The Chronicle of Higher Education has an exclusive interview with Columbia University anthropology professor Nicholas De Genova. I take this to mean that Playboy didn't call.

When De Genova expressed his wish for a "million Mogadishus" at a campus teach-in last month, he made national news, received death threats, went into hiding, and even inspired an exceptionally opportunistic group of Congressmen to demand that he be fired. Now he shares with Chronicle writer Thomas Bartlett the story of how he was misunderstood and how the public reaction against him is a slur on the entire anti-war movement. Highlights:

Q. Were you surprised by the reaction to your speech?

A. I certainly was not expecting anything on the scale of this controversy. ... It so happens that a single journalist from a tabloid newspaper who was interested in scandalmongering was present at the event. In a way that was fairly devious, he tried to solicit comments from me the following day, and in a manner calculated to generate the most inflammatory possible effect, quoted me out of context. ...

Q. But many of those present have condemned your comments. One organizer of the teach-in called what you said "idiotic."

A. I certainly would never deny that my perspective is controversial. My intervention was intended as a challenge among people who share a certain set of basic premises concerning the fact that this war is unjust. Unfortunately, there has been no dialogue concerning the substance of my speech and its meaning for the antiwar movement. To defensively denounce what I said as "idiotic" merely contributes to the pro-war campaign of vilification. There are people with a very vested interest in exploiting this issue and manipulating it for their own ends, and attacks against me are therefore attacks against the entire antiwar movement.

Q. If that's the case, then didn't you play right into their hands?

A. I think that it's healthy to generate debate and controversy if there is the possibility of clarifying positions, elucidating and elaborating positions in order to provoke more critical thinking. ...

Q. So you would argue that your comments have been healthy and helpful?

A. There is an impulse to jingoistic, patriotic hysteria during wartime that will seek to discredit the antiwar movement. And that is to be expected. Those of us in the antiwar movement need to confront the really concerted power, money, and resources that have been devoted to trying to narrow the range of possible speech. The real discussion of the substantive issues that I raised has yet to begin and is long overdue. In that sense, I don't think that there's any conclusive way to judge what the effect has been at this point, either for the antiwar movement or for the forces that would be invested in silencing us.

[...]

Q. Just so we're clear: Do you welcome or wish for the deaths of American soldiers?

A. No, precisely not. That's one of the reasons I am against the war. I am against the war because people like George Bush and his war cabinet are invested in needlessly wasting the lives of people who have absolutely no interest in perpetrating this war and should not be there. And any responsibility for the loss of their lives will rest in the hands of the warmakers on the side of the U.S.

Q. There are millions of people in this country and elsewhere who share that point of view. Why did you choose to express it in those terms?

A. Because I was interested in contesting the notion that an effective strategy for the antiwar movement is to capitulate to the patriotic pro-war pressure that demands that one must affirm support for the troops. It really is a disguised form of pressuring people who are antiwar to support the war.

[...]

There is an important and growing movement to defend me and to affirm the important role I play at this university for the students who have had contact with me, and to support my right to free speech and the invaluable place of critical perspectives like mine in the larger debate and dialogue.

Q. If you had it to do over again, would you make the same remarks?

A. There is a lesson here for all of us, far and wide, beyond my immediate circle of colleagues and this particular university. There is a message for all people who affirm the importance of free speech and the freedom of thought and expression. ...

Q. I guess my question is, would you have attempted to be clearer?

A. Had I known that there was a devious yellow journalist from a tabloid newspaper among the audience, I certainly would have selected my words somewhat more carefully. But I would not have changed the message. Unfortunately, that message has been largely lost on people who were not at the event.

About that growing movement to support De Genova: One such supporter has begun making posts to the comments on Critical Mass. You can read examples of his work here and here (scroll down and look for the comments by Chris Wright).

You can read more commentary on the De Genova exclusive at the Volokh Conspiracy, Daniel Drezner,, and the Filibuster (n.b.: there's a small factual error in the Filibuster post--De Genova was not invited to speak at the teach-in, but instead showed up, speech in hand, and invited himself to fill in for a scheduled speaker who could not come).

The significant point here is that the only place interested in what this guy has to say was the Chronicle, whose audience is likewise 'exclusive,' it consists of all those poor people who are looking for jobs or trying to fill them. Based on what I've read there, he's mostly (although certainly not entirely) preaching to the choir.

Moreover, the choir is getting smaller. There are fewer and fewer jobs, and still fewer tenure track jobs available. More and more teaching is being done by an emerging permanent underclass of part time, half time, adjunct laborers who have no rights whatsoever, supervised by administrators whose moral standards would make a used car salesman cringe. And the organizations they preside over require more and more cash.

It's not going to happen overnight, but it's going to be interesting to follow the good assistant professor's academic career. And instructive.

I don't think the factual error is "small." Many critics on the right have gone well beyond condemning De Genova's idiotic and reprehensible comments to suggest that De Genova's stance is typical/symptomatic of liberal academics in general. In particular, Eric Foner has been singled out for censure and has even received death threats. And if I am not mistaken, Foner has been accused on this web site of harboring "fantasies of American annihilation." The line of attack seems to go, Since Foner invited De Genova to speak, Foner must secretly endorse De Genova's position.

I doubt very much that De Genova will get tenure at Columbia.

Careful, Invisible Adjunct. Foner was listed as one of several Columbia faculty who are "cagier than De Genova and know better than to indulge--publicly anyway--in the fantasies of American annihilation that are the logical endpoint of the rhetoric they spout, publish, and teach" in this post. That's not saying he's "harboring 'fantasies of American annihilation.'" That's saying that he--along with many others--knows better than to let us know he has such fantasies, if indeed he does. More basically, the occasion for my comment was a piece by Daniel Pipes--whose argument I was openly paraphrasing, and whose list of faculty I quoted, with clear attribution. Finally, it was not Foner who invited De Genova to speak: the Columbia Spectator reported that he invited himself to speak at the last minute.

Well, I read you differently. Granted, "harboring" is my term, and you didn't actually say he was "harboring" fantasies of American annihilation. But you _did_ strongly invite the inference that he indulges privately in such fantasies, but knows better (and is too cagey) than to indulge publicly in such fantasies. Yes, you paraphrase Pipes, but you do so approvingly, as support for your own position. You write, for example, that "similar lists could be made about any number of elite an not-so-elite colleges and universities." You then go on to draw your own conclusions, which include the statement (based on Pipes' list, which includes Foner) that De Genova is "no aberration," that he is "of a piece" with Columbia. I've no doubt that some of the other professors in the list that you take from Pipes can be characterized as anti-American. But this strikes me as an unfair and inaccurate characterization of Foner, who criticizes American foreign policy as someone who is fully committed to the American ideals of liberty, justice and equality.
On the other hand, you have pointed out (at least twice now) that Foner did not actually invite De Genova, which I think is not an insignificant detail.

Invisible Adjunct: If you have been reading this blogsite over the past year you would have stumbled over many examples of incidents at our universities that suggest Degenova was "no abberation". Go back, for example, to 9/11 when that prof at Oklahoma State announced that anyone who bombed the Pentagon got his vote, then immediately hid behind academic freedom. Degenova and Foner are of a piece, and the piece they are of is the left wing, Marxist control of the academy, its current affairs and its future hiring practices.

De Genova: It so happens that a single journalist from a tabloid newspaper who was interested in scandalmongering was present at the event. In a way that was fairly devious, he tried to solicit comments from me the following day.

Follow up question: So the problem is not what you said but the fact that someone heard it and wrote about it?

De Genova: Had I known that there was a devious yellow journalist from a tabloid newspaper among the audience, I certainly would have selected my words somewhat more carefully.

Follow up question: You just denounced those (your fellow academic colleagues on the left) who called you an idiot as participating in a pro-war campaign of villification. Can your reference to a 'devious yellow journalist' be construed as part of an anti-war campaign of villification?

De Genova: I was interested in contesting the notion that an effective strategy for the antiwar movement is to capitulate to the patriotic pro-war pressure that demands that one must affirm support for the troops. It really is a disguised form of pressuring people who are antiwar to support the war.

Follow up question: So do you think that an effective strategy for the antiwar movement is to hope for the death of our troops - just so we can lay blame for those deaths on George Bush?