• NCA 2008; Academic Freedom

I appreciate Josh Gunn's latest words on the NCA Boycott, so much so I'm linking directly to them.

I've been relatively quiet about this issue because it IS political and because CRITNET has covered almost every perspective one could take on the NCA boycott issue.

But I shall muse anyway, and hope it means something. Lately I wonder if this debate surrounding the NCA affair is illustrative of the more problematic practices of privileging speech. As Josh points out, this year's NCA debate seemed to start with the Horowitz debacle. The idea of the protest then upset many: why can't we talk it out? The idea of a boycott now bothers many more: I was told by a professor I respect very much that (s)he would not move our panel to an alternate location out of respect for those that wish to attend: presenting papers is not about a CV hit, it's about the discussions we raise. I have heard similar sentiments: our research on say, prison issues, is important and needs to be heard. If we move our panel to an alternate location and there is not adequate notification to the NCA group, then we are simply talking to ourselves.

Under the Habermasian ideology of critical rational debate, Horowitz's presence at our conference makes perfect sense. Similarly, under the assumption that talk is privileged over action (or is it's own kind of action), then maintaining the conference at the original site in San Diego makes perfect sense. And makes a very clear political statement, whether that is our intent or not.

If we do not recognize that scholarship is inextricably linked to the world in which it occurs, then are we not still only talking to ourselves?

The AAUP wrote, "The tendency of modern democracy is for men to think alike, to feel alike, and to speak alike. Any departure from the conventional standards is apt to be regarded with suspicion. Public opinion is at once the chief safeguard of a democracy, and the chief menace to the real liberty of the individual. . . . One of [the university's] most characteristic functions in a democratic society is to help make public opinion more self-critical and more circumspect, to check the more hasty and unconsidered impulses of popular feeling, to train the democracy to the habit of looking before and after."

But with the Horowitz invite and now this, I can't help wondering if we are privileging the speech of an institution over the questioning actions of its critics.

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