By now, you might have seen the e-mail, circulating seemingly everywhere, that calls on "all members of the academic community to speak out strongly in defense of academic freedom and civil liberties." If you haven’t, chances are you will. Last week, about a dozen university professors across the country put out an all-points bulletin on faculty, student, and activist Internet e-mail lists urging people to sign a letter condemning the mounting "efforts to silence criticism and dissent" on campus since the terrorist attacks of September 11.

The letter, signed by more than 200 professors thus far, highlights a widely reported incident at City University of New York (CUNY), where faculty members have come under fire for criticizing US foreign policy at an October forum. CUNY chancellor Matthew Goldstein denounced the professors for making "lame excuses" for the terrorists, while the school’s trustees condemned the teach-in as "seditious." The letter calls such affronts against free speech "an ominous development" and concludes: "We must make sure that all informed voices — especially those that are critical and dissenting — must be heard."

William Keach, a Brown University professor and veteran antiwar activist, initiated the letter campaign after he was bombarded with as many as 80 scathing e-mails. The reason? He dismissed his class early on October 9 so students could attend a rally to protest US military strikes in Afghanistan. "I’d been getting this steady stream of negative messages," says Keach, who promptly called up professors with whom he’d worked over the years. "We decided it might be appropriate to send a letter soliciting support for academic freedom." He and his peers are collecting contributions to publish the statement as a full-page ad in the New York Times.

Harvey Silverglate, a Boston attorney who helped found the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), views the latest campaign as a reflection of a growing problem. Says Silverglate, "People [on college campuses] are facing more censorship, and it’s not just the antiwar people who have been shut up." At Duke University, for instance, the administration shut down the Web site of professor Gary Hull after he posted an October article calling for a strong military response to the terrorist attacks. FIRE took Hull’s case to the media, forcing Duke officials to reinstate Hull’s Web site. Officials, however, have required Hull to add a disclaimer stating that his views do not reflect those of the university — something that’s not required of any other professor.

FIRE now represents as many as a dozen professors and students nationwide who complain that university officials have sought to silence them since the terrorist assaults. As Keach puts it, "Academic freedom for all is important."

Issue Date: November 1 - 8, 2001