Yes, just a soon as the taxpayers elect an Aribiter, someone who can legally determine correct and acceptable opinions from rabid lefty moonbattery. When that day comes, I expect to have your company on the barricades.
I’ll bring the bagels. Jam or a smear?
Academic freedom is, actually, in my opinion, more important in a public university than a private university. For exactly the reason you demonstrate.
I think Academic Freedom is horseshit. People are free to express their opinions, but they have no right to be paid to do it. Because you are an academic does not give you any more right than a blue collar schmoe who gets fired if he tells customers that the muffler shop next door has a better deal, or the nurse who gets fired for saying that they don’t ascribe to the germ theory.
The idea of a 9/11 conspiracy is demonstrably stupid, and you should be fired for espousing it just like if you said 2+2=5.
Ah, sour grapes then, I see.
I’ll bring the pitchforks. With or without manure?
This particular kook is far from the only tenured kook teaching nonsense to college students. He just happens to be teaching nonsense that pushes a lot of buttons and gets a lot of publicity.
I gotta say, silenus, the thought of Joe and Jane Average voting on what can and can’t be taught in our universities (assuming they can tear themselves away from the latest reality show long enough) bothers me waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than a lone conspiracy nut.
The scientific and intellectual advancement of the last two centuries disagrees with you. Academic freedom is one of the core principles of a free and open society. I’d like to say “hey, if you want a society where research is subject to the whims of official censors or religious authorities it’s no skin off my nose”, but it is skin off my nose…everyone’s nose, in fact.
To quote Michael Berube (excellent essay here), “college is not a kind of dinner party”. Just because an opinion is rude, or uncomfortable, or even wrong, doesn’t mean that we should prevent academics from raising it. A nurse who doesn’t ascribe to germ theory isn’t doing his job. But an academic who does research relevant to his field is doing his job even if you don’t like it. And yes, even if he’s wrong.
If he’s wrong, engage him. Rebut him. But don’t deny him his right to heresy.
Nice strawman. I have no desire to “deny his right to heresy” nor to “censor” him. However he has no “right” to be paid for being stupid.
I’m with you, DanBlather. How can anyone have a right to be paid by a university to teach what is clearly false? If he were conducting a class on urban legends and included this material in it, stating that some people believe it, that shouldn’t constitute a problem. But if he’s actually advocating that his students believe that nonsense, that’s a different kettle entirely.
No, you just want to fire any professor or teacher who says something you think is “stupid”, apparently. You’ll forgive me if I’m not seeing much of a distinction.
You have no “right” to determine what’s “stupid” and what isn’t. Which is a good thing because, with all due respect, you wouldn’t be very good at it. No one person would be any damn good at that at all.
The only method we as a species have developed that’s any damn good for determining what’s “stupid” and what isn’t is free and open academic inquiry. And academic freedom is the bedrock of free and open academic inquiry.
“But,” you cry, “surely I don’t have to pay my hard-earned tax money to have people do research I don’t like.”
Yes. Yes you do, unless you want to undo every advantage of western society at its roots. And again I’m going to quote Berube because he says it a lot better than I do:
You may just want to force this nutbar to shut his trap about 9/11, or move out of the public university system. But what makes you think you can open that door, and then close it before these clowns jam their foot in?
Your level of histronics is amazing. Do you really think that Western Civilization is going to come apart if this nutcase is fired? He can certainly do his “research” on his own dime. There are loads of Holocaust deniers who seem to get along just fine without the govt subsidizing them.
Universities need to make distinctions on who to hire. If we are to take your tack, that no one has the right to decide what is a good idea and what isn’t, then how are they to make that decision? Should everyone who wants to be a professor be one? Should the entire budget of NH be taken up to pay for that?
The truth is that universities make decisions on who to give tenure to and who not to. Those with unpopular views are more likely to be weeded out at that point than after tenure. Is that wrong as well?
I don’t think the legislature should have to fire him, I think the University should do it on its own. Not for being controversial or unpopular, but for being stupid.
Do you remember the episiode of friends where Joey auditioned for a role where he had to speak French? He said things like “ooh la dooky je ne la oony poony” and was really convinced that he was saying something. Imagine a tenured French professor that decided to teach complete jibberish to her students like Joey spoke. Should she be kept on in the name of academic freedom?
I haven’t even said “fuck” yet and already I’m histrionic? I think your standards may be a bit low.
A softball, nifty. Do you know how universities actually do make distinctions on who to hire and who not to hire? Based on their research track record. In other words, based on how well they do in the open marketplace of ideas that I’m in favour of and you’re not. Popularity has nothing to do with it; peer-review does. If your garbage collector decides he wants to teach psychology at UNH, the university is not going to ask him “do you have unpopular ideas about astrology/evolution/Islam/the 9/11 attacks/whatever”. They’re going to ask “what research have you done in the field of psychology?”
In short, UNH does not need you screening applicants for them. There’s already a mechanism in place that doesn’t require your judgments on what is or is not stupid.
Wow. You really don’t understand how tenure is granted. Tenure, in as much as it’s used at all these days, is not granted based on the popularity of someone’s views. It’s granted on a person’s record of teaching, research and university service (i.e. serving on committees) so that there’s some assurance that those who get tenure will continute to demonstrate the ability to do those things.
Academic freedom has nothing to do with your oh-so-wacky hypothetical. Your imaginary French professor would be in gross dereliction of her teaching duties, and would be fired for that reason; her decision to teach gibberish instead of French has nothing to do with research or anything relevant to her classroom setting.
I note from the article quoted in the OP that the UNH administration has been asked to review this professor’s classroom comments:
Exactly right. If the material isn’t relevant to the class this Woodward fellow is presenting it in (that, I freely admit, is entirely possible; the connection to psychology of all things escapes me), or if he’s presenting it in a way that’s designed to intimidate students or stifle debate, then fire his ass for not doing his job in the classroom. But not for the theories he’s chosen to espouse.
I’m sorry, but your response makes no sense. You say that it is OK to base hiring decisions on the track record of peoples’ research (which of course it is), but you still object to him being fired for this shoddy piece of “scholarship”.
Do you think that the 9/11 conspiracy is any less gibberish than the hypothetical French professor?
I also find it quaint that you think popularity of opinion has no role in tenure or faculty appointment. A key factor in judging quality of research is the rate at which published papers are cited by others; i.e., their popularity.
And BTW, saying “fuck” does not make one histrionic. On the other hand your “emotionally dramatic and exaggerated” statement about western civilization does qualify.
Citations are a measure of usefulness, not popularity. They correlate but are not the same. And while academia does make important decisions based on popularity instead of science and evidence, it’s a sin that we try to avoid, not something we do on purpose because it’s a good idea.
If the man believes stupid things and still manages to produce sound psychological research, then good on him.
I said it was the norm to base hiring decisions on “how well they do on the open market place of ideas”. In other words…and this is important now, so pay attention…the university doing the hiring is not the one judging the worth of the candidate’s research, at least not directly. Rather, they are gauging the worth of the candidate’s research by how well it accepted by the academic community at large.
You’re proposing that the university fire someone based on one person’s or one hiring committee’s presumption about the worth of a professor’s research. Which is very, very different.
Yes. You are comparing literal gibberish to something which is not literally gibberish, so of course the answer is yes. This is another reason why your hypothetical French professor is an meaningless comparison.
To what degree is this conspiracy theory any less gibberish than literal gibberish? I don’t know, and neither do you. We can guess that the answer is “not much degree at all”. That’s likely a very good guess. But it’s still a guess. We as individuals cannot judge the value of his research based on guesses. And for that reason, he should not be fired based solely on that guess.
What Taran said.
I guess I just have a “quaint” affection for certain principles.
Umm…
Then there was the Gleiwitz Incident
Creating a Causus Belli is a commonplace tactic.
The idea is not as odd as it might seem.
Of course, I’m not convinced that this is proven; not by any means.
But, let the man talk, hmm?
That would only be analogous if the professor was grading students on their opinions about 9/11. Professors are supposed to argue positions that they know are not true at some point, if they fell that their students haven’t considered one point of view sufficiently. If “9/11 Was A Government Conspiracy” shows up on his syllabus, then you’re right, he is not tecahing what he was hired to teach.
Sounds like standard qualifications.
I know another faculty member at UNH, so I already have the answer to that one. 
To paraphrase the separation of church and state crowd: freedom of intelligence must include freedom from intelligence.
[QUOTE=DanBlather]
or the nurse who gets fired for saying that they don’t ascribe to the germ theory.
[QUOTE]
Has that happened? I ask because it’s not immediately clear that refusing to dispense modern medical treatment will get you fired – apparently pharmacists are able to opt out of providing birth control based on their personal theories.
Sailboat