Professors at universities around the country have found themselves questioning the propriety of expressing 'sensitive' opinions in light of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to the Oct. 5 The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Professor Robert Jensen at the University of Texas said he was unhappy when the university released a statement condemning his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the likely war to result from the attacks that he expressed outside the campus environment.
'I'm a political activist on campus as well as a faculty member. When the trade center attacks happened, I wrote several columns, some of which were in newspapers, others on the Web,' Jensen said. 'There were a lot of complaints to the university, and the president of the university wrote a letter which defended my right to speak, but called me among other things, 'a fountain of undiluted foolishness.''
Attempts to reach university President Larry Faulkner were unsuccessful.
The Chronicle said Professor George Wright at California State University at Chico made comments criticizing President Bush's foreign policy at a vigil commemorating the attacks.
University President Manuel Esteban told the Chronicle he supported Wright's privilege to speak, but the backlash against the professor's views reflected his poor judgment.
According to the Chronicle, professors, as well as students, reacted emotionally in the days after the assaults on New York and Washington.
At Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, Mich., two days after the attacks, philosophy Professor John Azar was debating religion with a student when he physically removed the student from the classroom.
Azar was suspended, Publicity Manager Susan Brown said, 'because he forcibly removed a student from the classroom. That was unacceptable.'
Jensen, who teaches journalism, explained professors should not be subject to specific guidelines when discussing issues such as foreign policy.
'No university has any kind of speech code for faculty. There are often racial harassment codes,' Jensen said, adding that the circumstances of his speech should not qualify for university monitoring.
'This is nothing that the university would cover, and I didn't make comments to my class. They were published in publications off-campus,' he said.
Jensen added that he thinks administrative reaction to politically critical ideas reflect poorly on American society.
'I think in a mature, and sensible political culture, discussions about public policy, which is what I've been engaging in, would be wide-ranging and encouraged,' he said. 'But, we don't live in a mature culture, so discussions about these issues become a question of patriotism. University of Texas is reflecting problems of political discourse in our culture.'
