Academia's Threat to Free Speech
O'NEILL, WILLIAM L.
Academia's Threat to Free Speech The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses By Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate Free Press. 415 pp. $27.50. Reviewed...
...When he expressed neutrality between the First Amendment rights of the Daily Pennsylvanian and what he called "a comfortable and permanent minority presence in a diverse and civil university community," they were startled...
...Outraged by the writings of the sole conservative columnist in the student-run Daily Pennsylvanian, they "confiscated" all 14,000 copies of its press run from distribution points on April 15...
...Jacobowitz was singled out for punishment because of massive lying on the part of his fellows...
...If you want a party there's a zoo a mile from here...
...By accident, a group of black students provided the opportunity...
...A breakthrough was achieved when an Israeli scholar asked if Jacobowitz were Israeli or spoke modern Hebrew...
...Reviewed by William L. O'Neill Professor of history, Rutgers...
...In Hebrew the word behema is commonly used to describe rude or thoughtless persons, its literal translation being "water buffalo...
...For one, it is a primer on the First Amendment in relation to campus speech...
...Instead of serving as chief censor, she affirmed the right of students to be treated as individuals rather than as members of identity groups—strong stuff in this age of multiculturalism...
...As Kors and Silverglate point out, this is not because administrators are fanatical Left-wingers...
...He contacted Kors, who enlisted an army of authorities in Jacobowitz' defense...
...The only one punished for this was a University Museum security officer who had tried to stop thieves from running out of the building trash bag in hand...
...The next day, under questioning, all except Jacobowitz denied knowing the women were black...
...After all, the authors dryly note, hearing that, as an improbable instance, "the Lutherans are really mad" does not panic administrators...
...The politically correct, in other words, are free to roam so long as they do not become an embarrassment or a threat to funding...
...For another, it is a history of how individual rights have been trampled underfoot at institutions of higher learning all over the nation, but especially in the Northeast, curiously a stronghold of double speak and thought control...
...An Africanist was willing to testify that the terra had no African or racial connotations...
...In their view a Faustian bargain has been struck...
...Following an investigation of this crime against humanity, Jacobowitz was offered a plea bargain by the judicial inquiry officer (JIO) the university had assigned to his case...
...But after Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal gave him "an awesome three-minute lecture on a free country, a free press, and his own lack of testosterone," he broke down and told her everything...
...Asked if he was familiar with the word behema, Jacobowitz replied that it was a common term of criticism used in his yeshiva by teachers and students alike...
...This book is a useful reminder that, while the debate over PC has ended, the threat to free speech remains...
...author, "A Democracy at War: America's Fight at Home and Abroad in World War II" In the early '90s there was a spirited debate over political correctness on our campuses that included, among other subjects, the proliferation of codes governing expression...
...The aftermath at Penn was unusual and heartening...
...Although they do not concede the point, free speech is somewhat more secure today than it was a few years ago, thanks to enormous amounts of bad publicity and lawsuits that have caused administrators to think twice before penalizing students and faculty for impolitic remarks...
...The reason for this is that administrators dislike trouble, and as a rule it more often comes from the Left than the Right...
...But by the '90s Perm, like every leading American college and university, was obsessed with race, had created speech codes to prohibit unwonted racial slurs or opinions, enforced them with elaborate procedures, and ceaselessly indoctrinated students on the ever more complicated etiquette governing minority relations...
...Indeed, the authors quite rightly argue that the First Amendment is nowhere more endangered than on college and university campuses...
...As it happened, Jacobowitz' parents were both Israeli and he had attended a Hebrew-language high school...
...In an earlier time the charge against Jacobowitz, if raised at all, would have been laughed out of court...
...The JIO insisted that they did because water buffalo were "primitive dark animals that lived in Africa...
...Natural scientists established that water buffalo were native to Asia, not Africa...
...Many other students in his dorm had also called upon the women to shut up, in some cases using actual racial epithets...
...It would not retreat in the face of this blatant challenge to its omnipotence on matters racial...
...Political correctness applies to student life, expression on matters of race, gender and sex, and the content of the humanities...
...In contrast to the boards of most universities, who seldom intervene in free speech conflicts, its Board of Trustees was mortified by the bad publicity and the bad faith of Penn officials and did something about the situation...
...Linguists searched vainly for instances of water buffalo having been used as a racial pejorative...
...But the prospect that minority groups will act disruptively and bring the media on campus is genuinely frightening...
...The alternative was a hearing that could lead to his expulsion...
...Some of the worst abuses have occurred at the University of Pennsylvania, and the book benefits from the fact that Kors, a professor of history, has been an ardent defender of free speech there for many years— at some cost to his career, one imagines...
...It does not apply, or only marginally, to the sciences and the professional schools (law excepted) that bring in the big money...
...He insisted, however, that his remarks had no racial connotation...
...In the end, the relentless publicity forced Penn to settle for an apology for rudeness from Jacobowitz, who had been willing to give one all along if it did not involve any admission of racism...
...She declared that "the content of student speech is no longer a basis for disciplinary action...
...The media were therefore particularly interested in his response to the incident...
...He was suspended for being insensitive to their high political purpose...
...On May 14 the university held a hearing and continued to press its case against Jacobowitz, despite the fact that it was now in possession of a police report based on candid interviews with dormitory residents that completely exonerated him...
...In addition, Penn issued an order forbidding all participants from speaking to the press...
...Since Jacobowitz refused to back down, make a deal, or lie like the others, he was in serious trouble...
...Perm, lost in its vision of diversity, failed to appreciate its problem and refused to drop charges against Jacobowitz, even though they had become front-page news all around the world...
...A new vice provost for university life...
...Kors knew that publicity was Jacobowitz' best defense, for on campus charges of harassment were tantamount to conviction, but he did not know how to get it...
...After earlier complaints had no effect, Jacobowitz called out the window, "Shut up you water buffalo...
...Understandably, journalists did not agree that racial comfort trumped free speech...
...Speech codes became a thing of the past...
...The trustees announced that the Bill of Rights applied to Penn students and installed a new president who agreed with them, Judith Rodin...
...Valerie Cade, was named as well...
...Most universities are unrepentant: If they are more cautious where the First Amendment is concerned, they nevertheless remain committed to a view of diversity that denies individual rights and promotes the interests of favored groups...
...At this time the university's president, Sheldon Hackney, was in the running to become head of the National Endowment for the Humanities...
...At a time when social control was the order of the day, it took some nerve to establish education as the university's primary purpose...
...But Penn's reformation is the exception, not the rule, as the authors admit...
...To protect Jacobowitz from further retaliation, Kors tried to abide by the order...
...But when five of the 15 sorority sisters decided they had been victims of racial harassment and returned to the dormitory with university police officers, everyone except Jacobowitz denied having shouted at the women...
...The Shadow University is valuable in two ways...
...So the most troublesome spokespersons are bought off and administrative careers are saved, at whatever cost to principle and the lives of scapegoats like Eden Jacobowitz...
...Nor did it take them long to discover the Jacobowitz story...
...The most publicized case with which Kors has been associated—Silverglate, a lawyer, helped too—was the infamous '"water buffalo" affair...
...This passes for justice in academia today...
...It began on the night of January 13, 1993, when Eden Jacobowitz, a freshman at Penn, was disturbed by the singing and chanting of black sorority members outside the window of his dormitory...
...Still more so was her statement that the university's mission was "to produce educated, critical, and open minds...
...Her promise that residence advisers would in the future include members of previously proscribed groups, such as Evangelical Christians, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and political conservatives, was heretical...
...Yet the danger persists, and with it the need for works such as Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate's...
Vol. 81 • December 1998 • No. 14
