO0y9nOAE9q9ijs89Hly-rqn4KMVbjfvk0HwjBwJ7J1pgVgRCI8Y4IJXcg1r35rVB_6jMPeK1es2e9RwQ_efexuSlEwJ\/s72-c\/Charles+II.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"2"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-8205624083224918176"},"published":{"$t":"2016-04-25T09:56:00.001-07:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2016-06-23T23:29:25.701-07:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Academic Boycotts"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Academic Freedom"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"guest post"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Management"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Religion \u0026 Culture"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Shared Governance"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"UC Irvine"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"UC Santa Barbara"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"UCOP"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Two Faculty Letters to UC President \u0026 Chancellors on AAA \/ BDS Controversy"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjSr8NC2fxXeBPYCiqEunD3gadcX_RNz-7WwobJSCUoUOBoWskQp-1R8lDT2HLLoOaniGAOTGgo9P0duGxXx9Bsj_z22er8x-PKMhGBcHxQbeA7t98-244TzZ2grwPdczX-GYpUY8uABQo\/s1600\/YesMen.png\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjSr8NC2fxXeBPYCiqEunD3gadcX_RNz-7WwobJSCUoUOBoWskQp-1R8lDT2HLLoOaniGAOTGgo9P0duGxXx9Bsj_z22er8x-PKMhGBcHxQbeA7t98-244TzZ2grwPdczX-GYpUY8uABQo\/s400\/YesMen.png\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\n\u003Ci\u003EWe post two faculty responses to \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/media.wix.com\/ugd\/c9faad_06c5dd0abb8a4e9d92200e81819089f0.pdf\"\u003Ethe letter\u003C\/a\u003E that the University of California's president--in the company of all ten campus chancellors--sent to the American Anthropological Association to express their \"concern about the Association's proposed resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions.\" The AAA membership vote on the resolution opened on April 15th. Materials on the Association debate can be found at \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.americananthro.org\/StayInformed\/NewsDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=13484\"\u003EAAA Resources Regarding Engagement with Israel\/Palestine.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nLetter 1, from Professor Fogu to Chancellor Yang, has been endorsed by the UCSB Faculty Association.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ch3\u003E\n LETTER 1\u003C\/h3\u003E\n\u003Cb\u003ETo: Chancellor Henry Yang\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom: Claudio Fogu, Dept. of French \u0026amp; Italian, UC Santa Barbara\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI am writing to express my concern for your signing—along with the nine other UC Chancellors—\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/media.wix.com\/ugd\/c9faad_06c5dd0abb8a4e9d92200e81819089f0.pdf\"\u003Ea letter \u003C\/a\u003Edrafted by UC President Janet Napolitano, dated April 19, 2016, urging members of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) not to ratify a proposed boycott of Israeli academic institutions. I am fully aware of the fact that along with many other universities, the University of California, in the person of its president (\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/regents.universityofcalifornia.edu\/governance\/policies\/1300.html\"\u003EPolicy 1300\u003C\/a\u003E), has already expressed its opposition to “academic boycotts” in the past, and has the right to do so. I question, however, both the inclusion of chancellors in signing this letter, the lack of any consultation with UC faculty about its content and\/or the wisdom of sending it, and, most importantly, the timing of it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIf Policy 1300 does give our President the right “to speak for the University,” this right comes to her from the Board of Regents, and it presumably refers to all matters of administrative and public representation of the University as an institution. On the other hand, the University of California also has a long-standing tradition and commitment to shared governance, especially when it comes to questions impacting academic matters. The two principles are clearly at odds with each other and it is therefore a delicate matter of interpretation and political acumen for a President to decide when it is appropriate to speak on behalf of the University. The fact that President Napolitano asked all ten chancellors to sign her letter indicates to my mind that she was not certain of having the authority to send that letter and therefore sought to buttress her right by involving the chancellors. At a time in which shared governance has been eroded for several years in the system, it is particularly disturbing to witness this instrumental use of authority and lack of consultation with UC Senates and faculty on matters of great concern to the faculty.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI am not referring to the actual merits of the academic boycott under consideration by members of the AAA, but to the very serious interference with the voting of a resolution by members of a scholarly association who are employed or may be employed by our university. It is one thing to speak for or against resolutions taken by scholarly associations in favor of the academic boycott of Israeli universities, as it was the case with the American Studies Association in 2013. The protest came after the vote had taken place, and, whether one agrees with it or not, it did not interfere with the actual voting procedures. To send a letter that explicitly claims that “the University of California believes that an academic boycott is an inappropriate response to a foreign policy issue and one that threatens academic freedom and sets a damaging precedent for academia,” and therefore “urge(s) Association members to consider the boycott’s potentially harmful impacts and oppose this resolution,” is not only misrepresentative of the percentage of UC-system scholars who support the boycott, but also a far cry from the right to public critique and from the defense of academic freedom invoked in the letter. For an institution that hires the members of an association to urge them to vote one way or another is at best interference, and at worse intimidation.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWith all due respect I hope you will consider consulting at least with the head of the Academic Senate next time you are invited by UCOP to sign a letter on behalf of UCSB.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ch3\u003E\n LETTER 2\u003C\/h3\u003E\n\u003Cb\u003ETo: President Janet Napolitano and Chancellors Dirks, Katehi, Gillman, Block, Leland, Wilcox, Khosla, Hawgood, Yang and Blumenthal\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom: Mark LeVine, Dept. of History, UC Irvine \u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nI am writing to express my strong concern and anger at your April 19, 2016 letter to the American Anthropological Association regarding the ongoing vote of the organization's membership on whether to endorse the Academic Boycott of Israeli academic institutions. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nLet me begin by pointing out that when the ten chancellors of the UC system and its President can't even remember the correct name of the organization they are writing to criticize—you called the AAA, one of the oldest and most prominent learned societies in the United States, the “American Association of Anthropologists”--it does not auger well for the accuracy and cogency of the arguments that follow. Sadly, this fear was confirmed by the contents of the letter. As has already been expressed by colleagues at UC Berkeley after former Chancellor Birgeneau and EVC and provost Robert Breslauer attempted to interfere in the AAA vote late last year, it is “unacceptable that [senior UC Administrators] would lend their voices to the organized intimidation of critics of Israeli state policy, and we particularly worry about the effect of such intimidation on our junior and more vulnerable colleagues.”\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFar from being the private opinion of academics concerned about the potential actions of colleagues, you are speaking directly and officially for the University when you declare that “the University of California believes that an academic boycott is an inappropriate response to a foreign policy issue and one that threatens academic freedom and sets a damaging precedent for academia.” Before even offering a critique of your arguments I find myself compelled to point out that while you have come together to take a highly public, united stand against a boycott of academic institutions complicit in a five-decades long occupation, you have shown nothing close to this level of attention or unified voice to condemn the very real violations of academic freedoms associated with the ongoing systematic sexual harassment (and worse) suffered by women at UC, dozens of new cases of which have come forward in the period between the Regents' much condemned attempt to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism in its March 23 policy statement and your present letter. I would like to know, How can you justify the amount of time and energy spent coordinating this letter when no similar collective letter from all of you has been issued surrounding the clear and ongoing dangers faced by women at UC, not to mention the harassment experienced by various minority communities on campuses across the University? (In fact, such collective letters on issues not directly related to the University are an unusual occurrence.) \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTurning to the letter, I would like to ask, by what right and upon what evidence can you, without a vote of the Academic Senate, make an explicit declaration of what the “University of California believes”? As far as I can tell, whenever members of the UC community have expressed their collective opinions on the issues of academic boycotts or BDS more broadly, large percentages of those participating in such discussions have endorsed them, as evidenced by the votes of the Associated Students of UC (ASUC), the system-wide student Senate, as well as several campus AS Senates, in support of divestment resolutions. Moreover, the publicly available evidence clearly shows that substantially more UC professors are on record either endorsing BDS or at least refusing to label it as anti-Semitic then are their colleagues offering the criticisms outlined in your letter. This was most recently made clear by the overwhelming opposition to the Regent's universally condemned attempt to classify anti-Zionism (and particularly BDS) as a form of anti-Semitism. Nowhere does your letter mention the diversity of opinion at UC on the issue you are making such a definitive pronouncement. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhile as individuals you have every right to speak your views on BDS or any issue, you clearly do not have an imprimatur to speak on this issue on behalf of the UC community on the issue of BDS, never mind adopt a position that is clearly at odds with the majority of its publicly expressed opinions. Your letter can only be understood as reflecting a troubling disregard both for shared governance and for academic freedom and honesty as well. By using your power as the senior leadership of UC to declare an official policy that is in opposition to the expressed opinions of a significant share of the UC community without any discussion of the issue by Academic Senate, you are potentially causing significant harm to members of our community. This is especially true of students, staff and junior or non-Senate faculty who might feel intimidated by your declaration of official policy into silencing their constitutionally protected opinions. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nYour letter is also extremely troubling because it seriously distorts the nature and meaning of the BDS call under discussion by the AAA and other professional organizations and, as important, utterly ignores the disastrous situation faced by Palestinians during half a century of Israeli occupation. Beginning with the latter, as the newly released State Department annual report on human rights once again makes clear in its second paragraph (and which is supported by the regular reports of every major global, Israeli and Palestinian human rights monitoring organization there is), Israel systematically denies Palestinians the right to education and more broadly “discriminates against Palestinian [citizens] in almost every aspect of society,” while engaging in “unlawful killings, use of excessive force, and torture” against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. And these actions are merely an addition to the mundane brutality and crimes associated with the massive ongoing settlement enterprise whose perpetuation and intensification is the Occupation's acknowledged goal. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIndeed, your description of the Israeli occupation as merely a “foreign policy issue,” as if it was a trade dispute between WTO members, betrays a particularly shocking ignorance and disregard—I do not know which is worse—of the brutal realities of the Occupation. How, may I ask, can you write a letter expressing such concern over a well-established protest strategy with a long and proven history while saying nothing about the world's longest occupation and all the very real harm it does? I would like to invite all of you to come to the Occupied Territories and experience life as a Palestinian, particularly a student or professor routinely and systematically denied the right to pursue her or his education, research or teaching, and then explain to the UC community how this debate is merely over a “foreign policy issue.” \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTurning to Paragraph 2, you argue that “free expression, robust discourse, and the vigorous debate over ideas and principles are essential to the mission of academic institutions worldwide.... These freedoms enable universities to advance knowledge and to transmit it effectively to its students and to the public. The University of California has a strong tradition of free speech and the free exchange of ideas, and it is our responsibility to defend academic freedom and our scholars’ ability to choose their research and colleagues. Limits to the open exchange of knowledge and ideas between our universities stand in direct opposition to our values and goals.”\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThis argument is riddled with empirical flaws and inaccuracies that are quite frankly inexcusable coming from senior academics in your positions of administrative power and public prominence.. To begin with, as all the debates over BDS in professional associations such as the AHA, ASA, MESA and now AAA make clear, in no way does the call for an academic boycott entail restrictions on free expression, robust discourse or vigorous debate. In fact, just the opposite is true. The very act of bringing BDS before our professional organizations has stimulated unprecedented debate around the Occupation and the larger conflict. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMoreover, in no way does the BDS call advocate restrictions on “our scholars' ability to choose their research and colleagues” (to speak for myself, I continue to do research, write and otherwise collaborate with many Israeli scholars). What it does do is suspend institutional cooperation and collaboration with Israeli institutions that are in any manner complicit in the Occupation, which sadly most Israeli universities clearly are. Yes, this policy demands a sacrifice by scholars, both Israelis and their colleagues; but this is a small price to pay to highlight the incredible suffering endured by Palestinians because of the Occupation, including the large-scale destruction of the Palestinian education system during the half century of occupation, systematic thefts of funds and equipment, and prevention of Palestinians from even leaving the Occupied Territories, never mind establishing anything close to the level of collaboration with foreign colleagues and universities that Israel enjoys (please check your records and report to us how much UC has spent collaborating with Palestinian compared with Israeli higher education institutions and scholars).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWhat's more, the present policies of uncritical collaboration itself exacts a very high price, on Palestinian education, about which you have nothing to say. Indeed, these realities have led upwards of two dozen Israeli anthropologists to support the BDS call. Did you consult with them or their colleagues in other disciplines in Israel who support BDS to understand the varieties of opinion within Israeli academia on this issue before making your pronouncement? Isn't that what scholars are supposed to do? Should you, as the most senior scholars at UC, be setting an example in this regard? \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nEven more troubling, you do not mention in your letter that UC is one of the top 5 institutions receiving “BSF” (US-Israeli Bi-National Science Foundation) grants, with campuses engaged in multiple projects with Israeli universities involving significant research funds. My own campus, Irvine, established the “UC Irvine\/Israeli Scholar Exchange Endowment for Engineering Science Program,” whose $2 million endowment supports collaborations with Israeli universities, such as Tel Aviv University and The Technion, which are deeply and publicly implicated in the machinery of the Occupation. A 2014 MOU between Governor Brown and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the legislative resolutions supporting it, have further “unfettered collaboration between Israeli and California Universities.” Unfettered for Israelis, yes. Impossible even to dream of for Palestinians, however, as they have no comparable collaboration, and very often are illegally prevented from leaving the Occupied Territories by Israel when they do. I do not recall the last time the President or chancellors have spoken with one voice about these issue. Do Palestinian students and academics not matter in any meaningful way?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFinally, in your third paragraph you argue that “an academic boycott goes against the spirit of the University of California, which has consistently championed open discourse and encouraged collaboration with scholars and peers from international institutions of higher education.” This too is highly inaccurate. The University of California has never made an official pronouncement condemning or even calling attention to the systematic violations of Palestinian rights to education (never mind all the other even more basic violations they are subject to). How is engaging in long-term collaborations worth untold millions of dollars with a country engaged in an illegal occupation while remaining utterly silent about its actions against the occupied population in any way equatable to a “championing of open discourse and collaboration” in a fair and balanced manner? Of course, it is not. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nYou conclude you letter by “urg[ing] Association [of American Anthropologists] members to consider the boycott’s potentially harmful impacts and oppose this resolution.” Again, you make no mention of the harsh conditions faced by Palestinians as part of their daily existence attempting to participate in their education system. No discussion or even recognition of the incredibly “harmful impact” that clearly exists because of Israel's actions, and nothing that suggests you are in any way interested in offering a balanced view that actually takes into consideration the very real and substantial issues that the call for a boycott is intended to raise. Let's be clear: the merits of the BDS strategies certainly warrant discussion and debate. But this letter engages in neither; choosing instead to make what are essentially partisan political pronouncements based on assumptions that do not bear even the slightest scrutiny.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nPresident Napolitano, you have stated that “UC is the gold standard. Together, we must ensure that this standard is upheld.” This letter violates the spirit and letter of this pledge, as it is ethically and empirically flawed, engaging in a misleading attack on a specific strategy of non-violent resistance that has a long history of successful deployment by oppressed peoples around the world (including African Americans), misrepresenting the opinions of the UC community, of the AAA, and ignoring the large-scale injustices suffered by the people on whose behalf the BDS movement is acting. All of this done on UC letterhead acting in your official capacities as the leadership of the University. I urge you publicly to withdraw your ill-conceived attempt to interfere in the democratic deliberations of a learned society and consider how the leadership of UC can better reflect, or at least not interfere with, the diverse opinions of our community, while using the immense power of the University to help advocate both for those suffering and fighting against injustice and oppression, not just in Israel\/Palestine, but globally."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8205624083224918176\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2016\/04\/two-faculty-letters-to-uc-president.html#comment-form","title":"3 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/8205624083224918176"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/8205624083224918176"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2016\/04\/two-faculty-letters-to-uc-president.html","title":"Two Faculty Letters to UC President \u0026 Chancellors on AAA \/ BDS Controversy"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Chris Newfield"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/01078395415386100872"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjSr8NC2fxXeBPYCiqEunD3gadcX_RNz-7WwobJSCUoUOBoWskQp-1R8lDT2HLLoOaniGAOTGgo9P0duGxXx9Bsj_z22er8x-PKMhGBcHxQbeA7t98-244TzZ2grwPdczX-GYpUY8uABQo\/s72-c\/YesMen.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"3"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-1541118226344508006"},"published":{"$t":"2014-03-17T15:24:00.001-07:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2016-03-18T18:34:02.955-07:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Admin Responses"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Religion \u0026 Culture"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"UC Santa Barbara"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Abortion in the Culture Wars: Some Effects of Academia's Weakness (Updated)"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEif6UD5HgQ9UCbvwxPHYlecNONOTxZ7MoInzCLSFcCONElVIRHcJ33N6pwFeFswGbgs6GqAlupyRihNMo2j1NxoyEO5LOOiF2k5R2yM9j-IUoyCWTbB1Drf2RoCeXKzBbznP2KQg6pVt5k\/s1600\/MireilleKellyFileShot4She'sAThief.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEif6UD5HgQ9UCbvwxPHYlecNONOTxZ7MoInzCLSFcCONElVIRHcJ33N6pwFeFswGbgs6GqAlupyRihNMo2j1NxoyEO5LOOiF2k5R2yM9j-IUoyCWTbB1Drf2RoCeXKzBbznP2KQg6pVt5k\/s1600\/MireilleKellyFileShot4She'sAThief.png\" height=\"155\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nThe national media has spoken on a confrontation between a professor and an anti-abortion group at UCSB on March 4th.\u0026nbsp; It is not pleased with the professor.\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOn March 4th, one of my colleagues at UC Santa Barbara, Feminist Studies professor Mireille Miller-Young, was walking to her office when she was approached by members of an anti-abortion group called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust (SAH).\u0026nbsp; One thing led to another:\u0026nbsp; \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/static.squarespace.com\/static\/51097d01e4b034113fcdd785\/t\/53239eade4b01b9feb609f05\/1394843309089\/UCSB-Police-Report.pdf\"\u003Ethe police report \u003C\/a\u003Epicks up the story:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"tr_bq\"\u003E\nShe said an argument ensued about the graphic nature of these images. Miller-Young said that she [sic] situation became \"passionate\" and that the other students were \"triggered\" in a negative way by the imagery.\u0026nbsp; Miller-Young said that she and others began demanding that the images be taken down.\u0026nbsp; Miller-Young said that the demonstrators refused. At which point, Miller-Young said that she 'Just grabbed it [the sign] from the girl's hands.\" Asked if there had been a struggle, Miller-Young stated, \"I'm stronger so I was able to take the poster.\"\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"tr_bq\"\u003E\nMiller-Young said that the poster had been taken back to her office. Once in her office, a \"safe space\" described by Miller-Young, Miller-Young said that they were still upset by the images on the poster and had destroyed it. Miller-Young said that she was \"mainly\" responsible for the posters destruction becaues she was the only one with scissors.\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\nThe SAH protestors seem to have consisted mainly of two sisters, Joan Short, 21, and Thrin Short, 16.\u0026nbsp; Thrin Short began to film Prof. Miller-Young and a few students departing with her sign.\u0026nbsp; In the \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sLemX9QtUa4\u0026amp;feature=youtube_gdata_player\"\u003Evideo\u003C\/a\u003E, you can hear ongoing exchanges between the two groups, see the UCSB group enter South Hall and try to take the sign up the elevator, hear what must be Joan Short calling the police and narrating events to them, see the UCSB group refusing the Short sisters entry to the building elevator amidst some scuffling-- at which point the video ends.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe event got immediate campus coverage in a student paper, \u003Ci\u003EThe Bottom Line,\u003C\/i\u003E which \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/thebottomline.as.ucsb.edu\/2014\/03\/pro-life-protesters-hold-demonstration-in-arbor-feminist-studies-professor-runs-off-with-sign\"\u003Eran a story and a picture of one of the anti-abortion posters.\u003C\/a\u003E The \u003Ci\u003ESanta Barbara \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.com\/news\/2014\/mar\/11\/ucsb-professor-accused-assaulting-pro-life-activis\/\"\u003EIndependent\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.com\/news\/2014\/mar\/11\/ucsb-professor-accused-assaulting-pro-life-activis\/\"\u003E covered it\u003C\/a\u003E a week later, identifying the group as SAH and\u0026nbsp; narrating its account of the events, for by that time Prof. Miller-Young had an attorney and was being advised not to speak about the case. The conservative blog \u003Ci\u003EThe College Fix\u003C\/i\u003E \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/post\/16673\/\"\u003Eposted an account on March 12th\u003C\/a\u003E, showing the scratches on Thrin Short's wrists and Joan Short with her signs.\u0026nbsp; So we can be clear what we're talking about, here are the signs on UCSB's campus on March 4th:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjW981gwpj5CPoev1qAy1F1xgEjlOU_-OvznAYR0knYftbgSkJ8DOqdeeaOd3qVIco8dS_bRAGsjSeY6ot1NKdD4Oy1ykiK0LWHzwZDpfwhbBBArnuKAXQY9Q0VOOEHCU3QHlW5dU6wplY\/s1600\/MireilleAbortion2abortionPosters.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjW981gwpj5CPoev1qAy1F1xgEjlOU_-OvznAYR0knYftbgSkJ8DOqdeeaOd3qVIco8dS_bRAGsjSeY6ot1NKdD4Oy1ykiK0LWHzwZDpfwhbBBArnuKAXQY9Q0VOOEHCU3QHlW5dU6wplY\/s1600\/MireilleAbortion2abortionPosters.jpg\" height=\"533\" width=\"613\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nRush Limbaugh got into the act on the same day, spinning the story in his usual way on his Quick Hits Page under the title \"Leftist Professor Goes Berserk, Attacks Pro-Lifers\" (\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/03\/12\/quick_hits_page?utm_source=feedburner\u0026amp;utm_medium=feed\u0026amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RushLimbaugh-AllContent+(The+Rush+Limbaugh+Show+-+All+Content)\"\u003Escroll down\u003C\/a\u003E). Fox News \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2014\/03\/13\/teen-abortion-protester-defiant-after-alleged-attack-by-feminist-professor\/\"\u003Epicked it up on March 13th \u003C\/a\u003E(the SAH account has \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.survivors.la\/confrontation-with-ucsb-professor\"\u003Emore media links at the bottom.)\u003C\/a\u003E On March 14th, the Short sisters \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2014\/03\/14\/california-sisters-fighting-back-after-professor-steals-graphic-pro-life-sign\/\"\u003Eappeared on Megyn Kelly's Fox news show\u003C\/a\u003E with an augmented version of the original video.\u0026nbsp; When Ms. Kelly asked how they felt about the professor's claim that she was \"triggered\" by the images and that she had the \"moral right\" to take the signs away, Thrin Short said she was sorry that the professor was \"offended in any way. But after all, she does teach or show porn to her students, so she's not really the one to talk about offending images.\" (Joan Short is on the left, her sister Thrin on the right.)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjiO7wvFJyeuh2Zrv5wMxzVwr2FME836YbEfhYm95E_ImgXfr0vMSv59uD2AMWaKlm541Ejmmd9L51Bymitf-vhSxEvCA7y4ytVF5Zw6ew9jmQ0nzKEon9LyFAEJ5b7JJ1fkeWIkvOue0E\/s1600\/MireilleKellyFileShot3.png\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEjiO7wvFJyeuh2Zrv5wMxzVwr2FME836YbEfhYm95E_ImgXfr0vMSv59uD2AMWaKlm541Ejmmd9L51Bymitf-vhSxEvCA7y4ytVF5Zw6ew9jmQ0nzKEon9LyFAEJ5b7JJ1fkeWIkvOue0E\/s1600\/MireilleKellyFileShot3.png\" height=\"304\" width=\"613\" \/\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u0026nbsp;On March 15th, just to make the media circus complete, \u003Ci\u003ESalon\u003C\/i\u003E got involved: Mary Elizabeth Williams turned the incident into an object lesson called \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2014\/03\/14\/why_you_should_never_engage_with_an_abortion_protester\/\"\u003E\"Why You Should Never Engage with an Abortion Protester.\" \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp; She summed up her position by saying sarcastically, \"Well, thanks, Dr. Mireille Miller-Young, because now these two sisters, \nwho might otherwise have been just a campus nuisance, have overnight \nbecome national right-wing heroines.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOK, so much for the media fun.\u0026nbsp; Let me see if there's a way of threading a path through all this.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFirst of all, Prof. Miller-Young was wrong to take the Short sisters' sign, as she acknowledges in the police report (\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/static.squarespace.com\/static\/51097d01e4b034113fcdd785\/t\/53239eade4b01b9feb609f05\/1394843309089\/UCSB-Police-Report.pdf\"\u003Epage 5 of 5)\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp; She and the students were wrong to leave the scene while taunting the Short sisters, wrong to scuffle with them, and wrong to destroy the sign upstairs of out the Short sisters' reach.\u0026nbsp; I see no reason to disagree with the reporting officer when s\/he says, \"I explained to Miller-Young that vandalism, battery and robbery had occurred.\"\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSecond, the Short sisters are not isolated citizens expressing a passionately-held moral belief (though they are obviously sincere, and their type of activism takes guts).\u0026nbsp; They are part of a right-wing institutional world that makes many people feel unwelcome and unsafe, including the women of color who confronted them at UCSB on March 4th. This is an important context for what happened that day.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe Shorts were trained as activists by SAH, a group\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.survivors.la\/jeff-white\/\"\u003E founded by Jeff White\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp; Mr. White, according to his website, was National Tactical Director for the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, a group known for its\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1994\/05\/10\/us\/abortion-foes-ordered-to-pay-clinic-damages.html\"\u003E aggressive tactics\u003C\/a\u003E, and which is very much still in the game (Kansas \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/06\/20\/planned-parenthood-kansas_n_3474474.html\"\u003Eexample\u003C\/a\u003E).\u0026nbsp; Mr. White continues to specialize in attention-getting public confrontation, as in this \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.benedictionblogson.com\/2010\/07\/03\/jimmy-kimmel-and-survivors-of-the-abortion-holocaust\/\"\u003Ebizarre conflict with a Hollywood lighting crew \u003C\/a\u003Ein 2010.\u0026nbsp; He is apparently well-connected within conservative activist and funding networks.\u0026nbsp; Mr. White seems to have had great recruitment success within the Short family:\u0026nbsp; there is at least one more SAH Short sister, Mary Rose, who can be \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.vice.com\/read\/the-new-face-of-the-anti-abortion-movement\"\u003Eseen protesting in Albuquerque \u003C\/a\u003Ein November 2013, and who was \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.wapt.com\/2-Abortion-Protestors-Arrested-Outside-Murrah-High\/9743674\"\u003Eprotesting outside a high school in Jackson, MS in March 2012\u003C\/a\u003E when two SAH colleagues were arrested.\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGiven their front-line position in a well-developed national anti-abortion activist network, there is no reason for the Shorts to play dumb about their intentions.\u0026nbsp; The sole point of their gruesome signs is to shock and offend people into opposing abortion.\u0026nbsp; They signs aren't \"conversation starters\": they freak people out, as they are meant to do. Even if you are sixteen years old, you should take responsibility for the likely impacts on actual people of what you are deliberately doing.\u0026nbsp; If you try to provoke people, you will eventually succeed, and if you work for someone like Jeff White, you have a full understanding both of what these provoked people might do and of how you can use this with the media.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe deeper issue here is that the Shorts arrived at UCSB as the institutional representatives of what for convenience I'll call Limbaugh's America--the forever angry wing of the American Right that disparages its opponents rather than debates with them.\u0026nbsp; The Shorts also represented that Right in the rhetorical strategy of their signs, which said quite plainly that pro-choice people, like some of the college students walking by, favor murdering \"preborn\" babies.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; In this sense, the signs aren't just graphic: they are calculated insults of the moral viewpoint of the presumptively pro-choice onlooker. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nUCSB student Delyla Mayers \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/dailynexus.com\/2014-03-06\/selfishly-abusing-our-of-freedom-of-speech\/\"\u003Emade this point clearly\u003C\/a\u003E in her editorial in UCSB's \u003Ci\u003EDaily Nexus\u003C\/i\u003E:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"tr_bq\"\u003E\nThese groups have taken no consideration to the individuals who are \ndirectly or indirectly affected by abortion. UCSB prides itself on \ninclusivity and diversity, yet these groups have actively chosen to \nignore the myriad people these images negatively impact. These groups \nhave chosen to overlook these experiences, placing harmful and \npotentially damaging materials in front of students without so much as a\n warning. Student announcements are sent out every day, giving students \nwarnings about numerous things; why aren’t such events required to do \nthe same? I don’t think any group should be above that. It’s not the \nposition I have a problem with, but rather the approach that is very \ninsensitive, non-inclusive, violent and dangerous. These groups have \nfailed to give students the right to choose to partake in such events, \nstripping individuals from their choice to practice self-care in topics \nas deep as abortion.\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\nProf. Miller-Young was aware that her students had the sense that the signs represented categorical hostility both to their views about abortion (if they were pro-choice, they favored killing unborn babies) and in some sense to who they are, that is, \"campus liberals,\" and women of color. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIsn't this overreacting? No.\u0026nbsp; The Right's anti-intellectual dismissal machine has a long reach, and used anti-feminist and racial \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Dog-Whistle-Politics-Appeals-Reinvented-ebook\/dp\/B00GHJNSMU\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books\u0026amp;ie=UTF8\u0026amp;qid=1395094282\u0026amp;sr=1-1\u0026amp;keywords=dog+whistle+politics\"\u003Edogwhistling\u003C\/a\u003E in this case as in so many others.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFor example, in her appearance on Fox News, Thrin Short made a direct connection between Prof. Miller-Young taking offense at her signs and Prof. MIller-Young teaching pornography as an academic subject.\u0026nbsp; That same day, Rush Limbaugh \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2014\/03\/12\/quick_hits_page?utm_source=feedburner\u0026amp;utm_medium=feed\u0026amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RushLimbaugh-AllContent+(The+Rush+Limbaugh+Show+-+All+Content)\"\u003Ehad established the same equivalence.\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cblockquote class=\"tr_bq\"\u003E\nWe have hyphenated name? Check. Teaches multicultural nonsense? Check.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAttracted\n to perverted and worthless areas of academic emphasis? Check. Instinct \nto lash out violently at those who disagree with her? Check. Resorts to \nviolence when she doesn't get her way? Check. Logical conclusion: She is\n a madcap leftist and she has tenure. She is teaching young skulls full \nof mush, inculcating them with this worthless drivel that their parents \nare paying through the nose for.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNow, you might say, \"Rush this has always gone on.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nNot to this degree, folks.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe\n higher education curriculum has been in the process of being corrupted \nby militant feminazis for I don't know how long, but it is continuing to\n normalize what 10 years ago were extremes.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; The extremes 10 years ago \nare the normal today. The extremes 15 ago are the normal. A professor \nteaching a course in black cultural studies, pornography, and sex work \non her faculty Web page? \u003C\/blockquote\u003E\nWell Rush, actually yes: Black \nculture has obviously been a fountainhead of American life from its\u0026nbsp;\n beginning, and consuming pornography is America's national pastime not to mention an \nimportant form of popular culture, as UCSB's Constance Penley has been \narguing for two decades. But in Limbaugh's America, studying Black culture or representations of African American women in pornography is all feminazism.\u0026nbsp; Mr. Limbaugh says these things regularly, they become right-wing common sense over years and decades, they get echoed by front-line people like Thrin Short--and then folks wonder why feminists or students of color get upset.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMy third point is that in this context the theft of the SAH poster, though illegal, \ncan be seen as an act of (non-violent) self-defense.\u0026nbsp; Many people, including many women and many people of color, do not feel \nsafe in or respected by Rush Limbaugh's America. Many of the targets of the routine practice of disrespect see universities \nas refuges of enlightenment or at least basic rationality in a country \nwhose media is saturated with personal attacks and hate speech.\u0026nbsp; The appearance of the SAH signs ended that fragile protection (as Ms. Mayers noted above). \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOn Fox, Megyn Kelly displayed disbelief at Prof. Miller-Young's \nline, apparently directed at\n a Short sister, \"I may be a thief, but you're a terrorist.\" The most relevant definition of \u003Ci\u003Eterrorist\u003C\/i\u003E in this case is Jean-François Lyotard's in chapter 2 of \u003Ci\u003EThe Postmodern Condition\u003C\/i\u003E, where he defines terror as \n\"eliminating, or threatening to eliminate, a player from the language \ngame one shares with him.\"\u0026nbsp; This is the effect of SAH signs, and it is the\n core Limbaugh \/ Fox News strategy--not to debate an opponent, but to \ndiscredit her  in advance as a dangerous buffoon. Non-Limbaugh America, \nnow associated by the Right with Barack Obama's electoral majority built of various communities of color, feels quite unsafe in a \nmediascape and political world in which their positions are held up as \nridiculous.\u0026nbsp; The university has come to function as one of the few \nescapes, and it was something that Prof. Miller-Young, in her way, was trying to defend.\u0026nbsp; This is why the police report records her \nsaying that her actions \"were in defense of her students and her own \nsafety.\" The fact that they took an illegal form, as noted above, doesn't \nchange their meaning as self-defense. I believe, she said to the \nreporting officer, that I have a \"personal right to go to work and not be in harm.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nFourth, where are university administrations in all this? My basic feeling is that individual professors and students wouldn't have to be inventing ad hoc forms of self-defense against the presence of groups that disrespect them if the university had a reputation for defending itself.\u0026nbsp; By \u003Ci\u003Edefending itself\u003C\/i\u003E I don't mean universities should ban groups like SAH or eliminating free speech zones that welcome non-students. On the contrary, universities must continue to support the kind of debate that would be ejected from everywhere else in commercial America, like its bank lobbies, office cafeterias, and shopping malls. I mean, instead, that universities must build a counter-common sense through which the general public immediately understands why a university must have things like feminist studies departments and pornography scholars--that the university studies everything important, and studies everything according to professional rules of the knowledge-seekers own making, in \u003Ci\u003Euncoercive\u003C\/i\u003E dialogue with the general public.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs it is now, the university has no answer to the Right's carefully constructed \nanti-intellectual culture, which allows its members to interpret new \nknowledge as an affront, a heresy, and an assault on all that is good.\u0026nbsp; \nAll academic knowledge is vulnerable here, from stem-cell medical \nresearch and climate-related oceanography to studies of farmworker health, white suburban poverty, and new sexualities.\u0026nbsp; The result is that after\nthree decades of culture wars, activists trained by right-wing groups like SAH know \nthat if anything bad happens to them on campus, they can discredit their\n academic opposition in the media by appealing to \u003Ci\u003Ead hominem\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;\n stereotypes of liberal professors. \u0026nbsp; My sense is that the general \npublic decreasingly thinks of universities as serious places that will \nprotect themselves, their functions, and their people, and that anyone \ncan do political hit-and-runs with impunity.\u0026nbsp; Obviously the Right's brilliant long-term institution-building is the main source of the weak \u003Ci\u003Ecultural\u003C\/i\u003E position of universities, which undermines individual academics when they most need help. But high-level university silence paved the way for the Right's control of the framing of university teaching and research.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAs an institution, the university needs to build a discursive and cultural \nframework in which its own heterodox activities can be understood.\u0026nbsp; Tactically, university officials should not get down in the weeds and debate the value of porn studies with each anti-abortion protest group. But strategically, organizations like the American Association of Universities, presidents of major colleges, and other prominent educators need to help scattered \nassociate professors confront and overturn the Limbaughian worldview.\u0026nbsp; The AAU is happy to speak officially in what it sees as a necessary defense of Israel, as when it formally\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.aau.edu\/WorkArea\/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=14859\"\u003E denounced the American Studies Association'\u003C\/a\u003Es alleged infringement on academic freedom via its support for boycotting Israeli academic institutions.\u0026nbsp; The AAU should do the same, on an ongoing basis, around the the academic freedom of faculty of color to teach and conduct research, in dialogue with the public, on Black culture, Black actors in porn, \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/03\/16\/science\/billionaires-with-big-ideas-are-privatizing-american-science.html?action=click\u0026amp;module=Search\u0026amp;region=searchResults%230\u0026amp;version=\u0026amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26contentCollection%3DOpinion%26region%3DTopBar%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26pgtype%3Darticle%23%2Fprivatization%2Bscience%2Fsince1851%2Fallresults%2F1%2Fallauthors%2Fnewest%2F\"\u003Epossible racial bias in private medical research funding\u003C\/a\u003E, the \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/03\/16\/opinion\/sunday\/where-are-the-people-of-color-in-childrens-books.html?action=click\u0026amp;module=Search\u0026amp;region=searchResults%230\u0026amp;version=\u0026amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry742%23%2Fwhere+are+the+people+of+color\u0026amp;_r=0\"\u003Eshortage of people of color in children's stories\u003C\/a\u003E, or anything else that society puts in front of them.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nSuch high-level statements should also involve something we might call campus cultural, intellectual, and personal safety for students, an issue that recent protests by Black students at the \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2014\/01\/21\/racial-tensions-grow-university-michigan\"\u003EUniversity of Michigan\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/quicktakes\/2014\/02\/17\/video-experiences-black-ucla-law-students\"\u003EUCLA Law School\u003C\/a\u003E, and elsewhere have put back on the agenda--again.\u0026nbsp; The long-term project is to build a cultural common sense in which the university's \u003Ci\u003Eunavoidable violation of orthodoxy \u003C\/i\u003Eis the heart of its public mission--\u003Ci\u003Eand\u003C\/i\u003E where its community can be safe from the harassment that Limbaugh-culture reserves for that public mission in all its forms. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nMore locally, my hope is that the Short sisters will drop charges against Prof. Miller-Young in exchange for some kind of\u0026nbsp; statement or restitution from her.\u0026nbsp; It might be interesting to invite Joan and Thrin Short to a Feminist Studies classroom to talk, rather than to affront with signs, the professor and the students they tangled with before.\u0026nbsp; Who knows--Thrin Short might even stop ditching high school to protest abortion.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nUPDATE 3\/23\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nOn Friday, Santa Barbara District Attorney Joyce E. Dudley \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.countyofsb.org\/da\/msm_county\/documents\/MireilleMillerYoung.pdf\"\u003Eannounced that she was filing misdemenor charges\u003C\/a\u003E against Prof. Miller-Young for theft from a person, vandalism, and battery.\u0026nbsp; The Santa Barbara Independent has coverage \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.com\/news\/2014\/mar\/21\/ucsb-professor-charged-theft-and-battery-after-con\/\"\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E. So does \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2014\/03\/22\/university-california-santa-barbara-feminist-professor-charged-in-confrontation\/\"\u003EFox News\u003C\/a\u003E, which adds a quote from the Short sisters' father to a repeat of its earlier framing."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1541118226344508006\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2014\/03\/abortion-in-culture-wars-some-effects.html#comment-form","title":"48 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/1541118226344508006"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/1541118226344508006"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2014\/03\/abortion-in-culture-wars-some-effects.html","title":"Abortion in the Culture Wars: Some Effects of Academia's Weakness (Updated)"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Chris Newfield"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/01078395415386100872"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEif6UD5HgQ9UCbvwxPHYlecNONOTxZ7MoInzCLSFcCONElVIRHcJ33N6pwFeFswGbgs6GqAlupyRihNMo2j1NxoyEO5LOOiF2k5R2yM9j-IUoyCWTbB1Drf2RoCeXKzBbznP2KQg6pVt5k\/s72-c\/MireilleKellyFileShot4She'sAThief.png","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"48"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-8671040363728100176"},"published":{"$t":"2012-12-14T10:45:00.001-08:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2016-03-10T18:27:45.065-08:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Crisis"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Cuts"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Humanities"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Liberal Arts"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Religion \u0026 Culture"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"The Knowledge that Dare Not Speak Its Name"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhdI2xs9x7HVhJ8FfEcbKbpW8yAyP5fkfFqup5hIEa-lZqginIRs0Hsl68jU-lQDKd7R1CGfyek8MD2oo7acySgDsB2-a-Lqv-luVLsSZ7N2xvgZqafZZJeK8q6MUG5vXLCcX0BrSdvE1fc\/s1600\/space-debris-2-leo.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhdI2xs9x7HVhJ8FfEcbKbpW8yAyP5fkfFqup5hIEa-lZqginIRs0Hsl68jU-lQDKd7R1CGfyek8MD2oo7acySgDsB2-a-Lqv-luVLsSZ7N2xvgZqafZZJeK8q6MUG5vXLCcX0BrSdvE1fc\/s320\/space-debris-2-leo.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\nFor some time now, the humanities and the interpretive social sciences have been the canaries in the mineshaft of higher education.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Language departments have been \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/2010\/10\/04\/albany\"\u003Eeliminated or consolidated,\u003C\/a\u003E plans put in place to \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2012\/11\/tallahassee-two-step.html\"\u003Echarge students higher tuition for taking the time to study the humanities\u003C\/a\u003E, a general mantra of the irrelevance of humanistic knowledge for the job market has descended upon our heads from politicians, and administrators continue to insist that the humanities are a drain upon university budgets.\u0026nbsp; Apparently the fact that you can make more money as a doctor than as a translator is a sudden and blinding insight that demands a fundamental rethinking of the value of knowledge.\u0026nbsp; The humanities now are supposed to return to being an ornament for the rich.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAt the heart of the attack on the humanities is the assumption that the \nnew global economy and the rise of the digital makes what we do \nindulgent and unproductive.\u0026nbsp; From this perspective, the support of the \nhumanities and the social sciences was an effect of the modernist \nwelfare state that followed the New Deal.\u0026nbsp; In that world of publicly \nendowed solidarity and expert knowledge, the humanities and social \nsciences flourished because they were signs of the shared \npossibility of social life and crucial aspects of society's steering \nmechanisms.\u0026nbsp; But that world, so we are told, is now gone forever: the \nstate may exist as a military and political entity but it cannot control\n its economy and the global economy's destruction of all that seemed solid condemns \neveryone to an existence bound at most by family.\u0026nbsp; In this world view, \nthe humanities are at best a distraction and at worst a block to the \ndevelopment of economy and technology.\u0026nbsp; The triumph of short-term \nfinance over long-term management has succeeded where the culture war \nfailed: with the delegitimation of the knowledge produced in the humanities.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nBut none of the attacks on the humanities, from their alleged irrelevance, to their elite qualities, on to their drain on university finances are true (well it is true that doctors make more money than translators but aside from that..).\u0026nbsp; Chris has\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/humanities-infrastructure-1.html\"\u003E just commented\u003C\/a\u003E on some of the infrastructural problems with countering these false images in the world at large.\u0026nbsp; But I want to approach the problem from another direction:\u0026nbsp; suggesting that those of us working in the humanities and social sciences have simply been too defensive about the concrete social utility of what we do.\u0026nbsp; And that we need to stop being defensive if we are going to change the arguments and debates over the humanities and humanities funding.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Humanities scholars need to name their knowledge as such and to insist on its deeply productive role in the contemporary world.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Ca name='more'\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nTo that end, let's embrace utility:\u0026nbsp; but in order to do so we need to give it new meaning.\u0026nbsp; The humanities have been sidelined in the assertion of utility because of its peculiar and distorted contemporary form.\u0026nbsp; Put simply, the utility of knowledge (and of degrees) has become cast in terms of whether or not something can directly translate into a job in the field (degrees) and whether or not the knowledge can create jobs and profits.\u0026nbsp; What this narrow definition hides is how essential humanities knowledge is to the global economy and politics and not because of the immediate employ-ability of historians. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe most frequent responses to the demand for \u003Cu\u003Ethis\u003C\/u\u003E form of utility has been to argue that the humanities are essential for citizenship in some general sense, that the value of the humanities cannot be reduced to utility at all, and that we train capabilities in the Humanities that are unavailable in other parts of higher education.\u0026nbsp; The first \u003Cu\u003Emay\u003C\/u\u003E be true but frankly sounds like pablum with no purchase on our current situation, the second I would argue sells the worldliness of the Humanities short, and the third, while true, \u003Cu\u003Ediverts attention from the knowledge that we produce\u003C\/u\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nIn fact, it is the worldliness of humanities knowledge that makes it so important.\u0026nbsp; As Chris suggested with his example of Byzantium and \u003Ci\u003EGame of Thrones\u003C\/i\u003E the claim that academic study in the humanities (especially of the past) is irrelevant to the present ignores the fact that older cultural forms are constantly resurfacing in the present while the knowledge of seemingly arcane topics and periods may offer surprising insights into the contemporary world.\u0026nbsp; But I would go further:\u0026nbsp; The utility of the knowledge produced in the Humanities and the Interpretive Social Sciences is greater today than in the past precisely because of the social, cultural, and economic developments that are normally taken to be signs of the marginality of humanities' work.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAfter all, the twin impact of global capitalism and the spread of the internet has been to increase the relevance of the world's cultural practices and traditions.\u0026nbsp; Globalization has bound together the world's inhabitants ever more tightly but not by homogenization; instead capitalist globalization has dislocated and isolated the world's cultural creations.\u0026nbsp; Although the spread of the digital has been\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/openuct.uct.ac.za\/blog\/coursera-not-panacera\"\u003E far more unequal and uneven than its acolytes recognize \u003C\/a\u003Eit has made possible, in some ways demanded, the continuous presence of the world's cultural, symbolic, linguistic, and collective creations. The constant movement of people (both in the service of capital and due to the disruptions of capital) means that the contemporary economy demands knowledge of the histories of diverse and intertwined societies and cultures.\u0026nbsp; The capacity of the internet to store and share means that these cultures will constantly be available for reconsideration, rejuvenation, and recollection--both by those who live \"within\" them and those who live \"without\" them.\u0026nbsp; It is, to put it another way, the very reality of a global capitalism that demands that people understand the different worlds that are being brought together.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nWe live now in a world where people may need German, or Italian, or French or Chinese to pursue their work and lives; where knowledge of medieval Russia or the long history of Taoism, or the colonial past and national development of Africa may be essential to confront a fundamental social or political problem; where artists, filmmakers, musicians, and writers find themselves confronted with the material remains of multiple past traditions; and where the actual employment of new technologies will succeed most when they respond to concrete social situations and problems not, as in the high modernist fantasy, when they override them.\u0026nbsp; And where is the knowledge that makes those connections possible produced if not in the Humanities (and not just in university humanities)?\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\n\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nThe point that needs to be stressed is that to flourish in the contemporary world (however an individual or group wants to define flourishing) you need to have the knowledge that humanities and social science students and scholars produce. Now it is true that for ideological reasons, some forces would like to see the knowledge produced in the humanities and the social sciences reduced and marginalized.\u0026nbsp; But that is another battle.\u0026nbsp; And that is a battle that can only be joined when we actually insist on the worldliness of our scholarship and of its utility to the world we inhabit."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8671040363728100176\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/the-knowledge-that-dare-not-speak-its.html#comment-form","title":"7 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/8671040363728100176"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/8671040363728100176"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2012\/12\/the-knowledge-that-dare-not-speak-its.html","title":"The Knowledge that Dare Not Speak Its Name"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Michael Meranze"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/05336793340375780406"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/b\/R29vZ2xl\/AVvXsEhdI2xs9x7HVhJ8FfEcbKbpW8yAyP5fkfFqup5hIEa-lZqginIRs0Hsl68jU-lQDKd7R1CGfyek8MD2oo7acySgDsB2-a-Lqv-luVLsSZ7N2xvgZqafZZJeK8q6MUG5vXLCcX0BrSdvE1fc\/s72-c\/space-debris-2-leo.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"7"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1170716682680204889.post-3633553486090308416"},"published":{"$t":"2008-11-01T06:15:00.001-07:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2016-03-18T01:05:51.559-07:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Politics"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Religion \u0026 Culture"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Culture Wars Continue"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"The McCain\/Palin campaign is a constant reminder that the culture wars live on.  They are running against the Weather Underground circa 1969 - The Sixties remains the Right's primal scene, ground zero, bete noir, take your pick.  To set themselves up as warriors against the terrorist 1960s they attacked Obama's occasional paths-crossing with Bill Ayers, a Weather leader back in the day andnow  an academic. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnother academic came in for a \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/10\/31\/nyregion\/31khalil.html?partner=permalink\u0026amp;exprod=permalink\"\u003Esymbolic McCain thrashing\u003C\/a\u003E - the Middle East specialist Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University.  He was actually friends with Obama when they both lived in Chicago and Khalidi taught at the University of Chicago.  The Washington Post has a \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2008\/10\/30\/AR2008103003244.html\"\u003Egood editorial\u003C\/a\u003E on the topic, denouncing  what Khalidi calls the \"idiot wind\" emerging from the McCain campaign's last desperate days.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy favorite lines are those that imagine a life after the culture wars that, as I argue in\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/catalog\/NEWPOS.html\"\u003E \u003Cspan style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003EUnmaking the Public University\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, has inflicted the social and culture equivalent of brain damage on the country as a whole.  The lines:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\"Perhaps unsurprising for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views.\"\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\"Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position.\"\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003EWow.  Let me read those lines again in a daily newspaper.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf curiosity and complexity circulated freely, with militance as their regular companion, and unsplattered with culture wars attacks, progress would be both intelligent and possible again.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPreventing this was the point of the culture wars in the first place.  But the warriors' positions are now weaker than at any time in the last 25 years."},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3633553486090308416\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2008\/11\/culture-wars-continue.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/3633553486090308416"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/1170716682680204889\/posts\/default\/3633553486090308416"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/utotherescue.blogspot.com\/2008\/11\/culture-wars-continue.html","title":"Culture Wars Continue"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Chris Newfield"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/01078395415386100872"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"16","height":"16","src":"https:\/\/img1.blogblog.com\/img\/b16-rounded.gif"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}}]}});