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While the fur flies
One of the more remarkable aspects of debates about higher education is how quickly, and, seemingly, inevitably, they degenerate into some of the most anti-intellectual displays of mudslinging and name-calling around. ACTA has been at the center of some of the more heated exchanges of late, figuring largely, for example, in an InsideHigherEd op-ed by Pitzer College dean Alan Jones that misrepresents it as a pivotal figure in that favorite academic bugaboo, the vast right-wing conspiracy (ACTA president Anne Neal notes several of Jones' errors in the comments that follow). But while academics who are hostile to ACTA's work devote time and bandwidth to attempting to discrediting the organization, ACTA continues to defend the principles of free expression, accountability, and fair procedure in an academy that is all too ready to dispense with such things when they become inconvenient.
Consider the case of the Dartmouth Association of Alumni, which has busily been reworking procedures for how alumni may be elected to Dartmouth's board of trustees (so as to make it that much more difficult for dissenting dark horse candidates such as T.J. Rodgers, Todd Zywicki, and Peter Robinson to be elected), as well as for how the officers of the Association itself may circumvent its own rules, not to mention democratic process (by deferring the dates of elections for their own offices). ACTA has been actively involved in urging the Dartmouth alumni association to mend its ways, but to no avail. But while the Dartmouth Association of Alumni has been unimpressed by ACTA's arguments, others recognize what is at stake.
The Associated Press has begun to cover the story. And today, the New York Times takes up the case as well. Noting that Dartmouth, Colgate, and Hamilton have all been the scenes of recent controversies over the alumni role in governance, the Times quotes Anne Neal as saying that "What we're seeing at Dartmouth, Colgate and Hamilton are alumni who are profoundly troubled by the direction of those institutions .... It's time for those looking in from the outside to provide some input."
The "input" Neal mentions is what has ACTA's critics so exercised of late; loud and long have been the laments that what ACTA is really doing is attacking academic freedom. But that just isn't so, as the Dartmouth case ought to make clear. Issues of governance, institutional accountability, and procedural transparency are not left-right issues; these issues affect us all, no matter what our viewpoints. It is both distorting and self-defeating of those who dismiss ACTA's work as heavily partisan not to recognize the work that ACTA is doing to preserve the foundational principles of a vital and healthy academy.
ACTA's latest press release on the Dartmouth case is available here. Charles Mitchell has more at Phi Beta Cons, and Margaret Soltan takes the issue up as well at University Diaries.
UPDATE 6/22: KC Johnson has pronounced the discussion following Alan Jones' article to be damning evidence of academe's ideological blinders: "There seems to be an intent among some here to demonize ACTA," Johnson observes. "But if the ideas of Jones and his defenders are in any way representative of majority opinion in the contemporary academy, I fear that, if anything, ACTA might be underestimating our problems." Johnson develops his observations at Cliopatria.
Posted by acta online at June 21, 2006 02:30 AM
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