December 29, 2008

MLA 2008: David Horowitz Meets His Critics

San Francisco — David Horowitz is no stranger to the MLA. His campaign for an “academic bill of rights” and his criticism of what he says is classroom indoctrination have earned him the enmity of many scholars — not just in literary studies, a frequent target of his barbs, but other disciplines as well. But to hear him tell it, the extreme attacks on him have blocked any real discussion. In fact, Mr. Horowitz’s appearance at the MLA here today, he said, is the first time that a scholarly group has ever asked him to appear to defend his views.

And that was either cause for dismay, as some here viewed it, or a step forward for the MLA. Mr. Horowitz appeared on a panel called “Academic Freedom?” along with Mark Bauerlein, Norma V. Cantú, and Cary Nelson. It was a tightly formatted event: The speakers were given 12 minutes to make their comments, and audience members 30 seconds afterward to raise questions — limits that were actually enforced, even if it meant audience members shouted out “your time is up!” to Mr. Horowitz when he went over a bit.

Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Bauerlein, a professor of English at Emory University and a conservative critic of higher education, seemed somewhat surprised that they had been invited, and each thanked the MLA for the chance to speak. In different ways, each criticized the professoriate for a kind of denial in not acknowledging real problems in the classroom and how identity politics can infringe on academic freedom. “The danger to academic freedom comes from within, not from David Horowitz, Anne Neal, or Stephen Balch,” said Mr. Bauerlein.

In their remarks, Mr. Nelson and Ms. Cantú did not deal with the supposed problems described by Mr. Horowitz and Mr. Bauerlein; they each offered defenses of academic freedom. Mr. Nelson, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and president of the American Association of University Professors, argued that academic freedom is the assurance that professors can do what they choose in their research and teaching and that the profession has many means to constrain faculty behavior if necessary. He also spoke of the need for protecting the rights of contingent faculty members who work without the customary protections that professors have from being punished for what they say in public arenas.

But members of the audience weren’t having any of this. They wanted to challenge the panel about one thing: why Mr. Horowitz was there in the first place.

“Are you now proud that you are the only organization to invite Horowitz to speak?” an angry Barbara Foley of Rutgers University at Newark asked. “Did you do your homework” about Mr. Horowitz’s blog, Frontpagemag.com? she continued, to applause from the audience. Grover Furr of Montclair State University and a self-described “victim” of Mr. Horowitz’s book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, said he objected to Mr. Horowitz’s being invited “not because of his views but because he is a liar.” Another audience member complained that out of thousands of MLA members, the organization had picked “two Frontpage columnists” for the panel.

“You have to have a modicum of respect for people,” Mr. Horowitz responded. “I was in the civil-rights movement before Barbara Foley was even born.”

Before the session began, members of the MLA Radical Caucus handed out a statement protesting the organization’s decision to invite Mr. Horowitz to speak. Mr. Horowitz “consistently misrepresents the views of academics whom he wishes to discredit,” the caucus said. “He is not a scholar but a liar of the Goebbels school.”

That kind of rhetoric may have been what Mr. Bauerlein had in mind when he said that certain professors on the left deny to Mr. Horowitz and other critics “any decent or honest motive. They don’t grant them the impulse to care about young minds and the curriculum. They cast them as partisan hacks, and that’s wrong.”

The differences among the speakers were reflected in their responses to one issue Mr. Horowitz cited as an example of political indoctrination: teaching that gender is socially constructed. That idea, he maintained, is refuted by biology and neuroscience. As a theory, he said, it “has every right to be in the university curriculum,” but professors “can’t teach it as a scientific fact rather than as an opinion of radical feminists, which is what it is.”

Yet many scholars in a variety of disciplines do agree about gender’s being socially constructed, including Mr. Nelson, who said he teaches it as fact.

Asked by Mr. Bauerlein how he responds when a student disagrees with him, Mr. Nelson replied: “When I teach the social construction of gender, we have an open discussion about the idea. I make it clear where I stand, and the students are free to agree or disagree.” He said he gives extra credit to students who disagree with him. “If that’s indoctrination, higher education should come to an end,” Mr. Nelson said. Mr. Horowitz agreed that that was not indoctrination.

During the question period, Gerald Graff, a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said he wanted to know more about what is really happening in classrooms. “The charge is whether professors are bullying students,” said Mr. Graff, who is the current president of the MLA. “We who defend our practices need a more straightforward response from our colleagues Cary and Norma.”

Ms. Cantú, a former director of the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said, “The charge is whether we are radicalizing our students,” and added, “I hope so.” She defended education as the chance for people to develop into full human beings. “What do they go to university for?” she said.

On a typical campus, said Mr. Nelson, one or two professors proselytize, and their effect is nil. “That does not require a new mechanism for surveillance of faculty members,” he said. —Liz McMillen

Comments

1. Thank you for covering this session.

   I wish we had had more than 75 minutes to discuss and debate this important question.

   The reminder from one member of the audience that Mr. Horowitz had used up his allotted time was warranted. That it was shouted out from the back of the room seemed rude and disrespectful, however.

   The repeatedly mouthed “F..CK… YOU” to Mr. Horowitz from another member of the audience (visible from my position at the podium—and certainly to Horowitz and other members of the panel) seemed “troublesome” and “repugnant.” I would have expected more of a colleague—especially of one suggesting that the DAOC “apologize […] for degrading the level of scholarship and debate that MLA members legitimately expect from any session they attend at the convention” (29 December 2008 handout to MLA members, distributed by members of the MLA Radical Caucus).

   — Brian Kennelly    Dec 30, 12:50 AM    #

2. Why would an instructor give extra credit to a student who disagrees? Isn’t it the quality and supporting evidence of the argument and not the position that should count in most academic courses?

   — kgotthardt    Dec 30, 04:29 PM    #

3. Kudos to Mr. Horowitz for walking into the Lion’s Den and defending his objectives and methods. Would his detractors be willing to show up to a Campus Watch meeting and do the same? I find it most disappointing that the Radical Caucus had to play the Nazi card with their ugly reference to Goebbels. That demonstrates a troublesome intellectual laziness and unwillingness to argue in good faith on their part.

   — J. Ward    Dec 30, 04:31 PM    #

4. Violence in Gaza and Israel. Starvation in Africa. War in Iraq and Afghanistan. Certainly these ‘radicals’ can find a better taget for their energy. It is also interesting that these ‘radicals’ refer to Goebbels, when their own tactics harken to Nazi Germany. Shout down opposing views rather than defeating them through reasoned debate. Nothing could provide more support for Horowitz’s perspective than the behavior of these crude individuals.

   — John    Dec 30, 04:31 PM    #

5. I think the performance of some members of the audience in this session is discouraging, disgusting evidence that their university experience is closing their minds.

   — Don Erickson    Dec 30, 04:31 PM    #

6. If Cary can teach gender = social construction as fact, then bio teachers should be able to teach ID as a fact—or indeed geocentrism as a fact.

   i suspect these same rude post-secondary teachers would have been appalled at the “bad taste” or “insensitivity” of the tough questions which Bollinger asked Ahmadinejad. These pampered teachers should get a real job outside the comfy fantasy land of academe. Let’s see if in the real world they could get away with comparing anyone with whom they disagreed to Nazis.

   i suspect these same rude post-secondary teachers would have been appalled at the “bad taste” or “insensitivity” of the tough questions which Bolllnger asked Ahmadinejad. These pampered teachers should get a real job outside the comfy fantasy land of academe. Let’s see if they could get away with comparing anyone with whom they disagreed to Nazis.

   — whatup    Dec 30, 06:22 PM    #

7. J. Ward: You should do your homework. David Horowitz is the one who plays the “Nazi card,” but he only does it through naive surrogates (mostly students) at the following website:

   http://www.terrorismawareness.org/

   Go ahead. Do your homework. Read the website and watch the unconscionable videos his group portrays as truth. There you should be able to find a very misleading video based on his booklet called “The Islamic Mein Kampf.”

   David Horowitz has claimed credit for “…the growing willingness of conservatives to identify radicals as ‘leftists’ and not ‘liberals;’ we have introduced the terms ‘fifth column’ and ‘hate America left’ and ‘Shadow Party’ into the vocabulary of such mass market conservatives as Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Tom DeLay.”

   By usurping the language of academic freedom and social justice, Horowitz and others like him are duping people into thinking that he is pursuing balance and equity when in fact it is quite clear from his own writings and websites (if you do your homework), that what he really wants is to destroy progressive thought in academia and replace it with ultra-conservative ideology.

   Really. Do your homework before you post. You should be embarrassed.

   The quote above is from the “David Horowitz Freedom Center Year End Report (2006)” retrieved on April 6, 2007 from http://www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org/ .

   — RLW    Dec 30, 06:41 PM    #

8. While I disagree with Horowitz’s methods and his rhetoric, it would be disingenuous and hypocritical to not allow him (or someone who shares his views) to voice their positions at the conference. Suppressing opposing views is exactly what we in higher ed are and should be against. No matter how much we might disagree with any position, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard of free speech for everyone, and not select people who support our views.

   The MLA Radical Caucus should tone it down (no need for invoking nazism into this debate, no matter how staunch your position). In additon, there is absolutely no place for obscenity and vulgar language at an academic meeting. I did not attend this meeting, and if there was vulgar, obscenity-laced shouting from the audience, they should have been removed. They are as guilty of the closed-minded views Horowitz ascribes to university professors.

   Finally, I would request that any of us who write and comment on these pages to immediately stop the sarcasm, viciousness, and demeaning characterizations that this method of debate allows via anonymity. We would not allow it in our classrooms, and we should not allow it among ourselves. If we have the facts on our side, we don’t need anything else.

   — cmason63    Dec 31, 11:12 AM    #

9. RLW, it is you who should be embarassed by your silly hysteria with regards to Horowitz. Want to know the major difference that seems sadly beyond your comprehension? Nazis killed people — Jews, gays, Gypsies, Christian clergy, et al. — just the same as Islamic terrorists do today. David Horowitz and Campus Watch are not killers. Thus, comparing Islamic terrorists to Nazis is completely defensible while the Horowitz comparison is stupid and offensive. That you fail to see this is precisely the reason that radical academia has continually beclowned itself over the last couple of decades.

   — J. Ward    Dec 31, 12:17 PM    #

10. J Ward: Your discourse is replete with the type of logical fallacies typical of the ultra-conservative ideologues that have run this country into the ground and continue to support hypocrites like Horowitz. You mischaracterize my factual evidence of his hypocrisy as “hysteria” without ever disputing the evidence I have provided to you. You simply use circular argumentation to discredit an argument that I never made.

    The “argument” that he should not be compared to a Nazi while legitimizing his effort to characterize all of Islam as comparable to the rise of Nazi Germany is nonsense. I am curious why you didn’t also direct your criticism at John, who compares “these ‘radicals’” to Nazis…maybe because you are selective in your application of the principle you claim to hold?

    My effort to direct you to the evidence that Horowitz is not only engaged in a purposeful and deceitful propaganda campaign should not be misconstrued as claiming Horowitz and Campus Watch are “killers,” but should be understood as providing evidence that he is a hypocrite and a liar.

    By ignoring that evidence and supporting Horowitz and his tactics, I believe that you are either (a) ignorant (in the purest sense of the term) and in need of doing your homework, or (b) as fanatical as Horowitz and willing to justify any means to achieve the same ends; that is, destroy progressive thought in higher education in order to replace it with ultra-conservative ideology.

    The premises that Horowitz must be given a podium for his unsubstantiated propaganda, and that concerted efforts to deny him that podium or to refute his false claims are evidence of the validity of his claims is simply circular reasoning and begging the question. Horowitz no more deserves a podium or a passive response to his propaganda than would a Holocaust denier like Ahmadinejad.

    — RLW    Dec 31, 02:38 PM    #

11. RLW in post #10 completely misses the point: Horowitz, whatever his alleged failings, raises an important issue, which is splendidly backed up by hard data, namely does the heavily lopsided ideological orientation among social science/humanities faculty short-change students in their education? One is likely to find greater intellectual diversity walking the aisles of a grocery store than what’s on a typical university campus. Since higher education is financed substantially by the public, we all deserve on open discourse on this question.

    — statsperspective    Dec 31, 07:33 PM    #

12. Actually, to say that “gender is socially constructed” is tautological. It’s sexual difference that is not socially constructed. However, I was stunned (I was in the room) when Cary Nelson said that he states the social construction of sexual difference as a fact because “I believe that it is.” That would make it an opinion, Professor Nelson.

    — David Clemens    Dec 31, 07:35 PM    #

13. The Radical Caucus criticisms of Horowitz are more than warranted, and the comparison with Goebbels – Hitler’s “Big Lie” technique is accurate.

    Horowitz is a slanderer without the least interest in the truth. He lies to an extent scarcely believable — until one has studied it.

    Horowitz attacks Ward Churchill for lying in a half-dozen cases. This is hypocrisy. Horowitz does little EXCEPT lie.

    For example, in his book and interview he told a dozen falsehoods about me, and never bothered to try to verify a single one of them.

    The Radical Caucus’ flyer on Horowitz’s appearance at MLA ’08 may be viewed, and essays documenting our charges, may be read, at

    http://www.tinyurl.com/radical-caucus-on-horowitz-mla

    — Grover Furr    Jan 1, 11:39 AM    #

14. The so-called “hard data” to back up the claims of Horowitz is nowhere close to the standard Horowitz himself demands these same social scientists should use to back up their claims. This is yet another blatant expression of hypocrisy…the use of overwhelmingly unreliable and descriptive data obtained through the most biased of sampling to make claims of “fact,” when at the same time stating the methods of social scientists are inadequate for their claims of fact.

    The reality is that what most of the ultra-cons use as “hard data” would not come close to what is acceptable among the social scientific standards used to judge students completing a thesis, much less survive the rigors of publishable research.

    However, there are a small (very small) number of studies (with reasonable rigor) that actually have begun to show the opposite of what Horowitz claims:

    (a) conservative students aren’t interested in pursuing doctorates, much less academic careers (e.g., one explanation for the noted shortage of ultra-cons in academe);

    (b) there really are very few total reports of political bias in classrooms, and when they do appear they are not limited to one side of the political spectrum (e.g., liberal indoctrination doesn’t really exist);

    (c ) the people who are most likely to believe that liberal indoctrination is a problem in higher education are older, conservative adults who were much less likely to have ever attended college, and the issue was viewed as relatively non-existent among those who actually have attended college; and

    (d) look for a forthcoming piece of research that indicates that students with more conservative attitudes tended to perceive the campus climate more favorably than students with more liberal attitudes (i.e., when asked whether the campus environment was friendly-hostile, respectful-disrespectful, communicative-reserved, concerned-indifferent, improving-worsening, cooperative-uncooperative).

    The evidence for the claims of Horowitz and his ilk is about as solid as the evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. If it was not manufactured, it involves the misinterpretation of unreliably weak data.

    — RLW    Jan 1, 07:51 PM    #

15. On Friday, January 9, AAUP President Cary Nelson will debate Peter Wood, Executive Director of the National Association of Scholars, at the NAS’s Thirteenth General Conference in Washington D.C. The topic of the debate is “The Meaning of Academic Freedom.” For conference details go to www.nas.org. Unlike the MLA and many “progressive” members of the AAUP, the NAS thrives on well-reasoned, unfettered debate.

    As regards invoking Nazism and resorting to obscenities, it is known as a common tactic of radicals of all stripes to discredit ideological opponents and shut down the free exchange of ideas. Instead of protesting the presence of Mr. Horowitz at the MLA meeting ( he was, after all, an invited guest), all those committed to the democratic process should condemn the outrageous incivility displayed by the MLA Radical Caucus members. What’s next — “shoe throwing” to show disdain for opposing views?

    “Academics” who behave in this manner are the true barbarians. Alas, they reside in increasing numbers not “at” the gates of academe, but “within.”

    Finally, I beg to differ with Mr. Nelson regarding gender being a “social construct.” Mine — and I am sure of that — was “constructed” at birth.

    — Dr. S.W.    Jan 2, 06:44 PM    #

16. I attended this session at MLA. Regardless of Horowitz’s views, he does have the right to express them. The incivility and rudeness of certain members of the audience was embarrassing. Although I disagree with Horowitz, I felt that he was treated rudely. I was also surprised at the presence of at least ten security guards, posted all over the room. Most of the people who were supposed to be asking questions could not do so, but went into tirades, yelling and screaming “liar” at Horowitz. What has happened to civil discourse?

    — Mary    Jan 3, 01:47 PM    #

17. David Horowitz is Westbrook Pegler with a PhD. Is it close-minded to refuse to consider smears and lies as a position worthy of academic debate? So be it; I am close-minded.

    Peter Gardner
    Rome, Italy

    — Peter Gardner    Jan 4, 03:38 PM    #

18. Post #14 by RLW must rank as THE stupidest, most fallacy-laced posting that I’ve read to date. Explaining to you how presumption, false arguments, etc. do not rise to the level of logical reasoning would be an obvious waste of time. Please just shut up. Please.

    — Obummer    Jan 5, 12:49 PM    #

19. “Obummer” demonstrates the ineptitude, ignorance and immaturity one has come to expect from the flailing desperation of the small-minded right-winged lunatics that follow David Horowitz. “Shut up” is a rather unoriginal tactic that I believe comes out of the Bill O’Reilly playbook of scholarly argumentation. How inane.

    Peter Gardner is correct.

    — Chessplayer    Jan 5, 01:32 PM    #

20. No, Checkersplayer, it is you who “demonstrates the ineptitude, ignorance and immaturity one has come to expect from the flailing desperation of the small-minded [left]-winged lunatics that [hate] David Horowitz. ‘How inane’ is a rather unoriginal tactic that I believe comes out of the [pick any liberal] playbook of scholarly argumentation” for those that cannot construct or defend a logical argument.
    P. S.: Shut up.

    — Obummer    Jan 5, 03:43 PM    #

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