Spring Break
Professor suffers from administration's inhibitions
by Doug Nevins
Staff writer
Op-Ed | 10/7/08
Posted online at 5:49 AM EST on 10/7/08
/ Last updated at 3:20 AM EST on 10/7/08
Perusing Facebook recently, I noticed a particularly surprising targeted advertisement. The ad, the tagline of which reads "Intimidation at Brandeis," was promoting an essay by writer Nat Hentoff, published by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. If you haven't guessed, Hentoff's essay, originally published in the Washington Times, focuses on the administration's response to allegedly racist remarks made by Prof. Donald Hindley (POL) and argues that Brandeis has abandoned its core values by "attacking" Hindley.
The advertisement is a visual reminder that the case and the issues it raises are still on people's minds, even if the article it promotes is somewhat extreme. This paper presented an editorial expressing a view held by many students and faculty-that Hindley, who had never been accused of using offensive language before in his many years at Brandeis, was neither guilty of the accusations nor treated fairly by the administration, which acted unilaterally and still has yet to resolve the issue in an open, fair way.
I won't seek to rehash facts or arguments that have already been made. But the fact that there are now Facebook advertisements promoting essays critical of the Brandeis administration should be of great concern. Though the emotional state of students was ostensibly the administration's main concern, clearly it was not the only one.
In seeking to discipline Hindley, Provost Marty Krauss no doubt had the University's reputation and image as an open-minded, progressive institution in mind, and she seems to have decided that reports of a bigoted professor at Brandeis were to be avoided at all costs.
Rather than protecting the school's image, however, the administration's response has disturbed students and faculty and attracted the ire of free speech advocates like Hentoff. It is interesting to wonder whether, had the University conducted its investigation in an open, balanced manner, students would open Facebook to find advertisements criticizing "racist Brandeis professors." It seems that heavy-handedness on the part of administrators is as controversial as hate speech, at least when the evidence that hate speech occurred is so flimsy.
The advertisement is a visual reminder that the case and the issues it raises are still on people's minds, even if the article it promotes is somewhat extreme. This paper presented an editorial expressing a view held by many students and faculty-that Hindley, who had never been accused of using offensive language before in his many years at Brandeis, was neither guilty of the accusations nor treated fairly by the administration, which acted unilaterally and still has yet to resolve the issue in an open, fair way.
I won't seek to rehash facts or arguments that have already been made. But the fact that there are now Facebook advertisements promoting essays critical of the Brandeis administration should be of great concern. Though the emotional state of students was ostensibly the administration's main concern, clearly it was not the only one.
In seeking to discipline Hindley, Provost Marty Krauss no doubt had the University's reputation and image as an open-minded, progressive institution in mind, and she seems to have decided that reports of a bigoted professor at Brandeis were to be avoided at all costs.
Rather than protecting the school's image, however, the administration's response has disturbed students and faculty and attracted the ire of free speech advocates like Hentoff. It is interesting to wonder whether, had the University conducted its investigation in an open, balanced manner, students would open Facebook to find advertisements criticizing "racist Brandeis professors." It seems that heavy-handedness on the part of administrators is as controversial as hate speech, at least when the evidence that hate speech occurred is so flimsy.
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Gideon Klionsky
Gideon
posted 2/16/09 @ 10:53 PM EST
In emails I have received from the same Hindley, I have read the following language. These excerpts are all from the beginning of 2009 (that is, for less than one tenth of the time since the "Hindley affair" broke, which in itself came in his 50th year or so). (Continued…)
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