The New McCarthyism in Academe “

THOUGHT & AC T I O NFALL 2005 1 0 3

We are in dangerous times,” University of ColoradoPresident Elizabeth Hoffman warned the facultyat a special meeting on March 3, 2005.There was,

she explained, the very real danger that the university might face what she called a“new McCarthyism.”

1As she grappled with the raging storm over Colorado’s con-

troversial ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill, Hoffman worried that the uni-versity, which had only recently apologized for firing an untenured faculty memberin the 1950s, might “do today something that our predecessors [sic] will judge ill ofus 50 years from now.”

2Hoffman was hardly alone in her concerns. Lee Bollinger,

Columbia’s president, faced a similar struggle over his university’s department ofMiddle East and Asian Languages and Culture (MEALAC); and he too noted that

The NewMcCarthyism in

Academeby Ellen Schrecker

Ellen Schrecker is professor of history at Yeshiva University. Recognized as one of the nation’sleading experts on McCarthyism, she has published many books and articles on the subject, includ-ing Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998), The Age of McCarthyism:A Sh o rt History with Documents ( 1 9 9 4 , rev. e d. 2 0 0 2 ) , and No Ivory Tow e r :McCarthyism and the Universities (1986). Most recently, she edited a collection of essays, ColdWar Triumphalism: Exposing the Misuse of History after the Fall of Communism.

this is “a time of enormous stress for colleges and universities across thecountry.”

3

While it would be hard to deny that America’s colleges and universities areunder siege at the moment, it is hard to tell whether they are facing a replay of theacademic freedom violations of the McCarthy era. After all, during that unfortu-nate period, at least 100 faculty members lost their jobs, while countless otherscensored themselves and eschewed political dissent.4 Today’s body count is muchsmaller. Probably no more than half a dozen academics, if that, have been let go

“

THE NEA HIGHER EDUCATION JOURNAL1 0 4

for political reasons since the current war on terror began four years ago.5

Andyet…

Hoffman and Bollinger are not crying, “Wolf.” Although it is unlikely that wewill see an exact replay of the anticommunist furor that roiled the nation’s cam-puses during the early Cold War, external forces are currently challenging the tra-ditional freedom and autonomy of American higher education. Inspired by acohort of dedicated activists, many politicians, talk-show hosts, and ordinary citi-

zens are questioning both the mission of today’s universities and the politicalaffinities of their faculties. While heads have yet to roll, intellectual freedom faceschallenges that seem all too familiar to students of the McCarthy era. There is avery real danger that external groups and individuals will, as they did in the 1950s,impose political tests for employment on the nation’s faculties. Moreover, unlikethose earlier attacks on the academy, the ones today not only threaten people’sjobs, they also endanger the professional autonomy and intellectual integrity of theentire academic community.

What makes the current situation so ominous is that it comes at a time whenthe nation’s colleges and universities confront structural financial con-

straints that have already degraded their traditional educational and research func-tions. McCarthyism’s depredations occurred during the golden age of academe,when higher education was expanding and the professoriate enjoyed considerablerespect. Now, with the public sector itself under attack, the federal largesse thatsupported so much of that earlier expansion has dwindled and the nation’s collegesand universities are desperately scrabbling for resources. At the same time—and inpart because of the current political campaign against the university—the acade-my’s values seem out of step with the rest of the country’s, depriving its increas-ingly beleaguered institutions of the public support necessary for their continuedsurvival as vibrant centers of independent intellectual life.

It does not, however, take an analysis of the universities’ structural vulnerabil-ities to recognize the way in which the current campaign creates a climate of chill,

While heads have yet to roll, intellectual freedom faceschallenges that seem all too familiar to students of the McCarthy era.

SPECIAL FOCUS: Hi gher Educat ion and the Na ti onal Secu ri ty S ta te


THE NEW MCCARTHY ISM IN AC A D E M E

even though—as in the McCarthy era—it targets academia’s squeakiest wheels.Take speakers’ bans, for example. During the late 1940s and 1950s, Communistsand even non-Communist controversial figures were excluded from just aboutevery college and university in the country, while administrators pontificated aboutthe threat those men and women posed to free speech and educational proprieties.In many cases, if the institution did allow such a speaker to appear on campus, itwould insist that someone else share the platform. When the University ofMinnesota banned a concert by Paul Robeson, for example, the school’s adminis-

tration explained that the singer could have performed for the students, if only hehad been willing to allow someone to rebut his “one-sided and musically overtonedpropaganda.”

6

Ward Churchill is in Paul Robeson’s position today. He had been scheduledto speak about Native American rights at Hamilton College on February

3, 2005, but once an uproar arose over an obscure article in which he had taste-lessly labeled some 9/11 victims as “little Eichmanns,” the college transformed hislecture into a panel discussion about “The Limits of Dissent.” Then, as the furorintensified and the death threats poured in, Hamilton’s president cited the prob-lem of maintaining security and cancelled the whole show. Other colleges and uni-versities followed suit. Wheaton College in Massachusetts, Eastern WashingtonUniversity, the University of Oregon, and even his own institution, the Universityof Colorado, rescinded invitations to the controversial scholar (though he did endup speaking to a class and outdoor rally at Eastern Washington).

7Similar cancel-

lations dogged the college appearances by filmmaker Michael Moore in the fall of2004.

8Meanwhile, as one might expect, the Colorado authorities came under

pressure to dismiss Churchill altogether. Significantly, as the University ofColorado regents pondered Churchill’s future, it was clear that some of them wereafter more than one scalp. “It naturally follows that I will be seeking justificationfor all departments and their academic value and merit to the university commu-nity,” Regent Tom Lucero explained. “I want to scrutinize whether or not it is nec-essary to eliminate courses and departments of questionable academic merit.”

9

‘It naturally follows that I will be seeking justifica-tion for all departments and their academic value

and merit to the university community.’


Presumably Churchill’s home, the university’s Department of Ethnic Studies, isnow under the gun.

So, too, are many departments of Middle Eastern studies. Their current ordealis all too reminiscent of the travails of the nation’s East Asia scholars during the1950s. After the Communists took over Beijing in 1949, Joe McCarthy and hisallies sought scapegoats for the so-called “loss of China.” Johns Hopkins’ sinolo-gist, Owen Lattimore, was the main academic victim, in large part because of hiseminence in the field. Targeted by McCarthy as the nation’s “top Russian espi-onage agent,” Lattimore (who had never been a Communist, much less a spy) hadto endure 11 days of grueling testimony before a special Senate investigating com-mittee and then face a trumped up indictment for perjury. By the time the caseagainst him was thrown out of court, Lattimore’s career was in ruins.

10Other East

Asia scholars took heed and kept their heads down as best they could.

To d ay, i t’s academics from the Middle East and scholars who study this area whoa re at ri s k . The Ara b - I s raeli conflict has seeded their field with land mines. I t

c omes as no surp ri s e, t h e re f o re, that the first major academic fre e d om case of thepost-9/11 era should inv o lve an outspoken Palestinian nation a l i s t , the Unive r s i ty ofSouth Fl o rida (USF) computer scientist Sami al-Arian whose troubles had long pre -dated the current war on terro ri s m . USF suspended al-Arian for securi ty re a s on sa fter an unfortunate appearance on the O’Reilly Fac t o r in September 2001 bro u g h tdeath thre a t s . T h e n , a fter he was arrested and detained without bail on charges ofs u p p o rting an anti-Israel terro rist organiza t i on , the unive r s i ty fired him.

11 Wh a t eve r

the extent of al-Ari a n’s inv o lvement with the Palestinian jihadists, his tra v a i l s ,though they may ultimately lead to an Am e ri can Association of Unive r s i ty

SPECIAL FOCUS : Hi gher Educat ion and the Nat iona l Secur it y S tate



Pro fessors (AAUP) censure of USF, could have been pre d i c t e d .M o re troubling has been the mu l t i - p ronged campaign against the field of

M i d dle Eastern studies as a whole, a campaign that has ach i eved con s i d e rable suc-cess in convincing politicians, j o u rn a l i s t s , t a l k - s h ow hosts, and ord i n a ry citize n sthat most scholars in the field are ra d i ca l , b i a s e d , and hostile to Israel and theUnited St a t e s . These charges have been circulating for years within the Zi on i s tc om mu n i ty. The events of September 11 boosted them into the mainstre a m , w h e ret h ey are becoming incre a s i n g ly accepted as an accurate port rayal of an aca d e m i c

discipline that is, to quote a recent New Yo rk Ti m e s e d i t o ri a l , “out of con t ro l . ”1 2

Atthe ideological core of this campaign is a small group of polemicists housed in av a ri e ty of independent organiza t i ons who have done a bri lliant job of disseminat-ing their scenario to the rest of the country. T h e re is, for example, Daniel Pi p e s ’sp ro - I s raeli think tank, the Middle East Fo rum and its blacklisting appendage,Campus Wa t ch . When it was form e d , in September 2002, the latter outfit target-ed 8 pro fessors and 14 institutions for their supposedly unacceptable views aboutI s l a m , I s rae l , and U. S. p o l i cy in the Middle East. No doubt because that com p i l a-t i on ev oked too many com p a ri s ons to the McCart hy - e ra black l i s t s , the list soond i s a p p e a red from the Campus Wa t ch Web site. The organiza t i on now describes itsf u n c t i on as “m on i t o ring Middle East Studies on ca m p u s ” and encourages studentsand faculty members to pass along inform a t i on about the Middle Eastern sch o l a r sat their sch o o l s .

13

The efforts of Pipes and his allies bore fruit early in 2003 when Senator RickSantorum introduced legislation that would cut off federal funding to univer-

sities that allowed their faculty members, students, and student organizations toopenly criticize Israel.

14While Santorum’s initiative quietly faded from view, a

more serious congressional attempt to regulate Middle Eastern studies got underway. In a prepared statement before a subcommittee of the House Education andWorkforce Committee on June 19, 2003, Stanley Kurtz, of the National Reviewand Hoover Institution, attacked the nation’s area studies centers and proposed

No doubt because that compilation evoked too manycomparisons to the McCarthy-era blacklists, the listsoon disappeared from the Campus Watch Web site.


that Congress create an outside advisory board to supervise their federal fundingunder Title VI of the Education Act.

According to Kurtz, the late Palestinian literary critic Edward Said had castsuch a spell over the field that just about every center of Middle Eastern studiessubscribed to “post-colonial theory” and displayed an “extremist bias againstAmerican foreign policy.” Worse yet, not only were these centers engaging in thetrendy theorizing that marked so much of the nation’s academic discourse, butthey were also discouraging their students from entering the nation’s public serv-

ice. “A major reformation of the American academy’s area studies programs” wasnecessary. The committee agreed, incorporating Kurtz’s recommendations into ameasure, H.R. 3077, that the full House then passed in October.

15

Though H.R. 3077 never got to the Senate, it is now under consideration againand its unanimous adoption by the House reveals how readily the nation’s

political elites have accepted a right-wing Zionist scenario about Middle Easternstudies. What makes this piece of legislation so disturbing is that it subordinatesthe professional judgments of the scholarly community to those of external polit-ical monitors. Worse yet, this threat to the academy extends far beyond the areastudies centers that H.R. 3077 targeted. In his pitch to the House subcommittee,Kurtz invoked the mantra of academic freedom to deplore the lack of ideologicaldiversity on the nation’s campuses:

Unless steps are taken to balance university faculties with members who bothsupport and oppose American foreign policy, the very purpose of free speech andacademic freedom will have been defeated.

The vigorous and open debate that is supposed to flourish at our colleges anduniversities cannot exist without faculty members who can speak for divergentpoints of view.

16

Kurtz’s emphasis on the one-sidedness of the American academic profession,though ostensibly focused on area studies centers, is part of a broader campaign tobring more conservative voices into the academy. Because of the sensitivity of theissues that Middle East scholars deal with, they are taking the first hits, but, as the

This piece of legislation is so disturbing because itsubordinates the professional judgment of the scholar-ly community to that of external political monitors.




current demand for more political diversity within the nation’s faculties reveals,this campaign threatens all of academe.

The campaign seeks to implement what David Horowitz, its main proponent,has labeled an “Academic Bill of Rights,” a measure ostensibly designed to ensurethat neither faculty members nor students suffer because of their political or reli-gious beliefs and that all curricula and reading lists reflect “a diversity of approach-es to unsettled questions.”

17At the moment, 17 states have either adopted or are

considering such a measure, and similar language has been proposed for the fed-

eral Higher Education Act that Congress is slated to enact before the end of 2005.If the nation’s politicians actually implement Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights,real academic freedom will be endangered in ways that have never before beenencountered, for the measures seek to regulate—and thus politicize—such coreprofessional responsibilities of faculty members as the grading of students and thedesign of syllabi, as well as decisions about hiring, tenure, and promotion.

The rhetorical strategy behind this crusade is brilliant. It rests upon two justi-fications: one, the undeniable evidence that faculty members tend to be more

liberal than the rest of the American population, and the other, an appeal to theacademy’s progressive values and commitment to open-mindedness. The recentpublication of—and publicity about—a survey purporting to show that thenation’s overwhelmingly liberal faculty members may have been discriminatingagainst political conservatives (and women) reinforces Horowitz’s campaign.

18

Despite the small size of the survey’s sample, it is hard to dispute its finding thatthere are few card-carrying Republicans in the nation’s faculties. But, as New YorkTimes columnist Paul Krugman pointed out, that situation is more likely to havebeen caused by self-selection than by discrimination.

19 After all, what self-respect-

ing conservative would voluntarily subject herself to the rigors of the academic jobmarket and the tenure track when she could earn real money in the more compat-ible corporate sector? And, in any event, what difference does an academic’s partyaffiliation make?

Perhaps because of their own ideological fervor, Horowitz and his allies auto-

These measures seek to regulate—and politicize—such core professional responsibilities of faculty as the

grading of students and the design of syllabi.


matically assume that professors infuse their teaching with their personal politicalviews. But they can produce little evidence for such indoctrination. The grievancesthat appear on the “Complaints Center” of Horowitz’s Students for AcademicFreedom Web site often reveal more about the complainants’ sense of entitlementthan they do about the political biases of their teachers. Moreover, althoughHorowitz cites the AAUP’s official statements about academic freedom to bolsterhis case for politically diversifying the nation’s faculties, he ignores the organiza-tion’s pronouncements that stress college teachers’ professional obligation to main-

tain objectivity in the classroom. This is not an obligation that is taken lightly.During the height of the McCarthy era, when many universities and collegesscrambled to divest themselves of suspected Communists, virtually none of thetainted professors was ever accused of distorting his teaching.

20And, even today,

when a special faculty committee at Columbia was charged with investigating thealleged classroom abuse by members of the Middle East and Asian Languages andCultures department, it could only substantiate one incident—and even then in ahighly qualified manner.

21

In arguing for the appointment of more conservatives to the academy, Horowitznot only depicts American college professors as biased liberals or worse, he

attempts to disarm them by appealing to their proclivity for openness and toler-ance. Thus, for example, he dons an academically fashionable relativism to portraythe world of scholarship as a stew of anarchy where, because of the postmodernisttakeover, there is no agreed-upon truth and any idea is as good as any other. Giventhis situation, he insists, the academy should offer the broadest possible range ofviewpoints and “should maintain organizational neutrality with respect to the sub-stantive disagreements that divide researchers on questions within, or outside,their fields of inquiry.”

22Such a formulation caricatures the academic community

while ignoring the professional standards of evidence, impartiality, and relevancethat enable trained scholars to reach a consensus about what constitutes good workin their field.23 And, it invites kooks and political extremists to meddle in thenation’s college classrooms.

In arguing for the appointment of more conservativesto the academy, Horowitz depicts American collegeprofessors as biased liberals or worse.




In addition to these concerns, the current political assault on the academiccommunity diverts us from assessing the other ways in which the nation’s campus-es have been affected by the aftermath of 9/11. As we shall see, some of the offi-cial measures taken to enhance the nation’s security have had a deleterious impacton the university and on the research that takes place there. More significantly, thea ca d e m y’s eve r - p resent financial problems are undermining its auton om y.Traditional academic freedom is much harder to defend in an institution that muststruggle for the resources it needs to keep its current operations afloat.

In the name of countering terro ri s m , for example, the Tre a s u ry Depart m e n timposed re s t ri c t i ons on the grant-making powers of the nation’s ph i l a n t h ro p i co r g a n i za t i on s . A few days after 9/11, President Bush issued an exe c u t i ve order pro-hibiting financial “ t ra n s a c t i ons with persons who com m i t , t h reaten to com m i t , o rs u p p o rt terro ri s m . ” In line with this ord e r, the Tre a s u ry Depart m e n t’s little-know nOffice of Fo reign Assets Con t rol (OFAC) issued a set of “An t i -Te r ro rist Fi n a n c i n gGu i d e l i n e s : Vo l u n t a ry Best Practices for U. S.-Based Chari t i e s ” in November 2002.M a ny foundation s , i n cluding Fo rd and Rock e fe ll e r, re s p onded to the initiative bych e cking lists of suspect groups and individuals and re q u i ring letters of discl a i m e rf rom grant re c i p i e n t s — i n cluding some of the nation’s leading unive r s i t i e s .

2 4

The following year, OFAC again intervened in the scholarly world by invok-ing prohibitions on handling materials from states like Iran and North Korea

to prevent scientific journals from editing manuscripts by those nations’ citizens.25

And, then, there is the visa problem. The academic community is currently con-tending with the current administration’s resuscitation of the Cold War practice ofrefusing to admit politically undesirable foreigners—and not just from the MiddleEast. Last fall, the State Department turned down the visa requests of 65 Cubanscholars who had been scheduled to attend the international conference of theLatin American Studies Association.

26Such rejections hark back to the 1950s

when visas were routinely denied to foreign scholars who were in or associatedwith the Communist party.

But far more damaging to the academic enterprise than the politically moti-

In the name of countering terrorism, the TreasuryDepartment restricted the grant-making powers of

the nation’s philanthropic organizations.


vated exclusions of individual scholars has been the post-9/11 tightening of thevisa process for all foreign applicants. Not only have the new regulations anddelays kept many students out of the United States, they have also deterred manyothers from applying. As a result, the numbers of foreigners matriculating atAmerican universities, which had been rising steadily since the 1960s, has begunto decline. Because of the academic community’s dependence on such students(especially in the sciences), serious problems emerge. In the short term, there willbe fewer applicants, reduced tuition revenues, and a shrinking supply of potential

teaching assistants. In the long run, since nearly a third of the graduate degrees inscience and engineering go to foreign nationals, the visa restrictions threaten thevery future of American science.

27

The gove rn m e n t’s heightened securi ty con c e rns are affecting aca d e m i cresearch in other equally deleterious ways. In the name of protecting against

bioterrorism, the federal authorities imposed new secrecy requirements on “sensi-tive but unclassified” research that make it much more difficult for some biologiststo publish their results. The government is also barring people from certain coun-tries from working on particular kinds of research. As the dean of Harvard’sSchool of Public Health pointed out, these regulations are counterproductive; notonly will they drive the best scientists out of such “sensitive” fields of research, butthe demand for secrecy will interfere with the intellectual exchanges so necessaryfor scientific progress.

28

Sometimes, the paranoia about bioterrorism can go over the edge, as the caseof the University of Buffalo art professor Steven Kurtz reveals. A conceptual artistwhose works challenge the corporate promotion of genetically engineered crops,Kurtz got into trouble when he notified the local police after finding his wife deadin bed. The officers, searching the house, noticed the biological materials he wasusing in his current project and called in the FBI. Despite finding nothing dan-gerous in Kurtz’s work, the Justice Department decided to prosecute him, alongwith the University of Pittsburgh biologist who had supplied him with his mate-rials.

29Would Kurtz, whose fate is still to be decided, have encountered such an

Not only have the new regulations and delays keptmany students out of the United States, they havealso deterred many others from applying.




extreme reaction from the authorities if his art had been more conventional?Wh a t ever the outcome of Ku rt z’s ca s e, the proceedings against him seri o u s ly

c on s t rict political fre e d om . As does the abort i ve fe d e ral attempt to subpoena infor-m a t i on about a November 2003, antiwar forum at Drake Unive r s i ty in Des Moines,I ow a . The para llels with McCart hyism here are eeri e ; the gove rnment was seekingmembership lists and other inform a t i on about the meeting’s spon s o r, the Na t i on a lLa w yers Gu i l d , an organiza t i on that had been under heavy attack from both theHouse UnAm e ri can Activities Committee and the FBI throughout the 1950s.

3 0

As we have already noted, not all the harassment comes from official sources.Nor did it during the McCarthy era; in fact, it was the very diversity of anti-

communist witch-hunters that made them so powerful. So, too, today. Private out-fits like Daniel Pipes’s Campus Watch, David Horowitz’s Students for AcademicFreedom, and the Boston-based Daniel Project, which filmed the allegationsagainst Columbia’s Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures department,dominate the discourse. Moreover, by encouraging students to monitor their pro-fessors, they foster a climate of suspicion within the classroom. As the ad hoc fac-ulty committee that investigated the charges against MEALAC explained, theintrusion of external political actors into the controversy led “both students andfaculty [to feel]… constrained, watched and inhibited in the free and criticalexchange of ideas,” with the obvious “detrimental effect upon the quality of theireducational experience.”

31For a number of reasons, including some politically

inept moves by the Columbia administration, the Ad Hoc Committee’s report isunlikely to silence the university’s critics. Nor will the other pressures on thenation’s colleges and universities let up. Ward Churchill’s scholarship is now underinvestigation at the University of Colorado, while President Hoffman, who wasfacing a football scandal as well as the controversy over Churchill, had to quit herjob.

32

The most serious battle she faced, and the one that may ultimately determinethe outcome of the Churchill case, as well as of future academic freedom struggleselsewhere, was over her institution’s budget. At a time of shrinking support for the

Moreover, by encouraging students to monitor theirprofessors, they foster a climate of suspicion within

the classroom.


public sector, when state legislatures are funding ever smaller percentages of aca-demic budgets and federal research grants are also dwindling, the men and womenwho lead this nation’s institutions of higher learning may come to feel that aca-demic freedom is a luxury they can no longer afford.

It is important to place the current attack on the universities in this context.While I doubt that there is a conscious conspiracy in operation, conservatives havelong had the academy in their sights.33 The current campaigns by the likes of Pipesand Horowitz, though not, as far as I know, leading to any McCarthy era-type dis-

missals, have eaten away at the public’s support for higher education. That sup-port, it must be noted, has been eroding for years, a victim of the backlash againstthe campus unrest of the 1960s and the culture wars of the late 1980s and early1990s. It is a victim, as well, of the growing commodification of American life andthe devaluation of anything that can’t be turned into dollars and cents. Collegeprofessors, with their dedication to such unprofitable abstractions as the pursuitand transmission of knowledge, seem extraneous in a world where students arecustomers who demand higher grades and vocationally oriented courses, wherepolicy-oriented think tanks supply the expertise that was once only available oncampus, and where scientists have become entrepreneurs ever on the prowl for cor-porate funding.

34

That the academy also harbors most of whatever passes for an oppositional cul-t u re in this country on ly compounds its troubles and growing unpopulari ty in

m a ny circl e s . T h e re is a con n e c t i on here between the recent political attacks on then a t i on’s faculties and the growing litany of more general complaints about the aca-demic com mu n i ty’s higher tuition s , supposed lack of accountability, g rade inflation ,p l a g i a rism sca n d a l s , and wasteful opera t i on s .

3 5Both the political attacks and the

l i t a ny of complaints weaken the public’s support for higher educa t i on .It is by no means the case that the American people have bought into the

right-wing scenario about the nation’s faculties.36 But they are not hearing muchfrom the other side. If we are to turn back the attack on the university, we need tomake a more effective case for the value of what we do. It must also be a broader

The men and women who lead this nation’s institu-tions of higher learning may come to feel academicfreedom is a luxury they can no longer afford.




campaign that cannot be limited only to a defense of the academic profession’sautonomy, but must also convince the American public that the nation’s politicaland economic future depends on a strong and independent system of higher education.

E N D N O T E S1 Ensslin, “Hoffman warns CU faculty of ‘new McCarthyism’,” March 4, 2005.2 Hoffman, “Suggested speaking points University of Colorado President,” February 3, 2005.3 Hollinger, “What Does it Mean to Be ‘Balanced’ in Academia,” B20.4 The most comprehensive treatment of the academic community’s response to McCarthyism is

Ellen Schrecker, No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1986).

5 Knight, personal e-mail to the author, April 11, 2005.6

Schrecker, “No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities,” 89-93.7 Healey, “College Cancels Speech Over 9/11 Remarks,” B1, 6; Wiley, “Professor’s visit sparks

furor”; Miller, “Paying the Price.” C1, 4.8 Gravois, “Students and College Clash Over Invitation”; George Mason University Faculty

Senate, “Minutes,” March 6; Selingo, “Election Panel Begins Inquiry Into Colleges,” A35.9 Brennan, “Churchill Probe Ordered Colorado University,” Rocky Mountain News. Feb. 4, 2005.10 The most useful treatment of the ordeal of Owen Lattimore is Robert P. Newman, Owen

Lattimore and the “Loss” of China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,1992).

11 Lomartire, “Detainee in fight for rights,” 2003; Sager and Fechter, “USF Fires Al-Arian,” 2003.12 Anon., “Intimidation at Columbia,” A22.13 Lockman, “Behind the Battles Over US,” January 2004.14 Ibid.15 Kurtz, “Testimony before the Subcommittee,” June 19, 2003; Lockman, “Behind the Battles

Over US,” January 2004.16 Kurtz, “Testimony before the Subcommittee,” June 19, 2003.17 Students for Academic Freedom, “Academic Bill of Rights.”18 Rothman, Lichter, and Nevitte, “Politics and Professional Advancement.”19 Krugman, “An Academic Question,” A23.20 Schrecker, “No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities.”21 Ad Hoc Grievance Committee Report, Mar. 28, 2005.22 Students for Academic Freedom, “Academic Bill of Rights, ” Ap ril 1, 2005.23

For a brilliant discussion of the intellectual shortcomings of the Academic Bill of Rights, seethe recent essay by David Hollinger, “What Does it Mean to Be ‘Balanced’ in Academia.” Seealso the essay in the forthcoming issue of Daedalus by Columbia’s former provost JonathanCole, “Academic Freedom Under Fire.”

24 Odendahl, “The Funding Chill: Post 9-11.” October 19, 2004; Diament, “Give and Take”February 4, 2005.

25 Liptak, “The Crime of Editing” 2005, A8.26 Lipka, “65 Cuban Scholars Are Denied U.S. Visas.” October 15, 2004.


27Jacobson, “In Visa Limbo.” September 19, 2003.

28Bloom, “Bioterrorism and the University,” 48-52; Cole, “Academic Freedom Under Fire.”

29 Staba, “Use of Bacteria in Art,” June 7, 2004; Liese, “The United States of America,” Sept.2004.

30 Davey, “An Antiwar Forum” A14.31 Ad Hoc Grievance Committee, “ Report,” March 28, 2005.32 Kane and Hughes, “CU President Calls It Quits,” Denver Post, March 7, 2005; Fain, “Under

Fire on 2 Fronts,” March 18, 2005.33 In 1971, Lewis F. Powell, the future Supreme Court Justice, recommended that the business

community mount a sustained and long-term campaign to eliminate what he perceived as theanti-corporate influence of the left-wing academic community (Powell, 1971).

34Messer-Davidow, “Manufacturing the Attack,” 54; Washburn, University Inc.: 2005.

35Armey and Pappas,“Higher Taxes and Higher Education,” B10-11.

36The very recent defeat of the California version of the Academic Bill of Rights indicates thatHorowitz et al. are far from all-powerful (Flower, 2005).

W O R K S C I T E DAd Hoc Grievance Committee. Columbia University. 2005. “Report.” Mar. 28, 2005.

www.columbia.edu/cu/news/05/03/ad_hoc_grievance_committee_report.html (accessedApril 3, 2005).

Anonymous, “Intimidation at Columbia,” New York Times (April 7, 2005): A22.

Armey, D. and M. Pappas, “Higher Taxes and Higher Education,” Chronicle of Higher Education.(March 18, 2005): B10-11.

Bloom, B.R. “Bioterrorism and the University,” Harvard Magazine, (November-December 2003):48-52.

Bollinger, L.C. “The Value and Responsibilities of Academic Freedom.” Chronicle of HigherEducation. (Apr. 8, 2005): B20.

Brennan, C. “Churchill Probe Ordered Colorado University Officials Ponder Firing ProfessorRegents Apologize to Nation.” Rocky Mountain News. Feb. 4, 2005.www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3522241,00.html(accessed April 8, 2005).

Cole, J.R. “Academic Freedom Under Fire.” Daedalus, Spring 2005.

Davey, M. “An Antiwar Forum in Iowa Brings Federal Subpoenas.” New York Times (Feb. 10,2004): A14.

Diament, M. “Give and Take. Ford Foundation Strikes Compromise With Universities onAcademic Freedom.” Feb. 4, 2005. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i22/22a02402.htm(accessed April 8, 2005).

Ensslin, J. C. “Hoffman warns CU faculty of ‘new McCarthyism.’ But president notes obligationto probe Churchill’s record,” Rocky Mountain News March 4, 2005,w w w. ro ckym o u n t a i n n ew s . c o m / d rm n / e d u ca ti o n / a rti cl e / 0 , 1 2 9 9 , D R M N _ 9 5 7 _ 3 5 9 4 2 0 9 , 0 0. h tm l (accessed April 3, 2005).

Fain, Paul, “Under Fire on 2 Fronts, U. of Colorado Chief Resigns,” Chronicle of Higher Education,March 18, 2005. http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i28/28a00101.htm (accessed April25, 2005).

Flower, R. “Academic Bill of Rights in California,” e-mail to “multiple recipients of list aaup-general,” April 21, 2005.




George Mason University Faculty Senate. Minutes. October 6, 2004. www.gmu.edu/facstaff/senate/2004%20Minutes/FSMin10-6-04.htm (accessed April 8, 2005).

Gravois, J. “Students and College Clash Over Invitation to the Filmmaker Michael Moore.”Chronicle of Higher Education. Oct. 1. 2004,http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i06/06a03601.htm (accessed April 8, 2005)

Healy, P. D. “College Cancels Speech Over 9/11 Remarks.” New York Times (Feb. 2, 2005): B1, 6.

Hoffman, E. “Suggested speaking points University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman forthe Special CU Board of Regents Meeting Thursday, February 3, 2005.”www.cu.edu/president/RemarksBOR-churchill.html (accessed April 3, 2005).

Hollinger, D. “What Does it Mean to Be ‘Balanced’ in Academia.”http://hnn.us/articles/10194.html (accessed April 10, 2005).

Jacobson, J. “In Visa Limbo.” Chronicle of Higher Education. Sept. 19, 2003.http://chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i04/04a03701.htm (accessed April. 9, 2005).

Kane, A. and J. Hughes, “CU President Calls It Quits,” Denver Post, Mar. 7, 2005.www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~30780~2749276,00.html (accessed April 25, 2005).

Knight, J. Personal e-mail to the author, April 11, 2005.

Krugman, P. “An Academic Question,” New York Times. (April 5, 2005): A23.

Kurtz, S. “Testimony before the Subcommittee on Select Education, Committee on Educationand the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives.” June 19, 2003.http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/108th/sed/titlevi61903/kurtz.htm (accessed April 9,2005).

Liese, J. “The United States of America v. Steven Kurtz.” ArtForum. Sept. 2004.www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_1_43/ai_n7069053 (accessed Apr. 3, 2005).

Lipka, S. “65 Cuban Scholars are Denied U.S. Visas.” Chronicle of Higher Education. October 15,2004. http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v51/i08/08a04001.htm (accessed April 8, 2005).

Liptak, A. “The Crime of Editing: U.S. Tells Publishers Not to Touch a Comma in ManuscriptsFrom Iran,” New York Times. (Feb. 28, 2005): A8.

Lockman, Z. “Behind the Battles Over U.S. Middle East Studies,” Middle East Report Online.January 2004. www.merip.org/mero/interventions/lockman_interv.html (accessed April 9,2005).

Lomartire, P. “Detainee in fight for rights,” Palm Beach Post. August 3, 2003.http://www.freesamialarian.com/media/media11.htm (accessed April 8, 2005).

Messer-Davidow, E. “Manufacturing the Attack on Liberalized Higher Education,” Social Text 36(Fall 1993): 54.

Miller, J. “Paying the Price.” Chronicle of Higher Education (Mar. 25, 2005): C1, 4.

Newman, R.P. Owen Lattimore and the “Loss” of China. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1992.

Odendahl, T.J. “The Funding Chill: Post 9-11.” Lecture at the Center on Public and NonprofitLeadership, Georgetown Public Policy Institute, Georgetown University, Oct. 19, 2004.(copy in possession of the author).

Powell, L.F. “The Powell Memorandum,” Aug. 23, 1971, reprinted in National Chamber ofCommerce, Washington Report supplement (n.d.), author’s copy courtesy of David Hollinger.

Rothman, S., S.R. Lichter, and N. Nevitte. “Politics and Professional Advancement AmongCollege Faculty.”TheForum3,1(2005). www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss1/art2(accessed Apr. 3, 2005).

Sager, M. and M. Fechter. “USF Fires Al-Arian.” The Tampa Tribune. Feb. 28, 2003.http://news.tbo.com/news/MGAV3LY9OCD.html. (accessed April 8, 2005).


Schrecker, E. No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1986.

Selingo, J. “Election Panel Begins Inquiry Into Colleges That Sponsored Speeches by Filmmaker.”Chronicle of Higher Education. ( Jan. 7, 2005): A35.

Staba, D. “Use of Bacteria in Art Leads to Investigation.” New York Times. June 7, 2004.

Students for Academic Fre e d om . 2 0 0 5 a . “Academic Bill of Rights. ”w w w. s tu d e n t s f o ra ca d e m i c f r e e d o m .org/ (accessed April 9, 2005).

Tilgman, S. “Testimony on March 26, 2003, before the Committee on Science of the U.S. Houseof Representatives.” Academe. September-October 2003.www.aaup.org/publications/Academe/2003/03so/03sointer.htm (accessed April 9, 2005).

Washburn, J. University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education. New York: Basic Books,2005.

Wiley, J.K. “Professor’s visit sparks furor at Eastern Washington University.”The Associated Press April 6, 2005, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002232394_churchill06m.html (accessed April 8, 2005).
