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Elementary freedom 101
Memo to right-wing wackos: Schools are in the business of teaching students to think critically
BY MICHAEL BRONSKI

ALTHOUGH IT’S EMBRACED as an ideal in higher education, academic freedom is almost always under attack from either the right or the left, for one thing or another. The past two months, though, have witnessed a strategic shift in the ongoing battle against academic freedom. Right-wing Christian groups are currently going after two public universities, a choice of target — schools funded by taxpayer dollars — that signals a creative new tack, one that hands conservative legislators yet another soapbox while making it harder (though it shouldn’t be) for academics to stand up to right-wing political swipes.

In the first case, right-wing groups filed a lawsuit against the University of North Carolina for asking students to read a study of the Koran. In the second case, similar groups attacked the University of Maryland for assigning a play based on the Matthew Shepard case, in which an openly gay college student was murdered for his sexual orientation. Both cases raise a fundamental issue concerning academic freedom: should schools, even if they’re publicly funded, be able to require students to read books that a minority of people find controversial? Even more important, though, is how the schools (and the media) have responded to the most recent round of demands by anti-democratic and anti-intellectual conservative groups.

Last May, the University of North Carolina sent letters to all 3500 incoming freshman and 800 transfer students asking that they read Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations (White Cloud Press, 1999), an introductory analysis of Islamic religious thought by Michael Sells, the Emily Judson Baugh and John Marshall Gest Professor of Comparative Religion at Haverford College, and chair of Haverford’s Department of Religion. Students were also asked to write a one-page response and prepare for participation in a two-hour, faculty-led discussion of the book.

Although reading the book and writing the paper were required, no grade was given for the assignment and attendance wasn’t taken at the summer-orientation discussion groups. But the assignment, a fairly typical one intended to introduce students to a new phase of intellectual life, quickly became a nightmare for the school. Two months after the letter about the reading went out, the ultraconservative Family Policy Network joined forces with the Center for Law and Policy (the legal arm of the Mississippi-based American Family Association, a conservative Christian political-action group) that represented the interests of three incoming students — an evangelical Christian, a Catholic, and a Jew — and filed suit in federal court, charging that the assignment by the publicly funded university violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

The lawsuit also claimed that Sells’s book was "carefully selected to create a favorable impression of the religion of Islam." Noting that Sells’s book also came with a CD of Islamic clergy reciting verses from the Koran, the lawsuit further charged that students were being "forced to listen to spells cast by a holy man." The suit was denied by the state court. Its appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was also denied on August 15. In his opinion, Judge N. Carlton Tilly Jr. wrote: "I do not believe an objective person reading the book would believe the university is suggesting a preference for Islam, a particular interpretation of Islam or religion itself."

Though the university won decisively in the court of law, it lost in the court of public opinion. The Family Policy Network ran a sophisticated public-relations campaign against the school. It maintained that the assignment was nothing less than state-sponsored proselytization of Islam, and that Sells’s book was a whitewash since it did not cover the verses in the Koran often cited to justify violence. And a surprising number and range of media outlets took the bait. Conservative culture-war-scaremeister Bill O’Reilly did three shows on the topic. During the first, which aired July 10, O’Reilly compared the Koran to Mein Kampf and stated, "I wouldn’t read the book. And I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t have read Mein Kampf either. If I were going to UNC in 1941, and you, professor, said, 'Read Mein Kampf,' I would have said, 'Hey, professor, with all due respect, shove it. I ain’t reading it.'"

O’Reilly went at it again, on August 19, and charged that the school was engaging in "political correctness" by forcing its students to read about "the religion of our enemy." The New York Times strongly editorialized in favor of the school administrators. But other mainstream venues — The Wall Street Journal in particular — were quite clear: "Apparently the guardians of the Establishment Clause decided that compulsory religious study is OK if it helps a university promote the politically correct view of Islam. It’s hard to imagine the ACLU exhibiting the same large-mindedness toward a state university that demanded all freshmen read the New Testament or the Torah and meditate on the teachings and liturgical music."

Against that backdrop, North Carolina state legislators voted 64-10 on August 7 to deny public funds to the summer-reading program unless the university mandated that all other religions were addressed in an "equal or incremental way." The vote was not binding, but the resolution was sent to committee. Anti-Muslim sentiment ran high in the debate. On August 9, UPI reported that Republican representative Sam Ellis "told a local radio station he did not want the students in the university system to study 'this evil.... If they wish to pursue it on their own, or if they wish to pursue it as an elective, that’s fine. But I don’t think it is something our university system should be encouraging.'"

Meanwhile, the university’s board of governors met on August 9 to vote on a resolution that read: "Resolved, that the Board of Governors supports students, faculties and administrations of the university’s 16 campuses in their commitment to freedom — religious, academic and political; their exchange of ideas; their examination of different cultures; and their working to understand conflicting values of all kinds, with the confidence that thoughtful study and intellectual inquiry are fundamental to this university and the goal of this board."

Although the count was 18 to 10 in favor of the resolution, it did not meet the two-thirds criteria needed to pass. Ray S. Farris, who introduced the initiative, said that some board members did not vote in favor of the resolution out of fear that the legislature would cut the state university’s already lean budget. As if to make matters worse, the Board set up a committee "to explore the merits of academic freedom."

Explore the merits of academic freedom? Talk about throwing in the towel in the dead heat of battle. The minute a university has to begin to "explore" the "merits" of academic freedom, it might as well begin to "explore" the very reason for its existence. To his credit, William C. Friday, UNC president emeritus, called the board’s decision "directly contrary to the history of the university" and "an embarrassment." And under intense pressure from the faculty, a smaller subcommittee of the board of governors did pass a resolution on academic freedom on August 22. That resolution, however, has yet to be passed by the full board.

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Issue Date: August 29 - September 5, 2002
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