It is by now an accepted commonplace that the Brooklyn College administration thoroughly discredited itself with its botched and biased handling of history professor KC Johnson's tenure case. By the fall of 2002, when Johnson came up for tenure, he had run afoul of his chairman, Philip Gallagher, and several other senior colleagues for criticizing the procedural irregularities surrounding their professional conduct. He alienated some when he suggested that a campus conference on the aftermath of 9/11 ought to include more than one (left wing, anti-war) viewpoint; he alienated others when he suggested that a particular hire should be made on the basis of merit and not demographics (Gallagher had written that the search committee should concentrate on hiring a woman, ideally one of those rare women "we can live with, who are not whiners from the word go or who need therapy as much as they need a job"). Between his demonstrated ability to think for himself and his threatening unwillingness to subordinate matters of principle to the political machinations of departmental higher-ups, Johnson inadvertently canned his own tenure case: Despite having published several books and many articles, despite his stellar teaching and service records, Johnson was denied promotion because he was deemed "uncollegial" by hostile colleagues who did not appreciate the presumption with which he firmly but respectfully argued that, in instances like those cited above, there was a better, more ethical way to do academic business.

One of those hostile colleagues was Bonnie Anderson, a feminist historian who describes herself as combining her writing with "activism ... for assorted radical causes." Anderson's role in Johnson's case is the stuff of legend--described by her own chairman as an "academic terrorist" and "an unscrupulous and unprofessional mole", and characterized by colleague Ted Burrows as "someone who believes that she has license to lie and cheat as she pleases," Anderson nonetheless exercised enormous influence in the campaign to fire Johnson. Offended both by Johnson's belief that ideology should not be the decisive factor in hiring and by his scholarly focus on political history, Anderson allowed her politics to trump professional ethics when she weighed in on Johnson's case: Her considered opinion of his work, which she described as ìpolitical history, focused on figures in powerî--was that Johnson's is an ìold-fashioned approach to our field,î one that only attracts ìa certain type of student, almost always a young white male.î Anderson went on to suggest that white men's interest in the ìnarrowî topics that comprise Johnson's area of expertise is itself a symptom of intellectual limitation. With this kiss-of-death evaluation, Anderson set out to destroy Johnson's career for the simple reason that he does not see the world through the same lens that she does. She very nearly succeeded.

There was a good deal of unscrupulous behavior in Johnson's case (documented in relentless and revealing detail on Johnson's web site). What happened at the departmental level was matched--perhaps even exceeded--by what happened at the level of the Brooklyn College provost (Roberta Matthews) and president (Chris Kimmich). To CUNY's credit, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein overturned the decision to fire Johnson, and Johnson now enjoys tenure in the very department that sought to banish him. Not to CUNY's credit, however, the people responsible for the rank malfeasance of Johnson's case have not suffered any consequences for their actions. Gallagher was promoted to a new administrative post last fall. Roberta Matthews remains in her position as provost, Kimmich remains in his position as president. The college even formally adopted a collegiality criterion for assessing tenure cases--despite the manner in which such a criterion was used against Johnson (fortunately, negative publicity forced the college to retract the new policy almost as soon as it was framed). And Anderson? Kimmich recently named her to the history department's Appointments Committee, which means that for the next three years, she will have a decisive influence over hiring and promotion cases. In the Johnson case, Anderson showed herself to be deeply unfit for exactly this sort of administrative responsibility. But instead of keeping her far away from situations where she can do lasting and actionable damage, Kimmich has placed in her hands the enormous power she has already shown herself all too ready to abuse--the power to make and break academic careers.

With this appointment, Kimmich is making two announcements: 1) Political conformity is a condition of success at Brooklyn College; and 2) CUNY is courting lawsuits.

I have had the distinct honor of being one of KC's students for the past two semesters. At the same time, I have also witnessed the installment of the provost's new "Arts of Democracy: the Arts of Global Citizenship/Learning Communities" program.

The program seeks to "model the habits of the mind," in order to turn students into being more social active at most, and agreeing with social justice/multicultural/anti-war politics, in the least.

I for one, don't need no thought control, nor any modeling of my mind or opinions on political matters. I wouldn't mind, however, the remodeling of the leadership at Brooklyn College, so that good teachers are hired instead of teachers with the right political frame of mind.

Although I am a tax payer in New York, I really do hope that Brooklyn College gets the lawsuits it so richly deserves for the policies it promotes. If this canker sore on the behind of CUNY is permitted to continue to practice this type of close-minded thinking, then the more lawsuits it gets the better I will like it. I was lucky enough to get my education many years ago (I graduated in 1960) from a university that while it was left wing and socialist minded also had professors who were comfortable with dealing with multiple approaches to politics and reality. I was conservative then and had many debates with the professors in class but was always given a fair hearing and a fair reading of my papers. When I was criticized, it was a fair criticism. Apparently Brooklyn does not allow that. Pity. What was once a great university, at least it was when I was young, has not descended to becoming a laughing stock and they are doing nothing to stop it. If this continues, then they should hand out their diplomas on a narrow, short paper roll as that is all they will be worth.

This whole incident is disturbing. And it makes me worry: I'm a graduate student (political philosophy), and I wager my politics tend rather along the lines of Prof. Johnson (and yes, I am one of those dreadful young white males). Hearing stories like this, I wonder what my chances will be once I get out into the job market, and even moreso when tenure time comes up. Academia is very much leftist - after all, the notion of a self-reflective conservative is seen as an oxymoron - but is it often this blatant? Is this just a fluke, or an extreme case of a deeper problem, or is this typical? And should someone who won't go with the ideological currents prepare him/herself for being employed outside of academia?

Well, Phil, there always rightwing think tanks. Indeed, it's been suggested repeatedly that there are so many more major think tanks on the right than on the left precisely because academics who didn't conform to the prevailing groupthink had to create places for themselves.

It strikes me that there may be a large, pent-up demand for quality, open-minded higher education in America. Sounds like an opportunity for some college somewhere - 'if you build it, they will come'. I encouraged my kids to attend other than expensive, elite schools; could have and would have fronted the money for a moderately expensive, GOOD (not 'elite') school - if I could have found one.

I am a student at another CUNY school, The City College of New York. There was a similar incident with one of our philosophy professors who critized the school's afffirmative action policies, but it happened a few years before I started.

Check out my blog, two of us CCNY students verus the New York Left.

pat

Dude, you're totally off the mark. Just wrong!