Academic freedom is for all

Jonathan Zimmerman

teaches history

at New York University

and lives in Narberth

So it turns out that Erwin Chemerinsky is going west, after all.

Last week, citing the Duke professor's "controversial" public positions, the University of California, Irvine, withdrew an offer to make him dean of its new law school. But it reinstated the offer after a firestorm of protest, including a letter signed by hundreds of faculty members.

That's exactly as it should be. As the letter noted, "unacceptable ideological considerations" clearly caused the university to break its initial deal with the left-leaning Chemerinsky. The sordid affair threatened academic freedom, putting other professors on notice that they should moderate their views - or pay the price.

So why isn't the professoriat rallying around Condoleezza Rice?

About six hours up the road from Irvine there is another battle brewing over academic freedom, this one at Stanford University. The target there is Rice, secretary of state for a Republican president. So we are about to find out whether America's mostly liberal professors really believe in academic freedom, or whether they simply want their own side to win.

The initial salvo was fired in May, when the Stanford student newspaper ran an article discussing Rice's possible return when President Bush leaves office. A political science professor and former Stanford provost, Rice hasn't committed to any job past January 2009. But it seems likely she could return to campus in some capacity, as the paper reported.

That was too much for many readers. "Condoleezza Rice serves an administration that has trashed the basic values of academia: reason, science, expertise and honesty," an emeritus math professor wrote in a letter published several days later. "Stanford should not welcome her back."

The blogosphere was even harsher, of course. On the newspaper's Web site, one reader compared Rice to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels; another called her a war criminal. "Would Stanford harbor a serial killer just because she previously worked at the university?" one alumna asked. "She's a controversial figure. . . . Now is the time for the [university] administration to quietly encourage Ms. Rice to go elsewhere."

So let's get this straight. If you refuse to hire Chemerinsky because of his "controversial" liberal opinions, that's a blow against academic freedom. But if you turn away Rice because of her controversial conservative views, you're upholding the highest values of the academy itself.

Here you might reply that Rice should be rejected on the basis of her deeds, not her ideology. But there's a slender line between them. Every action implies some kind of opinion, and every opinion carries the potential for action. As soon as we start dismissing academicians on either ground, history shows, academic freedom is dead.

Some of the grimmest history comes from Stanford itself. Consider the case of E.A. Ross, one of the nation's top economists at the turn of the last century. Ross publicly defended socialist leader Eugene Debs and also called for restrictions on Chinese immigration, running afoul of the railroad barons who financed his university. Jane Stanford, widow of Stanford's founder, engineered his resignation.

"A man cannot entertain such rabid ideas without inculcating them in the minds of the students under his charge," Jane Stanford wrote. "Stanford University is lending itself to partisanism and dangerous socialism. Professor Ross cannot be trusted, and he should go."

Fifty years later, at the height of the McCarthy period, a similar fate befell Edward Condon. An eminent physicist and veteran of the Manhattan Project, which designed the first atomic bomb, Condon received an offer to become dean of Stanford's graduate school. But the university withdrew the offer after Condon was attacked by Parnell Thomas, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Although Condon had never been a communist, as Thomas alleged, he had supported Progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace in 1948. That was dangerous enough.

Unlike Chemerinsky, Condon didn't get his offer reinstated. Indeed, for several years, he couldn't get an academic job at all. Too "controversial."

How can anyone bemoan the ravages of the Red-baiting 1950s, when dozens of professors were dismissed for ideological reasons, then erect an ideological litmus test for the present? It really doesn't matter if you agree with Condoleezza Rice; I certainly don't. The question is whether you'll grant her the same consideration as Erwin Chemerinsky.

So let's salute Chemerinsky, a brilliant scholar and author, as he assumes his new post at Irvine. But let's make sure that Condoleezza Rice can be welcomed back to Stanford, too. Anything less will betray academic freedom.