Academic Freedom Media Review – February 25 – March 2, 2012

The Scholars at Risk media review seeks to raise awareness about academic freedom issues in the news. Subscription information and archived media reviews are available here. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of Scholars at Risk.

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Virginia court rejects sceptic’s bid for climate science emails
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, 3/2
Yale Professors Want Singapore Campus to Protect Human Rights
Oliver Staley, Bloomberg News, 3/2
Excellence – but those missing out don’t see it that way
Frances Mechan-Schmidt, Times Higher Education, 3/1
African leader wants end to ‘slave trade’ in education /
Phil Baty, Times Higher Education, 3/1
Student singled out for punishment over Willetts protest
Judith Welikala, The Cambridge Student, 3/1
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SAR Academic Freedom Media Review – January 7-13, 2012

The Scholars at Risk media review seeks to raise awareness about academic freedom issues in the news. Subscription information and archived media reviews are available here. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are not necessarily those of Scholars at Risk.

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Texas Can Regulate Secular Matters at Religious Colleges, Opinion Says
Katherine Mangan, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/13
US teachers offered support for climate change lessons
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, 1/13
Free Speech and (Offensive) Art
Daniel Grant, Inside Higher Ed, 1/13
Stormy waters ahead as ‘disruptive forces’ sweep the old guard
Sarah Cunnane, Times Higher Education, 1/12
Independence, transparency key to research work of ESRI
Frances Ruane, The Irish Times, 1/12
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Academic Freedom Media Review, August 14-20

Speak, by R. Baxter © All Rights Reserved


“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
— from the Friends of Voltaire
When Laura Schlessinger quit her job this week, she made claims about violations of free speech and her first amendment rights. This is absurd. Her show is on commercial radio network. The First Amendment applies to the government infringing on free speech; a commercial network needs to think about the listeners or viewers, as well as the advertisers. Laura Schlessinger is free to use the “N-word” as much as she wants in the privacy of her own home, and speeches for organizations that share her views, or just out on the street if she’s prepared to deal with the consequences.
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Why Men Marry Men, According to Rush

Periodically some outrageous clip from Media Matters comes my way. I try to resist looking at them. Unless they are cushioned by the humor of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, they just depress me. But every once in a while I can’t resist and I look at them. They are hilarious! That is until you realize these pundits are serious and people take them seriously.

Is he really serious? Someone who is a fan, tell me. Does he really think that families in which both spouses work they do so just to keep up with taxes and not the rising costs of gasoline, health care, groceries, education, utilities, bank fees and who knows what else? I’m single, so maybe I don’t understand at all. If your married and your spouse works, is it because of taxes? His final thought is that gay men are getting married for the same reason, the economics of it. If your gay, male and marred and reading this, is that why you’re married? If you can’t get married where you are but would like to, do you want to because you want to marry up?
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Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Media Review

November 20 – December 3, 2009
Compiled by Scholars at Risk

Writers at Risk
Corydon Ireland, Harvard Gazette, 12/3

Iranian Given 9-Year Sentence for Protesting
Nazila Fathi, The New York Times, 12/2

Iranian American Faces New Spying Charge
Nazila Fathi, The New York Times, 11/25

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Academic Freedom Media Review, October 23-30

Compiled by Scholars at Risk
Israel Deports a Bethlehem U. Student Because She Is From Gaza
Matthew Kalman, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 10/29
The United States Provides $45 Million for Higher Education Commission
U.S. Department of State, 10/29
Academia and its Discontents
Jia Ahmad, Nneka McGuire and Nicholas Wong, Columbia Spectator, 10/29
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Man Arrested for Reporting Police Movements via Twitter

Somehow it seems a violation of free speech to lock a man up for simply reporting something he observes, yet that is what happened in Pittsburgh according to this article in the Huffington Post.

A self-described New York City anarchist has been accused of tweeting the location of police officers to protesters trying to evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.
Pennsylvania State Police arrested Elliot Madison alleging he used Twitter to direct the movement of protesters and inform them about law enforcement actions at last month’s summit.
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The charge is hindering prosecution. But is it hindering prosecution simply to report, which is ultimately all that was done?

Index on Censorship: No platform won’t work

These are a few paragraphs from a challenging article by Salil Tripathi in the Index on Censorship.  Tripathi believes it is wrong to exclude the right wing, unltra-Nationalist, British National Party from a current affairs program on the BBC.  He lays down a difficult challenge, but one I am sympathetic to.  I believe that civil rights and those First Ammendment rights are absolute, and that is why I struggle every time there is a call for a boycott of a media outlet or establishment for giving a forum to a person or group for the views they promote.  Hate speech that can lead to violence must not be tolerated, and that is hard to define, but the line between the two is not very clear.  How do we define it and what is acceptable?

The BBC has said it “may” invite Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party (BNP), to appear on its flagship current affairs programme, Question Time.

The BNP is a legal political party in Britain. In June, it won nearly 943,000 votes in the European parliamentary elections. Its 6.1 per cent share of the vote cast was nearly three times what the Scottish National Party got, and only two percentage points less than the Green Party’s tally. Imagine the furore if leaders of those two parties were kept out of a talk show because the chattering classes decided that they represent only marginal views.
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But it is ridiculous for anyone to think that you can defeat the BNP by silencing them. A sinister thought, when silenced, only gets wider currency in the subterranean world where everything “establishment” is viewed as a conspiracy. Sunlight is the best disinfectant; the mutually contradictory positions within the party’s platform would evaporate under that glare.

via Index on Censorship » Blog Archive » No platform won’t work.