Washington State U. Caught in Controversy Over Michael Pollan’s ‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’

Today’s Chronicle features a story about a controversy at Washington State University that should interest followers of sustainability and agriculture issues:

When a committee at Washington State University picked The Omnivore’s Dilemma as this year’s “common reading” selection for all incoming freshmen, faculty members effusively praised the award-winning book and hoped that people at the land-grant university were ready to have a serious debate about the practice of agriculture in America….

But it seems that discussion will not happen—at least not over The Omnivore’s Dilemma as a common-reading selection. Michael Pollan’s hard-hitting examination of industrial agriculture and the American diet has been dropped as the program’s text.

An explanation on the university’s Web site is vague and implies the withdrawal of the book was due to budget constraints. But some people on the campus say that the university, which has a prominent agriculture college, bowed to pressure from agribusiness interests.

Read more here.