Using lens of Sept. 11, scholars share views of academic freedom

As Beshara Doumani, a University of California at Berkeley history professor, points out in his compelling introduction to ``Academic Freedom After September 11," Pipes and friends have cynically appropriated the liberal terminology of the New Deal and civil rights eras, employing code words such as balance, fairness, diversity, accountability, tolerance, and not least, academic freedom in order to justify the enforcement of a political orthodoxy that undermines these very values.

The book describes this new assault on academic freedom in detail, distinguishing the current wave from the one launched by Senator Joseph McCarthy. As Stanford University professor Joel Beinin observes, the geographical and political context has changed, so that if in the 1950s scholars who offered a dissenting analysis of the Soviet Union and Cold War were decried as traitors, today it is Middle East specialists who are being accused of treason.

But the main difference between the two situations is that today private interest groups and not the government are running the show. Of course, major players within these think tanks have unhindered access to the corridors of government and are usually successful in influencing public servants; yet the resources for the campaign to delegitimize academic dissent come from think tanks.