The trouble with tenure

The current controversy surrounding Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist at Barnard College in the US, highlights important questions about academic freedom. Essentially, it seems El-Haj’s work suggests that prevailing ideas about the ancient Israelites are the product of modern Israeli politics as much as archaeological or genomic discoveries. Predictably, especially given El-Haj’s Palestinian background, she has come under fire from those who see this as a challenge to the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and the usual polarisation of opinion has ensued. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that there are currently two online petitions, one to deny El-Haj tenure and another to grant it to her.

The situation is complicated by the fact that many of the criticisms are academic: El-Haj is alleged to lack knowledge of Hebrew, for example, and to employ an unscientific ‘social constructivist’ approach. This means her supporters have been caught between a straight ‘academic freedom’ defence, and a substantive defence of her work. Ultimately, it is impossible to separate the two. If someone’s work is entirely without academic merit, there is no meaningful argument for academic freedom: she can be dismissed from a university to pursue her work independently. Things are rarely so clear-cut, though: often academics disagree about what is a worthy line of enquiry, and thus the notion of academic freedom depends on colleagues granting one another the benefit of any reasonable doubt.

Where things get really complicated, as in this case, is when political disagreements take an academic form, and especially when non-academics weigh in, as with the petitions. Fellow anthropologist Paul Rabinow, who is sympathetic to El-Haj, has nonetheless refused to sign the petition in favor of granting her tenure, on the quite reasonable grounds that “Petitions about people’s tenure cases are completely out of order…It’s a breakdown of the standards of debate. I guess the alternative then is demagoguery.” The Chronicle also quotes mathematician and ‘science warrior’ Norman Levitt, who has signed the petition against El-Haj, arguing that “It is wiser to acknowledge that the educated public has something to say about “professional” matters... than to fill the air with pompous resentment when such criticism arises”. Levitt has a point, too, inasmuch as the public has a right to criticize and dispute the merits of academic work. But to suggest that academics should be influenced by public opinion when assessing the work of their colleagues is indeed to open the door to demagoguery.

The whole point of academic freedom, as opposed to simple free speech, is that it is both more demanding (because framed by an academic discipline) and to an extent insulated from the outside world (because criticisms from outside that discipline, however popular, are not relevant). However acrimonious their disagreements might be, academics should have the confidence and integrity to maintain their professionalism amid controversy. As long as El-Haj’s colleagues agree her work has merit - which seems to be the case - she should enjoy full academic freedom. Others are free to challenge her work and disagree with her politics, but the dispute over her tenure is the wrong arena for such arguments.

Dolan Cummings

A Danish denier and irate Israelis

The recent decision by the Danish Arts Council to grant research funding to a holocaust denier has attracted criticism from commentators in Israel. This is both baffling and alarming when you consider that the subject of the student’s study is the involvement of Danes in Hitler’s SS, and not the existence or otherwise of the Final Solution. There is no need here to extrapolate from the particular abhorrence of holocaust denial, the legitimacy of the moral indignation that it provokes, and the need for it to be fought wherever it raises its ugly head. But it must be fought on the proper grounds, using the proper tools; and that is the ground of open and informed debate, using the tool of reasoned argument. What is not acceptable is the attempt to suppress unfavourable beliefs through legislation or through the refusal of funds for academic study.

The fact is that morality and moral censure, no matter how justified, have no say in the process of allocating research funding. It is worth remembering that some of the greatest advances in human history have been the product of research considered heretical or immoral at the time. In the context of fund allocation, the only relevant criterion is the academic merits of the scholar's submission. This doesn’t mean that, free from the shackles of moral oversight, any offensive crackpot theory may count on megabucks for its investigation as, clearly, part of what it means to have academic merit is not to fly in the face of extensively researched historical data. If the Danish student in question had attempted to get money for a project on holocaust denial, it would have been rejected on this basis.

But the fact is, he did not. His submission wasn’t a crackpot theory, but a legitimate area of study. It was merely his incidental belief in an offensive theory that has attracted so much controversy. Not only is this idea absurd (should hard-line but non-violent Muslims be barred from studying the ecology of the Galapagos Islands? Are anti-immigration campaigners to be denied access to Quantum Theory?), but it is hugely dangerous and self-defeating for a thriving democracy. The moment the determination of government funding for students depends on the applicant’s personal beliefs is the moment academic freedom wheezes its last breath, to be replaced by a stultifying and oppressive conformity in the academic community - supposedly the vanguard in thought and attitude - which would then suffuse society as a whole. The fact that such obvious dangers are lost on the detractors of the Danish Arts Council’s decision is worrying, and indeed hypocritical given the much-lamented boycott by British institutions that Israel’s academics are currently enduring. So it seems that denial and myopia are the order of the day.

Beau Hopkins

Back to the boycott

Delegates at the first conference of the new University and College Union in Bournemouth, England, have voted to support a call by Palestinian trade unions for a boycott of Israeli academe. The motion was passed by 158 votes to 99. The full text of the boycott call will be sent to all branches of the union for information and discussion.

Does this give you a sense of déjà vu? If so, it’s not surprising. Barely a term passes without someone in Britain calling for a boycott of Israeli academics, or Israeli goods and Israeli films. Old-fashioned boycotts of products, such as oranges from South Africa or tea from China, have always been problematic: they encourage a passive form of solidarity, and it is ridiculous to believe that our shopping choices can really impact on people’s struggles for democracy elsewhere. But boycotts of academia are especially problematic. They are about slapping an embargo on ideas and arguments. Academic boycotts are an insult to academic freedom and free speech, and they negate the idea of the university as a space for open debate.

The full text of this article is published on spiked.

Nathalie Rothschild