In Defense of Academic Freedom
"By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what one has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action."
— Albert Einstein
The Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) is committed to defending academic freedom on the American campus. As Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in 1957, a free society depends on free universities. Our members view with grave concern recent efforts by some legislators, interest groups, partisan think tanks, media, and individuals to interfere in university procedures with the object of influencing who teaches and what is taught.
MESA's Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) has long been a champion for Middle East studies scholars world-wide. In 2005, alarmed by threats to the free-flow of information and scholarship on the Middle East, CAF inaugurated a new-sub committee devoted exclusively to the situation of scholars and teachers located in North America (CAF-NA). The Academic Freedom Fund was established to underwrite CAF-NA's activities that alert both MESA members and the general public to these threats. Both groups have a stake in countering efforts to undermine the independence of universities and subordinate freedom of inquiry to the agendas of partisan or parochial politics. [read more]
Threats to academic inquiry and academic independence come in various forms. They can be divided into those that attack the financial structures supporting Middle East studies, for example: Federal funding for university programs in area studies and student language learning (Title VI of the Higher Education Act) [read more], or attacks on private foundation funding sources (Ford or Rockefeller) [read more], or threats by individuals to withhold future donations to universities [read more]. Attacks on individual programs within universities involve any combination of these strategies. Another form is to target individual scholars by trying to discredit their scholarship [read more], or by accusing them of bias in the classroom and intimidating students [read more], or by attacking academics for statements made as private individuals outside the university [read more], or by just plain smear tactics [read more]. Young and un-tenured scholars are especially vulnerable targets [read more read more]. In all cases the grounds for attack are: Anti-Americanism, disloyalty, anti-Semitism, excessive Arab or Muslim sympathies or bias. These claims have provided a wedge with which individuals and organizations attempt to insert themselves into university governance, to interfere with university policies and procedures and to undermine university traditions of open debate. Ironically, it is just those traditions of university autonomy and peer review that have made the US system of higher education the envy of the world and the backbone of our democratic system.
For additional reading on academic freedom issues, please go here.
Help us defend our subject and our universities by donating to the Academic Freedom Fund. Your contributions will support informational seminars for lawmakers, journalists, community members and university officials; public relations efforts, informational materials and advertisements. We aim to bring back fact and rational analysis to discussions about Middle East studies.