In a recent round of reports published in media outlets, we
have learned that the current Purdue President Mitch Daniels, former governor
of Indiana, directed via email his top education officials to “get rid of” the
work of the noted historian Howard Zinn from K-12 classrooms in Indiana.
Referring to Zinn’s People’s History of the United States as ‘truly execrable,’ anti-factual,
crappy and dishonest, then governor Daniels ordered his staff to act to make
sure that Zinn’s work is not being offered across schools in Indiana. He wrote: “Can someone assure me that it is
not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more
young people are force-fed a totally false version of history?”
Daniels’ order to his top state education officials comes
across as an off-the-cuff directive directed at censoring Zinn. Unlike the
deliberate engagement that is integral to academic evaluation, Daniels throws a
number of serious charges at Zinn but does not care to substantiate them. Nowhere
in the email exchange do we witness reasoned consideration of argument,
presentation of evidence, engagement in thoughtful analysis, and deliberate
consideration of evaluation, aspects of the academic process that are integral
to discovery and learning, and to the process of evaluating the quality of a
scholar’s work. Unlike Zinn, a widely respected academic who presents extensive
evidence to arrive at his critical conclusions in the People’s History of the United States, Daniels, a politician,
arrives at his conclusions through appeal to power and position.
Reading the email exchange between Daniels and his education
officials, we get the impression of a powerful governor who has made up his
mind that Zinn is objectionable for Indiana students, and therefore, has
decided through his power to govern that Zinn texts must be eliminated from
Indiana K-12 classrooms. He asks his senior officials for assurance that Zinn’s
People’s History of the United States
is not in use in Indiana schools. He further instructs his staff to work toward
getting rid of the book if it is indeed being used. He instructs his staff, “Go
for it. Disqualify propaganda…” If this isn’t an exemplification of censorship,
I am not sure what is. In this sense then, the judgment to ban Zinn from K-12
classrooms across Indiana is arrived at through a position of authority and
through the exercise of power attached to this authority. According to the
media reports of the email exchange, there are no counter arguments offered to
Daniels’ directive. Citizens of Indiana and K-12 students in Indiana must be
protected because they are not capable of judgment, and the governor as the
leader of the State takes up this job in his own hands, seeking to replace Zinn’s
useless propaganda with “professional development courseware to upgrade
knowledge of math, science, etc.”
Allegations of academic dishonesty and poor quality are
thrown around to bolster the decision, once again without the consideration of
deliberate evidence and without the engagement with argument. The state
educational officials are equally implicated in the heuristic judgment arrived
at quickly through a series of email exchanges. In a context where the nature
of what is taught to Indiana kids is being determined, one would expect more
detailed consideration of evidence rather than the circulation of unsupported
allegations as the basis for censorship.
Given that the original emails written by Daniels were
apparently triggered by a summer school for high school Indiana teachers taught
at Indiana University, it also becomes evident that censoring what gets taught
to teachers is the way Daniels seeks to define the scope of debate and
conversation in Indiana education.
What is however most striking about the exchange in question
is the paradox in the different roles played by Daniels, raising questions
about the culture of erasure that continues to occupy US academic discourse in
spite of its hyperbolic rhetoric of academic freedom.
Daniels, who as governor potentially violated principles of
academic freedom by seeking to censor the reading of a particular text in
classrooms is now the leader at the helm of one of Indiana’s hallowed public
universities in a role that calls upon him to actively guard the principle of academic
freedom. What is striking here is the gap between the high-handed censorship
role that Daniels played as Indiana governor in determining what is or is not
taught in the classroom and his rhetoric of academic freedom recently
articulated in various speeches and writing at Purdue. Perhaps when in his open letter to the People
of Purdue Daniels writes that tenure has become “home to narrowest sort of
close-mindedness and worst repression of dissident ideas,” he is expressing his
dissatisfaction with the critical ideas that like Howard Zinn challenge the
established status quo of American society. What was Daniels’ intent behind the
open letter we will not know until he comes out explicitly and explains his
claim, articulating the values attached to the claim.
Daniels of course does not see any contradiction in these
two roles. In fact, he goes on to clearly delineate the difference between the
notion of academic freedom at the University and the role he played as governor
in making sure that Zinn’s work was not “inflicted upon” the young people in
the K-12 system. To support his argument
that it is irresponsible to assign Zinn as a reading to the young, Daniels
cites a small number of scholars who observe that they don’t take Zinn
seriously, but is highly selective in his selection of people, conveniently
missing out the number of respected scholars who hold Zinn in high regard.
Also, Daniels does not present any argument to support his claim. We are told
that Zinn presents a falsified version of history but are not offered any
evidence as to why this is the case.
Similarly, in a release on the Purdue website, the Purdue
Board of trustees share with us that the Associated Press news story is a
misrepresentation and the email exchange in question “had nothing to do with
academic freedom or censorship.” Once again, we are not offered warrants,
backing or evidence supporting the claim. We are not offered a window into the
operational definition of academic freedom and censorship in the articulation
of the trustees.
Perhaps much like the K-12 students imagined by Daniels, we
are too simple minded to process arguments or ask for arguments. I see the
instruction by a state governor to ban Zinn from the K-12 curriculum without
thorough engagement in deliberation and debate as censorship because it stifles
academic expression and limits what can be taught in the classroom.
What is perhaps even more troubling is that in his statement
issued on the Purdue website and to AP, Mitch Daniels continues to insist that
Zinn’s work was intellectually dishonest and crappy. Once again, Daniels does
not really offer evidence. I am also left wondering about the credentials of
Daniels that qualify him to make the evaluation about Zinn.
Or is it that Howard Zinn offers a worldview that is
inconvenient to the world Daniels seeks to foster through education? As we have
seen in earlier instances such as in the cases of critical scholars such as Professor
Ward Churchill and Dr. Norman Finkelstein, the question of allegations of
intellectual dishonesty and fraud are raised to silence a worldview that does
not gel with the received worldview of President Daniels. The silencing of
Zinn’s voice contradicts the rhetoric of diversity and multiculturalism that
starts sounding more like a hollow public relations ploy.
And this in essence is the fundamental irony in US notions
of academic freedom. When used as a bully pulpit to sing the songs of American
exceptionalism, the rhetoric of academic freedom works as a public relations
tool in the global market. However, when it comes down to the practice of the
principle of academic freedom in the US, we discover that it is contested,
socially constructed, and contingent upon the positions of power that are
intertwined with discussions of academic freedom, censorship practices, and
erasure of critical voices.
Acknowledging this contingent and socially constructed
nature of academic freedom fosters a space for academics globally to work
everyday to uphold the concept of academic freedom, not simply in a narrow
sense of the word, but in the wide spirit of what it means to conduct research,
produce scholarship, educate, and share knowledge with a wider community. I am
delighted to join in solidarity with my colleagues at Purdue to raise my voice.
Protecting the integrity of the academic process calls for each of us in
academe to stand up to our principles so
that diverse worldviews and diverse ways of doing research are fostered and
embraced.