Remember the uproar earlier this summer about Yale's decision not to hire University of Michigan professor and prominent blogger Juan Cole? The Chronicle of Higher Education has put together a forum in which various bloggers reflect on the relationships among blogs, reputations, forms of intellectualism, and academic freedom. I'm in it, as are Siva Vaidhyanathan, Glenn Reynolds, Dan Drezner, Ann Althouse, Brad DeLong, and Michael Berube; Cole also responds.

My first reaction was something you noted: in the absence of any facts, what's the point of discussing this?

But as long as we are:

1) Given that Cole's prominence is due not to his decent but unremarkable scholarship but to his blogging, it seems odd to suddenly declare it irrelevant.

2) Whether or not "views he expressed on his blog" are off-limits for consideration, certainly making up "facts", dismissing factual corrections by accusing the the corrector of being an Israeli spy, asking the Daily Kos trolls to help dig up dirt for a smear campaign and generally trying to skate as close as possible to overt anti-Semitism all seem like they might be worth some of a hiring committee's attention.

I agree with JSinger.

I would also add, given Mr. Cole's "decent but unremarkable scholarship," that he might never have been considered for a position at Yale in the first place had it not been for his blog.

So -- where is it written that the blog worked entirely against him? Why can't one argue just as cogently that it worked partially or entirely for him?

I do not know the details of what was written against the appointment of Juan Cole to the Yale University faculty. I am unfamilar with Cole's CV.

In any case, my purpose in commenting is to respond to Erin O'Conner's reference to academic freedom and academic tenure.

Both academic "freedom" and "tenure" are dinosaurs. Academic institutions may grant tenure and render it meaningless should they decide to reduce the "tenured" faculty member's salary to an unacceptable level. The institution could theoretically take such a decision in response to statements and comments, spoken or written, by the "tenured" faculty member.

What happend to Cole is not different from what is happening all around academia these days if "one crosses the Dean" or takes a controversial public position. What sets Yale University's action apart was their decision to do what they did to someone who was not even on their faculty.

Freedom to keep silent is like tenure, meaningless.

I find it interesting that Cole is mentioned as some great and gargantuan intellect about the MidEast. He wrote a whole lot of blog entries a couple of years ago about the history of Iraq and why that history means we should have let Saddam stay in power. The guys at Iraq the Model who have studied Iraqi history all their lives spent several entries on their blog showing just how far off Cole was in what he was saying about the history of Iraq. He had the wrong names, the wrong periods, the wrong statistics. He just screwed up all over the place. I have taken all that he says with a grain of salt since. He reminds me too much of Noam Chomsky and the writings about Cambodia and Laos and how the blame for Pol Pot should be placed right on the US and how our government lied about all the genocide Pol Pot committed.

I thought two contributions to the Chronicle forum were particularly worth reading: yours, which hits the mark as none of the others do, and Cole's response, which--with some bitterness--emphasizes that career advancement for its own sake is not an especially worthy goal.