Academic Freedom | Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion - Part 7
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Academic Freedom Tag

Back in June, we brought you the story of Professor Gordon Klein, an accounting instructor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. Klein was suspended, pending an investigation, for refusing to bend the rules for black students following the death of George Floyd, despite the fact that he was following directions from the school's diversity chair.

Professor Greg Patton teaches at University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. During a recent online lesson, he spoke about how different words can sound in different languages. Without any apparent harmful intent, he pointed out how something sounds in Chinese, and some people heard a racist word. He has since been placed on temporary leave.

I had heard of Charles Negy, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Central Florida (UCF). What I heard seemed like a particularly egregious example of cancel culture that is purging academia and imposing uniformity of opinion, particularly with regard to the Black Lives Matter movement. Having looked into it more, it's worse than I realized.

As you know, there is an effort to get me fired from Cornell Law School because of my criticisms of the Black Lives Matters Movement, and failing firing, get me officially denounced by the law school. It does not appear they will get me fired, but they did succeed in getting an official denunciation. See these posts for background:

I appeared last night on the Laura Ingraham show to talk about my post, There’s an effort to get me fired at Cornell for criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement. Much of the conversation turned on a Statement issued late yesterday afternoon by Cornell Law School Dean Eduardo M. Peñalver defending my academic freedom and stating that no disciplinary action would be taken, but otherwise condemning me.

There is an effort underway to get me fired at Cornell Law School, where I've worked since November 2007, or if not fired, at least denounced publicly by the school. Ever since I started Legal Insurrection in October 2008, it's been an awkward relationship given the overwhelmingly liberal faculty and atmosphere. Living as a conservative on a liberal campus is like being the mouse waiting for the cat to pounce.

A fierce backlash was perhaps all but inevitable when a recently published special issue of the academic journal Israel Studies provided a powerful counterpoint to the incessant delegitimization of the world’s only Jewish state. Under the title “Word Crimes: Reclaiming the Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” the volume (co-edited by Legal Insurrection contributor Professor Miriam Elman) examines the “academic jargon draped in scholarly prestige” that is used to imply “that Israel’s founding in 1948 is not settled history” but rather a “historical wrong” that can and should be righted according to Palestinian demands.

Professor Samuel Abrams is a conservative-leaning tenured professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College. He is active in Heterodox Academy, a group of almost 2000 academics devoted to intellectual diversity on campus. Prof. Abrams recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the lack of ideological diversity among administrators at his school and elsewhere. The column, titled Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators, brought together research Prof. Abrams had done on left-leaning bias among college professors and administrators, and how it stifles open debate.

One of the most important developments in the academic boycott of Israel took place a couple of weeks ago. A professor at the University of Michigan, John Cheney-Lippold, agreed to write a recommendation letter for a student, Abigail Engber, but later refused when he found out the letter would be used for the student to apply to a study abroad program in Israel.