The Volokh Conspiracy
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Academic Freedom Trouble at the University of Michigan
The Academic Freedom Alliance rebukes Michigan for its handling of Bright Sheng case
Music professor Bright Sheng showed his class at the University of Michigan the 1965 film of William Shakespeare's Othello in which Laurence Olivier plays the Moor in dark make-up. Students objected. A colleague denounced showing the film as a "racist act." A dean declared that showing the film was contrary to the school's anti-racist commitments. Sheng was removed from the classroom until he "agreed" to step away from the class entirely. Meanwhile, he remains under threat of investigation and discipline for his offenses.
The Academic Freedom Alliance has released a public letter calling on the University of Michigan to immediately allow Professor Sheng to fully return to his teaching duties, to drop all investigations of him and threats to him arising from this incident, and to reaffirm that faculty at the university have the freedom to assign pedagogically relevant materials in their classes even when those materials are controversial or might cause offense.
As I note in the AFA letter:
Unfortunately, efforts to suppress classroom materials and censor classroom instruction because they might be divisive are all too familiar. The cornerstone of recent state legislative efforts, including those in Michigan, to outlaw "divisive concepts" like critical race theory or "racist theories" from the classroom is precisely the belief that instructors should not be allowed to expose students to materials or ideas that they might find disturbing or racist. Universities are in no position to resist such efforts if they are themselves willing to punish their professors on that self-same basis. If Dean Gier imagines that exposing students to racist materials is outside the scope of academic freedom, he is quite mistaken. If such an assertion of power by a dean were accepted, it would carve a large and perilous hole in academic freedom protections that will loom over faculty at the university for years to come. Faculty, quite rightly, will worry whether they might be accused by university administrators of having engaged in a racist act that could subject them to discipline and sanction for assigning students materials ranging from Thomas Jefferson to Mark Twain to Ibram Kendi.
UPDATE: Professor Sheng has been informed that the University of Michigan will not pursue any further investigation arising from his class assignment. It is not enough for university's to quietly drop these cases and move on as if nothing has happened. The university needs to publicly affirm that it will respect its faculty's academic freedom and take steps to insure that such groundless investigations against faculty are not undertaken in the future.
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What is this ‘academic freedom’ thing of which you speak?
ANY freedom is gone with the last election.
(and I wonder if it might not have been the “last” election)
I would point out that Turner Classic Movies always shows films in their entirety, even it they contain objectionable content, including black face that has often been edited out for broadcast showings.
These are also generally prefaced by a discussion of the content.
Professor Whittington, if you are interested in academic freedom, freedom of speech, you might want to check out Rutgers University in the People’s Republic of NJ. They have a nice toxic brew of speech suppression and antisemitism going on there.
It would be nice to let in some sunlight.
They send a letter but then they’ll end up clearly supporting the actual people who enable totalitarian actions. Because it will be made clear that those on the anti-totalitarian side are the uncool sorts of people who hang out with the wrong crowd.
For university professors who learned to win social status contests, social status will almost always be the highest priority.
There is a meme picture floating around of some guy in a sea of Nazis heil Hitlering. He sits with his arms crossed, refusing to do so.
“Oh boy! What a brave man! I’d like to think I would be brave enough in such a situation. I think I would be!”
Yet here they are, piling on with fascist censorship, and feeling themselves righteous as they do it.
In other words, exactly like the sea of Nazis.
And exactly not like the guy refusing to heil Hitler. Or in this case, refusing to censor.
Government censorship, with the approval of their own conscience.
Godwin’s Law confirmed.
I made my case. Any response? Government censorship is active.
“Blackface” is ostensibly offensive because it was used to demean and mock black Americans early in the 20th century.
What the hell does that have to do with someone portraying a dark-complexioned Muslim from many hundreds of years ago?
“The cornerstone of recent state legislative efforts, including those in Michigan, to outlaw “divisive concepts” like critical race theory or “racist theories” from the classroom is precisely the belief that instructors should not be allowed to expose students to materials or ideas that they might find disturbing or racist.”
If academic freedom means teaching pupils or students that one race is superior to another, then I must not be a supporter of academic freedom. Those tend to be the terms in which the “anti-CRT bills” are framed.
Olivier in blackface isn’t teaching racial supremacy, and that’s the reason to push back against the race-turbators, not because there’s a right to teach racism.
I would offer a redefinition of academic freedom to mean teaching the curriculum approved by the Trustees, respecting the competence of the faculty to teach things in their own way, unless of course they use the physics classroom to denounce Republicans, etc.
The Academic Freedom Alliance rebukes Michigan for its handling of Bright Sheng case
KEITH E. WHITTINGTON
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
There is something amiss in the presentation. Keith E. Whittington, in his subhead, is sort of referring to himself in the third person. As a result, what we get on first impression from his byline is a news report, which turns out on second impression to be a press release, from Keith E. Whittington—published by the Volokh Conspiracy, with just a bit of a gloss of a disinterested news report smuggled in. Doing it that way is not really dishonest, because Whittington links to himself at the AFA, where it says he is the Chair of a committee, and the author of the press release he is “discussing,” here on the VC. Eventually he mentions his connection in his own article. Careful readers will figure it out.
But it also isn’t quite forthright as a matter of initial presnetation, and maybe less forthright for the VC, which does not specifically mention the connection in Professor Whittington’s identifier line at the bottom. Commenter Ben_, for instance, is not buying it, apparently convinced that Professor Whittington is some kind of sell-out, instead of someone reinforcing his own view with an institutional-looking format.
For older readers, that style of presentation may bring back memories about the publicity habits of the John Birch Society in the 1950s and 60s. Unable to attract much interest from media they did not control themselves, the Birchers fell into the habit of self-publishing, referring to themselves in the third person, and footnoting stuff, with mutually-reinforcing citations to each other’s works.
More generally, it is bad reporting practice for serious publishers to just reprint press releases without first probing their contents and editing accordingly. EV, however, has been forthright that this blog is not about reporting so as much as it is about advocacy. That is his choice. But from the point of view of publisher self-interest, uncritically reprinting press releases from folks you agree with is still a step in the wrong direction.
Stephen,
What is the world are you talking about.
“As I note in the AFA letter:”
Did you forget that “I” is in the third person?
As for the subhead, “The Academic Freedom Alliance rebukes Michigan for its handling of Bright Sheng case,’ what in that sentence refers to the author.
Also “As I note in the AFA letter:” states rather clearly that it was the OP author who is either the author or one of the authors of the AFA letter.
Your complaints about the John Birch Society are just attempted smears of the type many here have come to expect from you. Why don’t you try being honest in your criticism and admit that you disagree with the authors message and then give your reason for disagreement.
No one needs being preached to as you do in your post.
I think that we now understand why you are a former “newspaper man.”
” No one needs being preached to as you do in your post. ”
You prefer the partisan preaching of the organization that calls itself the Academic Freedom Alliance?
Dear Stephen,
Please cut back on the acid.
Kindest regards,
UCS
In a world that features Wheaton, Liberty, Oral Roberts, Regent, Cedarbrook, and Ouachita Baptist, this Academic Freedom Alliance seems to focus myopically on schools such as MIT, Yale, and Michigan.
I am beginning to sense this might be just another partisan, separatist right-wing group focusing on cherry-picked, misleading polemics and salvaging the losing side in our culture war rather than a principled devotion to academic freedom.
Except that at MIT and Yale and Michigan it indisputably happened. And Reverend I Believe in Enlightenment can’t bring himself to say that it’s bad. All you can do is scream about the other team.
MIT let the clinger speak, demonstrating far more support for freedom of expression than the Volokh Conspiracy exhibits.
MIT declined to provide a position of honor, however.
Both MIT-arranged results seem good, and better than the Volokh Conspiracy’s performance.
Carry on, clingers. Maybe a bit less whining?
Scream louder, Art. I couldn’t hear you.
The one you can’t hear is Artie Ray, who was banned by the Volokh Conspiracy for making fun of clingers.
Which makes this White, male blog a strange venue for a right-winger trying to build outrage concerning Michigan’s conduct.
Self-inflicted damage can be particularly bad.
Still no evidence presented that this happened.
Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland was banned at 6:02 p.m. on Wednesday, October 6, 2010, in writing.
If I am wrong about that, I hope Prof. Volokh will correct the record.
If I am right, you are just (again) defending the right-wing side of this lamely and disingenuously, Mr. Nieporent.
I hope you enjoy the song, Mr. Nieporent.
In short, they haven’t banned you in over a decade. That sounds like remarkable restraint for a blog which declares at the top of its comment section: “We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.”
Anyone can claim anything about a writing that nobody has ever seen.
There are many similar problems within the academic study of music. For example, How Critical Race Theory Has Poisoned Music Theory https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/14/how-critical-race-theory-has-poisoned-music-theory/
“At the 2019 annual conference for the Society for Music Theory, Dr. Philip Ewell, a professor at Hunter College in New York City, gave a presentation titled “Music Theory’s White Racial Frame.” He argued that 20th-century Austrian Jewish music theorist Heinrich Schenker, a sort of founding father of the discipline, was a “virulent racist,” that his research was tainted by his racism, and that his students and intellectual followers were “whitewashing” his legacy by focusing on his research rather than his nationalist political views in the interwar period.”
“The attack on this historical figure was similar in tone to the 1619 Project and other recent attempts to discredit America’s Founding Fathers as too racist to be honored, and the American founding too tainted by racism for to preserve or improve its institutions. In response to Ewell’s presentation, the Journal of Schenkerian Studies, a peer-reviewed publication by the University of North Texas, published a “symposium” of 15 articles to discuss the merits of Ewell’s evidence and conclusions. Some supported Ewell’s position, but the majority opposed it.”
“The articles against Ewell’s position criticized his research for decontextualizing Schenker’s words to present a misleading picture of him, for being historically inaccurate about the acceptance of Schenkerian methods in American academia, and for making suspicious logical connections about the nature of Schenker’s work. Some of the authors, most notably Dr. Timothy Jackson, an adviser to the journal, took time to speculate about why the discipline is not very ethnically diverse. He also suggested Ewell’s research might involve antisemitism.”
“Rather than debate the criticisms of Ewell, however, the society [Society for Music Theory] decided to go a different direction. The journal has now been decried as racist, unprofessional, and unethical. Throughout the community, there have been calls to “dissolve the journal,” “critically examine the culture at the university,” and “hold accountable every person responsible for the direction of the publication.” North Texas graduate students themselves have made these calls, supported by hundreds of professors, including nearly all of the other North Texas department faculty members.”
“There has been no serious attempt to debate the authors in the journal edition on the merits of their arguments, as they sought to do with Ewell’s. Instead, students and professors such as Megan Lavengood are taking passages out of context and presenting them as evidence of racism, as attempts to cover up Schenker’s racism, or as attempts to excuse themselves for “participating in a racist system.” The authors are being demonized for daring to suggest that music theory, as it is studied in Euro-American academia, is not fundamentally racist, and the reaction to the journal is clear evidence of a culture of censorship within the community.”
More: https://thefederalist.com/2020/10/14/how-critical-race-theory-has-poisoned-music-theory/
Professor Jackson has been cancelled at UNT, and he has sued the University and others. file:///C:/Users/Lw111989/AppData/Local/Temp/Full%20COmplaint%20and%20exhibits.pdf
This is an especially dumb take because “music theory” really only does apply to the stylings of classical western music. “Music theory” doesn’t account for Indian Music Theory.
What theory can account for this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfzp4cdcuYc
Also, I have written a short article about the situation. How a CRT Adherent Gaslighted a Scholarly Organization: A Lesson for Legal Education. https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_skills/2021/09/how-a-crt-adherent-gaslighted-a-scholary-organization-a-lesson-for-legal-education.html
Michigan has a $12.5 billion endowment.
They can stand being taxed too.
Around 1950, Orson Welles made a movie of “Othello” in which he played The Moor. As I recall, Welles wore dark make up, that was consistent with his portraying a north African Arab. I may have missed it, but I don’t recall any public outcry that Welles was guilty of racism.
The fact is, Shakespeare didn’t portray Othello as a Negro; there’s no reason to think Shakespeare had ever seen a Negro. He did know about dark-skinned Arabs (although he may never have met one) and he portrayed Othello as “the Other” that his audience would have understood. When I was a senior in High School I wrote a paper for my English class in which I concluded that it didn’t matter (and could never be known) what race Shakespeare thought Othello was; the point was that the character was an exotic stranger to the English audience.
Woody Allen in the movie, THE FRONT, and the nastiest McCarthyite crap of the fifties comes to mind. Sue, sue, sue and sue. Put those snouted tuskers in MI out of business.
Teaching moment. Critical thinking skills. “Write an essay explaining the contextual differences between adopting somebody’s appearance in order to mock them and adopting somebody’s appearance for numerous other purposes.” Or maybe “Class, today we’re going to discuss how the entire literal point of acting is to pretend to be somebody you are not.”
“The cornerstone of recent state legislative efforts, including those in Michigan, to outlaw “divisive concepts” like critical race theory or “racist theories” from the classroom is precisely the belief that instructors should not be allowed to expose students to materials or ideas that they might find disturbing or racist.”
Bullshit.
The cornerstone of those efforts is that instructors should not be allowed to indoctrinate their students with racist ideology, which is what CRT is.
CRT isn’t about “teaching and discussing new ways of thinking”, it’s about bullying people and forcing them to accept the racist ideas of CRT.
And in high-school and below, it’s about the fact that it is the right and privilege of the people paying for the education to decide what’s taught, not the privilege of the people being paid to do the work.
He who pays the piper, calls the tune
FYI: Bright Sheng has been exonerated. https://slippedisc.com/2021/10/breaking-bright-sheng-is/