@3girls3cats: Thanks for post #37. I’d done some looking into JHS’ linguistic theory and wasn’t convinced, and this helped solidify why.
@dstark: This is not a free speech issue, but let me try to explain why (so this thread doesn’t devolve into another free speech thread).
Free speech involves the government telling people what they can and cannot say. This, notably, does not include when people are speaking on behalf of the government. When people are employed by the government to speak on its behalf, the government (like any employer) has the right to dictate what is said in its name. A professor hired by the government to teach a course is speaking for the government. That means the government has the right to say what is taught.
What the government could not do is limit what is said when the government employee is speaking on their own behalf. For example, this professor could go say whatever he wanted when he clocked out, even if he wasn’t allowed to give this course. Any attempt to infringe on that would be a free speech issue.
A separate but related issue is that of academic freedom. Academic freedom is not enshrined by any law. It’s the policy that institutions should not punish professors for having dissenting or minority views. The example @Pizzagirl used of the holocaust denier professor is a good one for illustrating this. Academic freedom is violated whenever a university tries to stifle a particular viewpoint. There’s no evidence that UCB is doing that here, for two reasons. First, they are applying what appears to be a general, neutral rule regarding political stances. The rule doesn’t say you have to be pro-Israel, it just says you need to not take a stance yourself. Second, nothing in reviewing the course suggests UCB has tried to prevent the professor from giving his views, just that they may not be permitted in this particular forum.
"Free speech involves the government telling people what they can and cannot say. This, notably, does not include when people are speaking on behalf of the government. When people are employed by the government to speak on its behalf, the government (like any employer) has the right to dictate what is said in its name. "
… Which is why, for example, if I’m the county clerk handing out marriage licenses, I don’t have the “right of free speech” to say to the gay couples “here’s your license, and you are going to burn in hell.” Even if that’s what I believe. And it’s not a “free speech violation” for my supervisor to tell me I need to confine my remarks to the logistics of obtaining the license. I can, of course, say that I believe gays are going to hell on my own time and my own dime.
Did you really mean to say that? Modern-day Jews absolutely, positively equate themselves with the tribe called, variously, Hebrews, Jews, or Israel. My guess is that most Jews believe they are literally descended from those people, and even liberal, lefty Jews like me believe we are part of a continuous history.
I don’t really give a rat’s tush whether the Palestinians are really descended from the “Philistines” or not. The whole issue is a red herring. I just thought it was funny (in an unpleasant way) to read an academic partisan attack the historical continuity of the Palestinians with the Palestinians on explicitly racialist grounds and with somewhat hysterical rhetoric. And this was the guy complaining that the Berkeley course was unbalanced. By comparison, the Berkeley syllabus looked like a yogini doing vrksasana.
Meanwhile, the Berkeley course: It’s a one-credit, student-taught course, people! It explores one currently fashionable angle of historical analysis as applied to one situation of interest to many students. If there were a similar one-credit course on deconstructionist literary theory and the poetry of Paul Celan, no one would be clucking about how they ought to have lectures from structuralists, Marxians, Lacanians, and historicists as well to balance things out, and maybe read a bunch of Heine and Rilke, too. If it were a three or four credit course, sure, but it’s not.
dstark wrote, ‘I have talked to a few professors. They tell me once the classroom door closes, they can teach what they want in that classroom as long as it relates to the subject matter.’
So what about a professor teaching a course on Reconstruction saying that it would have been better for the South to have won the Civil War, so that slavery could have continued to the 21st Century? Or a teacher in a Gender Studies class saying that all men are pigs and should be castrated? Or that sexual relations with adults and children should be legally allowed, and encouraged, if the child gives consent, as this would somehow empower children?
Are these positions related to subject matter? Should such positions be censored?
Modern day Jews do not say that they are descended from the Philistines. That’s what I meant to say and continue to say. I thought that was clear and I apologize if it was not.
Two clarifications and then I promise I will shut up.
Miller was explaining that Philistine is not Palestine. That's all. It isn't.
You suggested that there was a linguistic and historical link between the Philistines and modern day Palestinians. I want it to be clear to people reading this thread that there is no such link. If anything the term "Palestine" was used to rename "Judea" after the Romans suppressed the Jewish revolt led by Bar Kochba, and essentially meant it to refer to the Jewish land.
A one credit course can be just as damaging as a four credit course if it’s taught irresponsibly. I am just going out on a limb here but I don’t think the literary theory and poetry of Paul Celan is at the root of a serious, current, divisive issue that erupts on college campuses, particularly on UCB’s campus. Perhaps I’m wrong. In any event, I would love to see a class that brings people together and lets them learn from each other. I guess I’m one of those liberal lefty Jews.
Another thing to consider is similar to my previous post about free-market libertarianism ideology being the overwhelming orthodoxy in most US university/college Economics departments, those who argue in favor of pro-palestinian positions have argued that for far too long, their perspectives have been shut down and suppressed up until recent decades.
And not only in mainstream US society, but also within most sections of academia within the US because each time there’s any discussion of issues related to the Middle East/Palestinians, the discussion tends to have an overwhelming pro-Israel bias due to political considerations in their view.
On the flipside, they feel their ability to have their perspectives be heard and given serious consideration without being suppressed or reflexively denounced is far greater internationally.
Personally, I have no dog in this hunt and have serious issues with the Palestinian side because they tend to ignore serious problematic historical and other issues in their own ranks.
However, I do feel some explanation of their perspective/perceptions on this issue needed to be included in this and related discussions to better understand their side.
@Demosthenes49, I like your post number 40. Very helpful.
I think people hide behind “free speech” when their setting doesn’t give them the right of free speech. I have this feeling we draw the line in different places so I think we are going to discuss this issue again.
Oh, come on now. Miller was venting about Bazian’s claim of historical continuity with the original Palestinians (in English, but not anywhere else, Philistines). Miller’s sole “explanation” was that those Palestinians had tall, fair-skinned body types, and were related to the Greeks, so by implication today’s Palestinians couldn’t possibly be descended from them. And to illustrate he implicitly compared Palestinians to Hitler, Goebbels, and Goering, with respect to their physical deviations from their own Aryan ideal.
That wasn’t an explanation or an argument, it was rage.
Whoa–I explicitly stated I don’t back Bazian. Really disingenuous to call him my “hero.” What’s more, the syllabus doesn’t at all specify participation, nor does it specify pro-Palestinian rallies. You’re not participating in this discussion in a way that could even charitably be characterized as honest and in good faith, @CCDD14 .
Are there Palestinian-themed events routinely held in the area that are “neutral,” such as events to learn about Palestinian food, art, music, etc? Asking out of ignorance here.
I don’t know, @Pizzagirl , but either way, the syllabus doesn’t specify, nor does it require participation, two falsehoods stated by @CCDD14 , whose slanderous remarks about me are uncalled for and lower the tenor of this discourse
.
it is Interesting to me how this discussion of Berkley’s course removal suddenly included lines telling gays that by getting married " here is your license, you are going to burn in hell" / “I can, of course, say that I believe gays are going to hell on my own time and my own dime.” (post#41)
Would that be an example of a micro-aggression if used in the classroom? I can only imagine the anti-Jewish micro- aggressions that might have occurred in this course…
@marvin100 This is what I said:
“It included participation in pro-Palestinian rally as a graded activity”
I guess I should have said “Events” instead of “Rally”. I actually wrote this from memory because the link to Syllabus disappeared but then I found another one and did not cross-check.
I did not say “Mandatory” or anything like that.
How is “the syllabus doesn’t at all specify participation”?
What kind of Events producers of this course organize?
Do you honestly believe that producers of this course expect their students to attend events related to Palestine that do not reflect ideology of this class and write about them? (If these events can even be found).
Attending an event to observe (something clearly within the bounds of the assignment) is not remotely the same as participating in a rally, and Bazian is not my “hero.” You’re making baseless claims and your defense of them is unconvincing, no matter how plentiful your paragraph breaks or how indignant your tone.
Runswimyoga, my example of gays going to hell was clearly being used as a hypothetical to illustrate a point. I hope you know I obviously don’t think that way. It wasn’t a microaggression.
@marvin100 this Syllabus is very carefully worded but it does not change the essence of it.
Revolutionary prose and poetry requires a lot of paragraph breaks, you know.
Keep trying, @CCDD14 . Your statements were unequivocally false and I’ve shown as much. This class may have been awful–as I’ve said several times now, I do not support it–but your mischaracterizations of it–and of me–are pernicious.
And your posts are neither revolutionary nor poetry.
@marvin100 Do you actually believe any students, who would want to attend this decolonization class is going to simply observe these rallies and not have a predisposition to be active participants? The point of the class is to learn how to champion decolonization, and reject other options, such as a two-state proposal.
This goes back to why the class is under review. "…appears to offer a forum for political organizing rather than an opportunity for the kind of open academic inquiry that Berkeley is known for.”
Can you teach decolonization without advocating decolonization? Sure, but it requires a balance syllabus and reading assignments that explore more than pro-decolonization viewpoints. This “class” was clearly not that.
