Good Lord

On Monday I asked rhetorically, "Is it just me, or does a large portion of the academic establishment often come across as dim witted?" Well, today I see an affirmative answer to that question, at least as far as some university administrators are concerned.

From FIRE:

As we report in today's press release, Brandeis University declared a professor guilty of racial harassment and placed a monitor in his classes after he discussed the use of the word "wetbacks" in his Latin American Politics course. Professor Donald Hindley, who has been teaching at Brandeis for nearly 50 years, had never faced a student complaint until fall 2007. But a deeply flawed investigation-proceeding in violation of Brandeis's own policies-has deeply violated Hindley's rights, misinterpreted the definition of harassment, and misinterpreted Hindley's own statements in class.

Despite Hindley's repeated requests to Brandeis administrators to disclose in writing precisely what offended some students in his class, they have refused to do so. According to Hindley, he explained to his class that Mexican migrants in the United States are sometimes referred to pejoratively as "wetbacks." That's actually a statement against an ethnocentric use of the term. But according to Brandeis's Provost, Marty Krauss, even the use of such an epithet in this context constitutes racial harassment. This unreasonable definition of harassment would ban such language as jokes and epithets even when the basic elements of harassment are not present. Furthermore, Krauss has suggested that the burden is on Hindley to prove that his statements in class were relevant to his teaching.

These are serious abuses of Hindley's academic freedom, and Brandeis should be ashamed.

This is so egregious and, frankly, stupid on Krauss' part that it beggars belief. There is no way Brandeis can be considered an institution committed to academic freedom while it still employs Krauss.

Luckily, it seems the Brandeis faculty at large can see this as the attack on academic freedom that it undoubtedly is. Although you can detect a little hemming and hawing from folks who understandably fear the witch hunt will come after them if they protest too loudly. Just the atmosphere we need in academia, right?

Power mad bureaucrats need to be put in their place.