Winter 2006 Newsletter
>Regional Meeting
Terrorism poses threat to Academic Freedom
by Ed Hirschman, History (Emeritus)
A national AAUP official has warned Maryland
academics of an “awful situation” that could develop concerning
academic freedom should terrorist attacks similar to that of “9/11”
occur again.
In his address at the fall meeting of
the Maryland Conference of AAUP (October 14, 2006) at the College of
Notre Dame in Baltimore, Jonathan Knight, national director of the Office
of Academic Freedom for the American Association of University Professors,
urged Marylanders to establish a “solid base of support”
for faculty rights lest they be eroded under pressures of counter-terrorist
hysteria.
While Dr. Knight stated that saw no revival
currently of the “McCarthyist” frights of the 1950s, he
noted that there has been a flood of academic criticism of all aspects
of Bush Administration policies, especially on the Iraq War. There have,
nevertheless, been no official reprisals. Dr. Knight noted four developments
on the “dark side” and warned that these trends must be
watched carefully:
1. Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act,
which allows the government to demand from libraries and book stores
the names of their patrons.
2. The obstruction of foreign scholars
invited to give talks or accept appointments in the U.S.
3. A Florida law banning the use of
state funds to visit certain nations, notably Cuba.
4. An Ohio requirement that state employees
complete forms attesting that they neither belong, nor contribute,
to “terrorist organization.”
In other business, the Maryland conference
organized a committee to represent faculty interests at the next session
of the Maryland General Assembly. The possibility of collective bargaining
for faculty will be examined.
Representatives of the Baltimore County
Community College and the Maryland Institute College of Art, both recently
removed from National AAUP’s “censured” list, spoke
of how they had improved their procedures, notably on faculty tenure
rights, with AAUP’s help.
A new conference treasurer was elected:
Prof. John H. Newman, of the Dept. of Management and Science, Coppin
State University. Coppin professors also agreed to host next spring’s
meeting of the Maryland Conference.
