"There is nothing to investigate"

P.C. strikes again

By Elizabeth Wright

Ever shrinking parameters of politically permissible thought and expression have contributed to what's being called the "Stalinizing of English."

"In the name of diversity, a profound intellectual repression has been loosed," writes Professor Linda McCarriston, "a conformism that even liberals have begun to call 'Left Fundamentalism.'" An avowed socialist, McCarriston got to feel the sting of reprisal that is usually reserved for maverick conservative types who stray from the realm of politically correct speech.

McCarriston, a professor at the University of Alaska faced the open hostility of Diane Benson, a student in her creative writing course. Benson, an American Indian, objected to McCarriston's interpretations of the poetry of an Hispanic poet. Instead of engaging McCarriston in a sane intellectual argument, Benson became surly and resorted to flinging charges of "racism" against the teacher. According to other students in the class, Benson repeatedly tried to dominate class discussions, while angrily denouncing McCarriston's literary observations.

At about the same time as these classroom confrontations, a poem by McCarriston was published in a magazine. Benson now saw a chance to exploit the theme of this poem, which is a reflection on the abuse of some Indian girls, to substantiate her charges of racism against McCarriston. At term's end, Benson received a "B" grade in McCarriston's writing course. Defiantly insisting that she deserved an "A", she decided to press charges of discrimination and organized a student demonstration to protest the professor's alleged bigotry and her grading system.

This action brought on the yelpings of timid university officials, who sided with student Benson and promised to "check into the matter," while calling for an investigation of McCarriston by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.

At this point, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) got wind of the events taking place at the university. FIRE was founded in order to do battle on American campuses for "free speech, individual liberty, religious freedom, the rights of conscience, legal equality, due process, and academic freedom." All those good things that scholars in academia once took for granted.

FIRE's president, Professor Alan Kors, contacted University of Alaska president Mark Hamilton, who eventually issued the memo below, which prompted some of McCarriston's critics to back off, and gave courage to meeker souls to speak out against campus censorship.

A letter by Professor McCarriston follows Hamilton's memo, and that is followed by a brief excerpt from a commentary on the case.

March 13, 2001

Dear Colleagues:

A number of recent events has convinced me that I take the unusual step to state clearly and unambiguously what all of us would take as a given--The University of Alaska acknowledges and espouses the right to freedom of speech.

The recent events I referred to include professors signing a letter to President Clinton urging the preservation of ANWR, the selection of the speaker for the Bartlett lecture series, and the publishing of the poem, “Indian Girls” by Professor Linda McCarriston.

What I want to make clear and unambiguous is that responses to complaints or demands for action regarding constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of speech cannot be qualified. Attempts to assuage anger or to demonstrate concern by qualifying our support for free speech serve to cloud what must be a clear message. Noting that, for example, “The University supports the right to free speech, but we intend to check into this matter,” or “The University supports the right of free speech, but I have asked Dean X or Provost Y to investigate the circumstances,” is unacceptable. There is nothing to “check into,” nothing “to investigate.”

Opinions expressed by our employees, students, faculty or administrators don’t have to be politic or polite. However personally offended we might be, however unfair the association of the University to the opinion might be, I insist that we remain a certain trumpet on this most precious of Constitutional rights.

I am directing you, the Chancellors, to effect wide dissemination of this letter. I would prefer it to go forward with your endorsement.

April 9, 2001

Dear Professor Kors:

It has not been long since Thor Halvorssen of FIRE phoned my university office and found me alone and very frightened in a cinderblock building at the darkest time of the Alaska winter. Perhaps you can imagine my near disbelief that a voice so named, and with so much purpose, would arrive from the City of Brotherly Love (where my Irish family landed not long ago, fleeing sectarian persecution), promising help!

As I wrote almost immediately, that was the first night I had slept more than fitfully since my thought, teaching, and writing had been attacked dramatically, in and around my classroom, by a student who erroneously believed that a literature class presenting poets of the political imagination--and a poem of mine that was published in December--were racist. She advised all those to whom she e-mailed her interpretation of both my poem and my teaching to contact my direct supervisor, Ronald Spatz, as well as the University Chancellor and the press, calling for an investigation into my thought and a challenge to my position as a tenured full professor in the Department of Creative Writing and Literary Arts.

In the name of the University, Professor Spatz, with Chancellor Gorsuch's concurrence, responded immediately with a statement of concern and a promise that the issues would be "sent upward" through the College of Arts and Sciences for resolution. Demands for my "public re-education" flew about the campus and in the press. Promises were made to the complainant in order to regain control during exam week. The office of Kerry Feldman, Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, became the focal point of conflict and, sadly, the empty chair in which principle ought to have been seated.

Though University President, Mark R. Hamilton, and countless Alaskans from every path phoned, e-mailed, or wrote in a press forum to support my work, U.A.A. made only the most tepid defense of First Amendment rights to free speech, suggesting that my not having been fired was a bold enough response. Had the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education not intervened when and as it did, I have little doubt that I would have been delivered to the "public forum," in which I was to learn the proper "role of the poet in the community."

Once you had appeared on the horizon, subtle changes began to occur. The dean's office grew visibly less active in questioning my students about the class. The dean's office grew less active in its supervision, demands, and admonitions of me. A lull developed in which the scrutiny of the dean's office seemed to recede.

By then, of course, you were conversing with the President directly, apprising him of the situation with information not available to him from my campus. When he made the public statement demanding, unequivocally, institutional protection of rights to free speech, faculty, students, and the city itself cheered. This very significant moment in the history of Alaska's state university would not have taken place without your determination, deep and painstaking involvement in the case, and irresistible suasion on behalf of the Constitution.

Painful and frightening, these malicious assaults on me and my liberty continue, but these attacks have roused students to speak publicly about the climate of fear and self-censorship that has existed here for some time. The Taliban of academic post-modernism has made writing a dangerous activity on this college campus. Ever shrinking parameters of politically permissible thought and expression have contributed to what's being called the "Stalinizing of English." In graduate programs for writers, no less! Had you not become involved, this case would have ended by now as another did last year--a Dorothy Parker would be forced to share their works hand-to-hand in a new American Samizdat. In the name of diversity, a profound intellectual repression has been loosed, a conformism that even liberals have begun to call "Left Fundamentalism."

The First Amendment, most basic and precious ground of democracy, underlies the very possibility of education, but on my campus and nationwide, the criminalization of thought and speech is a fait accompli. There is no more important work to be done today on American campuses than your work. I cannot thank you adequately for your vision and courage.

It is difficult to catalogue the many implications of this remarkable case of political correctness. The investigation by the OCR shows how easy the system now makes it to literally criminalize intellectual disagreements originating in the classroom. The chilling effects on academic freedom of this federal investigation can hardly be exaggerated. The Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights was perhaps the central engine of campus P.C. during the Clinton years, and the McCarriston affair shows how important it now is to find someone to run this office who can stem the damage it is doing every day to higher education.

But the most interesting thing about the McCarriston affair may be its revelation of the sheer breadth of the threat to free speech on campus. When even a nuanced and well-meaning feminist poet on the Left gets the Horowitz treatment, we know that something truly menacing and pervasive is at work. The liberal pundits now bashing Horowitz ought to take an honest look at what their rationalizations for campus P.C. have wrought. The Left is now devouring its own. And all of us are paying the price.

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)

National Association of Scholars (NAS)

Copyright 2001 Issues & Views