ACTA's Must-Reads
« Politics trumps education | Main | Two Takes »
Bollinger backpedals
Columbia University president Lee Bollinger has, at long last, issued a statement regarding student protesters' scandalous disruption of a speech by Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist -- and the criticism is flying.
Bollinger's statement, issued last week, pays lip service to the importance of free expression on campus, as well as to the necessity of disciplining those who disrupt or interfere with speakers. But what's missing from Bollinger's lengthy attempt at pacifying erudition is what's most telling about it. No mention is made of inviting Gilchrist to return to campus to complete his speech. Bollinger skirts the issue of exactly what disciplinary measures will be taken with the students who shut Gilchrist down--and does so disingenuously, by invoking FERPA. He also announces new policies regarding security at student events as well as monitoring of outside attendees--both of which threaten to impose potentially unreasonable restrictions on campus speech.
The good news is that Bollinger's statement has, by virtue of its very inadequacy, allowed the left and the right to find common ground on this one. Compare the criticisms at Powerline--"It is much clearer to me that the university has adopted new procedures to encumber the hosting of "controversial" speakers on campus than that any appropriate discipline has been administered to those who disrupted the event in issue"--to those offered by John K. Wilson at IHE:
Unfortunately, there are many disturbing aspects to this letter. Bollinger claims, "The Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), however, strictly prohibits the University from divulging details of disciplinary proceedings, including the identities of participants." This is absolutely not true. FERPA might prohibit Columbia from identifying the students it is punishing (although I dispute even that), but it certainly allows Columbia to say how many students are being disciplined, under what provisions, and what the penalties are. It's important to know what these penalties are, to judge whether Columbia's penalties are too light or too severe. Actually, the Dean's Discipline approach seems about right.Bollinger also declared that it will require "an express agreement in advance of any event--between the University, the sponsoring student group, and the speakers or groups--about how the events will be staged and who from outside the University will attend." This is very alarming, given Columbia's recent attempts to ban "outsiders" from student events. Students not only should be free to organize an event without any administrative approval, they should also be free to invite anyone to attend. Blaming "outsiders" for problems is a common tactic of administrators.
Also missing from Bollinger's statement (and previous statements) is a very basic principle: whenever a speech is disrupted, Columbia should attempt to restore order and continue the speech as soon as possible. If, for some reason, an event must be cancelled, Columbia's administration should commit to reschedule the speaker, and pay all expenses, as soon as possible. Bollinger's record as a free-speech defender has been severely tarnished in the past two years in a variety of cases too numerous to list here. This announcement doesn't restore any confidence in the state of intellectual freedom at Columbia.
If Columbia remains unclear about its commitment to free exchange on campus, the public is becoming increasingly clear about how it feels about higher ed administrators who waffle at precisely the moment when they should be standing up for the principles that underwrite the academic enterprise.
Posted by acta online at December 27, 2006 04:05 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.goactablog.org/blog/mt-tb.cgi/262