Free Exchange:  ProfessorScott, you are often cited as an authority on academic freedom by bothadvocates and critics (including the new collection of essays on the AcademicBill of Rights edited by Stephen Aby). Could you describe for us how you cameto be an advocate for academic freedom?

Scott:  For the long version of theanswer, I refer you to my article, "Academic Freedom as an Ethical Practice,"in The Future of Academic Freedom, edited by Louis Menand.(University of Chicago Press, 1996).  The short version is that I grew upduring the McCarthy period and learned first-hand of the dangers posed bypolitical interference in scholarship and teaching.  Although powerless toprotect the jobs of many teachers accused of holding subversive views or havingcommunist affiliations (most of them unproven), academic freedom was aprinciple to invoke in defense of the specific rights of scholars andteachers.  During the 1990's, as new threats arose to the intellectualautonomy of teachers, the American Association of University Professors, withits long history of defining and defending academic freedom, seemed a goodplace to do important work.  It was in the context of the AAUP's Committeeon Academic Freedom and Tenure that I did the advocacy work you refer to.

FreeExchange:  In your 2005 testimonybefore the Pennsylvania Select Committee on Student Academic Freedom (cited inAby's The Academic Bill of Rights Debate: A Handbook), youdiscuss the role of politics -- disciplinary politics -- in departmental hiringdecisions. What do you feel are the forces that shape political battles withina particular discipline? How do disciplinary politics relate to "politics" asgenerally understood by the public?

Scott:  Disciplinary politics areconflicts about theory and method, about what counts as good scholarship, andabout the standards used to evaluate the compentency of members of aprofession.  These standards operate as rules and, as such, they tend tobecome rigid, resisting change.  Since, however, the production of knowledge is a living, changingenterprise, there inevitably emerge challenges to established ways of doingthings.  The big ‘political' battles within disciplines are betweenorthdoxy and its critics.  Of course these critical challenges aresometimes shaped by influences outside the academy and the discipline: thepressures to end discrimination against Jews, African-Americans, women, etc.etc. changed not only the demography of the disciplines, but also theirknowledge content.  But, however adamant defenders of orthodoxy were aboutimported ‘ideologies,' in fact the new knowledge had to live up to thedisciplinary community's standards of acceptability.  The process ofknowledge production is a complicated negotiation within disciplines. Sometimes this leads to the formation of new disciplines, new fields of study,sometimes it transforms the established ones.   What is involvedthough is not the wholesale importation of ‘outside' politics, but theelaboration of communities of practice whose autonomy must be guaranteed byacademic freedom.

Free Exchange: Your testimony seems to indicate that the appropriate level ofanalysis to assess the intellectual diversity of higher education isn't at thelevel of the individual class, or even a single department, but rather at thelevel of the institution. What advantages are there to taking this broader viewof intellectual diversity, rather than assessing it on a class-by-class basis?

Scott:  If the whole university offereda single approach to knowledge it would be a totalitarian institution, not afree and open environment.  Diversity of method, outlook, theory, andinterpretation is what marks a free university.  The point of a liberal arts education is notto control thought, but to expose students to the range of possibilities thatexist, to the varieties of method and interpretation which can be used toapproach scientific, social, political, economic, literary, psychological,philosophical and other problems.  In any particular classroom they willbe exposed to one or perhaps several of these approaches and they will learn ofthe professor's particular, sometimes passionate, commitments to them. They will be either inspired or turned-off, moved to pursue a particular lineof inquiry or convinced to seek other options.  I think it's dangerous tosuppress options in the university as a whole, the point is to provide as manyof them as possible.  When departments offer only one approach to theirsubject matter (rational choice in political science, game theory in economics,"culture" in history), they deprive students of the important knowledge thatthere are alternative ways of thinking about complex problems, not just oneway.  It's even worse when outside agitators, non-academics withparticular agendas to impose, try to stifle one approach in favor ofanother.  Or, as in the case of the so-called academic bill of rights,insist that all points of view be presented in every class.  That hasits own repressive effect: the denial of the role interpretation plays inknowledge production and the elimination of the passion of thescholar from the educational process. 

FreeExchange: Beyond the immediate consequence of circumscribing what must bepresented in a particular class, how would measures like the Academic Bill ofRights and so-called "intellectual diversity" legislation impact the long-termability of academics to respond to changes within their disciplines?

Scott:  The ABOR is an instrument ofthought-control - that's why it's been defeated time and again in thelegislatures where it's been introduced.  That's why David Horowitz hasmoved on to other measures he hopes will better accomplish his police-keepingends.  His approach, as that of the other outsiders who are trying tointerfere in the academy, disrupts the ordinary processes of academic debateand disciplinary change in several ways.  First, by intimidation. That's how the lobby defending the current Israeli regime operates, that's howthe conservative association of alumni wields its influence.  These groupsthreaten to withhold financial support unless professors whose views theydisagree with are fired, unless subject-matter in some classrooms is ruled outof bounds.  They raise unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism when they disagree with the version of MiddleEastern history being taught; they level charges of terrorism or disloyaltyagainst those teaching critically about American foreign policy; they accuseprofessors of women's studies or gay studies or African-American studies ofpurveying "ideology" instead of truth.  Second, by negative publicity,running full-page ads in newspapers, writing editorials attacking particularprofessors or classes.  Third, by lawsuits in the name of the rights ofindividual students not to hear ideas that contradict their religious orethical beliefs.  (The irony here is that a liberal arts education ismeant to get students to explore and gain perspective on those verybeliefs.)   Fourth, by invidious campaigns against individuals:Daniel Pipes' website listing the names of so-called enemies of Israel in thefield of Middle Eastern studies; Alan Dershowitz's onslaught against NormanFinkelstein's tenure at De Paul university, in the name not of academicstandards, but political ones; the David project's targeting of professors atColumbia University - an organized plot by outside agitators to unseat particular professors, and also to impugn the legitimacy of the entire MiddleEastern studies faculty.  And fifth, byenlisting political figures (like Gareth Armstrong in Pennsylvania or Anthony Weiner in NYC) whowant to establish their credentials by appealing to the anti-intellectualism oftheir constituents.  Thiskind of outside agitation worries academic administrations and, increasingly,pressures them to compromise academic freedom in order to protect theiruniversities from public controversy.

FreeExchange:  In your testimony beforethe Committee, you say, "Conflicts of values and ethics are part of the processof knowledge production; they inform it, trouble it, drive it...... Students needto know about the values and commitments of their professors--they don't haveto share them." Could you describe how the values and commitments of facultymembers who teach in interdisciplinary programs such as Women's and GenderStudies or Ethnic Studies contribute to the mission of undergraduate educationand to scholarship in general?

Scott:  I wonder why you ask me aboutWomen's and Gender studies or Ethnic studies and not about the values andcommitments of professors of economics or political science or any otherestablished field.  For me, it was the passion of a professor ofintellectual history that first led me to major in history as anundergraduate-this guy had a very particular point of view about the economicinfluences on philosophical ideas (one David Horowitz would surely ban from hisideal classroom).  And it was, much later, reading Michel Foucault thathelped me formulate a critical approach to the writing of history.  In thefields you mention, the drive is to produce knowledge about subjects previouslyexcluded from or neglected by "mainstream" disciplines and to make thatknowledge legitimate.  My own work on gender takes up questions aboutdifference and asks how references to differences taken to be natural (thedifference between the sexes, racial or cultural difference) are used tostructure hierarchies and ground social organization.  This is not specialpleading about women, but a way of analyzing power that extends to many fields,including, by the way, Ethnic Studies (for it asks how differences of ethnicityare constructed, when they become ways of identifying groups, when they becomeirrelevant).  The values and ethics that inform my work relate toquestions of equality and social justice, themes Horowitz finds objectionable,indeed communistic, but that I think are basic to any democracy.

FreeExchange:  What do you believe is thebest way to safeguard academic freedom for future generations of scholars?

Scott:  I think we need to be extremelyvigilant, we have to remind ourselves of the history and meaning of academicfreedom and insist on its protection.  Faculty have to use theirinstitutions of governance to pressure administrators to resist intimidation,providing backbone to these administrators when it is needed.  They have to help educate boards of trusteesabout the principle of academic freedom, explaining why it is vital to themission of universities and colleges.  And they have to resort to some ofthe same tactics-use of the media for example-to educate the public at large.They should be mobilizing theirprofessional associations to campaign hard on behalf of academic freedom,issuing statements, condemning outside agitators, and generally rallying todefend democratic education from those who would have it serve their particularpolitical interests.

FreeExchange:  Are there any othercomments that you may have that might be of interest to our readers?

Scott: I think I've said what I haveto say.  Thanks for this interview.

Free Exchange:  We appreciate you taking the time to answerour questions.