Academic Freedom at Brooklyn College, CUNY?
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050627&s=pollitt
Having been a chair of a department at Brooklyn College and watching the endless labors of our present one, I would not wish the role on my worst enemy. Currently our CUNY administration is apparently trying to negotiate the right to appoint rather than simply to approve elections of chairs by departments. Such, I think is a vast mistake, particularly in this era precisely of deleterious corporatization of our universities. When I was a chair I had to do battle with a corrupt president who would have preferred the retention in our department of obedient ones rather than the best that we could bring on board. He several times removed me from the role of chair before he, himself, was removed for his misallocations of funds and other devious actions. Despite his machinations we ended up with one of the strongest philosophy departments on the East Coast, which WE now are rebuilding to become the best! Shortell looks to be a loss to all involved here. Shame! Ed Kent
P.S. I did my dissertation at Columbia with its then University Professor of that time, Ernest Nagel, one of CCNY's Morris R. Cohen's distinguished students who became leading American philosophers in the fields of philosophy of science and philosophy of law:
http://www.bookrags.com/biography-ernest-nagel/
Check out his article, "Why I Am an Atheist," which was published in the leading introductory text, A Modern Introduction to Philosophy, first edition, edited by our now retired Brooklyn College department member, Paul Edwards, who was also the editor of the authoritative Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Need one comment on First Amendment rights here? Nagel, as I assume is Shortell, was a caring humanist, who also saw the shortcomings of our contemporary religions and those who engage in murderous jihads in the name of G-d -- Jesus as well as Allah!
.......................................................................
posted June 9, 2005 (June 27, 2005 issue) [The Nation]
Brooklyn Prof in Godless Shocker
Katha Pollitt
So it's 2005 and this is the academic question that has driven the Daily News and the right-wing New York Sun into apoplectic fits, and caused heartburn all over CUNY: Should Tim Shortell, an atheist, be allowed to assume the chair of the sociology department of Brooklyn College? You know, an atheist--someone who doesn't believe in God. An anticleric. A disrespecter of religion. A mocker of Christianity. Someone like, oh, Diderot ("Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"). Or Voltaire ("The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning"). Or Bertrand Russell ("The Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world"). Actually, Russell is a particularly relevant example here. The appointment of one of the twentieth century's greatest logicians to a professorship at City College in 1940 set off a hysterical campaign against the "Godless advocate of free love" on the part of the Episcopal and Catholic churches, the Hearst papers and Tammany Hall. A flagrantly trumped-up lawsuit was fast-tracked through the system, Russell was denounced in the state legislature and the job offer was withdrawn.
Unfortunately, Shortell is no Bertrand Russell, whose Why I Am Not a Christian did so much to enliven my teenage years. For one thing, Russell was an energetic antireligious propagandist, while Shortell's low opinion of God and his fans is confined to a brief essay, "Religion and Morality: A Contradiction Explained," posted at www.anti-naturals.org, an obscure website with a vaguely Situationist flavor. For another, Russell was a terrific writer, while Shortell's essay is self-satisfied adolescent twaddle. Believers are "moral retards," "an ugly, violent lot": "In the heart of every Christian is a tiny voice preaching self-righteousness, paranoia and hatred. Christians claim that theirs is a faith based on love, but they'll just as soon kill you." Moral retards? Well, at least he can't be accused of linguistic PC.
Shortell's fighting words may have been intended, as he told me, as a "manifesto" aimed at a few avant-garde artists, but they gave the right plenty to work with in attacking his election to the chair. After reports of his election appeared in the Sun and Daily News, Brooklyn College president Christoph Kimmich wrote a letter to the News saying he found the essay "offensive" and had "convened a committee of three high-ranking Brooklyn College officials and asked them to investigate the situation." The handwriting must have been on the wall, because even as I was writing this column, Shortell withdrew his name from consideration. Whatever one thinks of the sentiments or the prose style of his essay, this is not a happy turn of events. A college president should champion academic freedom and professional standards, not side with those who assault them on the basis of someone's nonprofessional writing. Academic procedures exist for a reason. Do we really want the tabs micromanaging departmental decisions?
[continuation at web site above]
--
"A war is only just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.legendgames.net/blognews.asp
Having been a chair of a department at Brooklyn College and watching the endless labors of our present one, I would not wish the role on my worst enemy. Currently our CUNY administration is apparently trying to negotiate the right to appoint rather than simply to approve elections of chairs by departments. Such, I think is a vast mistake, particularly in this era precisely of deleterious corporatization of our universities. When I was a chair I had to do battle with a corrupt president who would have preferred the retention in our department of obedient ones rather than the best that we could bring on board. He several times removed me from the role of chair before he, himself, was removed for his misallocations of funds and other devious actions. Despite his machinations we ended up with one of the strongest philosophy departments on the East Coast, which WE now are rebuilding to become the best! Shortell looks to be a loss to all involved here. Shame! Ed Kent
P.S. I did my dissertation at Columbia with its then University Professor of that time, Ernest Nagel, one of CCNY's Morris R. Cohen's distinguished students who became leading American philosophers in the fields of philosophy of science and philosophy of law:
http://www.bookrags.com/biography-ernest-nagel/
Check out his article, "Why I Am an Atheist," which was published in the leading introductory text, A Modern Introduction to Philosophy, first edition, edited by our now retired Brooklyn College department member, Paul Edwards, who was also the editor of the authoritative Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Need one comment on First Amendment rights here? Nagel, as I assume is Shortell, was a caring humanist, who also saw the shortcomings of our contemporary religions and those who engage in murderous jihads in the name of G-d -- Jesus as well as Allah!
.......................................................................
posted June 9, 2005 (June 27, 2005 issue) [The Nation]
Brooklyn Prof in Godless Shocker
Katha Pollitt
So it's 2005 and this is the academic question that has driven the Daily News and the right-wing New York Sun into apoplectic fits, and caused heartburn all over CUNY: Should Tim Shortell, an atheist, be allowed to assume the chair of the sociology department of Brooklyn College? You know, an atheist--someone who doesn't believe in God. An anticleric. A disrespecter of religion. A mocker of Christianity. Someone like, oh, Diderot ("Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"). Or Voltaire ("The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning"). Or Bertrand Russell ("The Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world"). Actually, Russell is a particularly relevant example here. The appointment of one of the twentieth century's greatest logicians to a professorship at City College in 1940 set off a hysterical campaign against the "Godless advocate of free love" on the part of the Episcopal and Catholic churches, the Hearst papers and Tammany Hall. A flagrantly trumped-up lawsuit was fast-tracked through the system, Russell was denounced in the state legislature and the job offer was withdrawn.
Unfortunately, Shortell is no Bertrand Russell, whose Why I Am Not a Christian did so much to enliven my teenage years. For one thing, Russell was an energetic antireligious propagandist, while Shortell's low opinion of God and his fans is confined to a brief essay, "Religion and Morality: A Contradiction Explained," posted at www.anti-naturals.org, an obscure website with a vaguely Situationist flavor. For another, Russell was a terrific writer, while Shortell's essay is self-satisfied adolescent twaddle. Believers are "moral retards," "an ugly, violent lot": "In the heart of every Christian is a tiny voice preaching self-righteousness, paranoia and hatred. Christians claim that theirs is a faith based on love, but they'll just as soon kill you." Moral retards? Well, at least he can't be accused of linguistic PC.
Shortell's fighting words may have been intended, as he told me, as a "manifesto" aimed at a few avant-garde artists, but they gave the right plenty to work with in attacking his election to the chair. After reports of his election appeared in the Sun and Daily News, Brooklyn College president Christoph Kimmich wrote a letter to the News saying he found the essay "offensive" and had "convened a committee of three high-ranking Brooklyn College officials and asked them to investigate the situation." The handwriting must have been on the wall, because even as I was writing this column, Shortell withdrew his name from consideration. Whatever one thinks of the sentiments or the prose style of his essay, this is not a happy turn of events. A college president should champion academic freedom and professional standards, not side with those who assault them on the basis of someone's nonprofessional writing. Academic procedures exist for a reason. Do we really want the tabs micromanaging departmental decisions?
[continuation at web site above]
--
"A war is only just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.legendgames.net/blognews.asp
posted by Ed Kent at 8:29 AM
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