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I send this letter to the Bates Student and the Harvard Crimson because it seems to me that academe is stuck and may need a jolt to shake it loose. To watch from afar as the President of Harvard apologizes vociferously for saying publicly something that some people don't agree with is rather astounding. This, all at a time when we have 150,000 troops in Iraq putting their lives on the line so the people of Iraq can have a free election and say whatever they want to say about their government and our occupation there.
When a member of a family is using too much alcohol and other family members don't acknowledge the behavior, they are said to be enabling. What is it when the members of the academic family don't stand up for the right of their family members to say things others might not agree with? Indeed, for the responsibility to say things others do not agree with?
I would like to suggest that Bates students wonder publicly whether an additional level of academe is necessary in order for dialogue on things that can't be talked about at the existing level. Why Bates? You just happen to be in the midst of a major fund raising event. Creating an additional level of academe would cost some bucks. It would not, however, be fair to suggest the money be redirected from the goals the Bates President and Board of Trustees have already identified, but it might be surprisingly easy to double the current goal of 126 million and use the additional funds to create a structure that would have as its only agenda the discussion of things that are now deemed as inappropriate for discussion on existing campuses. Bates might reach out to Yale and, say, the University of Baghdad for like contributions to create a supra virtual campus with linkages to the three institutions but free from the constraints that preclude discussing certain things publicly. Isn't that what academe should be all about?
-James Tierney
Founder, Center for Government Functionality, Auburn, Maine