Academic Freedom Media Review, February 18-24, 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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Sociologists Back Scholars in Oral History Case /
Inside Higher Ed, 2/24
Bryn Mawr Will Host Artist Barred by Villanova
Inside Higher Ed, 2/24
Sudan’s University of Khartoum to re-open on 18 March
Sudan Tribune, 2/23
Urgent Action: Academic Detained in Sudan
Amnesty International, 2/23
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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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If You Spend Enough Money, Will People Believe Your Lie?

"Perry pushed for a law that lets insurance companies raise homeowners’ rates without having to justify the increase." Back to Basics, --Wednesday, September 8th, 2010.


Spending by interest groups, so-called Political Action Committees and Unions most notably, is up well over 5 times what it was in the 2006 midterms, according to an article in New York Magazine.  Spending is up on both sides of the aisle, but these third-party groups are putting most of their money behind Republican candidates by a huge margin, approximately 7 to 1, according to The Washington Post!  This was all made possible by last years Supreme Court decision saying that limits on spending were essentially the same as limits on free speech.
I have a problem with this because I don’t think a pharmaceutical corporation should have a stronger voice than a network of cancer survivor groups just because they can spend more on campaigns, but I suppose outside spending isn’t all that different than spending by the candidates themselves.  Nothing stops a multimillionaire candidate from using his own funds to vastly outspend opponents on advertising.  In a sense this is buying the election, but legally it’s not seen that way.
What is disconcerting is the out and out dishonesty of the campaigns.  I am not naive.  Politics has always been a dirty game.  But in this election it seems that the fact that the backers of those PACs with the patriotic names can remain anonymous has emboldened them.  Politifact.com, a non-partisan service that evaluates the claims of political discourse, evaluated 31 claims made in the advertisments of these third party groups in the current campaigns throughout the country.  Only 5 were rated “mostly true” and two “true.”
Think about that for a minute.  31 claims were made in the political ads of third party organizations analyzed by Politifact.com.  On 16% of those were claims were based substantially on fact, on only 6% were essentially true.  All others were significant distortions of the facts or outright lies.
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Third-Party Groups Taking Over the Election

The President has begun slamming campaign commercials paid for by funds from third-party independent groups that, thanks to Supreme Court decisions in January, are now able to spent unlimited amounts promoting candidates and agendas. Democrats are outraged about these groups because the GOP-leaning ones have spent $24.8 million on Senate and House ads from Aug. 1 to Sept. 20, but Democrat-leaning groups also spent $4.9 million according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group. Here’s the ABC News Report. Netherlands Journal of Medicine. 67(8):328-33, 2009 viagra wholesale 9. Healthy diet and healthy lifestyle are two essential conditions to achieve better effect lowest prices cialis from these herbal cures. Dr Michael D Gershon suggests that strong links between our gut and our mental state evolved because a lot of information about our environment comes from our gut. “Remember the inside of cipla tadalafil 20mg your gut is really the outside of your body,” he says. Curing Raynaud’s phenomenon is a positive http://mouthsofthesouth.com/events/personal-property-auction-of-linda-wayne-little-pics-here-flyer-covid19-guidelines/ cialis get viagra side effect of this medicine or when the patient is no more worried to encounter Ed while sex. The article is at this link.

This year it is Liberals who are are upset, because Conservative groups are outspending them 5 to 1! I worry about that, too. But while I’d be more comfortable about the outcome if the ratio were inverted, it would still bother me. I don’t see how unidentified, undisclosed contributions are good for a democracy. If, as Supreme Court justices have argued, spending money is a form of speech, shouldn’t it be clear who is speaking?

Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance and the Judiciary

Since her retirement from the Supreme Court Sandra Day O’Connor has been campaigning against the popular election of judges. I agree with her. Envisioned by the founding fathers as interpreters of the law, they should be among the bet legal mind available for a given position and they should rule based on the law and only the law, no matter how popular or unpopular their rulings may be. This is the only way laws get changed. If judges have to run for public office they will be tempted to rule with that in mind.
Now, however, there is a new danger to the impartiality of judges. O’Connor has expressed concern over the impact of the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on the impartiality of judges, and again I share her concern.

“In invalidating some of the existing checks on campaign spending, the majority in Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon,” O’Connor said at a symposium at Georgetown Law Center. She noted that each election cycle brings new spending records, especially in state supreme court races that have become special-interest battlegrounds.
–via the Washington Post

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