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Academic freedom and conspiracy theories at UNH
Last week, ACTA wrote to Andrew Leitz, chair of the University of New Hampshire board of trustees, urging him to take action to ensure that all those who teach in the UNH system are doing so according to professional standards as laid out by the AAUP. The precipitating event was the news that Professor William Woodward, who advocates the belief that the U.S. government played an instrumental role in engineering the 9/11 attacks, would be carrying on in the classroom as usual this year, despite evidence that he has abandoned scholarly standards of reasoning. Woodward plans to bring his ideas into his courses--and UNH, after a brief moment of concern, has announced that he has the academic freedom to do that.
UNH has not responded yet. But the Associated Press has:
WASHINGTON -- A national group has suggested that a formal review of a University of New Hampshire professor's teaching is necessary, including his views that government officials orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, in a Sept. 1 letter to the chairman of UNH's board of trustees, suggested that "a formal investigation is necessary" into William Woodward.
Faculty bear primary responsibility for maintaining professional standards, and in exchange, the public grants institutions the independence that allows faculties to support those standards as they see fit, wrote Anne Neal, president of the Washington-based education policy group.
"When, however -- as in Professor Woodward's case -- there is prima facie evidence that a faculty member may not be abiding by professional standards or may be putting personal, social, or political agendas ahead of a fundamental commitment to the objective search for the truth, then a full and formal review is salutary," the letter said. "This is because academic freedom does not mean anything goes."
Woodward, a tenured psychology professor at UNH, belongs to Scholars for 9/11 Truth, whose members believe that Bush administration officials either planned the attacks or knew about them and allowed them to happen in order to get public opinion behind their policies.
Gov. John Lynch has called Woodward's beliefs "completely crazy and offensive" and asked the university system's trustees to investigate Woodward's teaching practices. Lynch headed the board before he was elected governor in 2004.
UNH Provost Bruce Mallory said no students have complained about Woodward's presentation of his opinions, and that after reviewing course materials and student evaluations, he is persuaded that Woodward did not impose his opinions on students. Mallory also said the material was presented in a way that was relevant to the courses Woodward taught.
But University Chancellor Stephen Reno said the board of trustees still may ask for a formal review.
Here's hoping that UNH recognizes this is not the time for administrative officials to bury their heads in the sand. The press is watching.
Read the full text of ACTA's letter here.
Posted by acta online on September 08, 2006 at September 8, 2006 08:44 AM
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Comments
Professor Woodward's case lends one more bit of instantiation to the view of Agatha Christie's occasionally sagacious Inspector Japp, whose obiter dictum on those who practise the "young" science doubtless at the threshold of a major "breakthrough"--which will finally take it "round the corner" (pant, pant) to at last becoming "exact" seems just: "Psychologists . . . most of 'em 'r balmy themselves!" For what they have heretofor accomplished (with few exceptions) I submit that the whole tribe already deserves Pope's "Fame's posterior trumpet". Perhaps they'll someday put down their Fraud--sorry--Freud, Jung, Reich, Skinner and Hull (and their epigones) and pick up their Plato, Augustine, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Proust for perceptive guides to soul-searching. Cheers
Posted by: Jacques Albert at September 11, 2006 01:49 PM
Posted by: Clawmute at September 11, 2006 09:06 PM
Clawmute: Thanks for the tip--I'm somewhat new to the blogging scene and I'll be away for a day or two, but a cursory glance at the blogs on CM tells me there's a recent friendly foe of mine blogging over there. I'll be back. A bientot,
Posted by: Jacques Albert at September 12, 2006 12:14 AM