Re: Churchill Fallout: It?s About Academic Freedom

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm utterly uninterested in the details of the case because, from the
viewpoint of either academic freedom or left politics those details are
irrelevant.

Here is the principle that the case establishes, and it is a vicious
principle:

The _origin_ of an investigation, no matter how illegitimate, no matter
how poisonous and contrary to all concepts of academic freedom, is
irrelevant.

That is the line we have to defend. No Academic investigations triggered
by outside political interference.

I am somewhat ashamed of the posters on this list and on lbo-talk who
have utterly ignored the poisoned roots of this investigation and have
contented themselves with the details of the investigation itself. But
those details should be thrown out as irrelevant by anyone who believes
in academic freedom. They should be thrown out particularly by anyone
who accepts the liberal emphasis on procedural legitimacy. The
procedures in this case were an outrage from the beginning.

Carrol